How maintenance impacts total cost of ownership in trucking

Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a key metric fleets can use to evaluate asset performance and justify investments, but for many fleets, TCO calculations can fall short because maintenance is often underrepresented and/or inconsistently tracked. When maintenance data lives in spreadsheets or disconnected systems, it becomes nearly impossible to understand how day-to-day maintenance decisions influence long-term costs. Over time, those blind spots can quietly inflate TCO and limit a fleet’s ability to operate efficiently.

Total cost of ownership and its impact on fleet performance

TCO represents the full cost of owning and operating an asset over its useful life. This typically includes acquisition costs, operating costs, service costs, downtime and productivity losses, and residual or resale value.

While most fleets account for the big-ticket items upfront, maintenance-related costs are often underestimated or viewed only in isolation. Looking at maintenance as a series of individual repairs rather than as a long-term cost driver can distort TCO calculations and mask opportunities for improvement.

How maintenance data drives accurate TCO for trucking fleets

Maintenance influences nearly every component of TCO. Preventive maintenance (PM) decisions affect repair frequency, asset reliability, fuel efficiency, safety, and resale value. Conversely, deferred maintenance tends to increase breakdowns, accelerate asset wear, and shorten asset life cycles. The optimal scheduled service percentage for fleets is 70%, but a 2026 fleet benchmark report showed that only 53.7% of service was reported as scheduled for fleets surveyed. That’s a pretty significant disparity.

Without accurate maintenance data, fleets struggle to understand the true cost of keeping assets on the road; identify patterns in recurring repairs or component failures; compare maintenance costs across asset types, locations, or vendors; and determine the prime time to replace an asset. While maintenance data exists for many fleets, it’s often fragmented, with work orders being logged on paper, parts costs tracked in spreadsheets, and vendor invoices stored in filing cabinets or email threads. These silos make it difficult to connect maintenance activity to broader cost trends and TCO outcomes.

Paper and spreadsheet tracking can inflate fleet costs and reduce efficiency

Spreadsheets and paper documentation are still common in fleet maintenance operations, especially for smaller teams or those using legacy processes. Despite their familiarity and low cost, manual systems introduce significant limitations that directly impact TCO, such as increasing the risk of missing, inaccurate, or inconsistent information.

Over time, gaps in maintenance histories make it harder to analyze costs or defend decisions around budgeting and replacement. These gaps also make it more difficult to see trends across assets, leading fleets to overlook chronic issues, rising parts costs, or inefficient maintenance practices that slowly drive up TCO.

Fleets often experience delays in insights when manually tracking data or dealing with siloed data. When maintenance data isn’t available in real time, decisions are often reactive. Breakdowns and emergency repairs become more common, with each adding unexpected costs that inflate TCO.

Poor maintenance practices raise fleet TCO and reduce asset value

Inconsistent PM or unscheduled repairs raise service spend and compound costs across the asset life cycle. Poor PM schedules increase breakdowns and roadside events, inflate labor and parts costs from emergency repairs, extend asset downtime and lost productivity, reduce fuel efficiency due to poorly maintained components, and lower resale value from incomplete maintenance histories. Individually, these costs may seem manageable, but collectively, they add up to a significantly higher TCO that isn’t always visible until budgets are strained or assets fail prematurely.

Poor PM adherence and the inability to address issues early are why maintenance data is so important. It allows you to see where improvements can be made and enables you to address issues as they arise. Fleet solutions like telematics and digital platforms designed specifically for maintenance management provide clear visibility into how maintenance affects TCO. Maintenance-forward solutions capture work orders, labor, parts, asset status, repair priority, and vendor costs in one place, creating a complete and reliable maintenance history for every asset. With built-in reporting and analytics, fleet managers can identify cost drivers, spot trends, and compare performance across the fleet, making it easier to see which assets are becoming cost liabilities and understand why.

The automation features provided by these solutions also play a key role in improving financial outcomes.

“Automated scheduling and reminders ensure PM happens on time, reducing unexpected breakdowns and creating more predictable costs,” explained John Byron, maintenance advisor at Fleetio. “Clear insight into lifetime maintenance expenses supports smarter repair-or-replace decisions, helping fleets determine when continued investment no longer makes financial sense. At the same time, reducing manual data entry and reconciliation lowers the administrative burden, allowing teams to focus on optimizing maintenance strategies rather than managing spreadsheets.”

Linking maintenance choices to fleet life cycle costs and ROI

When maintenance data is accurate, accessible, and connected, fleets can finally see how early decisions ripple through the entire asset life cycle. Choices around PM intervals and repair strategies all become measurable in terms of their impact on TCO.

Fleet maintenance solutions empower fleet leaders to understand what maintenance costs today and how it shapes long-term ownership costs and operational performance. These solutions also provide fleets with the clarity needed to capture true TCO to make smarter decisions across the fleet life cycle.