Comparison of Maintenance Schedule and Operating Costs: Volkswagen ID.3 vs. Golf GTD

A comparison of the maintenance schedule and its intervals shows that, especially if you drive a lot, the running costs of the Volkswagen ID.3 are noticeably cheaper than the Golf GTD. However, both cars spend approximately the same amount of time in the service during individual visits.

One of the main reasons why some people refuse to buy an electric car is the high purchase price compared to an adequate conventional car. At the higher levels of the market, for cars with a price of over a million crowns, things are slowly leveling off, but often due to an increase in the prices of conventional cars, rather than some miraculous drop in the price of an electric car, for smaller cars, electric cars are still tens of percent more expensive than “combustion engines”.

But when you buy a new or refurbished car, it’s not just about the purchase price, it’s also about the operating costs – and these can be significantly lower with an electric car than with a conventional car. How concretely this can be, the Czech Volkswagen shows by comparing the Golf and the ID.3. It offers prepaid service packages for both.

We can easily consider these cars as direct competitors, if we ignore the Golf Variant station wagon. So we have five-door hatchbacks of roughly the same size and roominess, but you can save up to 41,400 crowns on servicing the electric one as part of those prepaid packages.

The Service option includes service inspections, engine oil changes and labor. The Service Plus variant is significantly more expensive because it adds air conditioning service and also spare parts, including more expensive ones such as clutches, timing sets, batteries, belts, brake discs and pads, or exhaust and fuel system parts. All within normal wear and tear, of course.

Comparison of service packages VW Golf vs. VW ID.3 Model Golf ID.3

Service

5 years/60 thousand km CZK 26,100 – 5 years/100 thousand km CZK 37,300 – 5 years/150 thousand km CZK 57,000 CZK 15,600

Service Plus

5 years/60 thousand km CZK 40,700 CZK 34,300 5 years/100 thousand km CZK 68,000 CZK 42,700 5 years/150 thousand km CZK 110,400 CZK 75,600

What are the specific differences between servicing an electric car and a conventional car? While the EA288evo diesel unit in the Golf contains roughly 1,400 parts, there are only 210 parts in the electrical system, including the power electronics and gearbox-reducer.

As for maintenance, in a conventional car, the engine oil must be changed after no more than 30,000 km or 2 years, including the filter, the transmission oil with filter after 120,000 km, the brake fluid after 2 years, and in addition to fuel, AdBlue must be topped up; for electric cars, it must be changed only brake fluid after 2 years and refrigerant R744 in air conditioning after 4 years. Other fillings of both cars, including the coolant, do not have a replacement interval according to the manufacturer.

But that’s not all. For the Golf, you need to change the air filter once every 90,000 km or 6 years, the fuel filter after 90,000 km and the pollen filter every 60,000 km or 2 years. It is also necessary to replace the timing belt with pulleys after no more than 210 thousand km and check the particulate filter after the same run (and then every 30 thousand km). The grooved belt, dual-mass flywheel, tires, suspension shock absorbers and brakes are also subject to wear.

On the contrary, only the pollen filter is changed for the ID.3. Tires, shock absorbers, wiper blades or the 12V battery are subject to wear and tear just like in a conventional car, as well as the brakes, although to a lesser extent, because the car tries to brake mainly by recuperation through the electric motor. And of course, belts, flywheel and other filters are not there at all.

In addition to necessary replacements, the service inspections themselves check the mechanics of both cars and, in the electric car, the high-voltage components of the drive system. The number of required time units is comparable for both cars.

And finally, due to the fact that with an electric car, the service intervals are tied only to the elapsed time, not to the kilometers driven, its operating costs are lower the more you drive.

2023-12-21 11:57:00
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