Škoda Says Mileage Won't Affect Maintenance And Service Intervals When Electric Cars Take Over

[FutureBoy]

Škoda Says Mileage Won't Affect Maintenance And Service Intervals When Electric Cars Take Over
Miles won't matter at all, and it's a long two years between service visits for electric cars
By
José Rodríguez Jr.

Photo: Škoda

Škoda wants to convince people about the benefits of switching to EVs by going after the dreaded maintenance and service intervals needed to keep ICE cars running. The Czech carmaker claims that counting miles will be unnecessary for EV servicing schedules, due to their mechanical simplicity. The only thing you’ll have to remember is a two-year time period in between shop visits.

It doesn’t matter if you drive 12,000 miles or 120,000. Škoda says your EV won’t care; the only measure needed to track upcoming service is going to be time. The Škoda Enyaq IV, which is like the VW ID.4's cousin, will need to visit the shop every couple of years, according to the carmaker:

For the customer, though, these cars are in fact a relief as far as regular servicing goes.
[...]
“The ENYAQ iV is the first ŠKODA whose service frequency is not influenced by mileage. The car ought to be serviced regularly every two years,” says Karel Starý, Head of After Sales at ŠKODA Czech Republic. So the electric SUV’s owners don’t have to keep an eye on their mileage at all.

The carmaker’s claim is not that revolutionary; fewer parts need fewer shop visits. And even though Škoda is touting the benefits of owning the Enyaq IV, the list of maintenance items it mentions applies to many other EVs.

Photo: Škoda

When it’s laid out, the maintenance items are relatively few. Škoda lists the following items as those its techs will look at during infrequent shop visits:

...there’s no need to change the oil, oil and fuel filters or spark plugs. The only standard tasks left are changing the interior dust and pollen filter, brake fluid, and checking the air conditioning, wipers and other consumables. Electric cars also have to have their coolant changed after a few years, but even this is cheaper than similar servicing for conventional cars.

Notice coolant flushes are still in there, along with brake fluid. Škoda says that EV braking systems will see less wear, though, which means replacement of its components will be required less often. Meanwhile, other “wear items” will be gone altogether:

And an electric car saves on service costs in other ways, too. “Thanks to recuperation, electric cars go easier on the braking system, and there is no need to replace worn parts such as timing belts, injectors, the clutch, dual-mass flywheel, particulate filters, EGR valve, turbocharger and other parts,” says Karel Starý.

Of course, Škoda admits that battery degradation will happen, but it’s being a little optimistic about the need for those repairs. The carmaker says that when the battery goes bad, it’s rarely the whole thing that needs replacing and swapping out the battery module that degraded most is fine. The cost of that service will allegedly be about the same as replacing an ICE car’s turbocharger.

The funny thing about all this is that most people already take a “time-not- miles” approach. Outside of car enthusiasts and the most responsible owners, people just ask when their last service was instead of trying to guess their car’s odometer reading at the time. I’m just happy that responsible car ownership is going to get easier. No more oily napkins with Sharpie-scribbled numbers. No more faded stickers in the corner of the windshield. Suck it, mileage!

Photo: Škoda

 

[FutureBoy]

Tesla oil filter

Do Teslas have oil filters?
By
Paulo Acoba
-
June 21, 2021

Poke underneath a Tesla with its aero covers off and what you find might surprise you.
Since Teslas are 100 percent electric, you’d think you never have to deal with oil changes and would never find something like an oil filter attached to anything underneath. You’d be wrong because Teslas (at least the Model 3 and Y) do have oil filters. Although the motors aren’t full of oil, the gearbox with its single-speed transmission and differential is. Filtering that oil is a plain ol’ oil filter.

Here’s a closeup thanks to a Redditor.


Sandwiched on one end of the motor, the gearbox with single-speed transmission takes the raw power from the motor (or motors) and, through gear reduction and torque multiplication, transmits that power to the wheels.

Watch this video clip starting at 6:00 or a better idea of how it all works




To reduce friction and keep gears cool, all those gears are bathed in, presumably, quarts of synthetic oil. Although Tesla uses helical cut gears, friction reduction is not 100 percent and, during the life of the Tesla, through wear and tear, shavings of those gears will contaminate the oil. Those oil filters filter out all the metal shavings.

Tesla Model S and X owners used to require (1) gearbox drain and refill towards the beginning of their ownership to filter out those metal shavings. That’s no longer needed thanks to added oil filters on Model 3 and Y.

