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In commemoration of our updated fleet services page, we thought it'd be a good time to talk a little more about the importance of fleet maintenance and how the style of maintenance you choose affects what you spend or save.

At our facility, we take care of many fleet vehicles. Some fleets are from small companies making commercial deliveries between neighboring communities, while other fleets are from large businesses traveling many miles a day across state lines. However, all fleet-operating businesses have one thing in common: the need to keep their commercial vans and trucks running.

Types of Fleet Maintenance

The industry has come to define the different ways a fleet manager can care for a fleet. These include:

• Preventative Maintenance: Seeking regular keep-up of parts to keep them running as long as possible.
• Reactive Maintenance: Seeking repairs after parts break.
• Predictive Maintenance: Seeking maintenance based on the condition of the parts rather than pre-set time intervals (for example, oil is changed as needed and not something all drivers get done in "x amount of months," because the driving distance will differ between drivers.
• Reliability Centered Maintenance: Looking at importance of each part and assigning priority for maintenance services to some but not all parts.

We're going to touch on preventative maintenance and reactive maintenance for this article.

Importance of Preventative Maintenance

Some commercial drivers and fleet managers wait until a part breaks before seeking repair (reactive maintenance). This tends to cost businesses more in the long run, because it tends to take less to maintain parts than it does to replace them. If a business can initially afford to have preventative maintenance done on its fleet, it is an option worth pursuing to keep its commercial vehicles running optimally for as long as possible.

In addition, many part manufacturers expect vehicles to have preventative maintenance performed. Everything in and on your vehicle has a lifespan. When the manufacturers create parts, many announce a part's lifespan with the aforementioned expectation that preventative maintenance will be performed. If you ignore some key components (like a wheel bearing), you may even decrease the overall lifespan of the entire vehicle (a lot more costly to replace).

Reactive Maintenance

Reactive maintenance can be a risky option for a business. It's a form of maintenance that looks good on paper because it's not on paper until something breaks. Since owners don't have to account for any real costs until something breaks, it's tempting to use. Just because you can't account for costs as well as you can with preventative maintenance, however, doesn't mean you won't spend more in the long run.

With reactive maintenance, you're shortening the life of the parts on the vehicle, and you'll need to replace them more often for more money. You'll also lose more in unexpected downtime costs and may have to pay overtime to make up for lost hours.

Here for Your Fleet

No matter what option you choose in the end, remember that we are here for your fleet. We can perform preventative, predictive, and reliability centered maintenance. If your part completely breaks, we can assist you with reactive maintenance as well. We thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about your options and hope you will choose us for your fleet needs the next time you're in Allentown.

To read more about fleet maintenance and the pros and cons of different maintenance plans, check out this extremely helpful source on fleet maintenance programs.