A planned maintenance agreement turns unpredictable repair bills into a fixed monthly line item. Whether that is a good trade depends entirely on which tier you sign and how hard you run your fleet.
Get Free Quotes 👑A planned maintenance agreement, usually called a PM contract, is a service plan where a dealer visits on a set schedule to perform scheduled maintenance on your forklifts. At minimum it covers inspection, fluids, filters, and lubrication at defined hour or calendar intervals. Pricing is typically quoted per truck per month or per visit, and it scales with fleet size, machine type, and how many hours each unit runs.
Most dealers offer roughly three levels. A planned maintenance only tier covers scheduled service and nothing else, with repairs billed separately at an agreed labor rate. A planned maintenance plus parts tier adds normal wear parts. A full maintenance tier covers scheduled service plus most repairs, functioning much like an extended warranty on an operating machine. Full maintenance costs the most per month and transfers the most risk to the dealer.
Read the exclusions before the inclusions. Damage from abuse, collision, or operating beyond rated capacity is excluded on every contract. Tires and forks are often excluded or carry a separate allowance. Batteries and chargers usually fall outside a standard agreement. Attachments frequently need to be listed individually to be covered. And most contracts cap annual hours, with overage billed separately.
The clause that matters most in a service contract is often the response time commitment. A contract that promises a technician on site within a stated number of hours for a down unit is worth considerably more than one that only covers parts. If uptime drives your operation, negotiate the response window explicitly and ask what happens when the dealer misses it.
Dealers price a contract from machine type, age, rated hours per year, environment, and fleet size. An electric warehouse truck in a clean building running single shift is cheap to cover. A diesel lift working a lumber yard at high hours is expensive. Multi-unit fleets get better per-truck pricing. Contracts on older machines either cost more or get restricted to the lower tiers.
Contracts tend to win when you run multiple trucks, when you lack in-house maintenance staff, when downtime is costly, or when you need predictable budgeting more than the lowest possible total spend. They tend to lose when you have one or two lightly used trucks, when you have a capable in-house mechanic, or when your fleet is old enough that you would rather bank the monthly fee against replacement.
Full maintenance is frequently bundled into a long-term lease or a monthly rental, which is part of why those options look expensive on paper compared to owning. If you are comparing lease against purchase, make sure you are adding an equivalent maintenance cost to the purchase side, or you are not comparing the same thing.
Ask what the response time commitment is and what the remedy is if it is missed. Ask whether tires, forks, batteries, and attachments are included. Ask what the annual hour cap is and what overage costs. Ask whether the rate is locked for the term or subject to escalation. Ask who owns the service records, because those records affect resale value. And ask what happens to the contract if you sell the truck.
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At minimum, scheduled inspection, fluids, filters, and lubrication at set intervals. Higher tiers add wear parts, and full maintenance tiers cover most repairs as well. Abuse damage, and usually tires, forks, and batteries, are excluded.
Pricing is quoted per truck per month or per visit and varies with machine type, age, annual hours, environment, and fleet size. An electric warehouse truck on single shift costs far less to cover than a high-hour diesel working outdoors.
It usually is when you run several trucks, have no in-house mechanic, or lose real money to downtime. It usually is not for one or two lightly used trucks, or when you have your own maintenance capability.
Normally no. Tires and forks are commonly excluded or given a separate allowance, and batteries and chargers typically fall outside a standard agreement. Get each one addressed in writing before signing.
Ask for a stated number of hours to get a technician on site for a down unit, and ask what the remedy is when the dealer misses it. For operations where downtime stops shipping or production, this clause is worth more than parts coverage.
That depends on the agreement. Some transfer with the machine and some terminate on sale. Ask before signing, since a transferable contract plus complete service records can raise what the truck is worth later.