It really depends what you want to do on maintenance.
- dealership recommended (cost the most and they will probably do things that are not needed
- factory recommended severe (less cost, but for high mileage leafs)
- factory recommended less severe (even less cost but for lower mileage)
- whatever you want to do (cheapest, but you run a greater risk of things going wrong).
As a grandson of a mechanic and my dad did all car repairs himself, I have a decent perspective on car maintenance. Dealership recommended is awful - never do that. Doing your own thing is a risk adventure, so it really depends on how you want to gamble, this car is probably lower risk compared to an ICE so you can probably easily get away with only doing some of the maintenance on the vehicle (or doing them at a later date). I tend to lean to the factory recommended. Mostly, because I put a lot of miles on my car. But I have a less risk of things breaking down.
For Severe:
Every 7,500 or 6 months (fyi mileage is WAY more important than time, unless you are putting on very little miles, I would just go by the miles)
Rotate tires
Inspect all this:
Axle & Suspension
Brake pads & rotors
Drive shaft boots
front suspension ball joints
steering gear and linkage
steering linkage ball joints
If you take the less severe, you only need to rotate tires (no checks needed)
At 15,000 (12 months or every other maintenance):
Replace brake fluid
replace in-cabin filter
rotate tires
Inspect all this:
Axle & Suspension
Brake lines and cables
Brake pads & rotors
charging port
Drive shaft boots
EV battery usage report (MUST be done at the year mark and every year mark - not dependent on mileage)
front suspension ball joints
reduction gear oil
steering gear and linkage
steering linkage ball joints
Less severe does not include the brake fluid and only inspects Brake lines and cables, Brake pads & rotors, charging port, Drive shaft boots, EV battery usage, reduction gear oil.
These repeat, except for at 30,000 (two years) the less severe does the severe maintenance schedule.
Many people have delayed the in-cabin filter and the brake fluid replacement without issues. But it depends - if you are in a bad air quality or dusty area, you may want to replace you cabin filter either on time or only delay it a little bit. In addition, if you use your physical brakes alot (lots of city driving, less regen available for braking due to temps or high SoC, lower capacity battery, or just a hard core driver) you probably need to replace the fluid sooner rather than later.
All of these items can be found in the maintenance guide. Really it boils down to: rotating tires (every 6 months or longer), replace cabin filter (every year or longer), replace brake fluid (every 1-2 years or longer), and Battery inspection (every year regardless). And then a bunch of checks with can be superfluous, depending on how you view it (most dealerships do that stuff for free when you take it in for any work).
