In fleets of more than 100 vehicles, preventive maintenance pays off on critical vehicles and on components whose failure stops operations, and corrective maintenance is kept for low-cost, low-impact parts. The decision is made vehicle by vehicle, using five factors: criticality, cost of downtime, age and mileage, failure history and parts availability.
Last updated: October 2026
What is the difference between preventive and corrective maintenance?
Preventive maintenance is scheduled by mileage, hours of use or time, before a failure happens. Corrective maintenance is done after something breaks. No fleet works with only one of the two. What changes is the proportion, and that proportion sets total cost and vehicle availability.
Which factors should you evaluate to prioritize?
- Vehicle criticality. A truck that carries a route with no replacement available justifies more preventive work than a support vehicle.
- Cost of downtime. An hour of standstill costs different amounts depending on the load, delivery commitments and penalties.
- Age and mileage. Higher-use vehicles concentrate more failures and need shorter intervals.
- Failure history. If a component fails repeatedly, the preventive interval gets shorter or the supplier is changed.
- Availability of parts and workshops. When a part takes weeks to arrive, waiting for the failure is expensive.
When does each one fit?
| Situation | Recommended approach | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Brakes, steering, tires, fluids | Preventive | Failure affects safety and stops the vehicle |
| Components with a manufacturer-defined interval | Preventive | Can be scheduled and bought in advance |
| Low-cost parts with no operational impact | Corrective | Scheduling would cost more than replacing on failure |
| Vehicles close to retirement | Selective corrective | Avoids investing in service life that will not be used |
How do you cut maintenance costs without hurting availability?
There are four measurable levers. Schedule preventive work by actual mileage, not a fixed calendar. Centralize work orders to compare workshops and suppliers. Record each failure with its cause to spot repeats. And measure cost per vehicle and per mile to see which units are worth renewing.
Which indicators should you track?
The most useful are the share of preventive maintenance in total interventions, fleet availability, mean time between failures, maintenance cost per mile and the number of unplanned stops per month.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ideal percentage of preventive maintenance? There is no single figure. It depends on the type of operation and is adjusted by watching unplanned stops and cost per mile.
Is preventive always cheaper? On critical vehicles, almost always. On low-impact parts it can cost more than repairing on failure.
What do I need to start scheduling preventive maintenance? A vehicle register with up-to-date mileage and the intervals for each type of service.
To automate preventive maintenance for your fleet, request a demo or explore the fleet maintenance software module.
