Fleet maintenance is a crucial part of running a successful business. The condition of your fleet vehicles directly affects the safety of your customers and employees, and can have a large impact on the vehicles’ ROI. Here is all you need to know about fleet maintenance.
This guide has been divided into three sections to keep it simple and easy to read. Click one of the links below to quickly jump to each part of the guide.
What Is Fleet Maintenance?
Simply put, fleet maintenance is all about ensuring that every fleet vehicle is in its best possible condition. For many businesses, the fleet itself is one of the most valuable assets. Ensuring that they are always in the best shape is an essential part of running a successful business. It does not matter whether the vehicles are used by employees or customers, they have to be safe to drive and reliable at all times.
Overlooking fleet maintenance can quickly lead to increased upkeep costs and more vehicle downtime. If the vehicles are in less-than-ideal condition, they could become a serious safety hazard for your brand’s customers, employees, and other road users.
Benefits Of Fleet Maintenance
There are tens, if not hundreds, of reasons why every business should properly maintain their fleet vehicles. These are some of the most important ones:
- Customer & employee safety
- Lower repair costs
- Lower fuel costs
- Decreased vehicle downtime
- Extended vehicle lifespan
- Improved efficiency
Customer & Employee Safety
This is unarguably the most critical aspect of fleet maintenance. Every vehicle that’s operated by an employee or customer should be safe to drive at all times. Proper fleet maintenance minimizes the risk of serious safety issues related to your fleet vehicles.
Worn-out brake pads, engine failures, or a damaged suspension system could all have life-threatening effects. If a fleet is well-maintained, the risk of technical issues is greatly reduced. In effect, the safety and happiness of employees and customers alike will be increased.
Lower Repair Costs
Some business owners could wrongfully believe that avoiding visits to the repair shop could save a bit of money. Sure, frequent vehicle check-ups could add up to significant sums over time, especially if they’re not covered by warranty. That’s why it could seem that you’re saving some cash by putting them off, at least at first.
In reality, frequent vehicle check-ups can actually lower your overall fleet-related repair costs. Small issues could lead to expensive repairs, if not detected and resolved on time. Forgetting about a task as simple as an engine oil change could lead to damages beyond repair.
Some telematics devices, such as Movitronic, are able to provide real-time alerts whenever a vehicle’s DTC code is triggered. This means that the fleet managers can act virtually instantly to schedule a repair. That way, you minimize the risk of potentially splashing out on large repairs.
Lower Fuel Costs
Believe it or not, fleet maintenance can positively impact the fuel efficiency of your fleet vehicles.
A damaged engine can easily use over 50% more fuel than when operating normally. This could be caused by various seemingly small issues, such as faulty oxygen sensors or a leak in the exhaust system. Many of such errors are displayed by the vehicle by triggering DTC error codes. Integrating a telematics device with your fleet vehicles can grant the fleet manager access to the vehicle metrics, including DTC error codes, in real-time.
Decreased Vehicle Downtime
This is yet another benefit of fleet maintenance that’s closely linked to what we’ve covered in the paragraphs above. If one or more of your fleet vehicles need to be taken in for repairs, you risk having an increased vehicle downtime.
Proper fleet maintenance can reduce vehicle downtime by minimizing repair time in the first place. A vehicle will become unavailable for a few hours at a time to perform a check-up or an oil change, though serious repairs that may need weeks to be fixed will not occur as frequently.
Extended Vehicle Lifespan
Another valuable perk of proper fleet maintenance is the extended lifespan of your vehicles. For many fleet owners, the fleet themselves are one of the most valuable investments in the entire business. That’s why you want to ensure that they’ll last as long as possible, increasing the return on investment as a result.
Fleet maintenance can help increase the vehicle lifespan. Driving around in a faulty vehicle is not only dangerous but can also lead to larger technical failures over time. In effect, you risk facing hefty repair bills or having to replace the vehicles prematurely.
Improved Efficiency
Last but not least, let’s not forget about the efficiency of running your business.
With the help of Movitronic products, you can automate a big chunk of tasks related to fleet maintenance. Here is how.
The Movitronic Keybox One hardware plugs right into the OBD2 port of your fleet vehicle. That way, you have access to all of the vehicle’s metrics. In effect, your fleet manager can be notified as soon as a DTC error code is triggered in one of the vehicles, as opposed to physically examining them in person or relying on the customer or employee to report an issue.
As a result, your fleet managers can quickly schedule any necessary repairs and get to other tasks.
Manage Your Fleet Easily With Movitronic
Integration with a telematics device such as the Movitronic Keybox One can simplify fleet management in a lot of ways. Real-time location data for each vehicle, being able to remotely open the doors of the vehicle over Wi-Fi, or checking the technical status of the vehicle are just some of them.
What’s more, the hardware can be paired with a mobile app to enable the fleet manager to always be informed of the status of every fleet vehicle and employee. In effect, your business will save both time and money that can be dedicated towards other goals. You can learn more about fleet tracking apps in this guide.
Learn more about Movitronic Keybox One here.
