115K Miles, drivetrain warranty expiring at 120K !

[timk225]

My April '18 build Model 3 has 115K miles on it. My 8 year / 120K mile battery and drivetrain warranty expires at 120K miles.

After that, if anything expensive needs repaired, it will be just like fixing up the old 1970s Chrysler cars I drove for many years up until around 2006 or so. Junkyards, ebay, get the parts CHEAP, do the repairs CHEAP, keep it all CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP, as much as possible. Ain't no way I'm paying Tesla's ridiculous per hour rate for work there in their shop!

It was much more fun 5 years ago, when as a newly inducted member (by way of owning my 3) of the "Tesla Elite", I had years of warranty coverage ahead of me. Anything need done? No problem! Warranty covered! Here, service center, handle it for free!

So anything that's gonna fail, it better do it in the next 4000 miles, or it had better last forever!

 

[ucmndd]

Ok.

 

[Tronguy]

Um. Got a 3rd Q 2018 M3 LR RWD. It, too, ran out of warranty.

And three weeks ago acquired the famous Squeaky Upper Control Arm problem. Mobile tech came down and fixed the problem by replacing both upper control arms. Oddly, didn't charge for labor, just parts, which was nice, but there went around $200.

In case you're wondering, an upper control arm is a fairly hefty, wishbone-shaped piece of metal. The ends of the U shape bolt onto the interior of the car; the other end has a ball joint (which is where the squeaks come from) and a stud that points down and is bolted onto the wheel knuckle.

Dunno if the extended warranty covers stuff like that.

 

[timk225]

Um. Got a 3rd Q 2018 M3 LR RWD. It, too, ran out of warranty.

And three weeks ago acquired the famous Squeaky Upper Control Arm problem. Mobile tech came down and fixed the problem by replacing both upper control arms. Oddly, didn't charge for labor, just parts, which was nice, but there went around $200.

In case you're wondering, an upper control arm is a fairly hefty, wishbone-shaped piece of metal. The ends of the U shape bolt onto the interior of the car; the other end has a ball joint (which is where the squeaks come from) and a stud that points down and is bolted onto the wheel knuckle.

Dunno if the extended warranty covers stuff like that.

I wasn't wondering, I've done lots of automotive work on my cars back to the late 80s.

I found the solution to that problem. Inject grease. Back when my 3 had 60,000 or so miles on it, the left side got the horrible creaking sound in the upper ball joint on the left side. I took it and got it replaced, and also paid for the right one to be changed as well. 45,000 miles later, the new left side one got the creak again! No way am I paying for this design flaw twice!

So I got a can of automotive grease, I think it was a Mobil 1 brand, and a medium size syringe from a printer ink refill kit. I got a nail up in between the folds of the ball joint rubber cover, poked a hole, then got the syringe in there and gave it 3 syringe fulls of grease, by which time it was trying to leak out. I held the syringe in there and pushed the rubber ball joint cover around, to try and push the grease back in there. After a few days the creaking completely stopped.

4 months later, I put some more grease in there. It wasn't creaking, but just as preventative maintenance, to stay ahead of the problem. Hardest part of the job is getting the grease in the syringe, you have to push it in the top by hand with finger fulls of grease, and it squirms out and gets all over the place. Can't just draw it up into the syringe, it is way too thick for that.

 

[android04]

My April '18 build Model 3 has 115K miles on it. My 8 year / 120K mile battery and drivetrain warranty expires at 120K miles.

After that, if anything expensive needs repaired, it will be just like fixing up the old 1970s Chrysler cars I drove for many years up until around 2006 or so. Junkyards, ebay, get the parts CHEAP, do the repairs CHEAP, keep it all CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP, as much as possible. Ain't no way I'm paying Tesla's ridiculous per hour rate for work there in their shop!

It was much more fun 5 years ago, when as a newly inducted member (by way of owning my 3) of the "Tesla Elite", I had years of warranty coverage ahead of me. Anything need done? No problem! Warranty covered! Here, service center, handle it for free!

So anything that's gonna fail, it better do it in the next 4000 miles, or it had better last forever!

My Model 3 was made in March 2018 and I'm currently at 119,356 miles. I'll be over 120k this next weekend. I'm not too concerned about things breaking because even though it's my only car I can always borrow my sister's spare vehicle.

I tend to work on my own vehicles as well. My driver side front upper control arm started creaking at about 38,000 miles and Tesla replaced just that one. I later added some grease zerks to the ball joint area and greased them about one every year and a half. Never had any creaks again. I did replace both FUCAs myself with some nice aftermarket ones by Meyle HD a few months ago. I figured I'd spend $320 on the new FUCAs and they will last the rest of my car's life, without me having to grease them periodically. I'm willing to spend a little money to keep my car working well or to fix things that break.