2013 MS 60 Battery Failure, have 85 pack: How to swap?

[glhs272]

So I have been dreading this day for a while and it has finally happened. My beloved 2013 Model S 60 is now posting the infamous BMS_029 fault. The car is about 11 years old and has 241,500miles. It has given no warning signs or any weirdness signaling impending failure. Just went to the car after a typical overnight charge to see that it's now showing the fault. The car was working fine, gave about 160 miles of rated range @90% and I was able to recently drive the pack down to <18 miles of range without issue. But I guess that just means the BMS was working well. Anyway, is what it is... the battery is toast. ...and I just dropped $2,200 in suspension work last week on it.

So anyway, the point of this thread is not moan about it. I would really like to save this car, as it has some sentimental value to me personally and the car is otherwise in good condition. But I think Tesla's repair options will be unpalatable. I am still awaiting a quote and set of options from them, but based on other threads here I don't think I will like their responses. I don't think it's worth dropping $20K on a new battery when I can buy a p100D for $30k or $20k Model3/Y from Hertz.

I have a few questions for the experts on this forum:
-How long can I drive the car in this degraded state? Currently, the car charges to a max of about 60 to 68 miles. Not good, but this is enough to make it to work, where I can charge it to drive home. I need the car to function at minimum for this basic task. I wonder how long I can keep it going this way while I find solutions for repair...

-The real question and point of this thread is a discussion about swapping the battery. I have read other threads on this forum and there have been discussions about it, but my situation is slightly different. I already have another 85kwh pack. I can follow-up on the exact model number of battery, but I believe it is compatible with a "classic" model S. The problem is my car is an S60. If it were already an S85, I could just physically swap the pack, do a reset in the service screen and the replacement pack would just work. Not so easy for an S60, as I assume it requires some reconfiguration of the firmware to make the car think it's now an S60. Tesla did not want to make that easy. I am trying to avoid solutions such as Recell because I want to try and use the pack I already have, and not buy another repaired pack which appears to be all the Recell offers. Obviously, my goal here is to spend as little money on this repair as possible. Even Recell's $7.5K solution is a but much for me. And because I happen to already have an 85Kwh pack sitting around, I would really like to use it. Can this be done and can anyone help me do it? What else do I need to take into consideration? Do others have any thoughts on this plan or other options I should consider? Hopefully, battery experts can chime in.... @WK57 @Recell

The Car is currently based in Burlington Wisconsin, not far from the Milwaukee/Chicago areas. Any local Tesla experts that can help me? Not opposed to sending to Recell or 057 Technology, but it is a long way to ship the car.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[ucmndd]

-How long can I drive the car in this degraded state? Currently, the car charges to a max of about 60 to 68 miles. Not good, but this is enough to make it to work, where I can charge it to drive home. I need the car to function at minimum for this basic task. I wonder how long I can keep it going this way while I find solutions for repair...

My understanding is basically indefinitely - the purpose of the charge limit is to keep the cells at a voltage where the pack is safe.

 

[glhs272]

My understanding is basically indefinitely - the purpose of the charge limit is to keep the cells at a voltage where the pack is safe.

That is my hope. My concern is that now that its charge limited to such a low level that the BMS will no longer be able to balance the pack. Therefore the bad cells in the pack will push the pack way out of balance. Which in turn would cause the range to rapidly diminish as the lowest cells reach low voltage cut-off early. I guess I will find out... As long as it's not a fire hazard...

 

[brainhouston]

I don't think it'll go out of balance cause BMS balances at all SOCs, it's just limited by voltage due to soft short, aka u029
U can try resetting that error, many advice against it but nobody seems to have issues besides error coming back, many ppl done it n no fires yet, besides one article with no real proof...
U can swap ur 85 n should just be able to re deploy from service mode. Sometimes this doesn't work I hear, not sure how to tell.
If u have mcu1 then it's pretty easy to charge gateway setting n should be no problem just need some help from smarter ppl

 

[glhs272]

Yes, I still have the original MCU1.

 

[NV Ray]

I got the 029 alert 15 months ago. Here's FAQs I put together that also lists repair options I've compiled the past 15 months.

BMS_029/018 FAQs

 

[NewbyMaybe]

Warranty from recell? I would support them if I didn't plan to pay for Tesla's warranty and possibly get a longer range pack.

 

[NV Ray]

If you're looking to have someone swap using your existing 85 pack and are closer to you than other 3rd party options, I'd recommend Mr. Erickson in the FAQs I linked upthread. Also, @islandbayy is in your vicinity and my have other recommendations for swapping your bad 60 for your good 85.

 

[islandbayy]

Thanks Ray. me and glhs I believe have met. I think at one of my EV Parties I host yearly. Recell is currently best option for out of warranty pack replacement, just replacing straight up.
Mr. Erickson in Iowa would be ideal for you to send both you car and the battery to have it swapped and upgraded. He's the closest and while I have not used his services, I'll be having him swap in a 90 or 100 pack for my Model X once warranty is up. Thats about it for the Midwest at this time, unless you can convince one of the authorized body shops to redeploy the software (not likely).

 

[NV Ray]

@sidrush FYI

 

[glhs272]

Thanks Ray. me and glhs I believe have met. I think at one of my EV Parties I host yearly. Recell is currently best option for out of warranty pack replacement, just replacing straight up.
Mr. Erickson in Iowa would be ideal for you to send both you car and the battery to have it swapped and upgraded. He's the closest and while I have not used his services, I'll be having him swap in a 90 or 100 pack for my Model X once warranty is up. Thats about it for the Midwest at this time, unless you can convince one of the authorized body shops to redeploy the software (not likely).

