Bottom line for me? If your service is better, you'd get my business. But talking down Tesla is a small red flag for me. You shouldn't need to do that to get business.
Good points to make. I think there's something really missing here though. Tesla does a full diagnostics on why the PEM went out, they also look into past data of Roadsters or what they call "knowledge base" and from there make a decision if the issue rooted further, hypothetically speaking such as if the battery was the root cause that blew the PEM. By just repairing the PEM the true issue is not resolved and the PEM would just blow out again. So would a 3rd party fix that PEM again free under warranty, and more importantly be honest enough to flag that they didn't fix the root issue due to lack of understanding the full system? My guess is no. In my opinion, there's just not enough know-how by a 3rd party technician at this point in order to do a confident repair that is highly confident it won't break down the road. Even Tesla has this issue, but my level in confidence that the repair will hold is higher due to their "knowledge base". And this "knowledge base" is data that's built up over time across many many different Roadsters and driving habits/conditions/environments.
And look at liability. What if that 3rd party PEM cuts out due to a repair issue right as a Roadster is pulling out in traffic and the car gets broadsided. This is a case that has to be brought up front. What then? If lawyers get a hold of that one and you're not incorporated, you'll get sued until your home and everything you worked for is gone.
Now if it was a simple IC fix, such as where the Roadster got hit and the PEM got crushed causing the circuit to damage like in Markos case. Well that is a lower risk fix by a 3rd party, but again it carries with its share of liability risks.
And for a warranty, Tesla covers the repair very well and I believe up to a year after a major component is replaced. Not only that, if their work caused damage to the ESS/Battery, they'll replace that and be honest that their repair took that out with no extra charge to the Roadster owner.
As for Tesla not supporting an out of warranty Roadster. That is not true. Possibly you were mentioning that in respect to rather a salvage Roadster. In that regard to warranty, I've had my ESS replace 3 months after my original Roadster warranty expired. It didn't even need to be replaced, but I had commented in a professional manner to Tesla at my local service center that I felt the battery range was dropping faster that I would have expected. I did not buy any extended warranties and still don't to this day. But in any event, the ESS was not the issue at all that I was experiencing with my Roadster. What I really had was a 12V issue that faulted inside the ESS that prevented the Roadster to operate normally. The 12V aux system in my 1.5 uses I believe sheet 1&2 for its 12v power supply and the 2.x models uses the small 12v battery under the front passenger fender. So when I had the fault in my 1.5 the ESS had to be lowered to access and diagnose. Tesla did the 12V repair under goodwill as well as replaced the ESS that was as healthy as you could get. The pack climbed all the way up to 160 CAC after it was settled in and the car as well as the ESS is performing as it should, and it has to be since its my daily driver of a 75 mile daily round trip commute. But the story does not stop there, my 12v guts and my ESS were sent back to Fremont so they can do an investigation with the full system to fully understand the failure. This investigation when finished goes into that knowledge base I was talking about earlier which makes life easier on Tesla as well as the customer in the future. So my experience with Tesla has been overall extremely overall a positive one.
Only thing I fear of is that we're finding the Roadster expertise has been trickling out of the service centers, mostly due in part of the Model-S success and Model-X anticipation. But I do know they still have that knowledge base they built which is a diamond mine when it comes down to troubleshooting an issue that is not obvious in the Roadster.
But then some people will go for the 3rd party PEM repair, why, its cheaper and they may not have the funds or cannot and will not justify the high cost of repair. Or they may just believe its way to high for a company to charge for a product. Well these people hopefully understand *all* risks involved with buying a repair job from a 3rd party. Its exactly like when someone buys a salvaged vehicle. The same rational applies. Also the same risk assessments apply. Before buying a salvage vehicle all risks, including support of the vehicle must be understood. More importantly safety of not only you but others who are driving / walking beside you while the vehicle is operating should be considered in this risk assessment.
I honestly was considering, before buying #268 used 3 years ago, that I could only justify paying a salvaged price for a Roadster. What, 70k for an electric car. Come on! So I looked around on eBay and other venues. I felt confident with my skills I could pick one up for over half the cost of what they were going new, throw 10k into it, and be ahead of the game. But then that all screeched to a halt after my further research, thanks to this forum (which is the best source of data to look at when buying a Roadster), relieved that Tesla does not appear to support salvaged Roadsters. I could have called corporate to find the true details, but to me, it made sense of why this particular company chose that route.