How to Know If You’re Overspending on Fleet Maintenance
When running a fleet of vehicles, it’s essential to keep an eye on all of your expenses and running costs, ensuring that they aren’t unusually high. Leveraging fuel card services can undoubtedly help to lower your fuel costs and track your fuel spending. Unfortunately, they can’t make your tired, old vehicles run more efficiently like their younger counterparts.
Wear and tear, as well as everyday use, will begin to take their toll on vehicles of any caliber. Buying new vehicles will become more cost-effective than constantly repairing old ones that need to be put to rest or sold to people with less pressing demands. Alas, there comes a time when you’re overspending on fleet maintenance and you need to take action in order to avoid wasting money and affecting your bottom line.
But how do you know when this time is? Many people use the Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards (VMRS) system to help them with this process. Keep reading to learn how this program can tell you when you’re spending too much on maintenance.
The Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards (VMRS) System
This system is underutilized by many fleet managers nationwide, despite its powerful insights and tools. VMRS allows fleets to create a “virtual shop” that gives them clarity into their fleet uptime and maintenance statistics.
According to ATA, “VMRS provides a vital communication link between maintenance personnel, computers, and management.”
It’s a network designed to connect the stakeholders involved with vehicle fleet maintenance – it coordinates fleets, OEMs, computers, suppliers, and those involved in the operation and maintenance of fleet equipment.
The VMRS system is a great way to track your maintenance costs and expenses, providing you with a full-scale history of your fleet vehicles and what maintenance work they have required. Not only does this allow you to identify troublesome vehicles, it can allow you to harness the data in order to uncover patterns that keep your maintenance costs low.
The Bottom Line
When it comes down to it, you need to crunch some numbers regarding the upkeep of your vehicles. Determine the point at which your budget deems maintenance costs to be too high. If the costs to maintain your fleet vehicles go above this threshold, you may need to consider buying new vehicles that will give you fewer maintenance problems.
One of the best way to reduce maintenance costs can be by using fuel card services. These cards save your drivers at the pump, but provide you with the insights you need to balance your budget. To learn more about our fuel card services, contact a member of the Fuelz team today.
