9 Ways Fleet Maintenance Programs Pay for Themselves

If you’re not currently enrolled in a managed fleet maintenance program, you may be spending more on your maintenance than you need to.

A managed maintenance program—handled by a fleet company—more than pays for itself and alleviates the majority of the administrative burden of overseeing your fleet’s maintenance on your own.

On average, customers enrolled in our maintenance program see a 10% reduction in their yearly maintenance costs.

Let’s look at some of the key cost savings areas that a managed maintenance program covers.

1. Avoid unnecessary repairs.

How can you be certain that a repair recommended by a maintenance shop is necessary? If you’re enrolled in a managed maintenance program, an ASE-certified technician will manage the repair from the start, determining whether it’s really needed, and rejecting any unnecessary service.

2. Eliminate the chance for overcharge on parts and labor.

When your vehicles need repairs under a maintenance program, all parts and labor costs are scrutinized and compared to industry parts and labor manuals. This allows the technician to negotiate pricing with the repair shop to prevent any overcharges.

3. Get a robust reporting program.

Without oversight and tracking, you won’t know what you’re actually spending on fleet maintenance. With a managed maintenance program, all repair and maintenance data is electronically captured and available to you in a centralized reporting dashboard. These reports give you a detailed maintenance history for each vehicle in your fleet, so you’ll know which vehicle had which repair, and when.

Here at Ewald, we also have data on comparable makes/models of thousands of vehicles. We provide data to benchmark against, so you’ll always know how your vehicles are holding up relative to the marketplace.

4. Ensure that you capture all possible warranty credits.

You don’t want to pay full price for a repair that could actually be covered under warranty. Unfortunately, potential warranty coverage can easily be overlooked by an independent shop. Under a managed maintenance program, ASE-certified technicians check for warranty coverage on each required repair and ensure it’s applied when available.

5. Get preventative maintenance alerts.

You’re busy enough as it is. So it can be hard to also keep on top of each vehicle’s maintenance schedule. The major downside to this is that you might miss important preventative maintenance, leading to an unexpected breakdown, employee downtime, and lost revenue.

With a managed maintenance program, you won’t have to wonder if your vehicles are being maintained properly. Alerts are sent out and reports will identify if a particular employee is not getting their vehicles maintained in accordance with industry standards and the mileage intervals that you have set up under your program.

6. Know exactly how much your vehicles cost you.

How can you manage what you aren’t tracking? When you are enrolled in a managed maintenance program you will have information at your fingertips and the ability to better stay on top of operating expenses related to your total cost of ownership.

7. Receive 24/7/365 nationwide coverage.

You likely don’t want to receive calls from drivers after hours or in the middle of the night if something goes wrong with a vehicle. A managed maintenance program provides a call center staffed by ASE-certified technicians around the clock every day of the year. Rest assured your drivers will be in good hands, even on holidays and weekends.

8. Secure repair shop goodwill.

Avoid having to dig through old repair invoices or be pressured to approve repairs that you feel were already done recently. A managed maintenance program’s technician will have access to repair history detail, and can easily negotiate with a repair shop to get the work done for a reduced cost (or no cost at all) when a repeat mechanical issue occurs.

9. Make informed decisions when selecting a replacement vehicle.

Here at Ewald, we think of preventative vehicle maintenance like preventative healthcare for the human body. If you take good care of yourself and go for an annual physical, chances are you will be healthier than someone who doesn’t. It’s no different for your vehicles.

We work with our clients to improve the maintenance of their vehicles, interpret any related data, and ultimately reduce their operating costs. At our quarterly, semi-annual, or annual reviews, we’ll review all maintenance reports together with you, and help get your fleet on the right path. When you have the data in front of you, it’s easier to make better decisions.

Next Step

Would you like a free, personalized cost-savings estimate for your fleet? Check out our fleet cost calculator tool underneath the author section below. It takes about five minutes to complete, and you can do it all on your own, right here on our website.