Fleet Maintenance Checklists for On-Road & Heavy Equipment

April 30, 2025

Every construction equipment manager knows the financial pain of unexpected breakdowns. Your $400,000 excavator suddenly stops working mid-project, bringing operations to a grinding halt. Your crew stands idle and deadlines slip away while your mechanic scrambles to diagnose the issue and resolve safety concerns.

Or worse, due to this unexpected failure, you have to rent. One Komatsu PC238 Mini Excavator will cost you $6,500/month (plus pickup and delivery charges, taxes, service fees and final inspection dues) to rent.

Managing a mixed fleet demands specialized attention that generic maintenance plans can't provide. Your heavy equipment and on-road vehicles have unique requirements, and when maintenance fails, it directly impacts your project timelines and bottom line.

We've worked with countless equipment managers who struggle with the constant cycle of reactive repairs. They watch maintenance budgets spiral while still facing unexpected breakdowns that halt operations and exhaust resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

We’ve put together customizable maintenance checklists for both heavy equipment and on-road vehicles. We'll also show you how you can digitize and automate this process with your crew, keeping your entire fleet running smoothly and your projects on schedule.

Fleet Maintenance Checklist: On-Road Vehicles

You need on-road vehicles to transport crews, haul materials, and keep projects moving forward. Regular maintenance helps prevent costly breakdowns and ensures compliance with DOT regulations.

Use this maintenance checklist for your on-road fleet vehicles:

For construction fleet managers, tracking maintenance by both mileage and calendar time allows comprehensive coverage for vehicles with varying usage patterns. 

Heavy equipment often runs fewer miles but operates for many hours, making time-based maintenance equally important as mileage-based service.

Fleet Maintenance Checklist: Heavy Equipment & Construction Assets

Unlike on-road vehicles, heavy equipment endures challenges like extreme loads, exposure to harsh elements, and specialized mechanical systems. This heavy equipment checklist helps maintain these valuable assets and prevent costly downtime:

Construction equipment maintenance intervals depend on both hours of operation and calendar time. Most manufacturers recommend service at 250, 500, and 1,000-hour intervals, with daily visual inspections before each use. 

Keeping up a preventive maintenance schedule ensures equipment performs better and has a higher resale value.

A Better Way to Stay on Top of Fleet Maintenance

While pen and paper checklists are free and simple to use, they’re not an ideal way to ensure your fleet stays in good working order:

• Have to be updated manually: Every service record, inspection note, and mileage/hour update must be written in manually. This often leads to human error and a lack of accountability. Plus, do you really want to store boxes upon boxes of paper checklists?
• No real-time updates or notifications: Spreadsheets don’t alert you when a vehicle is overdue for service. There’s also no automated reminder system for oil changes, inspections, or compliance deadlines.
• Difficult to scale with mixed or growing fleets: Managing 5 vehicles? Spreadsheets can be fine. But 50+ assets across multiple categories (trucks, dozers, trailers) becomes chaotic. Maintenance schedules based on mileage vs. hours can’t easily be tracked side-by-side either.
• Poor reporting and visibility: Want to know your most expensive asset to maintain or which equipment has the most downtime? Spreadsheets require manual sorting and calculations - there’s no dashboards or real-time analytics.
• Unable to track parts inventory: Sure, you can try to maintain a spreadsheet with all your parts across inventory locations, but is your team keeping track of what’s going in and out? Are you getting notified on low or out of stock items? By digitizing this process along with the rest of your equipment fleet management, you’ll see what’s in stock, get ahead of maintenance needs, and track parts utilization and inventory needs. 

This is where a complete solution like Tenna can make your life a lot easier. With Tenna, you get fleet management software to handle both on-road vehicles and heavy equipment, alongside all other mixed assets, parts, tools and consumables in your construction fleet,  in one integrated platform. 

Operators can perform inspections directly from their phones using the Tenna app, and can add notes where needed. If any inspection criteria fails, the system automatically generates a maintenance request, quickly alerting the maintenance team about the issue so it can quickly be scheduled for repair. 

Instead of purchasing software for your different equipment needs, Tenna offers an integrated system where operators can perform inspections, track safety and compliance, and manage equipment maintenance.  Track operator and driver performance with Tenna’s safety scorecards, including the safe operation of assets as well as equipment and vehicle inspections, and stay ahead of maintenance needs identified. Maintenance requests will be automatically created and closed, alerting inspectors to re-evaluate once complete. This close-looped system enables checklists to be timely, documented and repeatable. 

Tenna also lets mechanics track work orders and maintain comprehensive service records at the asset level — all without a single piece of paper or spreadsheet tab.

Learn more about Tenna’s equipment maintenance solution here.

How to Customize Your Checklist Based on Fleet Type

Whether you’re ready for a robust digitized solution like Tenna or you want to continue running maintenance checks with pen and paper, keep these best practices in mind.

Create a unified system for your mixed fleet to track trucks by mileage and heavy equipment by operating hours. Tenna manages both metrics in one place. But if you're using paper, try color-coding your checklists by equipment type for quick reference.

Maintain both big-picture and detailed records. A master schedule shows your entire fleet's maintenance status at a glance. Individual equipment files capture the service history of each asset. This dual approach prevents costly oversights.

Find the right balance between consistency and customization. Use a standard inspection schedule and documentation format across your fleet. But tailor the actual maintenance tasks to each machine's specific needs. Your skid steer and dump truck face different challenges and deserve specialized care.

Prioritize safety culture throughout your maintenance program. Regular equipment checks don’t just prevent breakdowns—they're also about protecting your team. When operators understand how maintenance directly impacts safety, they become active participants in your preventive maintenance program.

Implementing these practices doesn't just save you from that costly last-minute rental or unexpected repair costs. It also protects your project timelines, maximizes the lifespan of your equipment, and ultimately strengthens your bottom line. A well-maintained fleet keeps operations running smoothly day after day, project after project.

Tenna can radically improve your fleet maintenance operations. Contact us today to learn how.