Fleets extend van replacement times due to new vehicle delays
The number of Class 7 MOTs for commercial vehicles (Vans) has quadrupled compared to 2020, according to a recent article in Commercial Fleet (Report here). Fleet managers are extending the life of commercial vans due to a longstanding difficulty in sourcing replacements.
With the war in Ukraine and a shortage of semiconductors, replacement vehicles have been delayed in manufacturing, and waiting times for new vehicles have increased. In some cases, it has been reported that van lifecycles have been increased up to 8 years.
According to the DVSA, Class 7 MOT failure rates were around 37% in the first quarter of 2023, with lighting, reflectors, and electrical equipment accounting for 20% of failures, brakes 15%, and suspension 10%. However, brakes accounted for 44.6% of “dangerous defects” as reported by the DVSA.
As the working life of commercial vans gets extended, daily vehicle safety inspections are essential to ensure vans are roadworthy and defects are reported to enable fleet managers to organise repairs. Descartes’ SmartCheck is a configurable, cloud-based app, which allows drivers to conduct guided vehicle safety inspections and record the results in an app on their phone, even if they work from home or are out on the road, which, once uploaded, provides a report for the fleet manager to see, highlighting and alerting them to and defects and error codes on the vehicle. SmartCheck records the time, duration, and location of the vehicle checks to give Fleet Managers confidence that the checks actually took place.
When Descartes telematics is installed, it not only provides GPS vehicle tracking, but also allows the fleet manager to monitor the state of the vehicle in real-time, identifying and explaining any error codes on the vehicle, allowing for a timely repair to be scheduled and parts ordered for a vehicle's return to base.
