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Diagnostics, Troubleshooting and Repair--Opportunity or Obstacle?

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Back in the year of George Orwell i bought a brand new car and proceeded to take it apart and investigate the engine control unit. Based upon that study i discovered a design 'feature' that was prone to failure and repaired hundreds of these units for a nominal fee and even provided free phone support to help folks troubleshoot and make the repair themselves.

Now, after all our patents are belong to you, i was considering to buy a tesla in order to investigate the various subsystems to determine if there might be opportunities for a 3rd-party troubleshooting and repair service, to satisfy some curiousity about how it works, and hopefully be able to put it back together and still drive it. :eek:

After reading thru this site i found some really interesting information about the battery and user interface that was shared by other curious folks who have the knowledge, skills and ability to do a detailed analysis of the systems--to them i say thank you very much for sharing.

In addition there was the discovery of the lack of access to repair parts and diagnostic information outside of the factory-certified providers, and the total wireless control of the vehicle by the factory, e.g. turning ethernet ports and the ability to charge off...

Sure the vehicles are under warranty for now, and there is no need for any outside repair services--maybe there never will be?
 
The Roadsters are starting to come out of warranty. Repairs are proving expensive but a few have stepped up to the task. I'm aware of one person who has repaired the PEM (inverter) and one who has repaired the ESS (the battery), with a damaged sheet no less. Those are the two most expensive parts. Both these cases have been do-it-yourself salvage jobs.
 
The Roadster was more of a collection of parts then an integrated system approach. It would appear that MS' systems are tightly intertwined which is going to make servicing them without Tesla's help rather difficult.

Let's hope the Right to Repair laws start kicking in soon.
 
[FONT=Carrois Gothic, sans-serif]“Due to the salvage status of your Model S , I have been instructed to cease providing you with parts. Tesla is very concerned about vehicles with salvaged titles being improperly repaired. Going forward, all salvaged vehicles must be inspected by us or our approved body shop, Precision Auto Body. If declared a candidate for proper repair, reconstruction must be completed by a Tesla-Certified Body Shop.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Carrois Gothic, sans-serif]Tesla is heading for a world of hurt on this one. They need to put some more thought into things. Sure, they have a business interest in making sure no hacked together unsafe cars end up causing a PR problem for them. BUT that is a business interest and it simply does not trump their duty to support, as the single supplier, the $100K items they have sold. People that buy these cars have a "right to repair" them without Tesla's consent.

Tesla withholding parts and not complying with documenting their diagnostics interface in compliance with existing right to repair laws is going to bite them in the backside.
[/FONT]
 
“Due to the salvage status of your Model S , I have been instructed to cease providing you with parts. Tesla is very concerned about vehicles with salvaged titles being improperly repaired. Going forward, all salvaged vehicles must be inspected by us or our approved body shop, Precision Auto Body. If declared a candidate for proper repair, reconstruction must be completed by a Tesla-Certified Body Shop.”

Tesla is heading for a world of hurt on this one. They need to put some more thought into things. Sure, they have a business interest in making sure no hacked together unsafe cars end up causing a PR problem for them. BUT that is a business interest and it simply does not trump their duty to support, as the single supplier, the $100K items they have sold. People that buy these cars have a "right to repair" them without Tesla's consent.

Tesla withholding parts and not complying with documenting their diagnostics interface in compliance with existing right to repair laws is going to bite them in the backside.
We don't want Tesla to be like any other car company in other ways, so why this way? It's hardware and software that functions as a car, just like Apple combinations of hardware and software function as phones, or music players, or soon watches. Once the car is a total loss, and the owner is compensated for it, I don't see how they have any duty to support making it usable again. If your computer was smashed would you expect Apple to sell you the parts you need? People who want to be do-it-yourselfers probably should look for a different car to play with.
 
Most of the MS owners to date are tech savvy and have been raised to accept the Apple way. I made my living though tech but I do not accept the Apple way. It, like a lot of Microsoft's practices, is an abuse of customers by an industry lacking maturity.

Once MS ages, comes out of warranty and moves more towards the mainstream you will see more and more people bring up this issue. People will not accept Tesla dictating what is done with the asset once ownership is transferred.

TexasEV,
I understand this is not an issue for you. It is for me but then I pick my battles. I'll buy new as I always have and sell at two to three years. Heck, I stopped hopping up my M5s and such years ago purely from loosing interest. That is you and me but I think you will find that we are the odd ones out as more of the normal world get their hands on these wonderful cars.

