Most of the small fleets I work with in Hampton Roads and Richmond don't have a written maintenance schedule. They have a habit — oil gets changed when someone remembers, tires get rotated when a driver complains, and the rest shows up as a surprise invoice on a Wednesday. That works until it doesn't, and when it doesn't, the number that lands in the ops budget is four or five times the maintenance they skipped.
This post is the schedule I'd put on the wall for a 10-vehicle small business fleet, the cost ranges I see for that schedule in 2026, and what changes when the work happens in your yard instead of at a shop. The exact vehicles matter — a fleet of half-ton pickups is different from a fleet of Transit vans — but the rhythm is close enough that this works as a starting point.
Why a written schedule is the cheap part
A schedule does two things a habit can't. It flags the thing before it fails, and it spreads the cost into a line item your accountant can budget. Both of those are worth more than the wrench time.
The trucks I see go down unexpectedly are almost always going down for something the driver felt three weeks earlier. A chirping serpentine belt — the long rubber belt that drives the alternator, AC compressor, and power steering pump — will warn you for a month before it snaps. A slow crank will give you two weeks. A brake pad at 3mm will tell you when it's at 5mm if someone's listening. Without a schedule, nobody's listening until the truck won't start at six in the morning. I wrote a longer version of this math in the real cost of fleet downtime — short version, the invoice is the smallest number in the story.
The schedule I'd put on the wall
For a ten-vehicle fleet running mixed duty — property management trucks, courier vans, landscaping rigs, service vehicles — here's the cadence that works. Adjust intervals up for low-mileage fleets and down for anything running highway hours every day.
Weekly — driver does this
Five minutes before the first stop of the week. No tools, no lift, no training past a single tailgate meeting.
- Walk-around: tires, lights, body damage, fluid leaks under the truck
- Tire pressure check, all four corners (a $15 gauge pays for itself the first time)
- Fluid levels if the driver is comfortable — oil, coolant, washer
- Log any noise, pull, vibration, or warning light before it's forgotten
Monthly — mobile visit, 3–5 hours on-site
One half-day a month, the van pulls into your yard. The visit isn't "work on every truck." It's scheduled service on two or three that hit their interval, plus walk-arounds on the rest.
- Oil and filter service on whatever's due (full synthetic on most modern fleet trucks, 5,000–7,500 miles)
- Tire rotation on anything hitting its interval
- Brake inspection through the wheels on anything approaching 40% pad wear
- Battery and alternator load test on anything three years or older
- Serpentine belt and hoses — visual, quick, no teardown
- Top off washer fluid, check wiper condition, verify all exterior lights
Quarterly — every three months, 6–8 hours on-site
Deeper than monthly, still scheduled, still in your yard.
- All filters the manufacturer lists at this interval (air, cabin, fuel if applicable)
- Brake fluid moisture test on anything over two years since a flush
- Cooling system pressure test heading into summer and winter
- Drive belt and tensioner inspection
- Underbody look — exhaust rust-through, CV boots, bushings, leaks
Every six months — full service rotation
Half-year service on every vehicle gets touched, even if it hasn't hit a mileage interval yet.
- Full brake inspection with wheels off on whichever trucks are closest to replacement
- Transmission fluid check (and service if the interval is due — usually 60,000 miles on most fleet trucks)
- Coolant condition test, flush if it's failing
- Tire tread measurement on every wheel, rotation scheduled if not already done
Annual — inspection and the big stuff
Once a year, ideally timed with Virginia state inspection so one visit covers both.
- Virginia state safety inspection on every vehicle
- Spark plugs on anything at the manufacturer's interval (typically 60,000–100,000 miles on most modern fleet trucks)
- Full fluid flush rotation — brake, coolant, power steering, transmission as due
- Alignment on any vehicle with uneven tire wear
- A/C service before summer, heater check before winter
What this schedule does not include is surprise failure work — the truck that won't start on a Tuesday, the no-warning alternator, the flat tire at a customer site. Those still happen, and they still cost money. But the rate at which they happen drops sharply once the rest of the schedule is running.
What this costs for 10 vehicles in 2026
Here are realistic ranges for a ten-truck small fleet in the Hampton Roads / Richmond corridor, as of 2026. These assume light-to-medium-duty vehicles — half-ton pickups, Transit or ProMaster vans, Ford Explorers, Tacomas — and mixed mileage. Heavy-duty diesel trucks and anything under CDL rules will run higher.
Monthly visit — typically $550–$950 per month depending on which trucks hit service intervals. A month with two oil services, one brake inspection, and walk-arounds on the rest lands closer to the low end. A month with two oil services, one brake replacement, and a battery replacement lands closer to the high end.
Quarterly visit — roughly $750–$1,200 on top of the monthly. Filters, fluid tests, and the deeper walk-around add labor but parts stay modest.
Semi-annual service — roughly $1,400–$2,400, driven mostly by whatever brake and transmission work comes due.
Annual inspection and the big stuff — typically $2,000–$3,500, mostly state inspections, spark plugs, and one round of fluid flushes.
Rolled up for the year — most 10-vehicle fleets I work with in Williamsburg, Yorktown, Henrico, Chesterfield, and Virginia Beach land somewhere between $13,000 and $19,000 annually in preventive maintenance, spread across twelve months with predictable larger hits on the quarter boundaries. That's $1,100–$1,600 per month on average, or $1,300–$1,900 per vehicle per year.
Tires are not included in that number. Tires are their own budget line, and for a mixed fleet of ten trucks I'd plan $3,000–$6,000 annually depending on duty cycle.
Surprise repair work — the stuff this schedule is designed to prevent — typically adds 15–30% on top of preventive for a well-maintained fleet, and 60–100% for a fleet running the "fix-it-when-it-breaks" habit I described at the top.
What changes when the work happens in your yard
A mobile schedule isn't cheaper per hour of wrench time. Labor rates are close to comparable. What changes is the cost of everything around the invoice — the truck not sitting at a shop, the driver not idle, the other trucks not absorbing overflow, the dispatch time nobody has to spend. A typical mobile fleet visit handles four or five trucks in a single three-to-five-hour session on your lot, which is a week of shop drop-offs you don't have to run.
For a ten-vehicle fleet, the recurring monthly visit is where most of the savings live. You get a known person who knows your trucks, shows up on the same morning, and leaves you a written report on what was touched and what's due next. No rotating service advisor, no "the mechanic who did it last time is out today," no having to re-explain the quirk on truck seven. Our mobile mechanic service is built around that kind of recurring visit — it's where Will spends most of his week.
How to start without committing to a full program
If you're running a fleet and you've never had a written schedule, the move is not to sign up for a twelve-month program on day one. The move is to have someone walk the yard for a morning, take stock of what's there, and tell you what needs to happen in the next sixty days. From that you get a real number, a real priority list, and a schedule that matches your actual fleet instead of a generic one.
Send us your fleet size and location and we'll schedule a yard walk. You'll leave with a written plan, a real cost range for your specific vehicles, and no pressure to commit to anything past the next visit.
Want us to take a look in your driveway? Call 660-232-2772 or request a quote.