Its all based on a 100,000 life span on the enitre fleet, many 1000's of vehicles, cars trucks etc. They are all leased from Wheels and Wheels is in charge of the maintanence. Every expense is weighed against the remaiing miles and the salvage value. If repairs exceed a given $ amount, they may replace the vehicle instead and send it to auction. There some dealer will buy it and sell it to you as a one owner, well maintained vehicle. LOL Program car??
Its all gear towards keeping the costs low, many places would say, you guys don't care about maintanence, only fix what breaks, nothing more nothing lesss. A few years back the cost of the state fleet was almost 50 million $ and it made a big stink in all the papers. Reduce costs is the game.. Our motto was, "Why do it right when we can do it wrong?"
Also, we were only allowed to use Goodyear tires, nat'l contract for government agencys. Dealers don't like to sell us tires because its way less than the can get them for. I know one guy who was a Conservation officer. He got a new 2001 Chevy Z71 extended cab 4x4 with the AT tires that were useless offroad. They would not allow him to replace the tires with more agressive ones. By some miracle several of them were ruined while he was getting to some our of the way deer lodge. Plus it cost them a bunch of $$ to retreive is stuck to bumpers truck some 20 mile from the pavement. He has new tires. I guess some guys tried to lose him with the ATV and he caught them with the Z71 ext cab. They went to jail.
[ November 24, 2002, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]
