Fastest lead times for fleet vehicle service, maintenance and repair

The regions with the fastest and slowest fleet vehicle service, maintenance and repair (SMR) lead times have been revealed in new data.

London has the shortest SMR lead times for fleet vehicles, while fleets in the south-west had to wait the longest, according to Epyx’s 1link Service Network platform.

It is used by fleets to manage SMR for more than five million vehicles and shows the shortest average time between when a company car or van booking was created to when the vehicle went in for work was 12.46 days in the capital. 

It was followed by an average of 12.91 days in Yorkshire and the Humber 12.91 days; 12.98 in the north-east; 13.03 in the West Midlands; East Midlands (13.17); Wales (13.23); Scotland (13.26); north-west (13.28); Northern Ireland (13.43); south-east (13.54); East of England (13.66); and south-west (13.86). 

The data covers the period between January 2023 and October 2024.

Tim Meadows, chief commercial officer at Epyx, said: “We’re seeing a difference of 1.4 days between the best and worst areas in the country when it comes to lead times which overall, is arguably a surprisingly low variation. 

“Fleets operating in some relatively rural areas are accessing lead times that are comparable to London and other major conurbations where provision of franchise dealers, independent garages and fast-fits is ostensibly higher.

“What this probably indicates is that supply and demand for SMR is relatively evenly-distributed across the UK, with no regions where there appears to be either shortages or surfeits of provision.”

Data released by Epyx in October 2023 showed that national SMR lead times had risen by more than 57% since the start of the pandemic. 

In January 2020, the average time was 8.11 days but had increased to 12.76 days.

Meadows continued: “Looking at our new regional and previous national figures together, it’s clear that lead times around 12-13 days are a trend right across the country. 

“The factors that are affecting SMR providers, such as reduced access to parts, consumables and recruitment, have had a similar impact everywhere.

“For some time following the pandemic, lead times gradually increased and while this no longer appears to be the case, neither is it really improving. 

“Garages in every region are very much at the mercy of forces beyond their control, and we expect lead times of the current length to persist for some time to come.”

The new data from Epyx comes after a warning from ATS Euromaster that inflationary pressures are driving up the cost of labour, parts, and materials, making SMR more expensive.

Coming at a time when fleet budgets are already under pressure, it says it has already seen the impact of this as fleets squeeze maintenance programmes. 

Read our in-depth analysis on service, maintenance and repair (SMR).