Fleet feats

They’re more than your wheels. Your company trucks are billboards, branding tools, staging areas for your work – and of course, the means of transporting necessary equipment to service accounts. So, it’s no wonder that fleet expenses are a sizeable portion of most landscape contractors’ budgets. And the cost can fluctuate depending on breakdowns and maintenance.

Do you lease or buy? When is the time to move on from a truck that’s a legacy member of the fleet? How do you maximize your investment in vehicles without dumping too much cash into a truck that is ready for retirement?

These are questions that Lawn & Landscape asked three contractors this month. Here’s what they had to say.
 

A classic impression

The yard at Litzenburger Landscape is a classic truck collector’s paradise, rivaling any car show with 36 insured and plated vehicles restored and maintained by owner Gow Litzenburger and a few mechanics.

Buck Rogers. Weiner Dog. Snuffaluffagus. Every classic truck has a name, a story. Tree-Ceratops is a tree mover. Pinocchio has a long hood. They’re characters, not just trucks, and the vehicles are famous around the small resort town of Harbor Springs, Mich., where the company has been based since Litzenburger started it after graduating college.

“I’ve had an interest in trucks first and foremost since a very young age,” Litzenburger says of the “service vehicles” that stand out among the competition in town. “I’m a hobbyist, and the trucks are really a labor of love. You have to be a mechanically-minded person to restore and maintain them.”

They’re not exactly practical vehicles for a landscape maintenance business. “If we were sensible, we would not have any of these trucks because they are constantly requiring extensive maintenance, everything from motors to transmissions, so you really have two businesses: your primary (landscape) business and a truck repair business,” he says.

Of course, Litzenburger wouldn’t do it any other way, even though customers, at first, couldn’t believe he was using his pristine, historical vehicles for work. He recalls taking his first restored classic truck, a 1939 Chevrolet he painted with GM’s authentic Brewster Green, to a weekend job. This was while in college, when he was working for a landscape architect but still managing mowing side gigs.

“The truck was such a novelty. People thought it was neat,” he says. “They would see my old truck with a wheelbarrow in it.”

The novelty evolved into a brand when Litzenburger restored another truck, and then another, and grew his business while scouting out vehicles to restore in winter when the company is closed. “I’m always at farms and nurseries, and you see trucks sitting out back. It’s the classic story where a guy had the truck in his barn,” he says.

One truck in Litzenburger’s fleet spent its life on a golf course next to Litzenburg’s childhood friend’s home. When they were young, they’d watch the truck and remark about how cool the 1952 Chevrolet was. “Lo and behold, years later I end up buying it,” he says. The truck is now named The Penguin.

Finding and restoring the trucks is one thing; servicing them and keeping them on the road is another. The benefit of working in a small town is that crews put very few miles on their trucks during the day. The average distance to a job is less than 5 miles. “The trucks are basically used as a staging area – they’re out and back in real short trips,” Litzenburger says.

Locating parts to fix trucks can definitely be a challenge but like finding the vehicles, Litzenburger enjoys the hunt. Plus, the fact that most trucks in the fleet are GM makes parts acquisition a little bit easier. But one thing’s for sure: You can’t send the classic trucks to a repair garage. Fixing them takes special knowledge, and it’s been a lifetime of learning for Litzenburger, who restored that first 1939 truck during his high school vocational car mechanic classes.

The classic vehicles may not be the most practical trucks on the road, but their character has become a company trademark. “I just love doing it,” he says of restoring the trucks. “I’ve had an interest in trucks since I was a little boy, and I never outgrew it.”
 

Tracking truck performance

Every three months, Beary Landscaping uses Microsoft Excel to take inventory of its fleet of vehicles and makes decisions about whether a truck is ready to retire or if the company can get another year or more out of it. “We have a database where we track what repairs each vehicle receives, so we always know if tires need to be replaced or the oil needs to be changed,” says Paul Irish, vice president of operations, who oversees four fulltime mechanics that work at Beary.

Sticking to the maintenance schedule is probably the greatest challenge of fleet management, Irish says. “You’re so busy during the season that keeping service up to date can be difficult,” he says. Keeping a few extra trucks on the lot to use when a vehicle is down prevents downtime. Still, service must be carefully monitored, and everyone is responsible for communicating trucks’ maintenance needs.

