The hidden cost isn't always the repair
The hidden cost of a roadside breakdown is rarely the repair. That is why predictive maintenance is attracting so much attention.
Geotab highlighted the economics of roadside breakdowns this week.
For fleets, the cost of a breakdown can extend far beyond replacing the failed component.
There can also be:
Recovery.
Driver downtime.
Replacement vehicle costs.
Missed deliveries.
Customer penalties.
Administrative time.
Lost utilisation.
And potentially safety exposure.
This helps explain why predictive maintenance is attracting so much attention from fleet technology companies.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Connected vehicles already produce huge quantities of diagnostic information. The challenge is identifying which signals actually predict failure. The company capable of telling a fleet: 'Replace this £200 component next Tuesday or this vehicle has a high probability of suffering a £3,000 roadside failure within 30 days' isn't selling maintenance software. It's selling avoided downtime. That is a much stronger economic proposition.
Sources
This story first appeared in The Fleet Brief Issue 002, published 7 September 2026.