Fleet Vehicle Maintenance Checklist for Small Businesses

Keeping track of vehicle maintenance can be tough for small or large businesses. But scheduling repairs becomes easy when you have a fleet vehicle maintenance checklist to tick.

Managing a fleet, be it of 20 vehicles or 100, is no small task. Your company vehicles are the backbone of your operations, and keeping them in top shape ensures your business runs smoothly. Proper fleet vehicle maintenance isn’t just about keeping vehicles on the road; it’s about minimizing downtime, saving on costly repairs, and maximizing their lifespan.

To simplify fleet management, we’ve created a comprehensive checklist covering everything you need to keep your vehicles in optimal condition. Whether you’re running a small business or overseeing a large corporate fleet, this guide will help you maintain efficiency and keep your operations moving forward.

How do You Maintain the Health of Your Fleet of Vehicles?

Maintaining a fleet of vehicles requires regular inspections to ensure they operate optimally, efficiently and reliably. Routine checks help identify potential issues early on, allowing mechanics to address problems before they escalate. This keeps your fleet vehicles in peak condition and reduces unexpected breakdowns. A well-executed vehicle maintenance program is crucial for proactively avoiding costly repairs, extending your vehicle’s lifespan, and ensuring your driver’s safety.

y staying on top of fleet maintenance, companies can minimize downtime, maintain compliance with safety regulations, and ultimately improve overall productivity. This makes fleet maintenance an essential aspect of successful fleet management.

What is a Fleet Vehicle Maintenance Program?

A vehicle maintenance program, also known as a Preventative Maintenance Program, is a set of guidelines and processes for keeping vehicles in good condition. The goal of a vehicle maintenance program is to prevent breakdowns, reduce downtime, and minimize operating costs.

This is a proactive plan a company implements to keep its fleet vehicles in working condition and address issues before they become bigger problems. 

Implementing a maintenance program can help reduce overall maintenance costs. Planned services help reduce catastrophic failures and emergency mechanic service fees. This minimizes unexpected and costly repairs, controls your fleet operation budget, and minimizes vehicle downtime. 

To help achieve this, we present you with a fleet maintenance checklist that will help fleet businesses, large or small, form their service schedules and detect repair requirements.

What is a Commercial Vehicle Maintenance Checklist?

A fleet vehicle maintenance checklist is a comprehensive guide businesses use to ensure their vehicles are regularly inspected, serviced, and maintained. This checklist outlines specific tasks, such as checking fluid levels and inspecting tires, brakes, lights, and other critical components to keep vehicles in optimal working condition.

A maintenance checklist standardizes routine checks, streamlines maintenance procedures, and proactively identifies potential issues before they lead to breakdowns or costly repairs. By following a maintenance checklist, fleet managers can enhance vehicle safety, extend their lifespan, reduce operational costs, and ensure consistent, reliable performance across the entire fleet.

Your Complete Fleet Vehicle Maintenance Checklist Is Here

This comprehensive checklist consists of checks, inspections, and replacements that need to be performed monthly, quarterly, six-monthly, and annually.

During your routine preventive maintenance checks and inspections, if you notice anything broken, low, loose, etc., we recommend recording and dealing with it immediately. Whether that calls for topping up fluid levels, removing corrosion, replacing a bulb, or scheduling more in-depth maintenance or repairs, ensure issues are dealt with before they become much larger and more costly problems.

Pro tip: We recommend using digital DVIR reports on TrackoBit’s driver app, making recording maintenance requirements and reports by drivers before the start and end of the trip easy and digital.

A) Monthly Fleet Vehicle Maintenance Checklist

Every month, check the following:

• Change the engine oil and filter.
• Inspect the suspension and steering components.
• Inspect the exhaust system.
• Inspect the belts and hoses.
• Inspect the fuel filter.

B) Quarterly Vehicle Maintenance Checklist

Every three months (or 3,000-5,000 miles), do the following:

• Rotate the tires.
• Replace the cabin air filter.
• Check the spark plugs.
• Inspect the differential fluid level.
• Check the transfer case fluid level.

C) Biannual Vehicle Maintenance Checklist

Every 6 months (or 12,000 – 15,000 miles), do the following:

• Inspect the brakes, brake pads, and brake lines.
• Check the power steering fluid level.
• Check the wheel bearings.
• Check the shock absorbers and struts.
• Check the timing belt.

D) Annual vehicle maintenance checklist

Every year (or 24,000 – 30,000 miles), do the following:

• Replace the fuel filter.
• Inspect the emissions system.
• Look into the drive shaft.
• Inspect the radiator and cooling system.
• Check the engine compression.

E) Daily Inspection

• Check the fuel level.
• Examine the oil level and condition.
• Inspect the coolant level.
• Check the tire pressure and tread depth.
• Ensure the lights and signals are working properly.

F) Weekly Inspection

• Inspect the brakes and brake fluid level.
• Check the battery and connections.
• Examine the windshield wipers and washer fluid.
• Scan the air filter.
• Check the transmission fluid level.

