4 Ways to Reduce Fleet Maintenance Costs
Making an investment in vehicles for your business is essential. Especially if your business has a huge focus on transport or offers transport-related services. As your business grows, your fleet also increases in size gradually. The more vehicles you have, the more customers you can satisfy. However, there is one downside to increasing your fleet. The maintenance costs for your vehicles are constantly rising and rising. But, there are ways you can reduce those costs in one of the more popular methods is by using fleet maintenance software.
So, what exactly can you do to reduce those costs? Is it really possible? Well, yes, I believe that it is. Of course, your experience may vary. There are several different factors that influence the costs of your maintenance. For example, the number of vehicles that you need to service, the miles traveled, the models, and many other factors.
But, whatever it is, I am sure that you will be able to make some optimizations and you will effectively lower the amount of money that you spend every month or every year for vehicle repairs. Here are some of those optimizations.
Reduce the number of your vehicles
This might not sound like the best idea right now, but this is one of the best ways you can budget your company’s money. If you do some research about all of your costs, you might actually find that by reducing the number of vehicles you have for your company, you might save a lot of money.
Consider that just one car can bring costs of up to $10,000 every year. So, if you were to give up on 10 cars, you could save your company $100,000. Of course, the math is much more complicated than that, but I think that this example can give you a good idea of just exactly what you can expect.
You can also consider that selling vehicles will also bring a small profit.
Start monitoring your drivers
You might be wondering how monitoring your drivers can help with your company’s maintenance costs. Well, I believe that this kind of monitoring can be a great benefit to your company’s budget. The whole point of this monitoring is to try and minimize the mileage of your vehicles as much as you can.
In other words, no more short trips here and there for personal reasons for your drivers. These vehicles should only go from one destination to another that is supplied by the company. It does not matter whether this personal task is just a one-mile drive. It is still one extra mile added to the car. Sum up thousands of one-mile tasks and you get extra 1000 miles on the car.
The bigger the mileage on the vehicles, the more repairs they will require. To avoid that, you will need to minimize the mileage on every single vehicle in your company. This could save you thousands of dollars every year.
Get fleet maintenance software
As a business owner or a fleet manager, it can be very difficult to track dozens of different cars, let alone hundreds of them. Keeping up all of your drivers is almost impossible. Fortunately, there is a solution that can make things much easier for you.
Of course, I am talking about fleet maintenance software that will provide you with all the data you need. With the press of a button on your iOS or Android smartphone, you can quickly access all the records related to the company’s cars. Usually, this type of software is also accessible on desktops, laptops, tablets, and any other smart device. Basically, you will have access to all the information you need wherever you are.
Once you start streamlining your fleet management, you will see that maintenance costs will start to minimize. The longer you work with the fleet maintenance software, the more benefits you will see.
Invest in more reliable cars
As a business owner or fleet manager, your job is to find the most durable and reliable cars. Not only will this make the experience for your drivers and your clients better, but you will also be saving money. Sure, at first, the investments will be expensive, but considering how much less maintenance you will have to do, it is definitely worth it.
Low MPG cars
However, it is not just about looking for reliable and durable machines. It is also essential that you look for cars that provide low MPG. By making this right investment, you will effectively reduce your fleet maintenance costs considerably.