While some Tesla owners say you should change those filters every two years, a gear box oil and oil filter change is not in any of Teslas recommended Maintenance Service intervals (linked here.) This suggests those are lifetime oil filters, never needing changing.

Then again, Tesla has a part number {M3} 1095038-00-A for these oil filters, purchasable online.

Looking at these Tesla oil filters, they look pretty ordinary and are probably economy spec made by Wix, Honeywell, or Supertech by Walmart. Seeing how most of their usefulness comes during a narrow window of the total ownership of the Tesla, upgrading to a better filter would be unnecessary.

So yes, Teslas have oil filters, they just aren’t taxed as heavily as they would be in a regular car.

 

[FutureBoy]

I've been wondering about Tesla maintenance. The Škoda article above makes an interesting case. The do note that for EVs there will still be required maintenance tasks:

The only standard tasks left are changing the interior dust and pollen filter, brake fluid, and checking the air conditioning, wipers and other consumables. Electric cars also have to have their coolant changed after a few years, but even this is cheaper than similar servicing for conventional cars.​

Back in the old ICE days of old when things could easily be maintained, I used to do my own oil changes, fluids checks, and air filter replacements. Most of that was easy enough to do but the one thing I hated was changing the oil filter. I would always end up with scraped knuckles, leaked oil (sometimes on me), and a general mess. I'll add an article about a nightmare oil change in my next post. I never had it quite so bad, but I have had 1 or 2 oil filter changes that almost came to similar scenarios.

Anyway, since most of the difficult maintenance goes away on EVs, I wonder how easy it will be for me to do my own maintenance again. Like, will it be easy to replace the biodefense cabin air filter? Or will that thing be buried under a bunch of high voltage things that I don't want to touch? I hope that adding window washing fluid is stupid easy. Then there will be rotating tires and watching for tread wear. Other than those items, I'd probably leave the rest up to Tesla to do themselves.

 

[FutureBoy]

Man Spends Three Days Trying To Remove Oil Filter, Lives Every Wrencher's Nightmare
There's A Special Place In Hell For Whoever Tightened This Guy's Oil Filter.
By
David Tracy

Image: Tony Rotundo

To say Tony Rotundo’s first oil change on his recently-acquired 1965 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S was a disaster would be an understatement. The San Francisco-based wrestling photographer suffered for three days trying every trick in the book, turning a clean orange cylinder into a beat-up thin plate and his excitement for his new car into total exhaustion.

Tony described the photo above. “This is the plate still attached. The phone is right in front of it, which makes it look like there’s a lot of space to work in. There isn’t.”

Tony had bought his 273 cubic-inch V8-powered 1965 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S a few months ago from Washington State and had the vehicle shipped to the Bay Area. “The oil change started out innocently enough,” he said as we began our Facebook Messenger conversation, “though I had to run to the auto store to get a steel band wrench that was big enough for the V8 engine.

“However, the filter would not budge, so I went back to the auto supply store and got a rubber band filter wrench, and that actually crushed the filter a bit, the first time that’s ever happened to me. At that point I was a bit nervous and stopped for the day.”

Image: Tony Rotundo

Image: Tony Rotundo

Image: Tony Rotundo

Image: Tony Rotundo

Rotundo began doing a bit of research, watching YouTube videos on oil filter removal techniques; a common trick that he heard — and one that I’ve unfortunately had to employ on numerous occasions — is shoving a screwdriver through the filter casing and using the handle to gain a moment-arm to turn the canister. At the time, Rotundo thought this was a drastic measure. “But little did I know that was nothing,” he foreshadowed.

Rotundo texted the previous owner to ask if there was a trick to the whole oil filter removal process. “It turns out he had never changed the oil in the three years that he owned the car. He said he didn’t drive it a lot. I guess he avoided the catastrophe that was about to unfold for me. Lucky him.”

This is how the oil filter looked pre-shitshowImage: Fram

Things went south quickly. “At every point of the process, the next step seemed more and more outrageous. I thought, ‘Well, if I commit to the screw driver through the filter that will surely get it off.’ It didn’t,” Tony recounted. “In fact, the screw driver just crushed the can more. It was a waste of time. I stopped again for the day and spent the evening thinking about the next move.”

