Oil Change

[texas_star_TM3]

I read somewhere that it was a 100,000 mile replacement since it's just gear lube.

Gear oil without the thermal stress related aging you see in a 6+ gear tranny of a ICE car should last *a lot* longer than 100k miles in a EV like a fixed single gear Tesla.... Heck - many ICE transmission don't even mandate a tranny fluid exchange at 100k miles.

 

[iwannam3]

I remember the early S had lots of drive train replacements due to noise, the S and X don't have oil filters. Excessive bearing noise & wear caused by particle from assembly and break-in.

 

[Daniel in SD]

What is being acccomplished in this part of the procedure?

Looks like they're extracting oil from the nether regions of the gearbox?

Gear oil without the thermal stress related aging you see in a 6+ gear tranny of a ICE car should last *a lot* longer than 100k miles in a EV like a fixed single gear Tesla.... Heck - many ICE transmission don't even mandate a tranny fluid exchange at 100k miles.

The drive unit oil cools the motor as well. Just saw a Mountain Pass Performance video where they were seeing a peak of 150C at the motor stator. It probably doesn't get anywhere near that on the street though.
My Lexus has lifetime oil in the transmission but I changed it at 100k miles.

 

[ACDC ev]

i did it in last month

 

[luke68bird]

 

[vickh]

I got some gas in my Model 3...



... for my leaf blower. It was a weird out-of-body experience.
View attachment 610897

yeah I get the same feeling when I stop at a convenience store.

 

[EnrgyNDpndnce]

A bit of a touchy topic for me given I had some popping issues with my motor. Guess what? An "oil change" fixed it.

Per my repair description:
"Technician performed a test drive and found popping noise coming from both the front and rear of the vehicle. Performed a rear suspension check and lubricated axles, found noise from the rear still present. Inspected the rear drive unit and found oil color to be darker than expected with metal fragments. Performed flush of drive unit fluid and refilled and found noise from the rear was no longer present. Performed additional tests and isolated noise from the front of the vehicle to the passenger front seat mount cross beam joint. Adjusted rearward beam and sheet metal cover. Test drove vehicle following repairs and verified the popping noise is no longer present."

Would you mind sharing how much this “oil change” cost you, and how many miles you had on the car at the time?

 

[achou0722]

No $ cost. 30+ days in the shop. The car was producing a popping sound. Ended up being bad motor oil. It's odd.

Popping sound was there since new. Oil was changed around 21K miles.

 

[Whitehawk]

This tread confuses me - why are posts about leaf blowers on an oil change thread?

Back to the oil change...in looking at that dark gear oil it would seems this should be a regular maintenance item but I don’t see it mentioned much. Are the people putting 250,000 miles on motors changing gear oil regularly?

 

[john5520]

Gear oil without the thermal stress related aging you see in a 6+ gear tranny of a ICE car should last *a lot* longer than 100k miles in a EV like a fixed single gear Tesla.... Heck - many ICE transmission don't even mandate a tranny fluid exchange at 100k miles.

Agreed. Unless the car is being subjected to stressful use often (as in racing, tracking etc), there should be no need to touch that oil for well over 100k miles.