Fleet Maintenance Checklist: What to Log and How Often
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Ask ten small fleet owners what's on their maintenance checklist and you'll get ten different answers — usually somewhere between "nothing written down, it's in my head" and a 40-page document copied from somewhere else that nobody's actually read. Neither works. One relies entirely on you never forgetting anything, the other's too long for anyone to bother with.
Here's what I actually think a checklist needs, and roughly how often each bit needs doing.
The core list — what goes on it
Daily, before the van goes anywhere:
- Lights, indicators, brake lights working
- Tyres — pressure and obvious damage
- Mirrors and windscreen clear and undamaged
- Fluid levels where visible (oil, screen wash)
- No new dents, scrapes or warning lights on the dash
This is basically a walkaround check, and I'd argue it's the single most important item on this whole list — it's covered properly in our guide to daily walkaround checks if you want the full detail.
Monthly:
- Tyre tread depth (not just pressure — depth)
- Brake pad wear, if you can check it without a ramp
- Battery condition, especially heading into winter
- Any dashboard warning lights that have come and gone
Every service interval (check the manufacturer's schedule, usually 12,000–20,000 miles or 12 months, whichever comes first):
- Oil and filter change
- Full brake inspection
- Suspension and steering check
- Cambelt/timing chain — check against the manufacturer's actual interval, this one varies a lot and getting it wrong is an expensive mistake
- Air conditioning re-gas if fitted
Annually, non-negotiable:
- MOT (for anything over three years old)
- Vehicle tax renewal
Why "log it" matters as much as "do it"
Doing the maintenance is only half of it. If you can't show when something was last checked, you're in exactly the same position as if you'd never checked it — because if a vehicle's ever involved in an accident or a dispute, "I'm sure we checked it" doesn't hold up. A written record does.
DVSA publish detailed guidance on this for licensed operators in their Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness — it's written for HGV and PSV operators who need an operator's licence, so most small van fleets won't be legally bound by it. But the principle behind it is sound for anyone running vehicles for work: a documented maintenance file, defect reports, and inspection records aren't bureaucracy for its own sake — they're what protects you if something ever goes wrong.
Where people actually fall down on this
It's rarely the big annual stuff — MOT and tax dates are obvious enough that most people get a reminder sorted one way or another, which I've written about separately if that's still a sore point for you.
It's the monthly and in-between checks that quietly stop happening. Nobody decides to stop doing them. They just get busy, the van's due back on a job, and "I'll check the tyres properly next time" becomes a habit nobody notices forming. Six months later a tyre's down to 1.2mm and somebody's only finding out because a tester flagged it, or worse.
My actual approach
I keep this simple: every vehicle has its own record, every check has a date against it, and nothing relies on someone's memory of "I think we did that in March." That's genuinely the whole principle behind FleetGuv — a maintenance log tied to each van, not a checklist taped to a wall that stops getting looked at by June.
You don't need software to start, though. A checklist like the one above, with dates written against each vehicle, beats nothing — just make sure it's somewhere everyone actually checks, not somewhere it gets forgotten.
Written by Chris, Founder of FleetGuv. Years of running vehicles for work taught me the gap is never the big annual stuff — it's the small monthly checks that quietly stop happening.
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