When a truck is down, it is not hauling freight, making deliveries, or otherwise generating billable miles. Still, your company’s fixed overhead continues to accrue. At the same time, you may need to pay for roadside service, towing, expedited parts, and emergency repairs to get the vehicle back on the road. The truth is, unplanned downtime could be one of the biggest controllable factors that affect your company’s profitability.
One of the best ways to prevent breakdowns is to ensure each vehicle receives the necessary maintenance to keep it running smoothly. All vehicles have wear-and-tear parts, require regular inspections, and could develop more serious concerns without close monitoring. Choosing the right maintenance strategy can save your fleet significant downtime—and money.
Point Spring & Driveshaft Co. cares about your bottom line. We can help you choose a maintenance strategy to keep your heavy-duty trucks on the road more consistently. Keep reading to weigh the pros and cons of preventive vs predictive maintenance to decide which is the best fit for your fleet.
What Is Preventive Maintenance?
Taking a proactive approach to truck maintenance can greatly reduce downtime by preventing many breakdowns and keeping vehicles on the roads consistently. Most people are familiar with preventive maintenance, which is generally either based on mileage or time. Afterall, it is how most people maintain their personal vehicles.
Preventive maintenance generally focuses on routine services scheduled at set intervals before a failure is likely to occur. They could include:
- Inspections of certain parts and systems
- Replacing parts as they wear out
- Rotating and replacing tires
- Lubrication and fluid changes
- Preventive maintenance for transmissions and differentials
- Other maintenance tasks
Preventive maintenance makes economic sense for most fleets because it prevents many breakdowns, is predictable, and keeps the vehicles on the road longer. The company can easily budget for it while also planning for the vehicle’s downtime as part of the schedule.
What Is Predictive Maintenance?
Predictive maintenance differs from preventive maintenance in that this strategy uses data to determine what is necessary to keep the vehicle and its components in top shape. By using real-time data from sensors, telematics, and truck diagnostics systems, a fleet owner can monitor the health of the truck’s systems and components.
This real-time monitoring requires a larger upfront investment because of the necessary monitoring systems and training. However, it can greatly reduce unplanned downtime and help maximize the lifetime of the truck.
This strategy works by employing sensors to monitor many aspects of the vehicle’s operation, such as engine diagnostics, brake wear, oil use, and tire pressure. Analytics software can assess the data collected to spot concerning patterns or anomalies. This allows the necessary maintenance to occur before a failure necessitates an emergency repair.
Cost Comparison: Which Saves Fleets More?
When comparing preventive maintenance vs predictive maintenance, there is no clear-cut answer to which one is best for every fleet. The pros and cons depend greatly on fleet size, vehicle type, operating conditions, and even the quality of data available to predict maintenance needs.
While predictive maintenance often costs less because it avoids unnecessary services and reduces spending on wear-and-tear components and labor, it is more expensive to implement and may not always correctly predict catastrophic failures without the right sensors and data analysis in place.
Best Use Cases for Each Strategy
Small fleets with low operating mileage and predictable use might prefer preventive maintenance because of the high cost of implementing predictive sensors and systems. In-town and regional deliveries generally do not put the same strain on a vehicle as a long-haul trucking route.
Managing routine maintenance on a per-mile or per-month schedule is simple, low-cost, and effective. They can easily schedule quick downtime for each vehicle and perform component inspections, oil changes, brake installation, new tires, and even automatic transmission maintenance.
Large heavy-duty fleets, especially those with newer trucks that provide CAN/OBD data, may benefit more from predictive maintenance. This is especially important for long-haul routes where trucks see high usage.
Predictive maintenance provides details on how the truck is running in real-time, including detecting early warning signs of a problem. This prevents massive failures and the related expenses, such as towing, expediting components, and lost revenue from the downtime. Instead, the truck received repairs during scheduled downtime.
Combine Predictive + Preventive Maintenance for the Best Result
For many large, long-haul fleets, combining the two strategies can offer the best of both worlds. A hybrid strategy is based on preventive maintenance schedules but refines them by utilizing predictive data. This hybrid approach allows all trucks to receive basic, routine maintenance on a set schedule while also identifying problems unique to each truck as they arise.
For example, imagine sensors indicate a problem with a truck’s suspension. While your company has a schedule for preventive suspension maintenance, a problem arises midway through the regular interval. The predictive system can alert you to a potential problem so you can diagnose the issue, order parts, and schedule a repair before the truck breaks down. This gives you control of the downtime and any related losses.
Even smaller, regional or local fleets can benefit from a hybrid maintenance strategy. This is best implemented when their vehicles have the necessary sensors and diagnostic tools to accurately monitor their systems and components and provide data for predictive maintenance.
Contact Us Today to Learn More
If you need help weighing predictive vs preventive maintenance for your fleet, the Point Spring team is here for you. Not only do we sell the highest-quality parts available in the commercial vehicle aftermarket, but we also want to ensure your trucks are running at their best at all times.
Our truck services help companies of all sizes make the best choices for the health of their fleets. We provide components, diagnostics, and maintenance solutions. Contact us today.