Fleet Maintenance Statistics 2026: Cost, Labor, Reliability and Compliance Data for Trucking Fleets

Repair and maintenance was one of the fastest-rising costs in trucking last year. The American Transportation Research Institute's 2026 operational cost update puts it at 21.5 cents per mile for 2025, up 8.6% in a single year and second only to tolls in its rate of increase. ATRI expects tariffs on imported parts, and on the steel, aluminum and copper used to make parts domestically, to keep pushing it higher. If you are setting next year's maintenance budget, benchmarking an existing program, or deciding whether fleet maintenance coordination makes more sense than managing it all in house, these are the numbers to work from.

This page collects the current figures in one place, grouped by topic. Every statistic here traces to a named primary source: ATRI, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, the Decisiv and TMC service benchmark, Fullbay's annual shop survey, J. J. Keller's State of Fleet Management Study, and Fleetio's fleet survey. Each figure is labeled with the year its data describes, which is not always the year it was published. Several numbers that circulate widely in fleet content were left out because their origin could not be traced, and this page is updated each year when ATRI and CVSA publish new data.

Operating and Maintenance Costs

ATRI's annual cost update is the benchmark most carriers and lenders work from. The 2026 edition is built from carrier-reported data covering 182,248 trucks and 14.67 billion miles driven in 2025.

• The average marginal cost of operating a truck reached $2.336 per mile in 2025, up 3.4% and the highest figure in the report's history.
• Excluding fuel, operating cost rose 4.2% to $1.854 per mile, well ahead of general inflation.
• Repair and maintenance averaged 21.5 cents per mile in 2025, up 8.6%, after declining 2% the year before.
• Repair and maintenance cost per mile is up roughly 45% since 2019.
• Only tolls rose faster than repair and maintenance in 2025, at 13.2%. Driver benefits (6.6%) and tires (6.4%) followed.
• By region, repair and maintenance ran highest in the Northeast at about 22 cents per mile and lowest in the South-Central U.S. at about 19 cents.
• Truckload fleets with fewer than five trucks averaged 27.5 cents per mile in repair and maintenance, against 16.9 cents for fleets running more than 1,000 trucks.
• In the first quarter of 2026, per-mile insurance cost was up 6.4% on the 2025 average, fuel 5.9%, driver benefits 4.5% and repair and maintenance another 2.4%, while tires fell 4.8%.
• The average truck in ATRI's dataset ran 85,991 miles in 2025.

The fleet-size gap is the number worth sitting with. A truckload carrier running fewer than five trucks pays roughly 63% more per mile to maintain its equipment than a fleet running more than 1,000, and purchasing volume is a large part of that difference. Chad Marsilio, chief operating officer at PGT Trucking, described 2026 in ATRI's release as a year when freight rates are starting to recover but costs are accelerating fast enough that fleets cannot ease off on cost discipline. The fleet maintenance benchmarks by fleet size article explains why the same target is harder to hit at 10 trucks than at 50, and the fleet maintenance coordination cost breakdown shows how pooled network pricing narrows the purchasing gap.

Parts, Labor and Shop Rates

Two datasets describe what repairs cost to buy. The Decisiv and TMC Parts and Labor Service Benchmark is built from completed service events. Fullbay's State of Heavy-Duty Repair report, produced with the Technology and Maintenance Council, draws on roughly 900 survey respondents and data from more than 3,400 shops.

• Parts costs rose 3.7% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025, while labor cost on service events slipped 0.4% (Decisiv/TMC).
• Parts costs are up 23.8% since early 2020 in the same dataset.
• Reactive repairs run three to nine times the cost of the same work done as planned maintenance, according to Decisiv and TMC service benchmark data.
• The median heavy-duty shop labor rate reached $149 per hour, up from $135 in 2024 (Fullbay).
• Mobile repair labor runs near $160 per hour, a premium over in-shop work (Fullbay).
• About half of shops (51%) review their labor rate once a year, and 34% review it more than once a year (Fullbay).

The two labor figures measure different things and do not contradict each other. Fullbay tracks the hourly rate a shop charges, while Decisiv and TMC track labor cost on completed repair events, which also reflects how efficiently the work gets done. Fullbay chief executive Trent Broberg has said labor rates are the most common question the company is asked. For what specific repairs cost at these rates, see semi truck repair costs by repair type, and for what it takes to staff and equip your own bay, see in-house versus outsourced fleet maintenance cost.

Breakdowns, Reliability and Maintenance Mix

Equipment is running longer and breaking down sooner. Carriers spent 2025 in a third straight year of soft freight markets, trimming fleets and delaying equipment purchases, and the reliability data reflects it.

• Average distance between breakdowns or unscheduled repairs fell from 38,249 miles in 2024 to 36,891 miles in 2025, a 3.6% decline (ATRI).
• Across fleets surveyed by Fleetio, 53.7% of maintenance was scheduled and 40.1% was unscheduled.
• In the same survey, vehicles 10 or more years old accounted for 12% of miles but 34% of service spend.
• 30.8% of fleets still track maintenance on spreadsheets (Fleetio).

