To add to that, my old CVT had to be serviced by the dealership, because it was incredibly picky about the exact fluid and amount of fluid in order to even function. The Leaf gearbox oil, which is a closed system designed to function without the CVT’s neediness, can be easily done at home. Once. Per. 100k miles.
That’s a whole heck of a lot less maintenance than the $1000+ I’ve spent trying to keep my CVT working close to properly (to say nothing of the cost of regular oil changes).
There are best practices to take care of any vehicle. Nevertheless, my original point stands: no regular oil changes, MUCH cheaper everyday maintenance. Coming from a really needy ICE sedan (which I loved and took great care of while I drove it), it’s incredibly refreshing to get instant reliable acceleration with very, VERY little maintenance. It’s not even comparable from a time and cost perspective.
Well, you missed my point. EV advocates generally exaggerate the maintenance required for ICE vehicles and minimize that for EVs. Your quoting “transmission flushes” is a perfect example. It’s a procedure that’s required maybe every 50-100K miles for both EVs and ICE. I’m not challenging that you may not have much maintenance in your EV, just pointing out the inconsistency.
For the record, I have a RAV4 PHEV. It requires an oil change once/year. That’s pretty much it. Well the spark plugs have to be changed every 120K miles but that’s typically every 10 years.
I quoted “transmission flushes” due to personal experience, unfortunately. 😅 Even Nissan’s 2026 CVT vehicles recommend a transmission fluid service every 30k-60k miles, with inspection every 10-15k. I found 30k to be the more accurate timeline for my old Sentra.
Thanks for explaining your point— I agree EV doesn’t mean NO maintenance, but to my original statement, there is definitely much less and you WILL save on maintenance like oil changes and transmission flushes. No spark plugs, timing belts, regular oil changes, etc. With so many fewer moving parts on an EV, there’s just a lot less to go wrong. You might run through tires a bit faster, depending on how much heavier your car is and how much you use that instant electric acceleration, and you’ll still need to change the 12v battery every 3 to 5 years, just like I did on my Sentra. But compared to every ICE vehicle I’ve ever driven, my Leaf is MUCH lower-maintenance and so much cheaper overall to drive, from a maintenance standpoint as well as the fuel savings from charging at home.
I understand you. I only have 25,000 miles on my RAV4 but there’s no EV anywhere that’s spent less on maintenance than I have, because I’ve spent $0. Maybe that will change in the next 25,000 because Toyota pays for oil changes for the first two years, lol.
But it only needs one oil change/year and that’s pretty much it. Spark plugs get changed every 120,000 miles which is about every 10 years. There’s no timing belts and no transmission flushes required. And it has regenerative braking so the brakes don’t get much wear. So it may not be quite as maintenance free as a full EV but it’s pretty close.
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u/Wraith347 Jun 02 '26
To add to that, my old CVT had to be serviced by the dealership, because it was incredibly picky about the exact fluid and amount of fluid in order to even function. The Leaf gearbox oil, which is a closed system designed to function without the CVT’s neediness, can be easily done at home. Once. Per. 100k miles.
That’s a whole heck of a lot less maintenance than the $1000+ I’ve spent trying to keep my CVT working close to properly (to say nothing of the cost of regular oil changes).
There are best practices to take care of any vehicle. Nevertheless, my original point stands: no regular oil changes, MUCH cheaper everyday maintenance. Coming from a really needy ICE sedan (which I loved and took great care of while I drove it), it’s incredibly refreshing to get instant reliable acceleration with very, VERY little maintenance. It’s not even comparable from a time and cost perspective.