Tesla Maintenance - broken down to dollars and sense

[busaman]

Try keeping an Audi to 100,000 or 150,000 miles. Water pumps, belts, valve adjustments, transmission flushes, alternators, etc. And god help you if anything on the drive train actually breaks.

i look after several large audis with between 100 and 200 thousand miles on them if you break it down yearly it avreages out costing (to the customer)arround £800 yearly to keep them serviced and repaired (brake pads cambelts filters oil exhausts etc) we dont see the new ones for obious reasons they go to the dealers..

i did a 2009 v6tdi yesterday with 187k miles on it original exhaust still on it..

in general it not the miles that wears them out its time so we will see how good the model s is in 5 years time..

 

[appleguru]

The DU fluid interval is an interesting one. They want you to change it every 4 years/50k miles.

Moving the first replacement to year one actually makes some sense though: any loose metal/material that ended up in the fluid during manufacturing (coming off of the new parts, etc), will come out in this first flush and not be present to damage parts/etc for the the next several years.

Just conjecture on my part, but does make some sense to me...

 

[SuisseDriver]

Wear items aren’t included in Tesla plans either.

What are wear items on Tesla though?
You do not have ignition plug, brake pad (because of regenerative braking, you do not use them), brake disk, motor oil and filters, distribution and water pump belt, ...
I can tell you, having own an Audi A6 that you pay at Audi much more than the standard maintenance price because of all the wear items that come on top.

 

[SuisseDriver]

That can be debated. Tesla isn’t exactly the most reliable automaker either. And Audi has v. high reliability according to Consumer Reports. I personally have kept non-Audi German vehicles for 100,000 miles and only paid service costs, no breakdown or repairs. But that’s just anecdotal so not reliable evidence.

Audi is like all other cars. My first Audi A4 had an offset of the distribution chain when starting the engine in a cold morning (-15°C). It cost nearly 4000€ to get it repair.

My Audi A6 had a water pump leakage which is a known defect on the 3.0l TDI engine. And here again more than 3000€ to get it repair.

Also, just changing the brake pad in a 3rd party garage (not at Audi) cost more than 600€. Add the discs and you get well other 1000€.

Anyway, my point is that you should not forget that whatever ICE car you are driving, you will have at some point the alternater, water pump, gear box, high-pressure pump injector, starter, distribution part... breaking. And when you get that, the REAL maintenance cost become much much higher that what we discuss for Tesla.

I do not have my Tesla yet so will not draw conclusion but if the motor / transmission / battery are guarantee 8 years and all the rest 4 years, it means that all those huge extra costs I had with Audi should be cover (or non existent) with Tesla.

 

[Az_Rael]

I do not have my Tesla yet so will not draw conclusion but if the motor / transmission / battery are guarantee 8 years and all the rest 4 years, it means that all those huge extra costs I had with Audi should be cover (or non existent) with Tesla.

True, those things will not break on a Tesla. But other things might after the 4 year warranty that can add up. Screen bubbles, MCU failures (due to the excessive logging issue), door handles, charger port failures, etc. The air suspension may also turn out to be a big $$ item out of warranty if history of those systems on other cars is any indication.

 

[SuisseDriver]

True, those things will not break on a Tesla. But other things might after the 4 year warranty that can add up. Screen bubbles, MCU failures (due to the excessive logging issue), door handles, charger port failures, etc. The air suspension may also turn out to be a big $$ item out of warranty if history of those systems on other cars is any indication.

Is there some report of that? There are already some Tesla with more than 4 years out there?

 

[democappy]

4 year DIY total: $1605.

4 Year contract total: $2400.

$800

Outside of everyone else's comments about the how the valuation was done, I can't be the only one that saw that number and thought, "I would gladly pay $800 over 4 years to not DIY any of this".

Once a year, let me drop my car off before work, grab a tesla loaner, and come back to hand washed car that I know is in great working order at the end of the day. It seems super reasonable to me, but I just might be way lazier than the rest of you.

Plus I am going to blow $800 on something way stupider in the next 4 years. I can guarantee that

 

[Az_Rael]

Is there some report of that? There are already some Tesla with more than 4 years out there?

