All inclusive

My BMW EV will be two years old in June. BMW have been bombarding me with emails & marketing news on the App, to take out their 4 year (from new) all inclusive Service offer for €800. The car does not come with a Service book and the car manual has no detail of service requirements,  stating simply the car will tell you when it needs servicing & apart from the invoices one has to pay, all records of work done are held on the BMW server.

Online, one can read tgat the 1st service due in June consists of:
- Visual check
- Change passenger compartment air filter
- Check brake fluid. (NOT change it).
I think I've seen, changing the wiper blades is included, but of course not cost of the blades. I hope a test drive is done!

The next service due in 2027, is more or less the same but includes changing brake fluid.

EVs basically have no service requirement, but of course the 3 year warranty on the car & 8 years on the battery naturally require you to have these services done. And indeed a checkup is sensible. It's also an existential matter for the dealerships whose main income from service, spare parts & repairs from combustion engined vehicles is under threat. Particularly as the future of car selling in the EV sector, will be towards online direct sales.

Tesla does not have any service requirements for its warranty, but interestingly Tesla cars are at the very bottom of the German TÜV/MoT annual rankings of pass/fails at 3 years and every 2 years afterwards. One of the top failure points are the brakes, not because they are worn down but the reverse, they don't get used, the brake discs rust, get pitted and damage the pads. 

So one of the essentials of EV ownership is to regularly use the brakes by braking hard at a good speed with the car in neutral ( so that the regeneration doesn't work).

Which brings us to today's Blip. Returning from the evening dog walk, the setting sun was so slow it was shining under the car and lighting up the wheels on the opposite side. That reminded me to have a look at the disks as I haven't done any forced braking recently, exactly when it's quite important given the salted winter roads.

Still not sure what to do about the BMW offer.