Can anyone share their standards for prioritizing vehicle replacement (ex. 4 years or 150,000 miles for light duty pickups, etc.)?

 Thanks,

 A.C.

Thank you everyone for your comments.

We generally see a truck reach 200,000 miles in less than four (4) years.  After that , it's time to get that truck off the road for the safety and dependability for the crew.  However, we normally will have two or more trucks reach the 200,000 mile mark at close to the same time.  We will choose the truck in the poorest condition to take out of service.  That doesn't mean it's the oldest truck, it's just the one that's not road worthy anymore.  We'll take that truck, clean it up and put it on our parking lot with a "for sale" sign on it and get $5,000 - $10,000 for it.

We buy a new truck by ordering it from the factory.  This saves about $10,000 from buying off of a lot.  We normally buy one (1) new truck per year.

AC- the tough part is to balance the operational need for reliable duty versus the financial imperative to get the best value for money as measured on a cents-per-mile basis.  We're a fleet management company, and we try our best to help customers arrive at an optimal target, and then put the right plan (factory ordered acquisition, financing, maintenance, DMV, GPS, Risk management, and remarketing) in place to support it.  It's hard to do, mainly because each client has competing factions with competing objectives.  I can send you some real-life examples of truck/service fleet analyses- we try to get it to one page on excel with dynamic inputs (annual miles, mpg, anticipated maintenance expense) so that you control the assumptions.  My e-mail joseph.stergios@efleets.com.

A.C. - for light duty pickups, you are spot on.  we normally look at usage/ wear&tear, age, and how well the truck continues to perform (i.e. are there mounting maintenance/ fuel costs that would make more sense putting towards newer purchase).  current "deals" also help the timing of the decision - bulk purchases, what the dealer is offering, etc.  as we don't have a fleet, it's generally 1 or 2 trucks at a time.