Case Studies

With Fleetio’s Maintenance Shop Network approval workflow, Down to Earth Landscaping & Irrigation centralized outsourced repair decisions across 20+ branches supporting nearly 600 vehicles operating across five states.

Instead of allowing individual locations or vendors to finalize repairs independently, fleet leadership began reviewing line items before work was approved – validating necessity, pricing, and whether jobs could be completed in-house at lower cost.

That shift changed the decision moment. Rather than reviewing invoices after work was completed, Down to Earth intercepts repair recommendations in real time, rejecting unnecessary add-ons, preventing premature services, and redirecting major repairs to their centralized fleet hub when it makes financial sense.

Over the last year, this proactive oversight helped the company avoid $115K+ in unnecessary repair spend and generate a 215% return on their annual Fleetio investment. Savings from rejected service line items alone more than doubled what they spend on Fleetio annually, all while maintaining vendor relationships and keeping vehicles productive across a multi-state operation.

Fleetio’s Shop Network has been a lifesaver for our fleet. We’ve rejected 16% of unnecessary service items this year alone and even recently saved over $13,000 on a single repair. It keeps vendors honest, saves us hours each week, and gives us full visibility into every repair order. Landon Grimm, Senior Director of Fleet & Safety

The Problem With Decentralized Trust

When Landon Grimm joined Down to Earth Landscaping & Irrigation as Senior Director of Fleet & Safety, he inherited a distributed operation that ran on goodwill and spreadsheets. Nearly 600 vehicles. 20+ branches across five states. No central oversight, no standard approval process. His description of the state of things when he arrived: "Non-existent, inaccurate, and spreadsheets."

Within three working days, he knew it wasn't going to hold.

When small overcharges repeat across hundreds of vehicles, those line items add up fast. A driver takes a vehicle in for an oil change. The estimate comes back with a cabin air filter at $75, wiper blades at $40 each, a brake flush the vehicle doesn't need, a coolant flush that was already done last month. "You go from $100 for a diesel oil change all the way up to a $600–700 ticket," Grimm said.

For Down to Earth, maintenance decisions carry liability, not just cost. Without centralized documentation, it becomes difficult to prove that preventive work was done on time – a real exposure for a company putting hundreds of vehicles on public roads daily. In the event of an accident or incident review, "spreadsheets" isn't a defense.

Centralizing the Decision Moment

After implementing Fleetio, Down to Earth kept working with the same outside shops and vendor relationships they'd built over the years. What changed was the approval process sitting between the shop's recommendation and the actual work getting done.

Using Fleetio's repair approval workflow inside the Maintenance Shop Network, any outsourced repair estimate above a small dollar threshold now routes to fleet leadership before work starts. Grimm and his team, with nearly 50 years of combined experience across automotive, diesel, heavy equipment, and specialized equipment, evaluate every estimate against three questions:

• Is this service actually necessary?
• Has this work already been completed or scheduled?
• Can the repair be done in-house at lower cost?

Because repair orders sync directly into Fleetio, they can review line items alongside full service history in the same window: no phone calls, no PDFs bouncing between branches, no one at the branch manually entering anything. Decisions happen faster, and repairs move forward without the back-and-forth.

Grimm is clear that the personal relationships with vendors didn't go away.

We still do the email exchanges, the text messages, the phone calls. The only difference is the repair order and approval process, instead of going back and forth in Word documents, we do it in Fleetio.

Grimm also tracks which vendors consistently over-quote. "We've pulled vehicles out of certain locations and never used them again." The documentation makes that possible.

$13,200 Saved on a Single Repair

A truck went to a dealership for diagnostics and the estimate came back for a full engine replacement, $14,000+.

Grimm's team had a different read. Based on their experience with that specific engine type, they suspected a known component failure, the kind that gets misdiagnosed as catastrophic. Instead of approving the repair, they rerouted the vehicle to their centralized fleet hub for an in-house second opinion.

They were right – it was a replaceable component, not a failed engine, where the total cost including parts, labor, and towing was only $800. They saved $13,200 on one job.

A $26,000 external estimate on another vehicle is currently being completed in-house – they're 80% done and have spent $1,600. "I don't want to call myself a distrusting individual," Grimm said. "But I know this industry very, very well."

$116,000+ in One Year

Over the last 12 months:

• $116K+ in unnecessary repair spend avoided
• 16% of non-essential service line items rejected YTD
• 215% return on their annual Fleetio investment
• 100% of outsourced estimates reviewed and documented before work is approved

Down to Earth avoided $116K in unnecessary repair spend against a ~$50K annual Fleetio investment, savings from avoided repairs were more than double what they spend on the platform each year.

Those numbers came from running the same approval process across every branch, every time – not from one extraordinary catch. The cabin air filter replaced 7,000 miles ago gets rejected. The preventive flush that isn't due doesn't get approved. Every decision is documented and time-stamped, creating a defensible maintenance record in the event of an audit, incident, or claim.

What Changed Day-to-Day

Before Fleetio

• Repair approvals at the branch level, often after work was already underway
• Documentation in spreadsheets, PDFs, and email threads
• Fleet leadership saw costs after invoices arrived
• No standardized process across 20+ locations

After Fleetio

• All estimates above threshold route to fleet leadership before work begins
• Full service history visible in a single window at decision time
• Every approval documented and audit-ready across all branches
• Hours of manual coordination eliminated each week
• Branch managers no longer carry the tracking burden

Now, instead of manually combing through repair orders and calling branches to track down what got approved, Grimm and his team spend their time evaluating repair recommendations to get ahead of any costly events.

"It saves us hours each week. And my week is already a very heavy load."

From Firefighting to Strategic Leadership

Ask Grimm what happens if the Shop Network goes away tomorrow:

[If we didn't have Fleetio], it would be an entire fire. I’d go from a director of fleet and safety to a firefighter just trying to constantly put out fires. Landon Grimm, Sr. Director, Fleet & Safety

The $116K savings came from building a process that puts experienced people in front of every repair estimate before work starts. Every approval runs through a centralized workflow, against a complete service history, before a dollar is committed. That's a fleet management system, and it scales.

Fleetio supports that system, but the discipline is still theirs.