Own a fleet of vehicles? Looking after your fleet could help to extend the life of your vehicles and reduce costs.
Here Are 7 Tips for Maintaining A Fleet Of Vehicles:
1. Use log books to record faults
Detecting faults early can be important for scheduling early repairs. If vehicle issues go ignored, they could get worse and result in breakdowns or more costly repairs. Consider keeping a log book in every vehicle, so that drivers can record faults. You could even set up a logbook app so that you can record all faults digitally.
2. Clean vehicles regularly
Cleaning your vehicles regularly is important for your company image – a dirty car doesn’t make your brand look good. It can also help to reduce damage to your vehicle’s bodywork such as rust and cracks. Create a cleaning schedule for your vehicles to help you keep on top of regular cleaning and maintaining a fleet of vehicles.
3. Schedule annual inspections
Annual inspections are important for detecting hidden faults. These should ideally be carried out by a qualified mechanic who can thoroughly inspect the entire vehicle. Schedule inspections for all your vehicles at a time that is convenient for you. To make sure that you always have access to some vehicles, it could be worth staggering out these inspections throughout the year.
4. Rotate the tires
The tires on a vehicle don’t all wear evenly. On front-wheel drive vehicles, the front wheels wear more quickly than the back wheels. On rear-wheel drive vehicles, the rear wheels wear more quickly than the front. Rotating your front and rear tires can help you to get more life out of your tires by evenly distributing the wear. This is worth doing once per year (it could be something that a mechanic can do as part of an annual inspection).
5. Keep fluids topped up
Various fluids are required in order to keep a vehicle running. It’s important to make sure that these fluids don’t run dry. Keeping oil topped up is particularly important for keeping parts lubricated. Consider using a top quality oil such as this Gulf Oil Middle East brand. Carrying out an oil change once per year is recommended to help get rid of old dirty oil.
6. Save fuel with route planning software
Fuel is one of the biggest costs of running a fleet, and it is especially important to consider when planning and maintaining a fleet of vehicles. It’s important to explore ways to reduce fuel consumption. One effective way to do this is to use route planning software to find the most fuel-efficient routes. This could save you huge amounts of money on gas per year. Just be wary that the most economic route may not always be the quickest route – if speed is more important to your company than fuel efficiency, you may want to prioritise the fastest routes.
7. Replace vehicles with high mileage
Once vehicles start to rack up a huge mileage and begin to constantly encounter faults, it’s essential that you replace them. You could end up spending huge amounts of money repairing an old vehicle. Cars often encounter problems after the 120,000 mile mark, while lorries can last much longer (up to 700,000 miles on average).
