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Need some help figuring out my salvage model S

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So about a month ago I purchased a lightly damaged 2013 Model S 60kw with 2600 miles on it and have been trying to make it work again. Tesla will not sell me any parts due to the salvage status of the car, they don't even want me bring it into their service center. Their certified body shop told me that they are not allowed to work on salvage car. Which is a load of BS. I have my own body shop and have been working on EV for a few years now and never received such a cold shoulder. My car has absolutely no frame damage and should not have been salvaged in the first place. The most frustrating part of it all, if I had the parts I could have this car 100 % fixed in a day.

I could not power the car up due to the HV battery being disconnected and the terminals being taped off. My 12v bat was long dead because the car sat at auction since march but I was able to charge it. I was calm about the HV battery and taking my time fixing other stuff and locating parts on ebay because car was telling me it had 100 miles of charge in the HV bat(when it was unplugged). On Monday I dropped the battery pack and connected it up. As soon as I connected it up the charge went to 5 miles and than 0. I had to bypass the pyro fuse and replace a 30amp fuse to get the HV system to wake up, I was able to move the car around the shop under its own power and plugged it in to charge.

Had car plugged in at 120v 12amp charging @ 4 mph overnight (did not want to overheat main battery since it has no antifreeze yet). When I came back in the morning charge was at 35 miles, and was not charging anymore. Had errors on dash, 12v battery low, car may not restart, car may shut off unexpectedly, car not drivable contact tesla service. Put jumper pack on it still could not turn it on which is weird.

The 12v battery had 12.6 volts going through it. I do not think its enough to close the relays to turn on the main hv battery. A good 12v battery supposed to have 13.3v to 13.8 v going through it and 14.3 to 14.8v when the hv bat is connected to it. But I'm not sure on that. When the car ran it had 12.9v on Monday.

I'm hopping that it's the 12v that is causing the problem not my main hv bat having some error in it, and shutting itself off. Being at low charge for such a long time.

Took the 12v battery out of the car and charged it overnight so hopefully it will work today again.

Question of the day, does anyone know at what voltage the 12v opens closes up the solenoids to power up the HV system? Additionally how many cranking volts does a good 12V battery supposed to have? I had mine tested and it is producing 356 cranking amps.

12v bat is not sold anywhere except tesla, any model s owner could you order one for your car and I will pay you for it. Any help would be greatly appreciated I really want to start driving this car!
 

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12v battery likely can't hold much of a charge now. If it's anything like the Roadster battery it's just an 12v AGM battery, it should be easy to find a substitute.

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I had mine tested and it is producing 356 cranking amps.
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Oh that sounds like it still might be good.. but no idea of it's total amp hours though.

I would remove the bad 12v battery, and just connect up a full normal 12v car battery to the front battery jumper terminals and let it charge overnight again to see if you get the 12v battery error again.

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... (did not want to overheat main battery since it has no antifreeze yet). ...
oh... I wouldn't do this... there is an pump that WILL try to run dry, and can burn out if there is no fluid present... Please add in antifreeze.
Also it might throw up error codes if it able to detect it's running dry.
 
I think I have another issue somewhere. Unless the car tried to update and Tesla shut it off. With the car powered just by 12V bat error code are "Car needs Service unable to Drive" will not move out of Park, "12V Battery power Low car may shut down unexpectedly" and "Car needs Service car may not restart"

With the jumper box connected to the front terminals bat voltage is 13.3V and the only error "Car Needs Service car may not restart" will go to Drive but nothing happens, charge port opens but is solid red. HV system is still a sleep because I can't hear the solenoids clicking to turn it on.

Received my 3 way valve today and was able to fill up my cooling system, cooling pump works I can hear antifreeze going through all the hoses and it sucked the fluid from above max to min.

I'm kind of stumped now, why would it work one day than stop working. There is one mystery relay that was laying on the floor when I first got the car. Its a gray Omron 8567 relay, I have no idea where it goes and if its even from this car.

Does anyone know what would cause "Car needs Service car may not restart " error?

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Car was purchased through Manheim. I was able to get majority of the parts through ebay, that had light damage on them and are still usable. Biggest issue that I ran into so far was, that the key was lost at the auction tesla would not make another key for me. I got really lucky and was able to contact the original owner who had a spare key, thank you Phil.

There is going to be a really messed up model S with the battery taken out of it going through copart on Friday, I will try to buy it and salvage all the airbags from it after that my car will be just about complete. Except it does not want to turn on now.
 
You might want to pull the 3G card out so they can't shut you down, but it may be too late. These cars are just big cell phones with wheels and nobody has cracked the code yet. Search the forum and you will find others have had your same experience trying to rebuild one.
 
Isn't this the exact same thing that one guy in San Diego went through? I thought all Tesla wanted from him was to get a chance to inspect the car and then have him sign some kind of release in order to fully "activate" the car?
 
You might want to pull the 3G card out so they can't shut you down, but it may be too late. These cars are just big cell phones with wheels and nobody has cracked the code yet. Search the forum and you will find others have had your same experience trying to rebuild one.

This is the first I've heard of this. At most I just thought it would disable the supercharger ability.
 
Isn't this the exact same thing that one guy in San Diego went through? I thought all Tesla wanted from him was to get a chance to inspect the car and then have him sign some kind of release in order to fully "activate" the car?

The trouble was there was some language in there that said Tesla had the right to take the car away from him if they deemed it not up to their standards. That's a pretty scary clause, especially if you've already spent a few thousand dollars fixing it.


