This planner vs. comparing the repair bill to a new price

What each one leaves in, and out

Repair bill vs. new price is the comparison most owners already run in their head, and it costs nothing: this year's invoices against a dealer quote. What it cannot see is the vehicle sitting in the shop while the crew works around it -- days that are billable revenue lost, not a repair line item -- and it treats the new price as the whole cost, ignoring what a trade-in would return and that the purchase buys several years of service, not one.

This planner runs the same comparison with those three pieces added: downtime valued at what you say a day off the road costs you, the new asset's price netted against its resale value and spread over its expected service life, and -- once you have more than one asset -- a ranking of which ones actually pay to replace against a fixed capital budget. See why downtime decides this for the arithmetic worked through on a real fleet.

A repair-bill comparison is a reasonable first filter for one vehicle you are not seriously considering replacing -- if the invoice is small, there is often no need to run the arithmetic at all. It stops being enough the moment downtime is significant, a trade-in is on the table, or there is more than one asset competing for the same capital.

This planner needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.

Common questions

What's wrong with just comparing the repair bill to a new price?

Nothing is wrong with looking at both numbers — the problem is what that comparison leaves out. The repair invoice is the visible cost, but a vehicle in the shop is also billable days your crew could not work, and that downtime is frequently the larger number. It leaves out resale value, since a trade-in offsets the new price. And it leaves out spreading the purchase over the years of service it buys, so a $42,000 truck and a $68,000 excavator are not directly comparable on price alone. This planner adds all three to the same comparison, per asset.

Why not just eyeball it — if the repairs are getting expensive, replace it?

Because 'getting expensive' has no threshold, and the two numbers that actually decide the answer — downtime cost and the replacement's equivalent annual cost — are not the ones a repair invoice shows. An owner going on the invoice alone can keep the wrong asset (heavy downtime, cheap repairs) and replace the wrong one (expensive repairs, but rarely down) in the same year. The arithmetic takes the same two minutes as eyeballing it once the figures are in front of you.

I only have one truck to decide about — do I still need a tool for this?

The single-asset arithmetic is short enough to run on paper once you know it — see the worked example on the explainer page. Where a tool earns its keep is a fleet of several vehicles and machines and one capital budget: ranking which ones actually pay to replace, and in what order, is not something a repair-bill-vs-new-price comparison can do at all, because it never puts the assets on the same footing.

Does this planner tell me the right answer?

No — it runs arithmetic on the figures you enter and shows its work. It does not appraise your equipment, know your financing terms, or decide anything for you. It replaces a comparison that leaves out downtime and resale, not your judgment about the quotes and trade-in values you confirm before committing capital.

Open the repair-or-replace planner, or read why downtime decides this.