Preventable wear and tear costs plaguing fleets

CarRepair

COST: Is your fleet wasting money?

Significant numbers of UK fleets are wasting money by failing to reduce the need for emergency maintenance and repairs, new research from Autoglass has revealed.

More than half (54%) of fleet managers, the study found, reported the main cause for unexpected time off-road is general wear and tear – but just 27% of fleets perform regular maintenance checks.

The findings mean that businesses are wasting huge amounts of money in unnecessary down-time, missing maintenance problems which could be put right before disaster.

Autoglass’ research found 58% of fleets tend to rely on their annual or recommended service to identify maintenance problems, with a further 13% relying solely on drivers’ reports.

“Regular maintenance is not just important for reducing the overall cost of running a fleet, it’s also crucial for safety and to project a professional business image.”

Jeremy Rochfort, Autoglass

Meanwhile, a significant number of fleet managers appear to be in the dark about the potential scale of the problem.

Two-fifths (40%) are unable to estimate the business impact costs of having a vehicle off the road and 36% are unable to estimate their average annual spend on maintenance and repair.

However, across all fleet types, others estimate the cost of vehicle down-time to be an average of £727 per day in terms of lost business revenue.

Jeremy Rochfort, National Sales Manager at Autoglass, said: “Prevention is much better than cure when it comes to vehicle maintenance.

“With more regular, ideally monthly maintenance checks, relatively minor issues such as a chipped windscreen can be addressed much more quickly and at much lower cost than if left to deteriorate.

“Of course, regular maintenance is not just important for reducing the overall cost of running a fleet, it’s also crucial for safety and to project a professional business image.

“However, it’s striking that losing even two days of productivity per year of productivity by having a vehicle off the road can, on average, cost some fleet businesses much more than the entire annual maintenance and repair spend for that same vehicle.”

Per vehicle, van fleets spend twice as much as car fleets on maintenance each year – £1,392 versus £687.

On average, the operational cost of a van fleet vehicle being off the road for one day is £726, compared to £588 for predominantly car fleets.

Tyres and engine oil are most likely to be in fleet managers’ top three priorities for maintenance (74% and 67% respectively), followed windscreen wipers or fluid (26%).

1 Comments

  1. Unfortunately in my experience fleet companies are not having recommended and identified maintence carried out at the time of a service visit, cost seems to be of more importance than preventetive maintence. They also refuse washer fluids perfering the driver to purchase poor quality product.