A study jointly produced by FTR and CK Commercial Vehicle Research is now available, examining heavy duty vehicle usage, maintenance practices and replacement parts purchasing activity.

The total cost of maintenance and replacement parts is analyzed by identifying the annual dollars the reporting fleets spend for the vehicles they operate. The survey also identifies preferences for service and parts vendors.

FTR and CKCVR combined survey information gathered from fleets with industry and analytic data to create the report. The 30-page report gives a close look at the activity that drives equipment replacement and parts purchases such as vehicle age, typical trade cycles, miles driven per year and preventive maintenance intervals.

The survey found that Average Class 8 age differs significantly between small, medium and large fleets. Small fleets averaged a Class 8 truck age of 5 years while large fleets reported an average of 2.7 years. Class 8 miles driven is expected to increase in 2016 by 2.2% compared with 2015 and Class 8 ton miles is forecasted to increase by 1.1%.

Fleets revealed that the primary reason for outsourcing maintenance was a lack of technical knowledge to complete the work at the fleet level and the report also found that more than half of outsourced maintenance was performed by original equipment dealers.

Typical preventative maintenance schedules for all fleets was 2.3 months for trucks and 2.7 months for trailers. For most fleets, when Class 8 trucks pass the 6-year old mark, average annual part cost can increase by as much as 50%.

The full report is available from FTR here.