Dead in my driveway....(fixed:12V replaced)

[johnmodels]

(car is fully charged)..So this Saturday morning I'm ready to go to work. Walk up to the car and the handles don't come out. Sadly that is not too out of the ordinary but I press on them and they come out. I sit down and notice that the screens are blank. I press on the brake and nothing. It is an oddly helpless feeling. In an ICE car you can check the gauges, listen for the starter, many other things, in the Tesla, nothing??? I look like a Deer in headlights and then call Tesla. The guy on the phone tells me that the 12 volt battery must be dead and that there is a fix out there and it is being rolled out in waves. I guess my car did not get the memo.... The Tesla guy then tells me that the service center is closed and will not be open until Monday. After a short conversation it is clear that my car will sit dead in my driveway all day Saturday, all day Sunday and then Monday someone might call me. Any other manufacturer would have taken my car, loaned me another one ,and maybe even given me a free coffee mug.

Then a few hours later I walk by my car and the handles open automatically. I look in and the screens are on. Drove it up and down the driveway. Called Tesla and no one answered, left a message and have heard nothing. That was about 6 hours ago. My confidence is low and I'm afraid of being stranded if I take the car out without a fix in place. Especially if I call Tesla and they tell me someone might call me after the weekend and there is absolutely no chance of any help during the weekend.

I discovered there is definitely a gap in Tesla's ability to take care of the customer on the weekend! At this point I definitely feel a little silly spending over $90k on a car and to be treated this way. I hope this story gets better soon. Anyones feedback or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

John

 

[jomo25]

You might want to read through this: Car dies after 2 days

 

[SuperCoug]

Any other manufacturer would have taken my car, loaned me another one ,and maybe even given me a free coffee mug.

Really? ANY other manufacturer would have done all that just because you called service with a problem on a Saturday? Which Manufactures might those be? I can tell you that I've owned a Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, Ford, Toyota, and a Mazda and not one of them would have dropped everything on a Saturday and rushed out to my home with a replacement car and a freakin' coffee mug.

 

[K Hall]

Super is correct. Our BMW dealer could not help on that as well.

Really sorry you are going through this John.

 

[dflye]

While my situation wasn't exactly the same (as far as usability of vehicle and responsiveness from Tesla), it wasn't too different.

While taking a brief trip to a location at the edge of my range of travel without having to spend significant time recharging at slow 30A public chargers, I ended up leaving my Model S at the nearest public charging station at a park-n-ride lot, and getting back to our hotel with a combination of bus and foot travel.

Checking on my vehicle later that night via the phone app, saw where it was no longer charging; but the ChargePoint site indicated the charger was still in use. Called Tesla, and the helpful gent there said that he wasn't authorized to reboot my vehicle remotely to see if that would resolve any issues. So I could call back when the authorized person was available.

Being the cheapskate that I am, in the middle of a sleepless night, I decided to hoof it back from the hotel to the park-n-ride lot, about 5 miles as the crow flies, to determine why the charging had stopped, as I was planning on making the drive home without any stops to charge.

After many an adventure along the way (being a geocacher lends oneself to this type of event), arrived at the park-n-ride lot to find that the ChargePoint station I'd plugged into was now dead. Thankfully there was another in the same lot, and it was still operational. Call to ChargePoint was less than fruitful; nothing like having what appeared to be clue-free off-shore "help" assisting me in diagnosing issues with their own hardware.

So the gist of this? If you want weekend / off hours / holiday support from Tesla: it isn't there. They basically told me call back when the next level of support was available.

 

[jomo25]

Yes, while I sympathize for the OP, and think his issue may be similar to the issue in the linked thread, I do call BS on the whole "any other manufacturer..." part. If anything, the response he will get from Tesla will be much better in the end.

 

[Jason S]

(car is fully charged)..So this Saturday morning ... snip ...

Then a few hours later I walk by my car and the handles open automatically. I look in and the screens are on. Drove it up and down the driveway. Called Tesla and no one answered, left a message and have heard nothing. That was about 6 hours ago. My confidence is low and I'm afraid of being stranded if I take the car out without a fix in place. Especially if I call Tesla and they tell me someone might call me after the weekend and there is absolutely no chance of any help during the weekend.

I discovered there is definitely a gap in Tesla's ability to take care of the customer on the weekend! At this point I definitely feel a little silly spending over $90k on a car and to be treated this way. I hope this story gets better soon. Anyones feedback or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

John

I suspect you got the new firmware update in middle of night. Did you both looking at screen, etc? If you touch the T in top middle of screen you should get the firmware version and be able to read the release notes if a late enough version.

Car will drive perfectly find even without either screen actively running. I've rebooted both screens while driving down the road (I was fooling around) and they popped back up with no issues.

If worst comes to worst you can talk to Roadside Assistance to tow you back.

Regarding the 12v battery fixes... that's prolly related to the other thread referenced. But the symptoms are quite different.

 

[dsm363]

Does the car drive now since you said you drove it up and down the driveway? It seemed that way but that you weren't willing to drive it anymore with the risk of getting stranded which makes sense. If it turns on normally and there are no error messages you're likely ok.

 

[JRP3]

While my situation wasn't exactly the same (as far as usability of vehicle and responsiveness from Tesla), it wasn't too different.

So you blame Tesla for a problem with the Blink charger? They could not have fixed that.

 

[dflye]

So you blame Tesla for a problem with the Blink charger? They could not have fixed that.

No, my complaint was that the roadside assistance support only has one tier of support at times, meaning that an issue cannot be escalated. The gent on the phone was not allowed to perform any sort of remote action such as rebooting the car to see if it cleared any faults, and the information he was getting from the logs wasn't consistent with information indicated in the phone app or the chargepoint app. But Tesla support was definitely far superior to the chargepoint support, it isn't like he wasn't trying to solve the problem, he just had his hands tied by their procedures.

