Controlling Fleet Maintenance Costs is a Never-Ending Process

When you’re running a field service or landscaping business, fleet maintenance can feel like death by a thousand little expenses. Oil changes, tire rotations, surprise breakdowns, and that one truck that still has a check engine light on. There’s always something.

But ignoring regular fleet maintenance doesn’t make the problems go away—it makes them worse. So let’s look at real numbers, smart strategies, and how fleet maintenance software can start saving you serious money.

Definition of Fleet Maintenance

Fleet maintenance is the routine servicing, inspection, and repair of your trucks, vans, trailers, and equipment to ensure they are safe, efficient, and compliant with any regulations. For vehicles, it includes everything from oil changes and tire rotations to brake jobs and belt replacements. 

Other equipment like mowers, blowers, compressors, jackhammers, etc., all have suggested OEM maintenance to extend the life of those tools—by up to 50%. Think about that. Preventive maintenance is a great investment that keeps more money in your pocket.

When it comes to maintenance you can count on one thing: if it moves, it breaks. And if it breaks on the road, or on a job site, it will cost you way more than just the repair.

Understanding Fleet Maintenance Cost Analysis & TCO 

Fleet maintenance cost analysis helps you get a true picture of what it really costs to operate and maintain your fleet—and it all starts with tracking your total cost of ownership (TCO).

TCO includes both fixed costs (like insurance, taxes, permits, and depreciation) and operating costs (like maintenance, fuel, tolls, and parts). If you’re not tracking these costs accurately and consistently, you’re not calculating your overhead accurately either.

Using a GPS-connected fleet maintenance software, like Momentum, you can:

• Track and categorize expenses in real time
• Sync odometers automatically
• Calculate cost-per-mile down to the asset
• Forecast service needs and budget more accurately
• Know which vehicles are costing too much to keep

Fleet Maintenance Costs

We dug into the numbers and here are some current stats:

• The average fleet maintenance cost per mile for light- to medium-duty vehicles is between $0.10 and $0.20.
• Preventive maintenance accounts for around 25-40% of total fleet maintenance spend.
• Unplanned repairs and downtime account for the rest. That’s where the big dollars are.

If you’ve got 10 trucks doing 25,000 miles a year, even a small reduction in fleet maintenance costs can save thousands. But you have to stay ahead of it. Having fancy spreadsheets or a color-coordinated whiteboard that looks great, but is never up to date means nothing if the actual maintenance doesn’t get done. 

Why Reactive Maintenance Costs More 

Waiting until something breaks doesn’t save you money. It costs more and spreads the pain out:

• Roadside assistance or tow fees
• Expedited parts or labor costs
• Lost productivity
• Customer frustration
• Shorter asset lifespan

Five Ways to Reduce Fleet Maintenance Costs

1. Automate Preventive Maintenance
   Set it and forget it. A digital fleet maintenance system will alert you when service is due based on mileage or engine hours. It’s way better than sticky notes or using the red marker.
2. Track Everything in One Place
   Service history, warranty details, notes, receipts all in one dashboard? Yes, please. No more chasing paper, no more binders, no more trying to read handwriting.
3. Hold Drivers Accountable
   Hard braking and aggressive driving accelerate wear and tear on your vehicles. With GPS tracking, you get real-time driver behavior alerts so you can tell them to knock it off.
4. Use Real-Time Mileage
   Forget spreadsheets. With GPS-connected vehicles, mileage is updated automatically, so your maintenance reminders are always accurate.
5. Know Your Cost Per Mile
   With good reporting, you can track actual fleet maintenance costs per vehicle, by branch or team. You can’t fix what you don’t measure.

Knowing When to Replace 

Once you know your TCO, you can calculate your fleet maintenance cost per mile by dividing the total cost of owning and operating a vehicle by the miles it’s driven.

Why does this matter? Because some vehicles are maintenance hogs and they eat away at your margins. When you know your cost per mile, you can:

• Flag assets that are dragging you down
• Forecast replacement timelines
• Build business cases for upgrading the fleet