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Hire a local dealership to service your company vehicles (cars and trucks alike). That firm will keep track of the mileage, recalls, maintenance appointments and any repairs from wrecks or fender benders that occur on all of the vehicles you assign to the service contract. Because of the volume of work, you should be able to negotiate better service pricing, lower prices on parts, a lower labor rate and good timely information about your traveling fixed assets. In addition to these cost savings, the dealership is the bad guy who informs your firm of the abuse, unreported accidents or damage inflicted on the units by your employees. You need to know the damage to your fixed assets as it occurs and not when you go to trade the units in.
In exchange for servicing your fleet, assign the dealership to do the following:
- Call the assigned drivers for maintenance, oil changes, regular maintenance checkups. If they do not respond, the dealership calls HR direct so company managers are not bothered.
- The dealership will provide the company an assessment of the car’s damage and wear and tear (paperwork goes to the firm after the employee acknowledges the work is done).
- The dealership may also offer more favorable trade-in pricing for similar new or used vehicles when the time is appropriate. Your company can tell them to notify you when certain makes or models with known maintenance records and low mileage become available.
- The dealership can install monitoring equipment that will reduce your insurance bills on the vehicles. It is irrelevant whether your employees want this or not; they are being provided a company vehicle to drive and entertain customers.
- The dealership will inform the company of unreported damage to the vehicle and offer a reasonable quote (lower than market) to provide repairs to you, the preferred customer.
- The dealership can provide to your firm periodic summaries of all your assigned vehicles, schedule of maintenance dates and any other information that is helpful to your firm.
