TRUE Cost of Tesla Maintenance After 3 Years

thanks to omaze for sponsoring this video visit omaze.com people choose to buy electric vehicles for a variety of reasons whether it's for the incredible performance the smooth quiet ride or to never have to buy gas again but for everybody one of the biggest benefits of buying an electric vehicle is the lower cost of maintenance over the life of the vehicle but is this really the case i'm one of the very few people in this world who has driven a tesla model 3 for at least one year after the new vehicle warranty has expired so in this video i'll show you exactly how much i've spent on repairs and maintenance on my tesla model 3 after driving nearly 75 000 miles now one thing you should know if it's not obvious already i drive a lot according to the us department of transportation the average person drives around 13 500 miles a year this is actually the highest average miles per year in american history and equates to over 1 000 miles a month well i drive nearly twice that at about 25 000 miles a year and i got my model 3 in early 2018 and it currently has 73 000 miles on it and based on those stats my mileage so far is equal to over five years of driving for the average driver and i think five years is the absolute minimum someone should plan to own a new car so that's why this is a good milestone to stop at and see what the total cost of repairs and maintenance have been so far before we tally the cost let's go over why electric vehicles generally cost less to repair than the average gas powered vehicle well first electric vehicles are just simpler and have fewer moving parts so they need less maintenance according to repairpal.com when a vehicle reaches its fifth year that's often when expensive items like tires wear out and evs cost about 900 a year to repair and maintain compared to gasoline-powered cars which cost about 1200 typical maintenance items on electric vehicles include the cabin air filters brake pads tires and suspension components now evs have cooling systems that use antifreeze similar to what would be found in a gasoline engine's radiator but because there is no danger of contamination by oil or combustion byproducts it doesn't break down and seldom needs to be changed also regenerative braking systems found in evs use resistance from the electric motors to slow the vehicle so brake pads don't see as much use as they would in an internal combustion engine vehicle now one of the biggest misunderstandings of electric vehicles and teslas especially in the comments section of some of my videos is some people think that ev batteries need to be replaced way earlier than expected according to repairpal the average cost of replacing an ev battery pack is currently 5 500 which is roughly the same as an engine replacement in a mid-range gasoline vehicle but battery packs tend to last a minimum of 8 to 10 years the electric motor in an ev can be more expensive to replace ranging from six thousand to nine thousand dollars but they usually outlast the vehicle itself and unlike a gasoline engine which can fail suddenly ev batteries typically slowly degrade over time that means that similar to a higher mileage gasoline vehicle will still be useful for slightly shorter trips gradually over a long period of time finally electric vehicles tend to have longer warranties according to the department of energy ev's relative simplicity and less frequent need for maintenance has generally led manufacturers to extend warranty coverage now that brings us to my tesla currently all model 3 and model y vehicles are protected by a new vehicle limited warranty which includes the basic vehicle warranty which covers the vehicle for four years or fifty thousand miles whichever comes first it also includes the supplemental restraint system warranty which covers the vehicle for five years or sixty thousand miles whichever comes first and the battery and drive unit warranty which for long range models is covered for a period of eight years or 120 000 miles whichever comes first now the basic vehicle warranty pretty much covers any repair that isn't your fault and that warranty for me expired one year ago when i surpassed 50 000 miles the srs warranty covers the seat belts and airbag systems and that warranty expired last year for me when i surpassed 60 000 miles and my battery and drive unit warranty is still active and will hopefully last another two years or so now let's go over every dollar i've spent on repairs and maintenance for my model 3 so far not counting accidents or things that are my fault so this won't include my bumper replacement that i had two years ago but you can watch that video here if you'd like to see that now first i'll go over all the repairs that were covered for free under the basic vehicle warranty during the first 50 000 miles all of which were fixed by a mobile technician at my location without me having to take it into a service center but before we get into that let me tell you about today's sponsor omaze if you've ever dreamed of owning the most coveted tesla this is your chance omaze is giving away a tesla model s with a beautiful matte granite exterior and cognac interior plus twenty thousand dollars cash the model s is the best tesla out right now with an insane 0-60 speed of 2.3 seconds and a whopping 348 miles of estimated range this custom model s has some special features including a carbon fiber wide body kit 21 inch performance wheels with omaze engraving sports dynamic air suspension lowering kit carbon fiber spoiler a blackout trim package and more it even comes with tesla's full self-driving option included now for this giveaway omaze has teamed up with the give power which is a non-profit that uses its solar expertise to power and provide clean water food security and light to regions in need these water farms aim to provide a long-term renewably powered drinking water solution for many living in dry conditions to potentially win a custom tesla model s plus 20 thousand dollars and to support a great cause go to omaze.com sly you can also use my code