The scheduled-versus-unscheduled split needs a caveat. Fleetio surveyed more than 600 fleet professionals between December 2025 and January 2026, spanning government, construction, utility and trucking fleets, so treat it as a cross-industry reference rather than a Class 8 benchmark. The age finding is the sharper one. When an eighth of the miles generates a third of the spend, per-unit cost tracking is what tells you which trucks to replace, which is the subject of when to repair versus replace a truck.

Roadside Inspections: 2026 International Roadcheck

CVSA's International Roadcheck is a 72-hour inspection event across North America and the clearest annual snapshot of what inspectors are finding on trucks. The 2026 event ran May 12 to 14, and CVSA published the results on August 25.

• Inspectors conducted 54,575 inspections. 81% of vehicles and 94.2% of drivers had no out-of-service violations.
• Brake systems were again the top vehicle out-of-service violation, with 3,379 violations making up 24.3% of the total.
• Brake-related violations combined, brake systems plus 20% defective brakes, reached 5,451, or 39.1% of all vehicle out-of-service violations.
• Tires ranked second with 2,914 violations (20.9%), followed by 20% defective brakes (2,072, or 14.9%), cargo securement (1,724, or 12.4%) and lights (1,659, or 11.9%).
• The top driver out-of-service violation was not having a medical certificate: 1,072 violations, 27% of the driver total.
• This year's focus area, ELD tampering and falsification, produced 146 out-of-service orders, making it the seventh most-cited driver violation.
• For comparison, 2025 results showed brake systems at 24.4% and tires at 21.4% of vehicle out-of-service violations, with 81.6% of vehicles clean.

Brakes, tires and lights have held the top vehicle positions year after year, and every one of them is visible on a proper walk-around or at a scheduled service. When a fleet's roadside results keep landing in those three categories, the pattern points at inspection quality and PM scheduling. The pre-trip inspection quality article covers the driver side, and how a coordination program affects your CSA score covers the program side.

If your roadside results keep clustering in brakes, tires and lights, a preventive maintenance program that schedules those checks by unit, wherever the truck happens to be running, is the direct fix.

Towing and Recovery Costs

ATRI's study of predatory towing remains the most detailed public data on what heavy-truck towing costs. Published in November 2023, it combined a survey of 350 motor carriers with an analysis of 490 tow-and-recovery invoices from 2021 to 2023, most of them crash-related.

• The average tow-and-recovery invoice was $11,681.27, with invoices ranging from $250 to $110,000 before tax.
• 29.8% of the crash-related invoices contained predatory charges, defined as rates at least 50% above the median.
• Invoices with predatory charges averaged $18,154.52, against $8,925.90 for invoices without them.
• 82.7% of carriers reported excessive rates, 81.8% reported unwarranted extra service charges, and 77.7% reported excessive storage fees.
• Carriers were able to choose their own towing company in only about 10% of crashes.

Two cautions apply. These figures are largely crash recoveries, which cost far more than a routine breakdown tow, and the invoices date from 2021 to 2023. What transfers directly to breakdowns is the pricing mechanism: charges escalate when rates are not agreed before the work begins. Shawn Brown, vice president of safety at Cargo Transporters, described predatory towing as costly for carriers and legitimate towing companies alike and long overlooked. That is the case for semi truck roadside assistance built on pre-negotiated vendor pricing, and the predatory towing article covers how the overcharges are structured.

What Fleet Managers Are Prioritizing

Two 2026 surveys show where fleet attention is going: J. J. Keller's State of Fleet Management Study and Fleetio's State of Fleet Management survey.

• 54% of fleet managers named effectively managing preventive maintenance to avoid breakdowns or accidents as their top expense concern (J. J. Keller).
• 43% prioritized knowing a repair is needed before a breakdown or accident occurs, up from 36% in 2025 and tied for the top spot in the vehicle maintenance category (J. J. Keller).
• 49% named staying current on changing regulations as their top FMCSA compliance concern, up from 41% in 2025 (J. J. Keller).
• 47% cited ensuring driver training produces fully qualified, compliant drivers (J. J. Keller).
• Two-thirds of respondents described their job as very or moderately challenging (J. J. Keller).
• Rising costs were the top concern for 54.4% of fleet professionals, followed by regulations and emissions mandates at 46.1% (Fleetio).
• 35.1% of fleets are researching AI tools, while 5.6% use them broadly (Fleetio).

Both surveys land on the same point. Fleet managers see the money in maintenance planning, and the seven-point jump in early repair detection matches what the cost data shows about planned versus reactive work. The fleet maintenance program performance article covers the KPIs that show whether a program is actually catching problems early.

Technicians and Drivers

The people side of maintenance is tightening at both ends: fewer qualified technicians to do the work, and constant churn among the drivers who report the problems.

