How to archive and restore a vehicle

📝 Beta article — this article is part of our new help center. If a step doesn’t match what you see in Movcar, let us know — we’re refining the content daily.

When a vehicle leaves your active fleet — sold, written off, returned to the leasing company, or simply parked long-term — archive it. Archiving keeps every historical record (refuellings, mileage, claims, routes, handovers, service operations) attached to the vehicle, but hides it from your default Vehicles list so it doesn’t clutter daily work.

This is almost always the right choice when a vehicle leaves the fleet. Don’t delete — see How to delete a vehicle for the rare cases where delete is appropriate.

Step 1 — Open the vehicle’s record

My Fleet → Vehicles, find the vehicle, click the pencil ✏️.

Step 2 — Change the Status

In the edit form, find the Status dropdown. Change it from Active to Archived (or the appropriate status — Sold, Written off, Returned if your workspace uses sub-statuses).

Step 3 — Save

Top-right, click Save. The vehicle disappears from the default Vehicles list.

How to see archived vehicles again

The Vehicles list has a Status filter at the top. Tick Archived (and any other archived sub-statuses) to display them alongside the active vehicles. Archived rows usually appear in a muted style so they’re easy to tell apart at a glance.

How to restore an archived vehicle

Open the archived vehicle (via the Archived filter), click ✏️, change Status back to Active, and Save. The vehicle returns to your active fleet immediately.

What still works after archiving

Archived vehicles stay attached to all their past records:

• Refuellings logged against them — still in the data.
• Mileage entries — preserved.
• Routes — historical trips remain valid.
• Claims and incidents — kept.
• Documents and service history — preserved.

Reports that span the period before the vehicle was archived will include its data. Reports for the current period (where it’s archived) won’t.

What stops working

• The vehicle no longer appears in vehicle pickers (refuelling forms, route forms, handover forms).
• Drivers paired to the vehicle via the mobile app are unpaired.
• If a fuel card was linked, the link is removed (the fuel card itself stays).

When to actually delete

See How to delete a vehicle — only delete a test entry, a duplicate, or in response to a GDPR data-removal request. For normal fleet rotation, archive.