Dealer car and van safety checks need to give ‘more useful information’ to fleets, says FleetCheck

Safety checks carried out by dealers when servicing cars and vans need to provide more useful information to fleets, says FleetCheck.

The fleet software specialist says that the current checks, which tend to use traffic light or estimated percentage wear indicators, are of limited practical use.

Peter Golding, managing director at FleetCheck, said: “We are all familiar with the kind of one-sheet vehicle safety checks that are handed to you when you collect a vehicle after servicing, showing items such as tyre and brake pad wear.

“What is not well-known about these documents is that they actually have a legal significance. Health and Safety guidelines mean that any notification of a vehicle fault needs to be acknowledged and addressed by the fleet.

“However, the problem is – and we speak to fleets regularly who complain about this - that the information provided is of very limited value. Take brake pads, for example. The dealer may report to the customer that these are 70% worn but they give no indication to the fleet about when they are likely to actually to need replacing.

“They present the fleet with a Health and Safety problem but no solution.”

Golding said it would be relatively simple for the dealer – with the backing of its franchise manufacturer or an independent expert body - to estimate the likely fail date or mileage based on their experience of the vehicles in question and, for the sake of safety, to use a worst case scenario when making their appraisal.

“I have owned and run dealerships myself, and had many conversations with dealers about this issue. They need to start giving more useful information to fleets by, instead of just saying that the pads are 70% worn, stating clearly that they are likely to need checking again or replacing in an estimated three months or 5,000 miles, for example.

“This would be genuinely useful information for fleets and, of course, would be of advantage to the dealer, who is much more likely to capture the work that has been flagged up if there is a timescale indicated. This applies especially to jobs such as tyres and pads that many dealers tend to lose to fast-fits.”

He added that a further complication was that, in cases where vehicles were leased, the safety checks themselves were often passed to the leasing company rather than the fleet.

“This is an issue because, as explained, the safety check has a legal status. If it never actually reaches the fleet and there is a resulting accident that triggers an HSE investigation, then the audit trail of paperwork breaks down. It is an area that needs addressing.”