Add your first vehicle
The full walkthrough of FleetGrow's Add a car flow — one scrolling page, an optional VIN decode that pre-fills the specs, and a live preview so you know exactly what you're about to save.
Go to Fleet in the sidebar and click Add car. Everything below lives on that one page — a form column on the left, and a sticky preview + checklist on the right so you can see the car card build up as you fill things in.
Start with the VIN
Paste a 17-character VIN and click Decode— FleetGrow pulls make, model, year and 12 more specs from NHTSA's public vehicle database and pre-fills the form. A confirmation chip shows what it found; anything decoded gets a small green From VIN badge so you know what to double-check.
No VIN handy: Skip it and fill in Make, Model, Year and the rest by hand — decoding just saves typing, it's never required. Letters I, O and Q never appear in a real VIN, which is a quick way to spot a mistyped one.
Fill in the vehicle details
The Vehicle card covers the basics that identify the car everywhere else in the app: Make, Model and Year (required), an optional Nickname shown instead of make/model once set, a Color swatch, and a Status toggle (Active / In service / Inactive).
Just below it, the Identification card holds the VIN (filled automatically if you decoded above) and the license plate — required, since it drives the renter-facing plate badge and the renewal reminders below.
Tip: Set Status to In service or Inactive to pull a car out of trip planning without losing its history — useful mid-repair or during an off-season.
Renewals, specs and mileage
The Renewals card has two date pickers — plate/registration expiry and insurance expiry. FleetGrow reminds you 30 days ahead of each one by default; change the lead time in Settings.
Specifications
A collapsible card with 13 more fields — trim, body class, engine, transmission, drive type, GVWR and the rest — auto-filled from the VIN decode when available. Open it to review or correct anything NHTSA got wrong; none of it is required to save.
Mileage & ownership
Current mileageis required — it's what FleetGrow uses to compute maintenance intervals and profitability. Mileage at purchase, purchase price and purchase tax are optional but feed the finance reports if you fill them in.
Add a photo and save
A photo is optional but recommended — it's shown across the app and on the vehicle's pickup page. Cars without one show a placeholder until you add a photo. Check the Before you save checklist in the right rail: Make, Model, Year, License plate and Current mileage all need a green check before Save car is enabled.
Once saved, the car lands in your fleet grid with its own profile — trips, maintenance history, finance and documents all in one view.
Attach documents later
Uploading the actual files — title, insurance policy, registration, inspection report, or anything else — isn't part of the Add a car flow. Once the car exists, open its Documents tab and upload up to 10 files per car (PDF, JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 20 MB each). The expiry dates you set in Renewals above are what drives the reminders, independent of whether a file is attached.
- Vehicle Title, Insurance Policy, Registration, Inspection Report, or Other — pick a type per upload.
- An optional custom label helps tell similar documents apart.
What's next
- Log your first trip — the next step in Getting started.
- Documents & renewals — never miss an expiring registration or policy.
- Vehicle financing — track a loan against the car it's tied to.