Routine Maintenance

bradleydavidgood777 · Dec 28, 2017

Hi again,

I bought my 2017 in the summer of this year and so far so good, no issues. I'm taking the car to the dealer for the air bag recall (separate post) so it got me thinking about routine maintenance and inspection.

My inspection sticker is good till next May but just wondering if my normal small shop can do the inspection and routine maintenance and if they will know what to do and all of that, or if I should just take it to the dealer for the inspection next May.

Also wondering if I need to get anything else done when I take it in soon for the air bag recall.

I read thru the manual about routine maintenance but you know how there are all of those things listed and then there is the list of what people **REALLY** do, or what really needs to be done.

Are there other threads on this where it has been covered already? I expected so but have not found any.

So wondering:

What people routinely have done every year or every so often or what you think is required.

Do people have it serviced by small shops for certain things or always take it to the dealer.

I can hardly think of anything it would really need except for brakes, wipers, checking fluids.

Thanks

Don · Dec 28, 2017

Come this May we've had our first one for 6 years and it has about 30K on it now - Many others here have double or near triple that mileage and over a shorter period of time. We still have the OE rear tires on it . . . . replaced both fronts when I hit a chunk of asphalt that fell out of a dump truck directly in front of us

Routine maintenance? Not much to do for the first couple years. People who took their cars to the dealer for 'maintenance' ended up paying near $100 to have the HVAC filter changed - $25 or $30 for the filter and then half an hour (minimum labor charge) to change it, so someone here found a generic filter which fit the car for $6 or $8 and a bunch of us bought a few of those. In our cars, an annual vacuuming of the OE filter seemed to do the trick, so I've not yet used any of the ones I bought

You're gonna need new wiper blades at come point. We keep both ours garaged whenever we're not driving them, so our wiper blades lasted about 5 years - I just changed them for the first time this past summer

They'll want to do a 'brake system inspection' but in all likelyhood the brakes on these cars will easily go 100K without needing servicing

Usually, after 5 years and 50K or so, I do a brake system flush to get rid of the dirty brake fluid which gets contaminated by moisture when it heats and cools many times in everyday use, but on these cars my fluid is staying pretty darned clear, probably because we use the brakes so seldom and when we do use them, it's never for long enough to really heat anything up

I suppose the ATF in the reduction gearbox could be drained and refilled with new every 50K or so, but unlike an auto transmission, that gearbox never gets really hot, so 50K is probably overkill for a fluid change

Long story short, these BEV's are as close to being 'maintenance free' as anything on the road - Rather than feel guilty about 'neglecting' the maintenance, I suggest you just bask in the real monetary savings you're enjoying driving something that doesn't need hardly any maintenance at all

For sure, I would not ask the dealer what it needs - At $125 an hour for labor, he's going to find something, I guarantee you. The collective experience here with several hundred posters over more than 5 years now is that it seldom 'needs' anything and most of us just see that as a $125 per hour savings over not driving an ICE which has all sorts of things they really *do* need and regularly

Don

bradleydavidgood777 · Dec 28, 2017

Very informative Don, thank you so much!

I think I'll just bask in the whole beauty of it....sure does help today since it is below 20 F here even at 230 in the afternoon.

When I called the dealer for the recall I asked the same question and he said "Well, to tell you the truth, there really isn't much if anything you need to do unless there is a problem. I have 2 i-miev owners and I barely see them. One came in for a recall a little while back... oh, and I have a fast charger here if you ever need it, it's free."

This is good to know because the dealer is 10 minutes from home and the same way as my grocery store so I just may want to stop by sometime. Especially since I just figured out how limiting the range is when it is so cold out. Went out yesterday and just did a few errands and was shocked to see the miles drop so quickly with the fan blasting, temp on hot...needed to keep the windows clear with the girls chatting away in the car...not sure what that will do to every day situation because I usually charge up at the parking lot at work with level 2 and when I get in I have 55 miles before turning on the heat. Then drive 22 miles home and only have 120V here. This has always been plenty to get back to work if I plug in when I get home but just not sure in this kind of cold....luckily I am working from home this week but next week's forecast is highs of 20s and 30 also so we shall see. I always work from home on Wed so that gives me lots of time on the cord and I just upgraded my cord to 10 gauge so that should help - it is a long cord. Anyway, I can always take public transit or uber if need be so it should only be tight a few weeks of the year and I love everything else about the car.

I saw another post about going to zero....a few weeks back I got into the car and didn't check my miles left as I usually always do...it was Friday and maybe I was just in a hurry. Got on 95 south out of Philly and saw 3 miles left! At first I freaked then went immediately into acceptance mode, took the first exit, into gas station, 2 miles showing now, shut off everything. Went on my phone apps looking...IKEA - level 2 chargers - 2 miles away...knew that it would take me many hours to charge enough for the 20 miles home. Looked on my last app - EVgo, which I just signed up for....Fast charger that I had no idea about 1.5 miles away. Set up google maps and picked the most direct route (not the highway)...started her up and got going....google maps says "Get on 95 north"...I'm like "what?" but then acceptance again and thought that I can't take a chance stopping and fooling around and just got on. On 95 lots of red brake and tail lights....looked like I was going to get jammed up and just when the flood of red was getting closer there was my exit in sight, and now miles left read "---". I didn't get any turtle - is there really a turtle icon or something? mine was just three dashes. Lots of cars stopped on the exit ramp, google maps says "turn right at end of ramp". Great I think, then see a large school bus in the right lane I want to use, stopped...and not much space between that and a cement wall. I eyed it up and figured I just might make it by on the side of the road there....it was so close I almost clipped the mirrors but made it by, zoomed around the corner and the next right turn was the gas station with the charger. I never did the fast charger before so I had no idea on the time it takes. I was shocked to see that 24 min later I had 47 miles...$10.37. Awesome. And there is another fast charger across the bridge within 5 minutes or so - also EVgo...so the whole thing worked out that now I know where I can get a fast charge in case my spot is taken or in case I do something wrong and it never charged like I thought...which is probably what happened. I usually check the charge "plug" icon on the dash before leaving the car so I'm not sure what happened that day, but I am grateful for how it turned out.

How many miles can we go past zero? I think I read 5 or so???

Don · Dec 28, 2017

When ours was new I went 6 miles past the "--" at about 45 mph and didn't see the turtle, so there must have been even a little more left. Never did that again! As the battery pack ages, there's fewer and fewer miles hidden there though

Ten bucks for less than $2 worth of electricity is a pretty good return on your money - Wish I owned a few of those quick chargers

Don