Apply This Year’s Lessons to Control Variable Fleet Costs in 2022

If the battery on your crystal ball is low or needs a recharge, you can lean on us. We’re prepared to make a few predictions for the fleet management challenges you’ll face for the rest of this year.

Are you ready? Here’s our best guess…

Everything will cost more and take longer than anticipated or desired. Thanks for reading… good night. Just kidding! Not about the prediction – that one we stand confidently behind. But don’t worry – we’re here for you.

Fleet Cost and Care Lessons Learned

The past few years have been quite challenging, for sure. Here’s a quick look at what we’ve learned over that time and how we can apply the lessons to manage fleet maintenance and reduce fleet fuel cost this year and beyond.

 

What we’ve learned	Lessons we can apply
Standard replacement cycles are being left far behind	Continuously analyze vehicles usage and operating costs to identify units trending outside current average parameters
Parts shortages and supply chain delays are ongoing	Anticipate additional downtime as repair turnaround continues to lag.
	Adjust preventative maintenance schedules to accommodate longer lifecycles; enforcing compliance to the revised schedules will help control operating costs
Extended reliance on rental vehicles continues	Budget for increased operating costs including higher maintenance and fuel as aging vehicles run less effectively and lose fuel efficiency.
Vehicle remarketing remains exceptionally strong with some used vehicles selling for more than their new car equivalents.	Use cash from used vehicle sales to offset maintenance costs due to vehicles being kept in service longer.

Implementing Fleet Cost Management and Best Practices

The average age of vehicles on the road has increased from 10.9 to 12.1 years – the highest in recorded history. 

If you are on our maintenance management program, here are some best practices you can implement to mitigate rising costs.

• Enforce use of full service national account vendors such as Goodyear, Firestone, and Pep Boys (for light-duty vehicles) or International Fleet Charge and Paccar (for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles) in order to take advantage of pre-negotiated pricing as well as parts and labor discounts.
• Limit the use of quick lube facilities. They are less capable of putting vehicles through a thorough, wheels-off PM service that can identify potential issues and upcoming repairs, minimize downtime, and reduce roadside spend and repair costs.

There has been quite a bit of growing pains and changes in fleet operations over the past few years. It’s important to understand how these changes impact your business and how you are going to adjust.

As always, we are here to assist you with getting through these changing times.