Ignoring fleet maintenance can be a costly mistake. Learn how to set alerts and reminders to stay organized and extend the lifespan of your vehicles.
Imagine you’re the fleet manager of a 30 vehicle fleet. One of your drivers just called asking you to drive his truck over to him. You grab the keys off the rack and hop into the truck. While you’re driving, you notice the sticker showing “Next Oil Change Due: 66,139.” However, the truck’s odometer is reading 72,000. Your heart sinks. The truck is 4,000 miles overdue for an oil change. Has this ever happened to you?
You may ask yourself: “How can I know about these maintenance events before it’s too late?” The answer is automation. With alerts and reminders, you can stay informed and practice proactive fleet maintenance.
What are maintenance events?
Maintenance events vary from a basic oil change to a full (Department of Transportation) DOT safety inspection. The most common maintenance events are oil changes and air filter replacements.
However, even instances such as a vehicle registration can be something you need to be reminded on in order to maintain a vehicle’s ability to legally operate on the road. These events are important to daily operations of any sized fleet, and cannot be ignored by any means.
Why is preventative fleet maintenance important?
Ignoring maintenance events will almost always lead to costly repercussions. For example, if you do not regularly get a vehicle’s oil changed, this can cause an immense amount of wear and tear on the engine. The parts of the engine get significantly hotter due to friction, and could ultimately result in engine problems.
The cost of ignoring these maintenance events will always be much greater than the cost of acknowledging them, so addressing these events in a timely fashion is a must.
Taking preventative measures to eliminate the possibility of maintenance problems down the road will invariably pay off for your fleet in uptime and dollars saved. Telematics platforms Maintenance Reminder feature can greatly help you with this process.
The pros and cons of maintenance reminders:
Pros of Maintenance Reminders
- Always be in the know — Receive regular friendly reminders, either through email or text, to be alerted when a vehicle is almost due for a maintenance event. This will help you actively prevent maintenance issues from affecting your fleet and eliminate the possibility of unprecedented costly vehicle problems down the road.
- Increase the lifespan of your fleet — Healthier vehicles lead to greater productivity. Vehicle downtime directly affects a vehicle’s ability to generate revenue. Eliminating unnecessary downtime will help your company maximize the revenue stemming from your fleet.
- Predictive maintenance scheduling — Receiving early maintenance reminders can help you efficiently schedule necessary vehicle downtime to perform maintenance events and/or vehicle repairs.
- Stay organized — Organize past maintenance events to keep track of your fleet’s maintenance history. This can help you identify vehicle trends, which will further complement the preventative measures you are taking.
Cons of Maintenance Reminders
- None
Contact us to learn how to setup your maintenance reminders and maintain records of maintenance completed.
