Why Maintaining A Gas Car Sucks Compared To An Electric Car

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Owning gas cars means dealing with frequent oil changes and various maintenance issues, leading to time, cost, and reliability concerns versus EVs.

This rant is going to list some things I’ve found to be annoying about the ~15 gas cars I owned until I went all electric in 2021. At first I was going to call it “Getting an oil change, you have 4 choices, all of them bad,” but decided to expand on just the oil change to add a little more. It is somewhat related to this article I wrote 6 years ago called “My Car Expenses The 15 Years Before Tesla.”

If You Own A Gas Car, You Better Change The Oil Or The Car Won’t Last

This is a real pain when you own a lot of cars. Although manufactures like Toyota will tell you that you only need to change the oil every 12 months or 10,000 miles, that is the normal schedule. If you live in a city, you have a lot of stop and go driving, so you should probably use the schedule for severe conditions. If you are in a rural area, you probably drive a lot more than 5,000 miles every 6 months because things are farther away when you live in a rural area (I have lived in rural Iowa and suburban Minnesota and suburban Tampa, Florida). There will always be someone on Reddit who tells you that is way too long and you really should do it every 6,000 miles and use the very expensive full synthetic oil.

It could be that Toyota knows that its maintenance intervals are too long and reduce the life of its engines but it doesn’t really care because the company only covers the powertrain for 5 years or 60,000 miles and the damage doesn’t show up until later. This allows Toyota to claim lower maintenance costs while also, if it causes problems after the warranty runs out, Toyota gets another new car sale earlier and Toyota maintains its good reputation because the other companies do the same thing. Hyundai offers a standard 10-year or 100,000-mile warranty and recommends oil and filter changes every 8,000 miles under normal conditions and every 5,000 miles under severe conditions.

In the past, there was a lot of buzz about changing oil every 3 months or 3,000 miles. The consensus is that that is now overkill if you are using modern oil. So, let’s say you have 4 cars for you, your spouse, and your two teenage kids and you put about 15,000 miles on each car and decide to change oil every 4 months or 5,000 miles. That is 3 changes a year for your 4 cars, or 12 changes a year. I know you could use public transportation and be less car dependent, but that isn’t realistic in many areas of the country and so I won’t get distracted by that point in this article.

1. Changing the oil yourself costs about $30 for the oil and filter. I’ve done this many times in my youth, but not recently. It is a pain because you have to buy the oil and filters and then you need ramps to get under the car. You need to store the ramps when you aren’t using them. If you strip the drain plug, that is an issue because I don’t know how to fix that myself. I’ve had the oil filter be on too tight or not tight enough (that is more of a problem for diesels, though). Then you have to responsibly dispose of the used oil (40 years ago, I didn’t know about that). Then, if you don’t use gloves, you can easily get your hands dirty (it can also cause cancer) or burn your hands. Also, it isn’t much fun to do when it is very cold or hot outside. Realistically, most people aren’t going to do this because they are busy with their jobs and their kids activities and when they are done with that, they just want to relax. On the other hand, as a young adult, I enjoyed changing my own oil.

2. Another option is to take it to a place that offers a low price on oil changes. This might be $29.99 or $49.99. This sounds great at first. Avoid all the hassle and it costs about the same as doing it yourself. But there are two gotchas you might not know if you haven’t done this before.
   1. The time to do the oil change. You might need to drive 20 minutes to the location, wait 2 hours for them to do the change, and then drive 20 minutes back. That’s almost 3 hours for each of 12 oil changes a year (in my 4-car example). That is a lot of time (36 hours a year)! I’m doing this because the 20 minutes to charge my electric car when I’m on a long trip is too painful? Give me a break!
   2. The reason the price is so low is they are using the low price to get your car in the shop and then they will recommend some service that you don’t really need. Now, if they recommend you replace your brakes or tires when they could last another 6 months, that isn’t fraud. If you are busy, you might just want to do it since you don’t want to get the very last mile out of every part, when you could have an emergency on your hands when your belt goes out or your car is on bald tires. But sometimes the recommendations are more questionable. And how much do most people know about whether the service is needed? The service advisors become experts at sizing up the client and assessing how much they think they will pay. Maybe they recommend $1,000 in preventive maintenance but then say they can probably delay $500 of it until the next oil change, then say they have a $100 coupon for the $500 repair so that it is only $400 if they do it today. Sounds pretty appealing to me. You do care about your family’s safety, don’t you? Overall, this isn’t a good way to go.

