Fleet car and van SMR: average age of fleet vehicle entering workshop

Epyx comment

This metric shows the average age of a vehicle entering a workshop for maintenance recorded on the 1link Service Network platform, and is therefore a good indication of the average age of cars and vans in the fleet parc. Before the pandemic, in January 2020, when our dataset begins, the average age was 2.40 years for cars and 3.14 for vans.

This increased quite dramatically from around the onset of Covid in April 2020, and maintained an upward trend through 2021 and 2022, peaking around late 2023 and early 2024 at 3.07 years for cars and 3.75 years for vans.

During 2024, there has been an overall downward line for vans with August’s 3.58 years among the lowest recently recorded while the 2.97 years recorded for cars is part of more erratic progress, although still lower than a year ago.

These fluctuations are marked but not dramatic, probably underlining trends showing fleets have now generally extended replacement cycles and that new vehicle supply, while much improved, can still be patchy.