Thanks Kman. Yes we have met a few times at one of your EV parties at your parent's resort at Lake Delton. I appreciate all of the contributors of this thread. I am trying to reach out to some of the folks suggested. I will update the thread when I know more.

 

[NV Ray]

Thanks Kman. Yes we have met a few times at one of your EV parties at your parent's resort at Lake Delton. I appreciate all of the contributors of this thread. I am trying to reach out to some of the folks suggested. I will update the thread when I know more.

Mr. Erickson @sidrush is currently 6 hours from home after picking up salvage MS from TX.

 

[Recell]

unfortunately, a u029 won’t run indefinitely.

it may run for some time - weeks/months - but the reason the alert has been trigger is that the pack is self-discharging. either rapidly in the case of one rogue cell, or more slowly in the case of a collection of several aging and defective cells.

the end state for a u029 is a u018 pack imbalance.

be sure to check with Mr Erickson in Iowa for that pack swap. he’ll do a solid job.

 

[brainhouston]

be sure to check with Mr Erickson in Iowa for that pack swap. he’ll do a solid job.

glad to see all 3rd parties working together
Respect Recell

 

[glhs272]

unfortunately, a u029 won’t run indefinitely.

it may run for some time - weeks/months - but the reason the alert has been trigger is that the pack is self-discharging. either rapidly in the case of one rogue cell, or more slowly in the case of a collection of several aging and defective cells.

the end state for a u029 is a u018 pack imbalance.

be sure to check with Mr Erickson in Iowa for that pack swap. he’ll do a solid job.

Thanks for heads up.

I have been able to connect with Mr. Erickson and we have agreed on a plan to get my car fixed. Super happy day! I will follow up with the results when I can. Thanks for all the advice everyone.

 

[evo9rs]

when swapping an 85 for a 90 pack (3rd party), will the charge rate be upgraded ?

 

[glhs272]

when swapping an 85 for a 90 pack (3rd party), will the charge rate be upgraded ?

Expect yes. The charge rate being limited by the BMS in the pack, swapping the pack from 85 to 90, the charge rate will be limited by the software in the 90 pack BMS. The 90 has better charging than the 85, therefore it will see improved charge rate at a supercharger. Charge rate on level 2 (A/C) chargers will not change, as the charge rate is limited by the charger, not the pack.

This was proven out by my parents 2013 Model S P85+, which had a pack swap done by Tesla to a 90 pack. The charge rate after swap was greatly improved.

Weather done by Tesla or a 3rd party, the car has to see it pack with the correct firmware for the pack to work, thus it should report the new pack and it's limitations.

 

[glhs272]

So I would like to finally post an update on my pack swap for my old 2013 MS 60. So on March 20th, I dragged my S60 with replacement battery pack out to Mr. Erickson's place in Armstrong IA. The drive was successful and managed to get both battery and car there in one go.

The pack swap itself was very quick. Paul was able to do the physical swap in a few hours and did some firmware updates overnight. Paul Erickson was a pleasure to work with, an interesting guy and someone dedicated to Tesla Model S cars and helping owners keep them on the road.

The old pack came out OK, and was definitely getting a bit corroded. The usual suspects, the fuse cover plate was very rusted. Didn't look like it was getting water in the pack yet, but it wouldn't be long based on looking at it.

There were complications however. Once we got the pack swapped out and brought the car back on line it immediately threw some errors. One of the big concerns I had with this pack was that it was sitting in storage untouched for over 6 years. It was dry storage, but it wasn't charged or turned on or anything for that period of time. The other concern was I wasn't sure what state of charge it was left at when it was put into storage. It could have been near empty which would have been bad. Turns out I was lucky. It was at 65% state of charge when we turned it back on. However, during those 6 years of sitting idle, the battery did fall out of balance slightly. Almost all cell groups were perfectly balanced except group 42. That group was about 170mV lower than all the rest. I guess not bad since that 170mV of drift took 6 years to accumulate, but that did cause the car to immediately throw an error, and go into charge restriction. But I felt fairly confident that it was just due to sitting for 6 years and that the pack is overall healthy.

So, I left the car with him for a while to see what he could do. What we did was just simply cycle the pack as much as we could for a little while. Pretty quickly the imbalance was only about 120mV when the pack was down to ~25% state of charge. Did a few charge cycles and reset the error message. After that, it appeared that the error message did not come back. Due to work and other issues, I was not able to go pick up the car for about a month. I left it with Paul and he exercised the pack, did some test drives, supercharged the car a few times and no more error messages came back.

So this weekend I flew myself and my Dad over to Paul's place to pick up the car as it seems to be working normally. My dad drove it home and had no issues with the car driving back the whole way. It behaves just like an 85 pack should (nerfed supercharging) but seems to be good. Currently the cell imbalance is about 90mV @ 80% SOC and 120mV @100% SOC. A full charge yields about 230miles of rated range on the display. Paul is recommending that I try just slow charging to 100% everyday for a while to see if the pack starts balancing on it's own, so I will do that and give an update if that yields results.


Unfortunately, not all is well with the car. Unrelated to this battery business, just prior to me sending the car to Paul, the drive unit (I think) seems like it is giving off some vibration. But maybe more on that in another thread. As far as the battery swap goes, I consider it a success.

 

[brainhouston]

Well if only one brick out of 96 discharged so much more than it's probably a sign of either u029 or u018 coming...

 

[ucmndd]

Well if only one brick out of 96 discharged so much more than it's probably a sign of either u029 or u018 coming...

I interpreted the story to mean the car DID throw a 029/018 error and they reset it.