It is a problem. We are just at the start of a mountain of crap and I would prefer that Tesla rethink this and try to come up with a more customer respectful solution before one is forced upon them.
 
Most of the MS owners to date are tech savvy and have been raised to accept the Apple way. I made my living though tech but I do not accept the Apple way.
It sounds like you're a PC guy ...

It, like a lot of Microsoft's practices, is an abuse of customers by an industry lacking maturity.
... or not. Probably a linux guy. ;)

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It is a problem. We are just at the start of a mountain of crap and I would prefer that Tesla rethink this and try to come up with a more customer respectful solution before one is forced upon them.
I have similar concerns.
 
We don't want Tesla to be like any other car company in other ways, so why this way? It's hardware and software that functions as a car, just like Apple combinations of hardware and software function as phones, or music players, or soon watches. Once the car is a total loss, and the owner is compensated for it, I don't see how they have any duty to support making it usable again. If your computer was smashed would you expect Apple to sell you the parts you need? People who want to be do-it-yourselfers probably should look for a different car to play with.

Because it's irresponsible to continue contributing to landfill in the way we are currently doing.

About 30% of a car's total lifecycle emissions come from production, so throwing it away is counter to Mr Musk's stated objective to reduce carbon emissions by moving towards electric vehicles.
 
Owner compensated or not, Tesla is destroying value in a way that other car companies do not. That is just plain wrong in the same way Apple's IPhone software upgrade that runs so poorly on a phone that the phone ceases to function well enough is wrong. Of course, then Apple refuses to let you roll back the install (presumably because they want to force you to buy newer hardware) saying it can not be done. I guess this latest screw up release and subsequent roll back for customers has put the can we roll back issue to bed.

Sure, you can do these types of things but do you really want to?
 
I would like to think Tesla's current stance is not a strategic one, but one that comes about from being resource constrained. I am assuming Tesla's focus is on putting out the highest quality and highest number of Model S they can while also getting ready to roll out the Model X. Then of course there is the design of the Model E they are working on,then there is also the Gigafactory to consider. Oh, and don't forget they are constantly upgrading the Model S features while in production.

Why would they want to expend any resources to certify salvaged cars at this point? It would require engineering the cheapest possible solution to a huge number of possible problems (some not even conceived of yet), where now if there is a problem they just swap out a whole battery pack or drive unit. It would take a large amount of resources to plan and document what to do. Then they would have to train technicians at the certified repair facilities to do this work safely. What, you don't want to go to a certified repair facility, you want to do the work yourself? Umm, are you insured against electrocuting yourself? We know lawyers are just waiting to jump on something and Tesla's legal team is already working overtime making sure they are not shut out from selling direct in all 50 states..

I know there are those that want to salvage a Tesla they way they would traditional ICE cars from the big companies since that's the way things have been done in the past. But given the small size of the company and the amount of work they have to do, I'm willing to cut them some slack, for now.

Once we get closer to the end of warranty for the first cars, I would expect Tesla to be in a position to allow owners to make more repairs or at least have more repair facilities certified to prevent extortionate rates.

I'm willing to cut them some slack now, but I do agree that they will have to address this at some point or they will wind up with an unhappy group of owners. If they don't, the Tesla legal team will be working overtime trying to protect the company from their previously strongest supporters.
 
This one looks like all it needs is bodywork--but it's probably on its way to the crusher, rednecks love to scrap out aluminum...

2014_0_miles.jpg
 
Woah. What's the story with that one? Gotta a link?

Looks like it would have been fatal to the driver. That's the sort of damage one would expect from rear-ending a semi, where the underride guard failed (as they all pretty much do).

Here's hoping it was a tree falling on the car with no one in it.
 
The need for negative Tesla anything has one internet news outlet after another picking up on the thread about the MS Tesla will not support (and linking to other threads with similar issues). This is still limited to the rather small internet blogosphere for now but it will grow and gain traction with time.
 
It looked to me that something either fell across it, or it was damaged by the hydraulic lift gates on the transporter. No scratches anywhere so probably not a driving accident.

That was 9 miles left back in May--what's the chances the battery is drained or can it survive ~4 months without charging at that level? Will the main contactor shed all loads when the 12v battery goes low, or when the main pack is getting too low? The dc-dc converter would be the primary load on the pack keeping the 12v battery charged.

If the pack were okay it could be a donor for solar storage, but that's the big question. Without parts or support it could end up sitting in the pasture like Otmar's. If the pack is hosed then there is no real value to it, especially as the price will run up once the bidding fever starts.