How to Reduce the Cost of Fleet Maintenance

Anyone running a fleet of vehicles will know just how hard things are at the minute. Costs seem to be constantly rising, and fleet managers are doing all that they can to keep things under control. One cost that seemingly cannot be avoided is the maintenance of a fleet, which can seem to be never-ending. However, there are ways to reduce this cost and ensure things do not begin to spiral. Read on to find out how…

In this article, the team here at Walker Movements have compiled their list of the top 6 things that you can do to reduce the cost of fleet maintenance.

Stay on top of things

Whilst routine maintenance can be costly, big repairs can be even worse. It is therefore important that both managers and drivers are performing regular checks on vehicles and keeping up with small bits of maintenance to make sure that bigger problems do not surface. This means that issues can often be nipped in the bud and prevented from becoming much larger.

Route planning

The biggest issue that any fleet faces in terms of maintenance is the constant wear and tear that each vehicle is put through. The more miles that they do, the closer they come to needing more things doing to them, but there is a way to minimise this.

Careful attention needs to be paid to route planning, as this can help to reduce the strain on the vehicle. It can help to reduce the number of miles that need to be travelled and allows you to plan for heavy traffic that makes it possible to travel in the most efficient way possible. This can save on vast numbers of mile each year and reduces the strain on each vehicle.

Replace vehicles

Buying a new vehicle might seem like an expense you don’t need, but it can sometime be more cost effective. As vehicles age, they will need more and more work doing to them, and so it can actually be cheaper to buy something new that will not need much attention than continually trying to put older vehicles back together again.

Tracking software

To effectively reduce your maintenance bills, you need to understand how your vehicles are being used, and this where tracking software can help. It will not only map where a vehicle has been, but also the fuel use, how long it has been left idling and any dangerous driving events that might have added to the wear and tear of the vehicle. This can all help you to plan better or offer driver training that can eliminate some of these problems.

Upgraded parts

When replacing parts on your vehicles, it is understandably tempting to go with the cheapest option that is available. However, this can sometimes be a false economy, as these are more likely to wear and fail quicker than their more expensive counterparts. It can therefore be a better investment to upgrade the parts that you are choosing to something which is likely to have a much longer life and can then avoid breakdowns and time without a vehicle on the road.

Driver scorecards

Your drivers are unlikely to care as much about the vehicle that they drive as you do because they are not the ones who have to pay for it, so implementing driver scorecards can incentivise drivers to so their bit. These assess road habits and encourage safe and economical driving behaviour and record them for all to see.

Rising fuel, parts and insurance costs have made running a fleet of vehicles more expensive than ever before, but there are ways to get the amount that you spend on maintenance under better control, making it easier to budget and keep your margins looking as healthy as possible.