Case studies
The cases below present real fleet operation situations: how much damage manual record-keeping, tampering or a lack of monitoring caused — and exactly which FleetControl module solved it, and how.
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Uncovering odometer tampering
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Lease contract excess mileage, proactive intervention
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Tax-free driver allowance with NAV fuel savings
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Preventing illegal border crossing and insurance exclusion
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Recovering a stolen vehicle – activating the OEM system
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Precision route checking in agriculture
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Missed service interval and loss of warranty
Uncovering odometer tampering
Situation – A long-term rental company suspected that its lessees were tampering with the vehicles' odometers. The conventional state registers did not indicate any problem, because the tampering was carried out evenly and continuously – the odometer rose smoothly, but falsely.
Challenge – Modern odometer tampering is not rolling back the counter but a modification made in the vehicle's computer: reprogramming the wheel size or the pulse ratio of the ABS sensor. As a result, the odometer may show 30–70% less than the actual distance, which no conventional check will catch.
Solution – The FleetControl system measures the distance travelled based on GPS – independently of the odometer reading. The system continuously keeps a parallel kilometre counter and flags when the difference between the GPS-based value and the odometer value exceeds the 10% tolerance band.
Result – The customer was able to clearly identify the affected vehicles and lessees. The real wear of the returned cars became visible, and the company was able to recover the contractual excess mileage with documentation.
Lease contract excess mileage, proactive intervention
Situation – A long-term rental company regularly found that returned vehicles had far more km than the limit set in the contract. The discrepancy only came to light at the end of the term.
Challenge – If the lessee goes into insolvency proceedings in the meantime, the claim arising from the excess mileage becomes unrecoverable. Litigating afterwards is expensive, slow and has an uncertain outcome.
Solution – FleetControl's lease contract tracking service monitors mileage pro rata. For a contract of 20,000 km per year, at the end of the first quarter the system flags if the vehicle is already at 6,300 km instead of the expected 5,000 – and projects the expected annual excess.
Result – The customer was notified halfway through, was able to amend the terms while the contractual relationship was still in good faith, and avoided a dispute at the end of the term.
Preventing illegal border crossing and insurance exclusion
Situation – A lessee of a fleet management company crossed from Spain to Morocco by ferry, where they had an accident with the vehicle. The comprehensive insurance was only valid within the EEA, so the damage could not be claimed.
Challenge – The rental company did not know that the vehicle had left the EEA. The contract prohibited use outside the EEA, but this could no longer be proven and sanctioned after the event.
Solution – FleetControl's border crossing monitoring service alerts in real time if a vehicle leaves a defined area – be it the border of the EEA, the border of a specific country, or specifically the region of Ukraine. The notification is immediate and allows the rental company to intervene without delay.
Result – With the monitoring service introduced afterwards, the customer receives a notification of every border crossing event, can call the lessee immediately and can refer to the breach of contract with documentation – before the damage occurs.
Recovering a stolen vehicle – activating the OEM system
Situation – A customer's Mercedes GLE 53 AMG was stolen. Within the Hungarian border, the thieves removed the FleetControl tracking device from the vehicle and then continued their journey abroad.
Challenge – After the hardware tracking device had been removed, no real-time data on the vehicle's whereabouts was available. The official proceedings alone did not guarantee that the vehicle would be recovered.
Solution – As Mercedes' official telematics partner, FleetControl can access the OEM (factory-installed) system. After some administration, the factory system was activated within one hour, and it displayed the vehicle's exact position even without a hardware tracker.
Result – The vehicle was found in a shed on the outskirts of a small Bulgarian town. The customer was able to recover the car.
Precision route checking in agriculture
Situation – A winery ordered the FleetControl system primarily to monitor its tractor-drawn machinery. On the estate, the quality of spraying work had previously been checked solely through personal supervision.
Challenge – The completeness of spraying could not be verified or disproved afterwards. If a machine operator accidentally missed a row or one side of it, this only came to light when crop damage appeared.
Solution – FleetControl's GPS-based tracking records the entire route of the machine with sufficient accuracy to determine whether the tractor passed along both sides of the rows of vines.
Result – The customer was able to identify afterwards a missed row of vines, one side of which the tractor had accidentally left out of the spraying.
Missed service interval and loss of warranty
Situation – A long-term rental company took back several vehicles from a lessee that was going into insolvency proceedings. There were no irregularities in the odometer readings, but the technical condition of one of the vehicles seemed suspicious.
Challenge – According to the lessee, the vehicles had been serviced regularly. However, the check revealed that the car had exceeded the manufacturer's prescribed service interval by 10,000 km. With most manufacturers, exceeding it by even 1 km or 1 day results in immediate, retroactive loss of warranty.
Solution – The FleetControl telematics system reads and continuously logs the service interval data. If the vehicle was actually taken in for service and the interval counter was reset, this is immediately visible in the system.
Result – The customer was able to prove retrospectively that the service had not taken place – for a one-year-old vehicle worth HUF 80 million, this was key evidence for the warranty claim and the claim for damages.
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