• Median heavy-duty technician hourly pay reached $33, up 10% in a year (Fullbay).
• 43% of shops named technician shortage and hiring as their top concern, followed by rising parts and labor costs at 36% (Fullbay).
• Driver turnover at large truckload carriers regularly exceeds 90% a year, and replacing one driver costs an estimated $7,894 to $15,705 in 2024 dollars (Chen, Kim and Rosenbaum, 2024).
• The same research identified equipment failure as one of 14 categories of on-the-job setbacks that affect how long drivers stay with a carrier.

Jack Poster, VMRS services manager at TMC, described a small pool of qualified technicians with shops competing hard for them, and technicians moving between employers for modest raises. That pressure shows up in both the labor rate and the wait for a bay. On the driver side, the research treating equipment failure as a measurable reason drivers leave is covered in truck reliability and driver retention, alongside what breakdown frequency costs in replacement drivers.

These figures move every year, and the direction for 2026 is already set. ATRI's first-quarter data shows repair and maintenance still climbing, parts costs continue to rise, and shop labor rates are moving up alongside technician pay. For a fleet without its own shop, the levers this data keeps pointing to are the same: planned work instead of reactive work, cost tracked by unit rather than by fleet average, and pricing agreed before a truck is in the bay.

The fleet maintenance plans page shows how coordinated maintenance is priced and what each plan covers. If you want to see how your own cost per mile, roadside results and repair spend compare to these benchmarks, reach out through the contact page with your fleet profile and recent maintenance history.

This page draws on the following sources:

• American Transportation Research Institute, Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2026 Update, for 2025 total and non-fuel cost per mile, and the statement from Chad Marsilio, chief operating officer of PGT Trucking
• FleetOwner, "Trucking operational costs hit record $2.336 per mile, ATRI reports", for repair and maintenance cost by region and first-quarter 2026 tire cost change
• Trucking Info, "Trucking Fleets Faced Record Operating Costs During Third Year of Freight Recession", for the 21.5 cents per mile repair and maintenance figure, the category increase ranking, and ATRI's tariff outlook
• Fleet Maintenance, "M&R cost per mile rose nearly 9% in 2025: ATRI study", for the 45% increase since 2019, miles between breakdowns, and ATRI's maintenance data sources
• Summar, "2026 Trucking Costs: What Small Carriers Need to Know", for ATRI dataset size, average miles per truck, repair and maintenance cost by fleet size, and first-quarter 2026 category changes
• Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, "CVSA Releases 2026 International Roadcheck Results" and International Roadcheck Results, for 2026 inspection totals, pass rates, brake and cargo securement violations, and ELD tampering results
• Land Line, "Less than 6% of drivers placed out of service during International Roadcheck", for the 2026 tire, 20% defective brake and lighting violation counts
• FleetOwner, "CVSA releases 2026 Roadcheck results highlighting vehicle and driver violations", for the 2026 medical certificate violation figures
• Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, "CVSA Releases 2025 International Roadcheck Results", for 2025 comparison figures
• FreightWaves, "Motive targets fleet repair costs with AI maintenance", for Decisiv/TMC Parts and Labor Service Benchmark figures and the reactive repair cost multiple
• Fullbay, The State of Heavy-Duty Repair 2025-2026, for median shop labor rates in 2024 and 2025
• Fleet Maintenance, "More shops feeling positive about diesel repair's future, Fullbay report finds", for mobile labor rates, technician pay, shop concerns, and comments from Fullbay CEO Trent Broberg
• Fleet Equipment, "2026 Heavy-Duty Repair Trends Show Growth, Labor Strain, and Rising Costs", for labor rate review frequency
• Truck News, "Technician shortage, rising labor rates dominate Fullbay repair industry report", for comments from Jack Poster, VMRS services manager at TMC
• Truck News, "Preventive maintenance, compliance at the top of fleet managers' minds: report", and FreightWaves, "Fleet Safety Starts in the C-Suite", for J. J. Keller 2026 State of Fleet Management Study findings
• Fleetio, State of Fleet Management 2026, for scheduled versus unscheduled maintenance share, vehicle age and service spend, and technology adoption
• FleetOwner, "Predatory towing can more than double fleet costs", Transport Topics, "ATRI Analysis Looks at Predatory Truck Towing", and Overdrive, "Predatory towing: How common it is", for ATRI's Causes and Countermeasures of Predatory Towing findings and comments from Shawn Brown of Cargo Transporters
• Canadian Trucking Alliance, "ATRI: 30% of US Crash-Related Truck Tows are Predatory", for the share of crashes in which carriers could choose their own tower
• Chen, Kim and Rosenbaum, "Shared Hardships Strengthen Bonds: Negative Shocks, Embeddedness and Employee Retention" (2024), for driver turnover rates, replacement cost estimates, and equipment failure as a documented turnover factor