The short answer: A fleet vehicle usually spends far more time waiting at a shop than being worked on. The waits stack up at five points: getting the vehicle checked in, getting a diagnosis and estimate, getting the estimate approved, getting parts, and getting someone to pick it up. To shorten them, record a timestamp at each point for every repair, compare shops on the same steps, and make someone (or something) responsible for chasing every open repair every day. HoneyRuns' AI agent, Riggs, does that chasing over text and email and keeps the timeline for each vehicle.
Where the days actually go
Ask a fleet manager how long repairs take and you usually get one number: "about a week." Break that week apart and a pattern shows up.
- Drop-off to check-in. The vehicle sits in the lot until a service writer gets to it.
- Check-in to estimate. The shop diagnoses the problem and writes it up. This is often the longest wait, because it depends on bay space.
- Estimate to approval. The estimate lands in someone's inbox. If that person is in the field or out sick, the vehicle waits.
- Approval to repair complete. Parts on backorder or a tech pulled onto another job can add days here.
- Complete to back in service. The shop finishes but nobody tells the driver, or the driver cannot get there until tomorrow.
Only step 4 is the repair itself. Steps 1, 2, 3 and 5 are communication, and they are where fleets lose the most time.
How to track it
You do not need new software to start. For every vehicle that goes to a shop, record five times: dropped off, estimate received, estimate approved, repair finished, back on the road. A shared spreadsheet works for a few weeks.
After a month, three numbers tell you most of what you need:
- Average days in shop, by vendor. The same repair at two shops can take very different amounts of time.
- Average hours from estimate to approval. If this is long, the bottleneck is inside your own company, not at the shop.
- Number of vehicles with no update in 48 hours. These are the ones that quietly turn into two-week stays.
How to shorten it
- Ask for the estimate by a set time. "Estimate by 3 p.m. today" gets a different response than "let us know."
- Pre-approve routine work. If oil changes, tires and brakes within a normal range do not need a call, that step disappears.
- Have one person own every open repair. Not the driver, not "whoever has time." Someone checks every vehicle at a shop every day.
- Use the data when you pick a shop. Send work to the vendors who turn vehicles around fastest for that type of job.
- Tell the driver the moment it is ready. Same-day pickup saves a full day per repair.
Doing this without a full-time coordinator
The daily chasing is the part most fleets cannot staff. Riggs takes it on. When a vehicle goes to a shop, Riggs asks the shop for status by text and email, records each answer with a time, sends the estimate to the fleet manager to approve, and tells the driver when the vehicle is ready. The result is a record of each repair from drop-off to pickup, which you can use to compare vendors, without anyone on your team making the calls.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why do fleet vehicles sit at the repair shop for so long? A: Most of the time is spent waiting rather than repairing: waiting for a diagnosis, for an estimate, for approval, for parts, and for pickup. Tracking a timestamp at each step shows which wait is the problem.
Q: How do I track which repair shops are slowest for my fleet? A: Record drop-off, estimate, approval, completion and back-in-service times for every repair, then compare average days in shop by vendor and by repair type. A month of data is usually enough to see a difference.
Q: How can I reduce the number of days a fleet van spends in the shop? A: Set a deadline for estimates, pre-approve routine repairs, have one person or system check on every open repair daily, and notify the driver as soon as the vehicle is ready.
Q: How do I get repair status updates without calling the shop every day? A: Ask shops for updates by text or email on a fixed schedule and log the answers. HoneyRuns' Riggs sends those requests automatically and only alerts your team when something changes or needs approval.
Q: Can I update leadership on repair status without a weekly status meeting? A: Yes, if every repair has a current status and timeline in one place. Riggs keeps that record for each vehicle, so updates can be shared without a call.
Get Started with HoneyRuns
Connect your telematics and see which vehicles are at a shop right now and how long they have been there. Get started.
HoneyRuns gets fleet maintenance done. It watches mileage, intervals, and telematics, books the repair with the shops and vendors you already use, stays on the driver and the shop until the vehicle is back, and logs the completed service in the system you already run. Your team approves repair estimates before work goes ahead. Founded by fleet operators who manage 70 vehicles across three fleets today.