Fleet vehicle ageing trend may have reached “new normal”, says epyx

A decline in the average age of fleet cars and vans may have plateaued, according to new analysis from epyx, with the company suggesting the market could be settling into a post-pandemic “new normal”.

Latest figures from epyx show the average age of a company vehicle entering a workshop in March 2026 stood at 2.96 years for cars and 3.33 years for vans.

Before the pandemic, in January 2020, the corresponding figures were significantly lower at 2.40 years for cars and 3.14 years for vans. Vehicle ages rose sharply following the onset of Covid-19 in April 2020, reaching peaks in late 2023 and early 2024 of 3.07 years for cars and 3.75 years for vans.

Although average ages declined during much of 2024, progress slowed during 2025, with the year ending at 2.84 years for cars and 3.29 years for vans. Data from the first quarter of 2026 has since shown slight increases.

Tim Meadows, CCO at epyx, said the figures provided a strong indication of wider fleet parc trends because they were drawn from the company’s widely used servicing platform.

“This metric shows the average age of a vehicle entering a workshop for maintenance recorded on our industry standard 1link Service Network platform and is therefore a good indicator of the average age of the fleet parc,” he said.

“Following the pandemic, it revealed a rapid ageing of company cars and vans as businesses both opted to hold onto them for longer and found obtaining new vehicles much more difficult because of production issues.

“During 2024, this situation improved quite markedly but last year we saw little in the way of further reductions and in the first quarter of this year, even some indications that average ages may be slightly increasing.”

Meadows added that the latest figures suggested fleet replacement cycles may have stabilised at a higher level than before the pandemic.

“It has probably been a given that car and van ages were never going to return to pre-pandemic levels – factors ranging from better quality vehicles to higher acquisition costs have made longer replacement cycles attractive – and what we may now be seeing is the development of a consensus around post-pandemic fleet averages.”