A fleet vehicle maintenance checklist is an essential tool to keep your fleet running smoothly. By regularly inspecting and servicing your vehicles, you can save money, reduce downtime, and extend the lifespan of your fleet. Use the checklist above to ensure that your vehicles are properly maintained and serviced.

Benefits of a Fleet Vehicle Maintenance Checklist

If you are delaying the maintenance requirement of your fleet vehicles or are afraid of downtime, then you need to read these benefits of routine preventive maintenance.  

1. Improved Vehicle Reliability

An effective preventative maintenance checklist can help improve vehicle reliability by reducing the number of minor issues that can take a car, truck, or van out of service.

That increased reliability allows fleet managers to maximize the asset’s availability and get the most use out of the vehicle as possible.

A record of reliability also allows drivers to have confidence in the vehicle itself and not to worry about breakdowns or other mechanical issues that might interrupt their workflow.

There are few things more irritating and disheartening to a driver than having to fix a minor issue (e.g., jump-start the battery or fill a tire that’s always leaking) on the vehicle they’ve been assigned before they can get to the main part of their job for the day.

2. Longer Vehicle Service Life

Another benefit of implementing a fleet vehicle maintenance checklist is a longer service life for each vehicle in the program.

Regular maintenance and repairs can help maintain the vehicle’s optimum operating conditions to minimize wear and tear on each vehicle part. This increases the vehicle’s chances of functioning correctly and safely for much longer.

As a result, the cost of ownership goes down, and the business can avoid breakdowns, major accidents, and premature failure of parts and systems. This may cut short the useful service life of the vehicle.

3. Fewer Expensive Repairs

When businesses take a proactive approach to fleet vehicle maintenance, they’ll be better able to find potential problems before they become worse or spread to other systems and affect the entire vehicle.

This can help fleet owners avoid many of the sky-high expenses that come with large-scale repairs on integral systems.

For example, a pre-trip inspection, post-trip inspection, or service appointment using the preventative maintenance checklist may uncover a significant engine oil leak or transmission fluid leak.

Repairing such leaks is relatively inexpensive and easy. However, letting the leaks go unaddressed may lead to significant damage and even catastrophic failure of either the engine or the transmission.

Those types of repairs can be extremely expensive and can impact the business’s bottom line in many ways.

Fleet managers can avoid expensive repairs by addressing small issues as soon as possible before they become large issues.

4. Improved Fleet’s Productivity

In fleet-based businesses, productivity is all about keeping the vehicles on the road and in good shape for as long as possible.

Regular fleet vehicle maintenance makes it possible for fleet managers to increase productivity in many forms, including:

• Fewer disruptions to the workflow
• Better vehicle performance (both in the short term and the long term)
• Adherence to schedules
• Timely deliveries
• Satisfied customers
• Improved driver moral

Businesses can also see improvements in revenue and work hours when they prevent the loss of money and time from towing vehicles and completing repairs after a breakdown.

Some Tips for Proactive Fleet Maintenance

Here are some tips for you that will help improve the vehicle maintenance process.

1. Inspect each fleet vehicle

As a business owner, follow a maintenance plan to ensure your fleet vehicles are inspected on schedule. While delaying inspections to keep vehicles active is tempting, a flexible system is key. If a vehicle is on the road, reschedule the inspection or have the driver perform checks using a maintenance checklist.

2. Schedule necessary maintenance

Consider having a small surplus of vehicles available when others are in the shop. This proactive practice helps maintain productivity and workflow. If a surplus of vehicles isn’t feasible, try planning the required maintenance when the vehicle is parked.

3. Keep a record of fleet vehicle history

In addition to performing regular checks and maintenance, keeping a detailed and organized record of each fleet vehicle’s history is important. Knowing the following information will help strengthen your fleet vehicle maintenance plan: 

• Mileage and purchase price of each vehicle
• Previous maintenance
• Previous repairs
• Any accidents or incidents

How Can TrackoBit’s Vehicle Tracking Software can Help Streamline Your Maintenance Check Process?

Managing a fleet of vehicles is a big responsibility, especially for a small team. Technology can make the job of any business owner or fleet manager much easier. For example, vehicle tracking software can help grow your business and keep fleet vehicles operating in their best (and safest) condition.

TrackoBit is a vehicle tracking software and app that uses GPS to track and record driver and vehicle behavior. Through this technology, business owners and fleet managers gain digital access to the following vehicle data:

• Maintenance tracking: Digitally track the fleet vehicle maintenance and repairs of all your vehicles in one place—no more wondering when a certain truck last had an oil change or dealing with drawers of paper maintenance records.
• Schedule Alerts: Getting notified about the upcoming maintenance schedule. This increases vehicle lifespan and driver safety.
• Monitors DTC: Fleet managers using TrackoBit can address issues promptly and ensure timely maintenance by integrating with vehicle telematics providing real-time alerts on engine faults.
• Driver behavior: Behavior like harsh braking and aggressive acceleration or cornering can flag business owners so they can correct these issues before they cause unnecessary wear and tear on your vehicles.
• Vehicle disturbances: Detect with TrackoBit, which will notify you if fleet vehicles encounter theft, towing, or any other kind of disturbance.