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Bad Master Charger

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After 27k miles, my master charger died on my 15 month old MS. I went to get in my car Thursday morning and while it appeared to have charged that night, there was the dreaded red ring on the charging port. Thought maybe it was the cable, so I tried my spare cable and no luck, even tried a different plug at the house. Called Tesla service, they downloaded the logs confirmed it was the master charger and sent a loner MS to my house. Car was fixed within 24 hours.

Great experience with Tesla Service here in Dallas!

Although, kind of wondering why the master charger just decided to quit now.
 
No, there isn't any way to do that. You'd have to remove both chargers, put the secondary one on the side with the charge port, and program the secondary charger to become the master.
 
Our master charger failed too, but earlier than this (about six months in). In our case, we could actually smell that characteristic singed electronics smell in the back seat. :scared:

Tesla replaced it pronto, and we have been fine since then. Hopefully something got re-engineered/upgraded in there.
 
and program the secondary charger to become the master.

This is the key part. My car had a bad secondary charger and the spare parts are programmed as primaries. Took the service center a while to figure out how to reprogram it to be a secondary. This was nearly a year ago, so I'm sure they're a lot better at it now, but the point is, you can't just move the chargers around at will.
 
Thank you for sharing this data point. Good to hear this can be done in remote locations (rather than requiring a service center).

Given that, it seems a little pricey to charge a $2,100 premium to install the second charger after the fact, $3,600 after delivery vs $1,500 as an original build option. That's one of the reasons why I strongly recommend for new buyers to get the dual charger option in the beginning.
 
Given that, it seems a little pricey to charge a $2,100 premium to install the second charger after the fact, $3,600 after delivery vs $1,500 as an original build option. That's one of the reasons why I strongly recommend for new buyers to get the dual charger option in the beginning.
I'm not certain you can equate replacing a broken 2nd charger with adding a 2nd charger. For example, "adding" the S85 to P85 upgrade is quite different than swapping out a P85 drive unit for another P85 drive unit.
 
Mine has failed within the first two weeks--and about 1000 miles--of ownership. Basically, the car won't charge above 30 amps. Although the SC staff initially blamed the problem on either my home outlet, or cables, or gremlins, an inspection of the logs apparently revealed the master charger was at fault. They have to order the part and will alert me when it's in. At least the Springfield SC seems responsive, friendly, and on the ball.
 
Our master charger went bad after two months and 3K miles. It was getting error messages when plugging in to charge, but still charged. The Van Nuys SC had it overnight and we picked up this morning. Good service. Just surprised this stuff fails...
 
Our master charger went bad after two months and 3K miles. It was getting error messages when plugging in to charge, but still charged. The Van Nuys SC had it overnight and we picked up this morning. Good service. Just surprised this stuff fails...

It's electronics. In general, electronics either fails very quickly or lasts a very long time. That's why most production shops run the servers for a week or more before actually putting them in production. There is likely a burn-in period at the factory but that only covers a large percentage of the possible infant mortality cases--not 100%.

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It would be nice if Tesla could reprogram the 2nd unit remotely and have it be the master,without having to physically uninstall and reinstall the units. As a quick fix. Some charge is better than no charge.

The problem is that the port goes to the master charger. If that charger isn't working, then the second charger can't be accessed. The only fixes are to have a port on each side or some complex wiring and a switch box. Generally, the more parts you have the less reliable things are (and the more expensive).
 
The problem is that the port goes to the master charger. If that charger isn't working, then the second charger can't be accessed. The only fixes are to have a port on each side or some complex wiring and a switch box. Generally, the more parts you have the less reliable things are (and the more expensive).

Interesting ... What you're describing is the 2 chargers in series. I wonder why they're not in parallel for redundancy. Electrical current - as long as the conductors and terminals are rated for the current, it doesn't have to complicated. I am sure smart Tesla EE's thought about redundancy and backup system. It's surprising they don't implement this in the 2 chargers configuration... Or maybe they just need to hire more EE's (hm... should I send in my resume.....?)

Btw, 3.5k miles, 3-month ownership, my S85 dropped its charge rating (at 50A outlet powered by 50A breaker) from a standard 40A to 30A. Tesla replaced the master charger. I hope the new one will last.

I ordered single-charger because I didn't see the need for faster charging. Now knowing the 2 chargers are not redundant making it the more reason for a single-charger.
 
Interesting ... What you're describing is the 2 chargers in series. I wonder why they're not in parallel for redundancy.

My assumption is cost and complexity. You'd need two paths to the charge port and a third unit (not a charger) to do the switching. Recall that when Tesla was designing the car they were trying really hard to keep the base model under $50K.