 

[ckessel]

I'm curious what percentage of Roadster owners have had a problem with the car being dead? Seems like we're getting multiple reports of this with the Model S in the forum (see swegman's thread) and this is just a sampling of Model S owners that show up in the forums, so there must be more in the ownership at large.

 

[johnmodels]

OK OK. I have had a nights rest and feel a little more relaxed about it. I do agree in part to what others are sayign about other manufacturers being willing to make it right on a Saturday. However, in my M3, if on a saturday it were to go bad, I would likely be able to get a loaner car from them, Lexus as well. I could be wrong.... The most frustrating thing was the ambiguity of the person on the phone with Tesla. He was not sure what was going to happen and when that was going to happen. It was also frustrating that I was needing a backup car, and my family are in a situation now where we have two drivers and two cars. I prefer it that way, and both cars need to be pretty reliable. The software says 4.2 when it did come alive and no log telling me to update it.

I apologize for writing this making it more dramatic than it was, and appreciate all your comments!

Of note: The screens act a bit different now. After doing a driveway test drive, I noticed that once I got out and closed the door both screens turned off immediately. When I opened the doors again they turned on immediately and off again once closed. Usually they stay on until the car locks itself or I walk away. What are others seeing here???

John

 

[dsm363]

That's what I've seen as well. When you close the doors, the screens turn off immediately. Glad your car is working.

I'm sure they'll staff up their support with more upper level people in the future but right now the roadside assistance number truly is roadside assistance. They will tow your car somewhere safe but you don't get primary tech support on a Saturday night (don't think anyone does that though). They do need to smooth issues like this out of course.

Do you have a more descriptive title for the thread since the car is actually working?

 

[Electric1]

On Friday, I had to call service at 9:30 in the morning and it sounded like I woke someone up at home. He told me that I had to wait until 9 Pacific time until someone got to work, but half an hour layter an east coaster called me. Duh?

 

[johnmodels]

This morning I checked to see what the MS status is. Door opened via remote but the dash now had an error message, for the first time. 12 volt battery error, pull off road, vehicle may not restart" Or something like that. "Danger, Danger, Will Robinson" I guess not it has decided what's wrong. So the car is definitely not working! I'll have to wait til monday. I'm hoping they can make the repair remotely, or without having to tow??? I've read a lot on this but have not read of any "fix" on the 12 volt battery issue that was easy or quick. Ive read about the poor soul who has gone without his MS for weeks. Anyone out there received this error and had it fixed??? I hope they offer a loaner. What are my chances?

 

[JRP3]

It could be a bad 12V battery, or a fault with the DC/DC converter. Both should be easy fixes.

 

[SuperCoug]

OK OK. I have had a nights rest and feel a little more relaxed about it. I do agree in part to what others are sayign about other manufacturers being willing to make it right on a Saturday. ...

I apologize for writing this making it more dramatic than it was, and appreciate all your comments!

Of note: The screens act a bit different now. After doing a driveway test drive, I noticed that once I got out and closed the door both screens turned off immediately. When I opened the doors again they turned on immediately and off again once closed. Usually they stay on until the car locks itself or I walk away. What are others seeing here???

John

John, I want to thank you for this follow up posting. It was very classy to follow up your initial post where you are understandably frustrated with this secondary post after you've had a chance to cool off a bit (and even thank others for their comments to your initial post). I know having problems with our cars is very frustrating and I wish more people would take your approach of a follow up message if they later feel it is warranted. Otherwise, the only thing "on the record" are the initial comments that may or may not reflect the authors feels down the road.

As far as screen behavior goes, my screens turn off instantly as soon as the last door is closed (even if it is one of the passenger doors) if it does not sense someone in the drivers seat.

 

[Jason S]

This morning I checked to see what the MS status is. Door opened via remote but the dash now had an error message, for the first time. 12 volt battery error, pull off road, vehicle may not restart" Or something like that. "Danger, Danger, Will Robinson" I guess not it has decided what's wrong. So the car is definitely not working! I'll have to wait til monday. I'm hoping they can make the repair remotely, or without having to tow??? I've read a lot on this but have not read of any "fix" on the 12 volt battery issue that was easy or quick. Ive read about the poor soul who has gone without his MS for weeks. Anyone out there received this error and had it fixed??? I hope they offer a loaner. What are my chances?

The 12v issue IS the one referenced earlier in the thread. Overall I'll make a guess that a batch of them were bad but weren't caught in burn-in. I've read elsewhere that a loaner (IE rental) has been offered.

 

[WSE51]

Sorry you couldn't get help from Tesla, but I've had excellent customer service. Last Sunday I returned from a trip and when I tried to plug into my High Powered Wall Connector I noticed that it was dead (later diagnosed as a blown fuse). I emailed the local Tesla service center guy who had once emailed me ... this is now 9:30 pm on a Sunday night, and within 15 minutes he called my home phone number to see if he could help! I joked "what took you so long to call?" and we had a good laugh. He said he was walking his dog and checked his email and noticed my email and didn't want me to have to wait until the morning and not get a full charge. He couldn't replace a blown fuse over the phone, but he gets an A+ for effort.

 

[johnmodels]

Update....
Lisa called me from the Costa Mesa service center. She was calling from her house. I guess that is how they are working things when the service center is closed. She arranged a loaner rental car from Enterprise. I picked it up last night and Tesla said they will be taking my MS today. Things are definitely in the OK category and acceptable. I will keep everyone appraised of the happenings.
john