Overview:
Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.
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When my BYD gave me a service message after 2 years of driving it and I duly booked the service appointment, I got a friendly call back from them explaining that BYD had revised their policy based on their experiences servicing and that I had another year (or 10.000km) left before scheduled maintenance needed to occur.
I can't recall any dealership ever making such a call before, I'm sure most of them would've gladly pocketed the cash.
Shops that prey on the uninformed with unnecessary transmission flushes, coolant flushes and various oil and fuel additives are going to be grasping for work on EVs. Brakes on an EV should last longer in theory, regenerative braking doesn't use the brake system as much though the cars are heavier. I assume unnecessary brake jobs are going to increase.
Doing oil changes and other fluid myself on ICE cars I am only really going to a shop once a year for state inspection. An EV would be practically no maintenance to me. I'd say I'm out of the normal though because identifying and repairing brake, tire and suspension issues generally I can do myself.
You should be doing transmission service regularly though. Automatic transmissions are often claimed to be good for the life of the car, but regular drain and flush will prolong the life. Coolant flushes used to be more necessary than they are now.
I would strongly disagree with that. Transmission flushes are LARGELY a money grab. Unless your car is shifting erratically, hesitating, jerking or not going into gear it is better to just leave your transmission fluid as is. In fact putting new fluid into an old transmission that is working correctly can actually CAUSE issues.
Unless you have a CVT, which was dying since the day it was born anyway.
And if fresh fluid kills your trans, the friction disks were already toast and being helped along by the crud in the old thin fluid.
Well yeah- when the transmission fails, the car has reached the end of its life!
You should be doing changes per the manufacturers schedule. Most places don't consider it or when you last got one at all when they try to sell it to you.
IIRC, there have been a few car companies that claimed that the transmission didn't need service. Without service the transmissions would fail at about 100k miles; with service they would last 2-3x longer.
I assume checkups on the wear of bearings and chassis elements should be regular. Those can deteriorate just like regular cars and maybe even faster since the cars are heavier. But servicing what exactly? The cars have way fewer moving parts than regular cars.
The bearings and stuff should be roughly the same intervals as regular vehicles, since they should be designed for the weight of the vehicle. Otherwise you'd have trucks and SUVs getting those replaced significantly more frequently than sedans, and that's not really the case.
Dont see any reason to see a dealer for our EV. We've had it seven years and so far its only needed three parts - a new 12v battery, one rear wheel bearing which I replaced myself and rear wiper blade. Grand total of $400 in seven years. There's nothing really to service.
Evs doesn’t require the same kind of service as an ICE car, BUT they still have fluids that’ll go bad over time (even though they say it’ll last a lifetime, which is a lie, it just means most cars will survive through warranty) and especially the brakes need a yearly service if you want them to work when you really need them, rusty discs doesn’t work that well and and stuck pistons and pads will result in brakes that drag when you release the pedal afterwards.
And no I haven’t watched the video and probably won’t.
Only if they'll put in a bigger washer fluid reservoir.
I've owned a Nissan Leaf since 2014. The only required services have been normal annual checkups that were under warranty for the first 5 years and very reasonable after that. They've reprogrammed the brakes a few times at my request when they seemed grabby.