“We train our crews in the field so if they have an issue with a vehicle, they let a supervisor know,” Irish says. Crews also complete pre- and post-inspection checklists prior to and after returning from routes. This keeps service top of mind.

At Beary Landscaping, the fleet is a combination of leased and purchased vehicles. The company leases the trucks that crews and salespeople drive. It purchases larger dump trucks used, such as International and Mac trucks that will have up to a 10-year life in the business. “It’s cheaper for us to find used larger vehicles than buy new or lease. We can buy a truck that is 5 years old,” Irish says.

On the other hand, crew trucks – Ford F-350s and F-450s – are leased and turned over every five to six years. Crews generally put 6,000 to 8,000 miles per year on a truck, though there’s no mileage cap in lease agreements, Irish says. “By leasing, we guarantee that we rotate out those trucks on a regular schedule,” Irish says.

A revolving door of vehicles reduces repair and parts expenses, and frees up Beary Landscaping’s mechanics to focus on service and the company’s robust fleet of mowers, skid-steer loaders and other equipment, from hand-held to heavy-duty.

As for snow business, Beary’s trucks have the same “set-up” – same dump bodies, plows and parts. “That way we don’t need 15 different things. It’s all the same stuff,” Irish says, adding that truck breakdowns during a snow event can be especially problematic. “Service needs to be done immediately because we must have equipment on the ground 24/7,” he says, adding that spare trucks are helpful, and maintaining a regular service schedule is crucial so that none of the vehicles are compromised when storms hit.

The tracking tools like inspection checklists, the vehicle inventory and ongoing evaluation of the fleet are key, Irish says, “There is a lot of coordination that takes place.”

A consultative approach

Taking advantage of two inherited, used trucks seemed like a good idea at the time. “But the reliability really hurt us,” says Jim Molinaro, president of GLS Landscaping and Maintenance in Oak Ridge, N.C. “We had a job that was more than an hour away, and when you have a truck break down with six guys, that will cost you a considerable amount of money.”

For GLS, buying new trucks is a smarter decision, Molinaro says. “We have the factory warranties and we know what we are getting into,” he says.

GLS keeps seven to nine trucks in its fleet, and the company supplements by renting pick-up trucks to manage major snow events. Other entities that rent commercial trucks, such as road crews, turn in vehicles because they can’t continue working. That means more available rentals for GLS, which has an agreement with Enterprise Commercial that includes a volume discount.

“We’re renting 20 to 30 trucks at a clip and we are big enough locally that we can work out some standard agreement where we rent for a set minimum amount of time and lock in a rate,” he says.

The commercial vehicles are essentially an extra fleet that GLS can depend on when business spikes during a snow event in winter. The rental cost gets passed down to clients. “We are upfront about it – and it’s a cost of doing business,” he says. Otherwise, GLS purchases its service vehicles. “We are not the size of business yet where leasing makes sense,” Molinaro says of the ability to secure a deal based on leasing volume.

GLS keeps its fleet consistent, opting for Fords across the board. Molinaro says the interiors stand up well to employee wear.

As for budgeting for the purchase, which can be upward of $40,000 and more if you’re adding extra equipment like snow kits, Molinaro says he works closely with his accountant when making purchase decisions.

Also, he relies on the salesperson at a dealership he trusts to let him know when he can take advantage of incentive programs.

The fleet is a significant expense in the overall budget, but a landscape company’s productivity depends on a well-serviced, capable fleet of vehicles that can carry the crew and equipment from job to job.

Once a truck is fully depreciated, Molinaro decides whether there’s enough life left in the vehicle to keep it on the fleet for another year, or more. “It might make sense to keep a truck because it has multiple purposes and it has a lot of life left in it,” he says.

But after learning a hard lesson about keeping a truck for too long – and then paying excessive repair bills and suffering costly breakdowns – he’s careful about keeping a truck for too long, where it becomes a financial and productivity liability.

“You try to find the best truck and maximize the use on it, then talk to your professionals who can help you make decisions about when to buy,” Molinaro says.