If you haven’t heard, the 2020 Proton X70 CKD was recently launched in Malaysia, now packing a new seven-speed wet dual-clutch transmission instead of a six-speed torque converter automatic that was found in the previous fully-imported CBU units.

Pricing starts from RM94,800, and you can find out everything that’s new with the popular C-segment SUV in our comprehensive launch report. We reckon many of you will have questions about the new 7DCT, particularly how it feels, so there’s also our written and video review to look at.

Another question that is probably on the minds of potential buyers is just what impact the new transmission will have on the X70’s maintenance cost, considering it is technically a more complex piece of kit than the 6AT. Well, we’ll answer that question right here.

Pulling the figures from Proton’s official service schedules for the CKD and CBU versions of the SUV, and putting it into neat tables, you can see that the locally-assembled model is comparatively cheaper to maintain over 100,000 km or five years.

Going into detail, the serviceable items for both versions are largely identical, but the X70 CBU requires a transmission oil change much sooner at the 60,000-km/36-month mark. By comparison, the X70 CKD’s change comes at the 90,000-km/54-month mark.

The difference in maintenance costs is largely due to the cost of the transmission oils used, with X70 CBU owners needing to pay RM500.96, while it is RM353.45 for the X70 CKD. The latter requires four litres of Shell Spirax S5 DCT10 transmission oil, while the former uses eight litres of Geely ATF 3292 by Fuchs Petrolub.

Proton X70 maintenance costs: CKD (top), CBU (bottom)

On a year-to-year basis, the maintenance costs between the CKD and CBU models are largely identical, with the exception of the third and fifth year. In the third year, X70 CKD owners will pay less but this is reversed in the fifth year due to the delayed transmission oil change for the 7DCT.

In any case, owners of the X70 CKD will no longer have a service bill above RM1,000 every 10,000 km/6 months from now on, so it is less likely you’ll be surprised by a huge bill at the service centre. But anyway, all scheduled service costs are available on the Proton website and MyProton mobile app.

There you have it, the new X70 CKD is cheaper to maintain compared to the previous CBU model despite being equipped with a more advanced transmission, even if the difference isn’t by a huge margin for those in the market for such a model.