There are quite a few Teslas out of warranty. The warranty is time OR mileage, so lots of folks run out of warranty before the 4 years is up. Here are some examples of folks experiences:

Bubbles:
bubbles on touchscreen

MCU:
MCU fails for the second time

Door handles (just one of many, many threads):
Door Handle Failures

Etc. I love my Tesla, but I do not expect it to be very reliable once I am out of warranty.

 

[lux_cars]

What are wear items on Tesla though?
You do not have ignition plug, brake pad (because of regenerative braking, you do not use them), brake disk, motor oil and filters, distribution and water pump belt, ...
I can tell you, having own an Audi A6 that you pay at Audi much more than the standard maintenance price because of all the wear items that come on top.

None of these things/wearables not covered by service plans will need replacing in the first 50,000 miles except maybe brake pads (brake pads on my current ICE vehicle last 45k - 50k miles). Everything else that’s non-wearable is covered by warranty.

My point is very simple. We are promised nearly maintainence-free ownership and much lower servicing cost. Clearly this isn’t the case with Teslas during the first 50,000 miles, under warranty and with their expensive standard service plans. Tesla should either: get rid of unnecessary service items for their vehicles if these really are not needed and slash prices to half or less or of comparable ICE car service plans and/or improve the quality of their vehicles so that they don’t need all this regular servicing despite being BEVs. Heck with the prices they are charging for MS/MX, they could even offer complimentary scheduled service as some ICE manufacturers do.

 

[SuisseDriver]

None of these things/wearables not covered by service plans will need replacing in the first 50,000 miles except maybe brake pads (brake pads on my current ICE vehicle last 45k - 50k miles). Everything else that’s non-wearable is covered by warranty.

My point is very simple. We are promised nearly maintainence-free ownership and much lower servicing cost. Clearly this isn’t the case with Teslas during the first 50,000 miles, under warranty and with their expensive standard service plans. Tesla should either: get rid of unnecessary service items for their vehicles if these really are not needed and slash prices to half or less or of comparable ICE car service plans and/or improve the quality of their vehicles so that they don’t need all this regular servicing despite being BEVs. Heck with the prices they are charging for MS/MX, they could even offer complimentary scheduled service as some ICE manufacturers do.

Of course you need to replace those on an Audi.

Here is the official maintenance plan from Audi: https://www.audiusa.com/content/dam...8_Audi_USA_Scheduled_Maintenance_9-7-2017.pdf

As you can see, you need to replace:

• Every 10 000 miles (or every year) : engine oil and oil filter
• Every 20 000 miles: dust and pollen filter
• Every 40 000 miles: spark plugs, gear box oil
• Every 60 000 miles: air filter, V-belt for benzin motors,
• Every 2 years: Brake fluid
• Every 3 years: AWD clutch

So definitely, by 5 years and in my case with 180 000km (~110k miles) for my Audi A6, I had several of those items replaced and not included in the standard maintenance price.

In effect, my Audi A6 costed me more than 4000€ in maintenance for the 5 years I had it.
If I would have taken a Audi monthly Service plan, it is 55€/month limited to 4 year and 150 000km. So it would have cost me 3300€ + the break pads I had to change after 4 years + the 5th year maintenance so more than 4500€.

Plus at the last time, I have got a leakage of the water pump, after 4 years so out of warranty that costed an additional 3500€ roughly to be changed.

So I paid 8000€ of “maintenance” for 5 years.


According to Tesla, even if performing the NON mandatory maintenance, just the recommended one, it is 2600€ for 5 years so
SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper.

 

[jaguar36]

Since your time is free, and you don't charge for labor, PM me your address, I'll bring my car over for service too!

By the time I've driven over to the Tesla dealer and back I could have done all of the tasks in the Annual maintenance and caught up on TMC.

And really checking the torque on the suspension? Why? The only possible reason for this is either they weren't properly installed, or that the initial torque wasn't specified properly. If they are coming loose, checking them once a year is not going to be enough to catch anything.