Quote:
Originally Posted by Erasemus
As a Leaf owner I did this calculation before buying and included another category, maintenance, for a 5 year /100,000 mile total cost of ownership (TCO) comparison.
The only Leaf maintenance costs in that interval involve transmission fluid, brake fluid and brake maintenance. The Prius requires those plus oil changes, belt maintenance, radiator maintenance, fuel pump maintenance, etc. that I estimated as an additional $1000. For my driving habits, I concluded that the Leaf should have a significantly lower TCO, assuming gas prices rising to $5.00/gal over the interval.
The energy costs for the Leaf also contribute to job creation in the country where the vehicle is charged due to the fuel sources (coal and nuclear, and, in my case solar). They do not fund dependence on foreign oil.
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According to Nissan, the Leaf's gear oil never needs to be changed (VW says they same thing, change it only if you are changing a seal or something) where the Prius has a CVT instead of a regular gear box and those can get pricey to rebuild and some of the early Prius had issues with them.
I also haven't checked to see how long the exhaust on a Prius lasts, but unless it's stainless steel it's going to rust out at some point too.
The Leaf is pretty impressive, list of maintenance is rotate the tires, change the cabin air filter, replace the brake fluid and replace the wind shield wiper blades.