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Is there really nothing that has oil in it that at some point needs changing?
by sschueller 13d ago
Is there really nothing that has oil in it that at some point needs changing?
- what-the-grump 13d agoIt does, plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils, just the maintenance cycle isn't gallons and gallons every x months. You are looking at years. I got service centers trying to rotate my tires every 3k miles because "ev". The oil change as well, oh you need to change oil every 5k because... because why?
- WarmWash 13d agoBy "plenty of things" you mean one thing with a 10yr service interval?
- what-the-grump 12d agohttps://service.tesla.com/docs/Public/diy/model3/en_us/GUID-A84FDD77-7A8C-42F6-9385-E3F9CEE245A4.html https://service.tesla.com/docs/Public/diy/model3/en_us/GUID-... You got brake fluid, calipers, but it’s not even close to a regular car. The dealerships and shops are doing every one a huge disservice by lying about how frequently engine oil needs to be changed. It’s in the manual but even that should be on page one. And then they set reminders on the car inside whatever last changed or when near, miles. So they’ll set it for 5k instead of 6-8k as the manual says and reminder at when you hit 3k. Like cmon. Or tell me that I need a balance every 3k miles in a Tesla. Shameless.
- mikestew 13d agoplenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils I can come up with one. What's your list?
- consp 13d agoNot op, but brake fluid comes to mind, power steering fluid, transfer/reduction box. All depends on which ev you are talking about. Things like cv joints, axels and other rotating parts also require greases, again depending on make and model. Not that those need yearly replacement but they do need maintenance.
- hedgehog 13d agoFor any car there will also be the periodic service bulletin so every once in a while you'll likely want to go in and deal with those too.
- mikestew 13d agoBrake fluid isn’t oil (generally speaking). EVs have electrical motor-driven power steering, not hydraulic. You scored correctly on the reduction box, which will need changing well after most people sell the car (>100K miles).
- taneq 13d agoIt’s hydraulic fluid, which is oil. It’s not formulated the same as engine oil, but it’s not far off gear oil.
- mikestew 13d agoIt’s hydraulic fluid, which is oil. Nope, glycol-based and synthetic. Not the best article, but best I could find at the moment: https://engineerfix.com/what-is-brake-fluid-made-of/ https://engineerfix.com/what-is-brake-fluid-made-of/
- cucumber3732842 13d agoI find it hard to believe that someone somewhere isn't making an EV with a electric pump to supply a traditional hydraulic steering system. If I had to guess it would be Europe because they love electric over hydraulic steering.
- 13d ago
- SkyPuncher 13d agoEngine oil is pretty much the only critical one because of the tolerances between the piston and the cylinder. Loose tolerances allow bypass (inefficiency), but tight tolerances require good lubrication (friction). Engine oil is also unique because it’s exposed to oxygen and combustion byproducts. The other components just aren't as sensitive or exposed to as much abuse. Often, really only needing replacement if they’ve leaked out.
- ffsm8 13d agoBought a old Nissan juke in 2021 - built in 2011. Haven't had to change or refill oil once. Ymmv
- samudrijan 13d agoProbably time to change the oil.
- margalabargala 13d agoI mean technically you never need to change the oil on any car if you're willing to just drive it into the ground.
- nickpeterson 13d agoI wonder how long a full synthetic could run in an engine that, for whatever reason, doesn’t push oil hard. 20k miles?
- kalleboo 12d agoYou can find these stories in the mechanics subreddits, typically it's some Toyota came into the shop dying at around 60k miles with the factory oil turned to sludge.
- stickfigure 13d agoThere is a YouTube channel sponsored by people like you: https://youtube.com/@i_do_cars https://youtube.com/@i_do_cars
- mikestew 13d ago[dead]
- toomuchtodo 13d agoCorrect. ~140k miles on my 2018 Model S, tires, wipers and wiper fluid, and one battery pack heater replaced (deprecated, no longer used in newer builds) are all that have been done. Motors are lubricated at manufacture and sealed for life. https://ev-lectron.com/blogs/blog/tesla-electric-vehicle-powertrain-maintenance-explained https://ev-lectron.com/blogs/blog/tesla-electric-vehicle-pow...
- stoddur 13d agoSame here. Got a 2017 Model S. Only wiper fluid and tires and had to change out break disks in the front but besides that, nothing.
- toomuchtodo 13d agoI’m still on the original brake discs and rotors luckily but will likely need to replace them soon from corrosion and warping versus consumption. Which is very cool imho.
- Erem 13d agoSurely at some point, but it hasn’t yet happened in my short 3 years owning one
- adocomplete 13d agoNope. I've had a Model 3 since 2018 and besides swapping out tires and window washer fluid, no maintenance. There was suggested battery fluid maintenance when I first got the car every 3 years or so, but they removed that recommendation. It's one of the reasons I just can't go back to a regular gas car.
- AngryData 13d agoAnd idea like this is why EVs will still have poor depreciated values even if the battery holds up. Yes it is common for people to ignore all the non-powertrain maintenance items on cars before EVs, but at least in ICE half of them regularly dripped oil down its body and lines and still semi-regularly had somebody kicking the tires and shit when the oil was changed to try and sell you a repair before it fails. Body, wheels, and suspension components all require maintenance. Just because those components have a less predictable maintenance schedule doesn't mean they don't crap out if problems aren't identified and taken care of. And unless you are driving a short range smart car, EVs weight more than most ICEs, which accelerates the wear and shortens the lifespan of many components. Don't get me wrong, EVs should be more reliable than ICE still, but in my experiences motor and engine problems are rarely the death knell of a vehicle, body damage and rust are. There are always enough people crashing or junking their cars so that even less reliable motors can be easily had on the used market for cheap, if you don't just swap to something better to start with, but once you get significant body rust 95% of mechanics won't/can't deal with it and repairing metal body shell is a level of skill and tooling that most DIYs aren't going to even attempt.
