Unscheduled repairs cause havoc on the P&Ls, operations, and shop, but chronic repairs, come-backs, amplify the frustrations and waste associated with those repairs. When a vehicle keeps returning to the shop for the same or similar issue, what some call a “come-back”, you’re dealing with a chronic repair. This is more than just a fluke breakdown; it’s a repeated failure of either a component, system, or condition that should have been resolved but instead keeps resurfacing.
Often, chronic repairs are mislabeled as problem trucks, abusive drivers, or poor quality parts, but the story of the problem is often more obscure and requires a deeper dive. Underlying issues are easily overlooked, wiring issues, failing secondary components, and components operating but outside of specifications.
In operational terms: you send truck #45 in for a leaking wheel seal second time in six months, even though the part was replaced once already. The seal is most likely a symptom of the true issue, but typically identifying takes a keen eye, experience, disciplined diagnostics and repair processes, or all of the above. Or you’ve got a truck #32 that repeatedly goes to the shop for a derate/limp mode condition caused by a persistent and frustrating wiring issue. Those are chronic repairs.
Why Chronic Repairs Are a Hidden Drain on Operations
When your fleet suffers from chronic repairs, the impact is spread across the organization. Maintenance, operations, finance, customer service…each are called to actions when they occur, and the financial impact goes far beyond a single part or mechanics labor.
Increased downtime & lost productivity
A vehicle that keeps coming back means it’s not on the road or unavailable for service, reducing the number of productive hours you get from your fleet.
Escalating costs
Each time you reopen a recurring issue you incur labor, parts, administrative overhead, possibly vendor fees. Plus, if you don’t fix root causes, you may be patching instead of resolving leading to more severe damage to the component and affected system.
Operational reliability and driver frustration
Customers expect on-time deliveries or service. Drivers expect dependable vehicles. Repeated failures erode trust, slow response times, interrupt schedules, and may damage your service reputation.
Inventory, parts & vendor churn
Repeat failures tie up parts (you reorder), vendor time, warranty claims, and technician hours. Your inventory becomes reactive, not strategic.
Lifecycle & replacement decision impacts
Increasing costs and decreasing reliability often signal an asset nearing end-of-life. Chronic repairs from poor root-cause control adversely skew those metrics, eventually eroding their ability to accurately tell the overall story. If you keep repairing without fixing underlying issues, your total cost-of-ownership (TCO) suffers, and decisions can be made on data not representative of the actual story.
How to Identify Chronic Repairs Using Technology
With the right tools, chronic repairs stop being anecdotal and become visible, actionable metrics.
Leverage a FMMS (like Fleetpal)
Here’s what to look for:
- Chronic Repair-history trend reports: Identify vehicles or components that show multiple repairs over a given interval (e.g., 2 + repairs for the same VMRS code in the specified time period).
- Repeat-repair dashboards: Flag units with repeated visits for “same system or cause”, and automatically alert your maintenance manager.
- Parts/repair labor breakdowns: See if the part is being replaced multiple times (indicating maybe a bad part, improper installation, or erroneous diagnosis).
- Checklist/cause-code enforcement: Having standardized cause codes allows trending (e.g., “cooling system — leak” appears 5× on truck #12).
Fleetpal gives you a Chronic Repair dashboard widget to track occurrences and reporting to view costs and dive deep. Fleetpal gives you the ability to customize timeframes and occurrence counts by VMRS coding, so the system mirrors your operating conditions.
Performing True Root-Cause Analysis (RCA)
Identifying a chronic repair is only the first step — you must resolve why it’s happening so you can prevent its recurrence.
What root-cause analysis accomplishes
- Moves you beyond “we just replaced the part again” into “why did it fail again?”
- Helps you determine whether the failure was: incorrect part, installation error, incorrect procedure, environmental conditions, misuse, or systemic problem.
- Enables corrective/preventive actions (rather than reactive).
- Reduces the chance you’ll incur the same in the future.
RCA Steps you can embed into Fleetpal’s work-order workflow
- Define the problem: What is the fault? When did it occur? How often?
- Collect data: Repair history, technician notes, parts batch, installation data, vehicle usage, and environment.
- Map causal chain: For example: part failed → incorrect specification → excessive vibration → improper mounting → driver load profile exceeded spec.
- Identify root cause(s): Not just “part failed”, but “why did it fail”?
- Develop corrective action plan: Could involve design/spec change, installation training, driver coaching, PM interval change, sensor/telemetry addition.
- Implement & monitor: Apply the fix, then monitor to confirm the issue doesn’t recur.
Document & share: Log the root-cause investigation, the decision, the outcomes, and share with the team.
Why it matters
Simply acknowledging the issue exists and repairing the issue as it hits the shop does nothing to prevent it in the future. Each occurrence where you identify the root cause, log, implement corrective action, and communicate with the team will become easier to manage than the first(even if the fix isn’t).
Documenting and Sharing for Future Avoidance
Preventing future chronic repairs means creating institutional knowledge and making it accessible across your team.
Best practices for documentation
- Use your FMMS (Fleetpal) to record repair-history trends, root-cause reports, corrective action steps, and outcomes.
- Attach photos, technician notes, parts batch/serial numbers, vendor, and installation details.
- Tag repairs with consistent cause codes and category labels (e.g., “repeater – A/C compressor”, “repeater – wiring harness”).
Create a “watch-list” or “at-risk” asset table for units showing chronic-repair risk.
Sharing & team communication
- Provide quarterly reports to management and shop leadership highlighting vehicles with repeated issues, cost impact, and corrective actions in progress.
- Daily/weekly briefings with technician teams: highlight “lessons learned” from recent chronic repair root-cause investigations.
- Include drivers/operators in the loop: when a chronic issue is resolved or a new root-cause found, inform the driver pool about symptoms to watch, new procedures, or behaviour changes required.
- Use standard checklists: for example, if wiring harness failure was root-caused by rodent damage in a certain vehicle type, update the pre-trip/PM checklist with “check for rodent nests/harness abrasion” and share this across the fleet.
Continuous improvement culture
- Use the chronic-repairs dataset as a KPI: “number of units with repeat fault > X in last 90 days” should trend downward.
- Hold post-mortem meetings when a chronic repair is closed: what was learned? How will we avoid this in new vehicles or incoming ones?
Feed this intelligence into procurement/specification decisions: if certain parts or vehicle models exhibit repeat faults, you have data to pivot.
Conclusion
Chronic repairs, those come-backs that plague vehicles, drain resources, and degrade reliability, are avoidable if you tackle them proactively. By combining the right technology (like Fleetpal’s chronic-repair reporting), rigorous root-cause analysis, and disciplined documentation & sharing, you transform from firefighting to enduring reliability.
At the end of the day: fewer repeat repairs = higher uptime, lower cost, better driver and customer experience