Image: Tony Rotundo

Rotundo wrote about his saga on the Facebook group “The Early Valiant and Barracuda Club Group” and received over 100 replies from people who understood his pain. Far too many folks in this world have struggled with over-tightened-oil-filter-itus. In an attempt to reduce worldwide suffering, I wrote an article in 2018 titled Stop Screwing Your Oil Filter On So Damn Tight. (In that article I mention that prominent oil filter manufacturer Wix recommends turning the filter just 3/4 of a turn after its seal has touched the oil filter housing; I tend to do just 1/2 turn).

Screenshot: Facebook (Other)

Screenshot: Facebook (Other)

People on the Facebook page commiserated and suggested all sorts of solutions, including removing the oil pump. On an older Plymouth, that’s not the end of the world, but it still constitutes an absolute shitshow when compared to the five seconds this task should have taken.

Rotundo didn’t undo the oil pump, though. He had sprayed penetrating oil where the filter met the threads, he’d dumped Goo Gone onto the base of the filter (presumably to try to soften the gasket which might have been sticking), and he’d applied heat. The next step was to break out an impact hammer and then remove parts of his car to get more room to whack.

“People [on the Facebook group] talked about banging on it with a hammer, so I even brought down a muscle massage device to really bang on it repeatedly. (It goes without saying, there’s very little room to work with. I was looking for parts I could take off and get out of the way, like the transmission dip stick.)” told me.

Image: Tony Rotundo

“On the third day, I committed to cutting the can off entirely and tackling just the metal plate. I put some heat on it, but not enough, and was able to get an impact hammer with a chisel bit into one of the filter holes.” Despite this — and despite shoving hot razor blades between the gasket and engine — the filter wouldn’t budge.

“That night, folks in the forum recommended a number of things. One was to take off the oil filter adapter, but when I checked that out, I didn’t have the inch+ socket. The most common thing folks were recommended was heat, so I decided heat and the impact gun was the way to focus. And that eventually got it.”

“SUCCESS! All Fram filters bow to your new overlord!... I was victorious against the mighty Fram Filter. Whew!!” Rotundo wrote on the Facebook page.

“I used a heat gun, not a propane torch, because I really didn’t want to light my car on fire,” he told me. “So I just heated and heated and heated from above and under, and then hit it with the impact [hammer]. The first time I saw it budge, which was a millimeter, I screamed with joy and knew I had it. But, I still had to heat more, and hammer more, moving it a mill at a time, until finally it spun free.” What a saga!

Tony came out mostly unscathed. “The bandaid in the pic was a small cut from this. I always remember to put on gloves after the fact,” he told me. “I lived on a farm outside of Buffalo, NY, and was a wrestler (I’m a wrestling photographer now), so I tend to throw my body at problems pretty hard. By day three I was fully geared up, though I did have a drop of warm oil land in my eye on day three.” Could have been worse, I guess. But should have been so, so much better.

Photo: Tony Rotundo

Rotundo suspects that whoever had done the oil change last tightened the filter so much that it actually crushed the base plate. “There’s damage to the plate that I didn’t do, so not sure what monster spun that thing on,” he concluded.

How absurd. Remember folks, over-tightening oil filters ruins lives. Don’t do it.

 

[Bill906]

Come on. The car was from 1965. Why spend all that time and energy trying to replace the oil filter. Just throw the car away and buy a new one. Geeesh.

 

[Deleted member 5322]

It doesn’t matter if you drive 12,000 miles or 120,000. Škoda says your EV won’t care; the only measure needed to track upcoming service is going to be time. The Škoda Enyaq IV, which is like the VW ID.4's cousin, will need to visit the shop every couple of years, according to the carmaker:

What is the stupid claim.....
What about tires? Or tire rotation is unnecessary anymore if you drive an EV? Wanna see this guy/gal who drives 120k miles without rotating and replacing tires....

 

[Crissa]

What is the stupid claim.....
What about tires? Or tire rotation is unnecessary anymore if you drive an EV? Wanna see this guy/gal who drives 120k miles without rotating and replacing tires....

Tire maintenance isn't usually something on the manufacturer chart. Since it depends on the tires you choose. EVs have less vibration and more balanced weight, so they tend to wear their tires more evenly (or at least predictably).

-Crissa

 

[Bill906]

Tire maintenance isn't usually something on the manufacturer chart. Since it depends on the tires you choose. EVs have less vibration and more balanced weight, so they tend to wear their tires more evenly (or at least predictably).