- mingus88 13d agoI don’t understand this criticism. I have owned an EV for five years now. The app and the vehicle display clearly let you know when you are due for scheduled maintenance. Due to how online the whole platform is, it’s so much better than my older ICE car that has a cryptic wrench light on the dash. Did I mention that the intervals are also so much cheaper? Tires are the one standout but pretty much every thing else is a dream
- 12d ago
- conception 13d agoThere is not. Just brake and washer fluid and coolant.
- _aavaa_ 13d agoThe biggest one that needs changing would be the differential.
- medler 13d agoThey do have some gearbox oil that is usually considered to last a lifetime but some sources advise changing it every 100k miles or so. This is analogous to transmission fluid in an ICEV.
- 6yyyyyy 13d agoThe seal between the piston and the cylinder isn't perfect, so when the engine runs combustion products will mix with the oil, making the oil eventually unusable. That's why ICE engines meed oil changes so often.
- loeg 13d agoAnd in fact it is necessary for it to be imperfect, and the oil is what lubricates the interface. So it is necessarily exposed to lots of heat and pressure.
- smallmancontrov 13d agoThe oil that lubricates the combustion chambers and pistons gets burnt and filled with nasty combustion goop. An impressive amount of cleverness goes to minimizing this, but the oil that sees the combustion chambers still goes bad at many times the rate of any other lubricant. Even on an ICE vehicle, you have transmission oil and differential oil and lubricants in your air conditioning compressor and brake hydraulics and grease smeared on CV joints and door mechanisms and pretty much everything else that moves. But you still talk about "changing THE oil" and mean the oil-that-sees-combustion specifically (along with, typically, the filter that fights the constant battle of getting the worst combustion products out of it). I personally think that makes it fair to say "EVs don't require oil changes" because even though they don't magically eliminate the other lubrication systems or the need to maintain them, they do eliminate the one that is so much more obnoxious than the rest that we commonly called it "THE oil change" before this was ever a debate.
- HPsquared 13d agoThe other systems see less wear and tear as well ... Brakes don't get as hot, transmissions don't have clutches shedding material, and so on.
- josephcsible 13d agoThere is oil for the gearbox, but there's no scheduled maintenance for it at all, and in practice, people regularly get hundreds of thousands of miles without ever needing to think about it.
- 2III7 13d agoOn a DSG gearbox the interval is 65k km. You should also change the transmission fluid in a regular automatic and a manual transmission. Some cars have a service interval for those transmissions and some don't. The "lifetime" oil statement is a lie.
- formerly_proven 13d agoIt refers to the design lifetime of the vehicle. Usually accurate. Mileages may vary.
- globular-toast 13d agoNot really. Most stuff is sealed for life. So it's more replacing whole parts when they fail than changing the oil in something. But many bearings will last hundreds of thousands of miles and never need changing for the entire life of the car. Quite amazing really.
- AngryData 13d agoThere are plenty of things that still need oil and grease in EVs still, but it is in such low quantities that we could synthesize most of that from air and it still not being a cost of any concern.
- tw04 13d agoI would imagine if there is oil in the electric motors that is “lifetime” but test really probably 300k miles, so if you drive the car into the ground, you probably would want to service that at some point, assuming they are serviceable without destruction.
- angry_octet 13d agoThere's no oil in electric motors. The only significant oil is for the reduction gearbox, but as it doesn't change gears the wear is very low. First change will pull out some metal I'd guess, quality of machining dependent. Every 60000km/2Y, 1-2 litres. Batteries may be immersed in a high dielectric thermal fluid, which will experience some breakdown but over a long time period, more than 10Y.
- formerly_proven 13d ago> There's no oil in electric motors. Many EVs use hybrid water/oil cooling, typically water for the stator and oil mist/spray for the rotor and exposed parts of the windings.
- angry_octet 13d agoPlaying with semantics. Oil isn't lubricating anything. There is grease in the bearings and the gearbox.
- formerly_proven 12d agoI doubt there's ever been a production car that used grease in the gearbox. Not outside the 1890s, anyway.
- angry_octet 10d agoWhatever buddy.
- deleted 13d ago
- ajross 13d agoBearings and shocks have grease, sure. But those things last decades after installation. They're probably two orders of magnitude lower in volume consumption than engine oil, which gets contaminated and disposed of at the rate of like a gallon or two per vehicle per month. Like, the price differential is so high that the high end artisinal lubricant market is dominated by chemically synthesized products that aren't strictly petroleum at all (though many of the reagents used to manufacture them probably come out of the petrochemical world).
- seanmcdirmid 13d agoYou’ve got parts with oil that have to be done every 10 years or are completely sealed into the part and are expected to last as long as the part does.
- loeg 13d agoYeah, but the intervals are much longer.
- formerly_proven 13d agoTransmission/differential oil tends to last a very long time (150-400k, unit doesn’t matter). Automatics require relatively frequent oil changes in comparison, but they’re using the oil to transmit power. Lots of greased parts, but again, the grease will last about as long as the part (mostly because the grease falling apart makes the part fail), which usually lasts the life of the car.
- taneq 13d agoThere’s still gearbox oil, diff oil, and brake fluid. These last far longer and are far smaller volumes than engine oil, though.
- cucumber3732842 13d agoNothing that matters on "people who drive new cars" timelines. Like yeah there's probably some box with gear oil might get a little nasty after 100-200k but gears are pretty hardy and don't demand all that much.