3. Another option is to go to one of those quick oil change places. Those places charge a little more. Let’s say about $100. They are much faster. If you are on your way to something, maybe it’s only 5 minutes out of your way and maybe only 30 minutes to change your oil. So, for some people, well worth an extra $50 to save a couple hours; not for others. Maybe you can get it for less if you use a coupon. Do they recommend $1,000 of extra services? No, because they don’t usually have full mechanics that can do that. But they will recommend overpriced wiper blades and maybe some other items like A/C recharge or coolant change. Overall, I think this is a better choice than just taking the cheapest oil change in your area (the previous option).

4. Another option is to go to the dealer that sells your car. I’ve found that they charge a little more than independent dealers, but they might be a little more honest. Your mileage may vary.
5. Another option is to read reviews, talk to your friends, and find a local, honest mechanic. This is a good option. Usually an honest mechanic has to charge a little more, since they aren’t making the big bucks on the unnecessary services the less honest people recommend. The honest mechanic won’t likely be as convenient to you as the quick change place, and since word gets around, you will probably have to wait 2 hours for the oil change. He probably doesn’t have a shuttle service to take you to your work or home, so you might have to either just wait or get an Uber or have you spouse pick you up. So, this is about 3 hours for an oil change, but at least they aren’t hitting you up for an extra $500 unless you really need it.

So, I ended up doing #5, using a local mechanic I trusted who was close to my home and using the more expensive quick change options when I didn’t have time.

Conclusion

That is just the oil change! You also will be dealing with engine air filters, cabin air filters, brake pads and rotors, tire replacements, wipers, 12V battery replacements, inspections, mufflers, coolant changes, fuel filters, CV joints, shock absorbers, headlight bulbs, brake fluid replacement, alignments, tire replacements, A/C recharging, and transmission fluid. Electric cars would typically only worry about cabin air filters, wipers, brake fluid replacement, alignments, A/C recharging, 12V battery replacements, and tire replacements. Basically, EVs require less than half the maintenance. This Consumer Reports paper from 2020 is well researched and shows EV costs about half the costs of gas cars.

Notice that EVs (and surprisingly plug-in hybrids) start off a little cheaper to maintain, but it isn’t a big deal for the first 50,000 miles, since gas cars are pretty cheap to maintain too. But after that, the costs of the gas cars double and triple per mile for both the gas cars and the EVs, but not for the plug-in hybrids. I suspect the sample size might be too small on the plug-in hybrids. I’d like to see some research on all types after 200,000 miles.

The main point of this article is that it isn’t just about the dollars and sense, but the time and anxiety of worrying if you are keeping your family safe or getting ripped off by a dishonest mechanic. It’s not that you can’t get a bad EV mechanic, it’s that you go to them for a lot less maintenance and repairs, so you are less likely to have a problem.

If you want to take advantage of my Tesla referral link to get Reward Credits, here’s the link: https://ts.la/paul92237 — but as I have said before, if another owner helped you more, please use their link instead of mine. If you want to learn more about Tesla’s new referral program (August 2024), Chris Boylan has written an excellent article on it.

Disclosure: I am a shareholder in Tesla [TSLA], BYD [BYDDY], Nio [NIO], XPeng [XPEV], NextEra Energy [NEP], and several ARK ETFs. But I offer no investment advice of any sort here.