-Crissa

Not to mention all wheel drive and all wheel steering. If alignment, balancing etc. is done well, all the tires do "pretty much" the same job (front tires will most likely steer more (degrees) and more often but the rear will still be doing some steering). So tire wear, at least in theory, should be fairly uniform. Also, is rotating tires every oil change really necessary or just a convenient timing?

I was changing a flat tire on my car and a guy stopped and asked, "Got a flat?" I said "Nope. I rotate my tires every 3000 miles no matter where I am". ~ Jeff Foxworthy

 

[Crissa]

Good point about the AWD and AWT. Having all the wheels as drive and turn will reduce the differences in wear from front to back.

The more often you rotate them, the less uneven the wear is, and the longer the entire set lasts. This is entirely based upon how much unevenness in the wear - I live in the mountains, with front wheel drive, the front wheels take alot more wear.

(And annoyingly, the tire dealer prefers to put the worn tires in the front, which I really did not appreciate this last rotation.)

-Crissa

 

[Deleted member 5322]

Not to mention all wheel drive and all wheel steering. If alignment, balancing etc. is done well, all the tires do "pretty much" the same job (front tires will most likely steer more (degrees) and more often but the rear will still be doing some steering). So tire wear, at least in theory, should be fairly uniform. Also, is rotating tires every oil change really necessary or just a convenient timing?

I was changing a flat tire on my car and a guy stopped and asked, "Got a flat?" I said "Nope. I rotate my tires every 3000 miles no matter where I am". ~ Jeff Foxworthy

Are you talking based on a personal experience or just your opinion?
Electric cars are much heavier, and tires do not last as long as on ICE cars even though weight is more balanced between front and rear.
"How Long do the Tires Last?
A set of tires will last you around 20,000 to 25,000 miles in the Model Y.
Teslas and other performance oriented EVs tend to wear out their tires more.
This is due to the instantaneous power that the motors can deliver which exerts a lot more force on the tires.
To make a set of tires last longer and make sure they wear out evenly, you also need to rotate your tires every 6,250 miles or if tread depth difference is 2/32 in or greater, whichever comes first.
"
https://enginepatrol.com/how-long-tesla-model-y-last/

And a screenshot from tesla:

PS. Have never heard that any Skoda has All Wheel Steering.

PSS. Before posting something you are not sure 100%, please google it first, or specify that it is your personal opinion. There are a lot of people that have never driven EV and they buy your opinion as a clear fact.

PSS. Nothing personal

 

[Deleted member 5322]

For the ICE car usually tire set lasts 50-60k miles, according to Google

 

[Crissa]

Tires do not automatically wear more on EVs. Just... if you do hard starts (which you probably will because torque is addictive).

-Crissa

 

[Bill906]

Are you talking based on a personal experience or just your opinion?
Electric cars are much heavier, and tires do not last as long as on ICE cars even though weight is more balanced between front and rear.
"How Long do the Tires Last?
A set of tires will last you around 20,000 to 25,000 miles in the Model Y.
Teslas and other performance oriented EVs tend to wear out their tires more.
This is due to the instantaneous power that the motors can deliver which exerts a lot more force on the tires.
To make a set of tires last longer and make sure they wear out evenly, you also need to rotate your tires every 6,250 miles or if tread depth difference is 2/32 in or greater, whichever comes first.
"
https://enginepatrol.com/how-long-tesla-model-y-last/

And a screenshot from tesla:

PS. Have never heard that any Skoda has All Wheel Steering.

PSS. Before posting something you are not sure 100%, please google it first, or specify that it is your personal opinion. There are a lot of people that have never driven EV and they buy your opinion as a clear fact.

PSS. Nothing personal

Sorry, I think we have to many people replying to other people replying to other people and the references got confused.

I thought the conversation was about tire rotation. My comment meant to imply that the CyberTruck shouldn't need tire rotation as often because the wear between tires should be uniform. On vehicles with 2 wheel drive and 2 wheel steering the tires do different jobs, causing them to wear differently. With all wheel drive and all wheel steering on the Cybertruck I would expect the tires to wear evenly because they all do (more or less) the same jobs.

Before this thread I'd never heard of Skoda.
I did not state anything as fact. I said things like "In Theory..." and "should be..."
I did not mean to imply EV tires would not wear out faster than similar ICE vehicle. Just that on the CT the need to rotate the tires should be less, at least in theory.

PS. On the internet I've learned to never take anything personal.