Meeting budgets is one of the biggest challenges all companies face.  One of the most unpredictable costs of owning a garbage truck, is unforeseen maintenance expenditures. Renting a garbage truck as a long-term strategy can remove this unpredictable cost from the equation, leaving you with only the basic maintenance processes.

Maintenance Expenses

With the ever increasing amount of maintenance costs that go into owning solid waste vehicles, the industry has gravitated toward long term rental programs over the last two years. Typically, with the standard one year manufacturer’s warranty on a new truck, there should be virtually no truck down maintenance costs associated with repairing a new truck.  Therefore, after the second year of ownership, the cost to maintain a garbage truck significantly increases each year. With a long term rental program you get a new truck every 18 months, keeping maintenance dollars in your pocket and your shop spends less man hours working on old broken down trucks. As a rental customer you are only responsible for recommended preventative maintenance.

Preserving Capital

Why pay for a 30 truck fleet, when only 25 need to operate on a day to day basis?  If 10 to 20 percent of your fleet is used for backup and spares are just sitting around, one solution is to sell the older models and rent your back up fleet. This will bring down the overall age of your fleet and allow you to stop wasting money on an aging fleet. Long term rentals will help eliminate downtime, lower operating costs and give your drivers a brand-new truck to drive that not only has the latest technology, but also adheres to all truck emissions standards.

On a long-term plan, new trucks can be ordered to meet your specifications that will provide your fleet with consistency. Rental customers will not have to wrestle with storing or disposing of old trucks. When you are finished with the rental, just return it.  Flexible plans allow you to rent until the capital is available or to purchase your rental truck. Even if you need to add a new truck and you’re having a hard time getting financed or don’t want to make a big down payment, long term rental plans can solve all your needs.

These are just a few ways a long term rental strategy can lower maintenance costs.  Large or small, businesses are always looking for new innovative ways to preserve capital, maybe it’s time to consider renting as one of them.

Brittany Zeitler is the outside sales rep for Big Truck Rental (Tampa, FL), a leader of garbage truck rentals in North America who has been servicing their customers for 15 years. Brittany graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in marketing and has recently been appointed as the Marketing Committee Chairperson for the NW&RA Women’s Council.She can be reached at (813) 570-8681 or via e-mail at Brittany@bigtruckrental.

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