sly20 and you'll receive 20 additional entries now jumping back into my repairs early on my exterior driver door handle wasn't closing as quickly as it should have been later one of my windshield wipers was making a clicking noise my cellular lte data stopped working and the board needed to be replaced and finally my driver door was making a loud popping noise when opening and closing in the winter when it got cold so like i said all of those were minor repairs covered for free under the warranty and repaired at my location which didn't cause any inconvenience to my schedule even though electric vehicles tend to require less maintenance than internal combustion engine vehicles like we discussed evs do tend to go through tires more quickly since they usually weigh a lot more and they have quicker instant torque luckily i've only had to replace my tires once my total cost for tires on my model 3 has been 640 dollars to replace all four tires around the 40 000 mile mark i ordered them directly from tire rack and a local tire shop in my city put them on for free that shop has also given me free tire rotations over the life of my tesla which has been nice now tesla doesn't actually require service intervals for the model 3 like they did for the model s but in the owner's manual they do recommend some surface at the two year mark so i went ahead and scheduled the recommended service consisting of cabin air filter replacement wiper blades replacement brake caliper cleaning and brake fluid replacement for all that tesla quoted me six hundred dollars which sounded a little too high for me but since that is all just recommended and not required i requested only the brake caliper in brake fluid service which ended up costing 390 dollars and that did require me to take it into the service center as for the cabin air filter i ordered the part directly from tesla and replaced it myself which was easy to do and only took me about 30 minutes costing me about 36 also during my two year checkup appointment tesla upgraded my fsd computer to hardware 3 at no charge since i was already an fsd owner now here are all the out of warranty repairs that have happened after i surpassed 50 000 miles in july 2020 my driver door window button started sticking and caused issues when i tried to open or close the window which luckily with a tesla you can close the windows from the mobile app which was very clutch the mobile technician fixed it at my location for 94 in september of 2020 my lte connectivity stopped working again for the second time but the connectivity card was actually covered under the hardware 3 computer warranty which was installed just a few months prior so they fixed that lte issue for free which was nice a few months later in december 2020 my charge port door stopped opening and closing automatically so i was forced to open and close it manually which doesn't feel good at all because the charge port door is probably the most finicky part on the model 3 and it felt like i was going to break it by forcing it open and closed the mobile technician fixed this at my location and it cost a whopping 311 dollars which definitely took me by surprise i never would have thought that part would cost that much to fix so that kind of hurt and now in march 2021 i'm having an issue with my iphone not automatically connecting which is possibly caused by a bad seat occupancy sensor because my car is acting like it's not recognizing me as being in the driver's seat and it's causing my screen to stay black when i close my driver door and causing my car to automatically shift into park right after i put it into drive if the seat belt isn't fastened which is really irritating when i'm backing out of my garage or turning back into my garage i currently have a service appointment for this so i don't know what the cost will be i'm hoping tessa will cover this under the good faith since it's tied to the srs limited warranty and that just ran out for me only just a few months ago if i find out before releasing this video i'll put it here or i'll include it in a pinned comment below so overall if i count the cost of new tires the total i spent on repairs and maintenance for my tesla model 3 after the first 73 000 miles is 1471. not counting what it may possibly cost to get the c occupancy sensor or whatever's wrong with my car fixed so that comes to about two cents spent on maintenance per mile driven so far and since all cars electric or gas require tire replacements at some point if we just count the tesla specific service done and not include the tires that total is about 831. half of which was completely optional two-year service checkup that's not bad at all given that that covers a span equivalent to five years of driving for the average driver also keep in mind none of those repairs for my tesla model 3 have actually prevented me from driving the car so i still rate the reliability very high for my tesla the only problem is i don't really have experience with owning a new gasoline car so i can't compare them head to head but maybe you do what do you think about the cost of maintenance so far for my tesla is it better than you were expecting is it worse let me know in the comments below if you enjoyed this video make sure you subscribe to see more tesla and tech videos in the future my name is andy thank you for watching and i'll talk to you in the next one thanks to omaze for sponsoring this video visit omaze.com

Channel: Andy Slye

Views: 277,251

Rating: 4.8689141 out of 5

Keywords: tesla, model 3, tesla model 3, tesla service, tesla maintenance, tesla repair, tesla repair cost, tesla service cost, tesla repairs, tesla maintenance costs, tesla costs, tesla cost of ownership, tesla cost of ownership vs gas, tesla cost, model 3 cost, model 3 true cost, tesla true cost, tesla model 3 cost, tesla model 3 true cost, true cost of tesla, model 3 cost of ownership, tesla warranty, tesla model 3 cost of ownership, tesla cost vs gas, tesla cost vs normal car

Id: mSd00383dTE

Length: 10min 57sec (657 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 23 2021