This whole Salvage cold shoulder thing really is a very sad move from Tesla.
What would they prefer, the car is crushed and recycled?


I think Tesla is just playing the safe legal route so they don't make headlines in a bad way. Imagine if someone drove a improperly fixed salvage title Tesla and it caught on fire because of its flaws. It's bad press for Tesla no matter how you spin it. A fledgling auto-maker that already has tons of doubters can't afford for something like that to happen.
 
It sounds like your DC to DC converter is either damaged or otherwise not functioning (fuse?). I would start there.

If you were able to charge and move the car, then the car is not "deactivated."
 
... I'm kind of stumped now, why would it work one day than stop working. ....
My guess is the the car noticed a very serious issue, i.e. battery coolant pump running dry then throwing an error code thus causing the "Car needs Service car may not restart" error. At this point it could place itself into an state where Tesla SC would have to reset the error code to make it drivable.

I don't believe in the scenario where the car is phoning home and Tesla then remotely disables the vehicle due to it's salvage state. Because I think this would be huge liability issue if they did that after you purchased the car in a drivable state.

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... If you were able to charge and move the car, then the car is not "deactivated."

I agreed with wk057.
 
I've dismantled a battery pack and have had a hand in some disassembly of another badly damaged salvaged Model S.

If your car has passanger side damage low on the car, it is possible some of the HV cables are damaged. If it is an older VIN the DC to DC is in the front passanger side "firewall" area and could be damaged

The HV stuff is tied in under the rear seat bottom in a junction box in the middle. I can't recall if there is a fuse there or not...

The BMS inside the battery pack is never off. It is powered internally whether or not the pack contactors are closed or not. Not sure if this makes a difference or not, but if the pack were sitting discharged for months I could see it having issues.
 
Actually you bring up a good point, zhur0002 what is your HV battery voltage level?

If he can't get the contactors to close, there is no place to directly measure it without opening the pack or having access to the service menu.

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If opening the pack is something you're considering doing, there are two places I could see the pack voltage being measured without a full disassemble. First being at the contactors, carefully, under the plate where the HV connector is. The second would be at the end of the series loop in the front under the hump part, near the black plastic cover where the pack fuse is. However, I'm not sure exactly whats under there in a 60kWh pack...
 
I'm afraid to open up the battery I do not have the right tools or equipment to go that far into the car. I feel like I'm trying to diagnose a spaceship with a volt meter with this car. None of my diagnostic tools work with it!!!!

I do not know how to check the voltage of the HV battery, I do think its always shut down until the car tells to turn it on. If I were to take the battery down and put my volt meter on the plug connectors it would read 0V. I would need to jump some of the low voltage connectors that go into the right side plug to activate the battery.

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My damage was not extensive enough to damage any of the high voltage connectors here is a link that a friend took http://ccmanor.com/TeslaBeforeBodyWork/ of the car before anything was done to it, as you can see the only damage to the frame is a tiny chip in the end cap of the right rail, that I do not even want to mess with and will never effect anything in safety or how the car works. It is even crazy that the insurance company totaled the car, I have their original estimate on fixing the car. It is crazy they told it will be 104 hours of specialized tesla labor to put the car together @ $150. 6.2 hours of specialized labor to replace the windshield, they must be watching the glue dry!

Tesla is running on a very dangerous line here they gave certified shops a monopoly so they can charge what ever they want and insurance either has to pay or total a car. This should be illegal. Additionally they are going to hurt themselves in the long run. There will be more and more cars that will get into accidents and if insurance will need to total almost every car due to a fender bender, it will jack up the insurance rates or some insurance companies will not even want to insure Teslas. That would be really a shame because the car is simply amazing. It is built so logically so easy to work on and simple. Getting quite deep into my car and being an engineer by trade I'm still trying to figure out what I would do differently and nothing if I were making a Tesla and nothing comes up.

I also find it very interesting that the car charged almost exactly to 20% of full battery capacity and shut off. 20% is a good safe level to keep the pack, maybe just a coincidence. I attached the pictures I took of the car when I first plugged it in and a picture of when I came the next morning to the shop. I know that my battery was not completely dead, because like I said earlier car moved under its own power.

I will look for more fuses under the back seat I did not see any, unless they are hidden inside the units. Anyone knows where all the fuse locations are?
 
My pack was never completely dead it was able to move the car under its own power before I plugged it in. Where are you located in NJ do you have a shop there? I will check the junction box under the back seat today. I already have the seat out but did not find anything interesting under there by first look. Thanks

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My vin is p20838 a 60kw
 
The trouble was there was some language in there that said Tesla had the right to take the car away from him if they deemed it not up to their standards. That's a pretty scary clause, especially if you've already spent a few thousand dollars fixing it.

That is not correct. There was nothing in the Tesla agreement that said that. It was the owner, petulantly saying "they can just keep it", he wanted to wash his hands of the whole deal.
 
Interesting...

Is it still drawing power when connected to the wall?

If so the pack contactors are closing maybe, and might be able to read the voltage under the rear seat.

You appear to have the older DC to DC.

You are correct that you would read 0V anywhere on the outside of the pack by itself, without opening it.

First thing is first, get a fully charged 12V battery in there if you haven't already. Check all of the fuses on the battery (12V) panel right on/near the battery.

If it drove before it should drive again unless something else got damaged somehow.

Could test by trying to blast the heat or defrost. Those need the main battery pack working.