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Vehicle Downtime Cost Calculator

How many days a year do your vehicles sit broken, how does that compare to the 95 percent availability target, and what do those days really cost you? Built on your own numbers, not a commercial fleet's.

If you do not know your down days

Vehicles Your whole fleet, or one class of it
Down days per vehicle per yearOptional Unplanned days out of service for a typical vehicle, not the fleet total. Your shop records know this. If blank we use the stance above
Cost to replace ONE vehicle for ONE dayOptional Rental or spare, in dollars, for a single vehicle for a single day. Not a fleet total. Leave blank if you do not replace
Crew cost when ONE vehicle is down for ONE dayOptional The total day's wages of everyone who cannot work without that one vehicle, in dollars. Not one person's hourly wage. Leave blank if a down vehicle stalls nobody
Pick a stance to see where the numbers come from.

How this is calculated

Vehicle-days lost are your vehicle count times the unplanned down days per vehicle, using your own figure or the stance you pick. Availability is those days against 250 working days, compared with the 95 percent target that fleet guides, Automotive Fleet's effectiveness metrics, and police fleet inspectors all use; under 90 percent reads as a serious problem. Studies of unplanned downtime disagree, roughly 7 to 11 days a year against 18 to 24, so Lean, Middle, and Careful pick the low, middle, or high figure. Dollar figures use only the replacement-vehicle and stalled-crew costs you enter, because a public fleet has no lost revenue to count. The savings line uses a common finding that tighter preventive maintenance cuts unplanned downtime by about a fifth.

These are planning estimates to support a maintenance conversation, not an audit of your records. Your shop's own down-day history is the sharpest input; type it in whenever you have it.

Have an idea to make this calculator better? Email us. We read every one.

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Modern Public Fleet · Fleet Tools · Planning estimates for public-sector fleet operations