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#212 - Twilight Blue -[SOLD]

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TEG

Teslafanatic
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Aug 20, 2006
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Immaculate condition 2008 Tesla Roadster - Only 183 Miles SN 212 | Robb Report Vacation Homes

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I guess more specifically, how do you know if it was kept plugged in? What if it sat, unplugged, for 6-12 months at a time and was only intermittently topped up? Is this checkable or not a concern?

See if they'll let you download the log; at least some of the information would be in there and viewable in the Tesla Graphical Log Parser.
 
I purchased #212 on Friday and picked it up on Saturday. The folks who sold it were great to work with. It's a bit unusual - when I picked it up it only had 460 miles on it. My main concern was the battery, as it seems like the AC motor and other components shouldn't have been effected by the infrequent use. Apparently the battery was just replaced a couple of months ago and seems to be in quite good condition. When I got in this morning it showed 189 miles ideal range. That seems to be quite good for a three year old Roadster. It's pretty exciting to watch the odometer tick over to 500, 600... I really feel like I bought a new car - it even has the new car smell. Anything else I should be worried about, other than keeping an eye on the battery? I think the brake rotors might need to be resurfaced as they're a bit "noisy". That seems easy enough to fix, though. It also came with the HPC, so I'm following up on getting that installed. Making do with the 110 for now. With a daily round trip commute of 30 miles - Santa Clara - Palo Alto, I can still recharge at night with the 110, though it's not what I want to do long-term. My wife has graciously offered to help charge it and take it over to Santana Row in San Jose where they have Tesla chargers because of the Tesla store there. I suspect she's also in it for the close parking in an otherwise crowded parking garage. And the thrill involved in getting there and back. But I digress. Thanks to those who keep an eye out for Teslas going up for sale and post them here and share so much knowledge about them. It was tremendously helpful to me in everything from what to look for during test drives to what used Roadsters are going for in the open market. Maybe prices will drop further by July/August as more Model S owners depart with their Roadsters, but after an extremely fun commute to Palo Alto and back today in the Roadster, I have no regrets buying now. I read somebody post here that they wouldn't trade $$ for the past 6 or 12 months they'd spent driving their Roadster, and in the future I'm sure I'll say the same.
 
Welcome DSA. Glad you're enjoying it. Yeah, you'll definitely want to get the HPC installed since you have it already but 110V should be fine until then. It sounds like the battery is fine if it's new but Tesla can tell you the next time you have service. The brakes probably just need to be broken in a little more.
 
The brakes tend to not get used enough on the Roadster, due to the regenerative braking, and they get a buildup of brake dust, dirt, and corrosion. This is why they are noisy. They probably also don't stop you as well as they should.

Take the car to a quiet paved road somewhere and do several HARD stops - I mean hard enough to engage the ABS. This will scrub the rotors and pads.

It probably will take more than "several" of these stops to clean the brakes completely, but don't overdo it in one session - no point in overheating your brakes needlessly. When they're really clean the rotors will be shiny.

Once they're cleaned off you should do this occasionally to keep them in good condition.
 
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Congrats on your purchase! I also got my car used with less than 500 miles on it and the battery was still good so I was happy to get it instead of waiting several weeks for a custom order.
Definitely get a J1772 plug for the car, either Tesla's or hcsharp's - Short and sweet J-1772 to Roadster adapter - lockable

Get the chargepoint.net, recargo, plugshare, and blink apps/cards so that you can use the public chargers available to you. In Palo Alto there are numerous chargepoint chargers in city garages/Stanford, blink chargers at
IKEA and the Tesla headquarters at 3500 Deer Creek Road.

For the strong summer sun, I'd recommend this as well - Shade Mesh Screen Top

I added front and rear cameras with a new head unit as well as some blind spot mirrors to improve visibility - the front spoiler is pretty low so parking curbs will damage it!

Have a great time and maybe I'll see you on the road -

Augie
 
Thanks dsm363 and Doug_G - I've got just the place in mind where I can break in the brakes - where I broke them in on my previous car. I guess that buying a 3 year old car I didn't expect to need to break in the brakes, but you're right, they probably weren't used very much, especially with the low mileage.
 
Speaking of Brakes, I also just picked made an addition of #268 to my household last week. I looked at the rear brake rotors, I'm noticing what appears to be a groove about 1/2+" on the rear rotors, both sides that the front doesn't have. I haven't taken the wheel off to inspect but curious if anyone has seen this? Possibly from the grime getting stuck on the pad and not being able to push off the pads?

I'm planning on taking the Tesla into the shop to have a quick look over, noticed the passenger door is hanging a little low which needs adjusting. Curious if the odd break wear on the rotor is covered under the warranty since I still have 1 year left.

I'll try to post pics of the rotor when I have a moment.
 
Flipping the car into neutral when wanting to apply the brakes hard really helps.

I second the recommendation of the micro mirror, plus, the visors are both easy to remove (I used heat-shrink tubing to cover up the silver pins).

It's about the time of year I switch to having the shade top on all the time, and just using the shower cap to cover up at work (I still haven't bothered to modify it to velcro the aft part, but in a garage it sits on top of the mesh top just fine).
 
Here's the pics of the rear left & right rotor. The left rear has the largest groove. Its not deep but I can definitely feel something has been working a rough line in the rotor. If dirt, pebbles, and such get caught in between the brake pad and rotor I can see how it migrates downward to this position. Secondly since its the rear, the front's most likely have kicked up all the grime and pebbles into the rears.

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IMAG0086.jpg
 
Someone used thee living hell out of these brakes, slapped on new pads, and you need new rear rotors. The ridge you see is where the pads DIDNT wear. One way the rears could have worn this rear rotor is someone drove it with the Emergency brake partially pulled. When they realized it, the pads were probably GONE, and the quick fix was new pads. We will see how my diagnosis pans out when you take it in, but I bet Im on the money.
 
Its probably better to see those rotors in real life. Pictures can be interpretted differently. It appears like the pad track is worn IN a little more than the outside ring above the pad track.....IN THE PICTURES..... So I believe you. I can see the Saturn Ring on the second picture.
Is this ring in the PAD TRACK or outside the diameter of where the pad track is...? As I re look at these pictures, you are probably ok...no big deal, just some uneven pad wear.
 
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