Downtime is the real number
Price the invoice and you miss most of the cost. A garage service typically removes a vehicle for most of a working day, plus two journeys, plus the driver's time in both directions. On a van earning revenue, that is the expensive part by a wide margin.
Mobile servicing changes the arithmetic: the vehicle stays where it is parked, the work happens around the working day, and nobody drives anywhere.
Scheduling around the work
- Depot or office car park. Private land, permission from the site manager, and a morning or afternoon window. Multiple vehicles can be done in sequence on one visit.
- Driver's home address. Works well for grey fleet and company cars taken home overnight.
- Staggered scheduling. Book service dates apart rather than together, so you never have several vehicles unavailable at once.
Standardise the service level
Fleet servicing gets expensive when every vehicle is treated as a special case. Set a rule and hold it:
- Under 12,000 miles a year: annual full service
- Over 12,000 miles a year: full service annually plus an interim at six months
- Every 24 months: major service in place of the full
Vans and light commercials up to 3.5 tonnes generally sit in the second category by default. High mileage plus heavy loads plus stop-start urban work is the hardest combination for oil and brakes.
Records and duty of care
An employer has a duty of care for vehicles used for work, including grey fleet. That means being able to evidence that vehicles were maintained on schedule, not merely believing they were.
What to keep centrally, per vehicle: service dates and mileages, the work carried out, advisories with dates, MOT certificates, and any defect reports raised by drivers. Digital service records make this trivial to file; paper stamps in a glovebox do not.
When a workshop is still right
MOT testing, tyres, alignment, and anything needing a lift. For a mixed fleet, the sensible arrangement is mobile for scheduled servicing and a nominated workshop for MOTs and ramp work, with the same record-keeping either way.
If you run vehicles across several sites, tell us the postcodes and we will confirm coverage in one go. Our coverage list shows where we hold regular slots.