Maintenance Service Fee

[MsElectric]

People often seem to fall into this semantic trap. All Elon Musk, or any other executive in the EV arena, has claimed is that EVs require less maintenance. Never did they claim that said maintenance would cost less. Technicality, I know, but an important distinction. Just like people expecting luxury car features from Model S when it is a premium sedan. Premium is different from luxury, just like less maintenance is different from less maintenance cost.

I think this is a natural and reasonable expectation though. It is a fact that an EV has far fewer moving parts that require regular service so yes, it should require less service and that "less service" aspect should translate to service fees being at least on parity with an ICE car, not 2X-3X higher in some cases.

Also people who own Volts are pretty much only doing oil changes and Leaf owners pretty much have nothing of consequence to do for serving their vehicles... I'm not sure there can be any logical conclusion to the $600 charge for minor services other than the fact that it is an exorbitant sum for what is being done.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

When someone says to me that an EV requires less maintenance than an ICE car, I take that to mean it will cost less to maintain than an ICE car. I don't feel that I should be an attorney-level word-parser in order to read between the lines of Elon's claims, and nobody else should either.

 

[smsprague]

When someone says to me that an EV requires less maintenance than an ICE car, I take that to mean it will cost less to maintain than an ICE car. I don't feel that I should be an attorney-level word-parser in order to read between the lines of Elon's claims, and nobody else should either.

Well said.

 

[gizmoboy]

When someone says to me that an EV requires less maintenance than an ICE car, I take that to mean it will cost less to maintain than an ICE car. I don't feel that I should be an attorney-level word-parser in order to read between the lines of Elon's claims, and nobody else should either.

Could not agree more.

 

[rxlawdude]

Could not agree more.

This attorney-level word parser agrees.

 

[Cyclone]

When someone says to me that an EV requires less maintenance than an ICE car, I take that to mean it will cost less to maintain than an ICE car. I don't feel that I should be an attorney-level word-parser in order to read between the lines of Elon's claims, and nobody else should either.

That same sentiment can be applied to so many things, I just had to join in the quote party. Worth it that much!

 

[Aussie Bob]

Yikes! What did they do to your Infinity?

Regularly scheduled maintenance for our Mercedes is so reasonable... About $200 for the minor services and about $450 for the medium services. Only the services every 40K miles cost more than that an even those were right around $750. Service for a Tesla should cost less than what our Mercedes dealer charges to maintain an ICE car, not more.

I think I had a lemon. Both mufflers rusted. Another piece rusted under the car. My tire sensors went out all the time. Something went in the motor which was expensive to fix etc. Warranty covered none of expenses - this does include regular checks and service checks, oil changes etc. 100,000 checks are expensive!! It was a money pit! Glad to get rid of it. When I Complained to Nissan, I was told cars rust! But three year old Infiniti's. I was told basically too bad - your problem.

I was glad Tesla was available and with my previous experienc, I have full maintenance and warranty coverage. I do not want those worries again. To me it is good value, especially if screen goes etc.

 

[smsprague]

My Tesla is by far the most expensive car I have ever owned to maintain (Acura, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, GM). But as I tell my wife it's probably cheaper than a Bentley [emoji3].

 

[jaguar36]

My Tesla is by far the most expensive car I have ever owned to maintain (Acura, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, GM).

+1, I've previously had BMWs, and they've all been much much cheaper to maintain than our Tesla.

 

[MsElectric]

My Tesla is by far the most expensive car I have ever owned to maintain (Acura, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, GM). But as I tell my wife it's probably cheaper than a Bentley [emoji3].

I wonder when the Model X ships if Tesla will revise the pricing for the services to represent the actual work being done for each service. That may help get the service prices down and more in line with what a premium ICE would cost to service. Technically an EV service should cost less than an ICE service but at the least it should not cost any more than an ICE vehicle.

 

[2krazykats]

So to add more fuel to this fire (this thread is never-ending!), I went in for a test drive today and asked explicitly about the annual maintenance. I didn't ask whether not doing the maintenance on schedule voided the warranties but was told that it's not necessary. What I wanted to know was whether they included the alignment. They pulled out a checklist for the annual maintenance/inspection and the alignment was included. One of them also mentioned that the SCs charge just enough to break even that their purpose is not to make money on their customers. That got me thinking.... are some SCs not making enough to be self-sustaining and therefore, they're charging for the alignment separately? Just curious but it's purely speculation on my part.

