Is your fleet management program containing vehicle repair costs and keeping your trucks on the road? You may have been avoiding it, but it could need an overhaul…

Honk if parts fall off: Fleet management tips for preventive maintenance programs:

• Lost a nut? Fleet maintenance records…
  Are your maintenance records detailed enough to accurately track failure trends? Data collected should include a date, make/model, mileage, and services performed – specifying components. “Front end work” scribbled on a post-it and dropped in a file folder won’t get it. Neither will neglecting to analyze collected data.
• Oil change! Working out preventive maintenance intervals…
  A generic preventive maintenance program won’t work for all fleets. Trends must be identified – failures that repeatedly occur on certain makes/models/vehicles that don’t in others – in order to formulate an effective preventive maintenance program tailored to your fleet.
• Overheating: Nixing overly repetitive service schedules…
  If you have a vehicle going in for preventive maintenance on the usual intervals, buts its seeing double that in government required emissions and safety inspections, figure out how to work those inspections in – on time – during your regular maintenance schedule. Every time a tech touches a vehicle it costs your business money and down time. Multiplied over the cost of your fleet, this really adds up.
• Flying treads! Replacing parts before they fail…
  Among the most helpful helpful fleet management tips? Predictive maintenance to keep vehicles on the road and prevent roadside mishaps. Use your records to calculate the average service life for various components, and then proactively replace, scheduling duties into your preventive maintenance schedule.
• Wash and repeat: Over scheduling preventive maintenance…
  While there’s no magic number for scheduling preventive service for every vehicle in your fleet, you also don’t want to overdo it. (Each time your vehicle is in for service it costs you, remember?) Follow fleet management tips pointing toward a schedule that’s based on such factors as vehicle application, mileage/operating time, manufacturer warranty and regulatory requirements. If you begin to notice a schedule more frequent than the manufacturer recommends, analyze lubricants (engine, unsealed joints, etc.). If everything looks good, extend the schedule by a month, repeating until you find the sweet spot.

Do you have the fleet management tips you need to keep your business from blowing a gasket? We can help! Speak with a Fleet Advisor today.