Fleets find challenges in rising maintenance costs, parts shortages

From Transport Topics.

With a laundry list of hurdles — inflation; fuel, equipment and labor costs; and the supply chain facing many trucking companies, the focus on preventive maintenance becomes clearer as fleets are adding alternative suppliers and providers, and stockpiling inventory to help control costs and reduce downtime.

“Shop door rates have continued to climb aggressively. Parts pricing has also continued to climb across the board,” said Kirk Altrichter, executive vice president of fleet services for Kenan Advantage.

Maintenance costs were down in 2020 due to COVID-19’s impact but started climbing in 2021 and have only gathered steam through the second quarter of 2021 to today, he said.

Tim Moore, vice president of TMcare Operations at FleetNet America, said FleetNet tracked a 9% increase in the cost to repair in 2021 from 2020 and a 20.4% increase year-to-date in 2022 from 2020.

“In the short term, I don’t know that it will get any better until there is pressure relieved off of inflation and the supply chain gets back to normal,” he said.

At the same time, many fleets are keeping equipment longer due to manufacturer delays, which can increase maintenance needs. “Of the total order that we intended on placing, we’re only going to get 57% of that order on the power units and 66% of the trailers,” said Dan Carrano, vice president of fleet maintenance for A. Duie Pyle.

To help control costs, A. Duie Pyle evaluates PM inspection schedules of all power units to maximize the time between PMs and lessens PM intervals for some duty cycles. “All the PMs are on a time or mileage basis, whatever comes first,” Carrano said.

See the complete article online at Transport Topics.