A medical robotic system comprises a number of components that may be monitored to determine their preventive maintenance needs by recording usage-related information for the monitored components into associated non-volatile memories. When usage of the component exceeds a specified usage threshold, the system displays a warning message on its display screen to have preventive maintenance performed for the component. If the usage continues without such maintenance and exceeds a higher usage threshold, the system displays an error message on its display screen and the system transitions into an error state during which medical procedures are not allowed to be performed. The usage-related information may also be communicated to a remote computer which gathers and processes usage-related information from a number of medical robotic systems to estimate resource requirements for timely performing preventive maintenance on the medical robotic systems, and anticipated service revenues from such maintenance.