*Sigh* it would be nice to have this settled once and for all.

 

[MsElectric]

So to add more fuel to this fire (this thread is never-ending!), I went in for a test drive today and asked explicitly about the annual maintenance. I didn't ask whether not doing the maintenance on schedule voided the warranties but was told that it's not necessary. What I wanted to know was whether they included the alignment. They pulled out a checklist for the annual maintenance/inspection and the alignment was included. One of them also mentioned that the SCs charge just enough to break even that their purpose is not to make money on their customers. That got me thinking.... are some SCs not making enough to be self-sustaining and therefore, they're charging for the alignment separately? Just curious but it's purely speculation on my part.

*Sigh* it would be nice to have this settled once and for all.

I think for most customers what matters is what the service costs and what you get for it. Still for others what might matter is what the Tesla service costs and how much it compares to their ICE car, with the expectation that an EV should cost less to maintain...

Whether a SC "breaks even" or not given whatever type of accounting is used to arrive at that determination is likely going to be irrelevant to most customers, especially considering the fact that most SCs are likely performing many warranty related work that presumably generates no "income" per se.

 

[2krazykats]

I think for most customers what matters is what the service costs and what you get for it. Still for others what might matter is what the Tesla service costs and how much it compares to their ICE car, with the expectation that an EV should cost less to maintain...

Whether a SC "breaks even" or not given whatever type of accounting is used to arrive at that determination is likely going to be irrelevant to most customers, especially considering the fact that most SCs are likely performing many warranty related work that presumably generates no "income" per se.

I still think that whether a SC breaks even/makes money/operates at a loss matters to Tesla. They have to maintain some amount of profitability at some point since businesses that don't make a profit won't last too long (Internet companies not withstanding?). My concern is long range how this will affect their service agreements and how much they charge as well as any other charges that might come up later. That will matter to us who are looking at owning a Tesla to calculate TOC.

 

[yobigd20]

My Tesla is by far the most expensive car I have ever owned to maintain (Acura, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, GM).

^^^^ this.

post warranty 1st year and i'm already out about $4k in repairs and maintenance.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

post warranty 1st year and i'm already out about $4k in repairs and maintenance.

^^ yikes!

 

[smsprague]

^^^^ this.

post warranty 1st year and i'm already out about $4k in repairs and maintenance.

^^ Zonkes!

 

[jaguar36]

warranty 1st year and i'm already out about $4k in repairs and maintenance.

Thats more than I spent in total on repairs and maintenance on the last 200k+ miles in my BMWs.

 

[Father Bill]

^^^^ this.

post warranty 1st year and i'm already out about $4k in repairs and maintenance.

Can you, do you care, to share what issues you have had to address for that $4k? I am really curious as I have a CPO, thus cannot extend the warranty. I will need to plan for any extra in my very tight budget.

Pax,

Father Bill

 

[MsElectric]

I still think that whether a SC breaks even/makes money/operates at a loss matters to Tesla. They have to maintain some amount of profitability at some point since businesses that don't make a profit won't last too long (Internet companies not withstanding?). My concern is long range how this will affect their service agreements and how much they charge as well as any other charges that might come up later. That will matter to us who are looking at owning a Tesla to calculate TOC.

No amount of logic can excuse a $600 service bill when no fluid changes are done. It is an exorbitantly expensive service fee that is 2X to 3X what a premium ice would cost to service. This whole SCs don't make any profit argument really sounds more like marketing than anything that benefit customers given the fact that you can service a vastly more complicated ICE for less than it costs to service a Model S.

 

[Max*]

No amount of logic can excuse a $600 service bill when no fluid changes are done. It is an exorbitantly expensive service fee that is 2X to 3X what a premium ice would cost to service. This whole SCs don't make any profit argument really sounds more like marketing than anything that benefit customers given the fact that you can service a vastly more complicated ICE for less than it costs to service a Model S.

Even if fluids are exchanged (year 2, year 6, etc.), it's still steep.

Brake fluid flush is $100 at any local shop, $150 at the dealer?
$20 wiper blades
$5 key fob batteries
$445 to check the torque on all your screws, lol
(alignment is technically no longer included)