Model S P85D lower and lower range for 3 - years - WARRANTY ENDING SOON - what to do?

[wk057]

I’m not sure what happened. He fired off some DMs to me and apparently several others saying his character was being attacked and he’s answered every question clearly and yadda yadda. Accused me of reporting a bunch of his messages (I didn’t), then next thing I see he’s banned.

Ah well. I don’t think there was really anywhere else for this thread to go.

Not sure what led to a ban here, but I recently realized this is the same person that had contacted me directly last summer about these "issues" and just outright asked if there was any way to "short the battery" or "do something else to [the battery]" to get Tesla to replace it with a new one under warranty.

So... yeah. Probably for the best. Tesla seems to be handling this much better than anyone could ask given that he seems to have been pestering them about replacing a battery that's perfectly fine for the better part of 8 months or more.

 

[Doanster1]

Not sure what led to a ban here, but I recently realized this is the same person that had contacted me directly last summer about these "issues" and just outright asked if there was any way to "short the battery" or "do something else to [the battery]" to get Tesla to replace it with a new one under warranty.

WOWWWWWW!

 

[tomsla]

Not sure what led to a ban here, but I recently realized this is the same person that had contacted me directly last summer about these "issues" and just outright asked if there was any way to "short the battery" or "do something else to [the battery]" to get Tesla to replace it with a new one under warranty.

So... yeah. Probably for the best. Tesla seems to be handling this much better than anyone could ask given that he seems to have been pestering them about replacing a battery that's perfectly fine for the better part of 8 months or more.

I can understand that you may have fewer potential customers if Tesla pays for batteries under warranty and no one needs 3rd party services, but I've never seen a vendor attack a potential customer and speculate so negatively about their intentions only for reporting frustrations with service.

I can see things got heated here, but many were casting stones, you included.
But is it a bad thing if someone shares warnings with the community of what the experience may be like with Tesla Service, if others find themselves in this situation? I don't see it as bad to seek alternatives.

However, it does seem unprofessional to share potential clients old one-on-one communications with you to a message forum to discredit them.
I would be very hesitant getting service from you after reading this thread, or even communicating with you privately.

 

[tomsla]

But there is now plenty of documented written evidence from the technicians saying they DO see a problem and ARE NOT done with his car and ARE still working on it.

Yes, you actually read the thread. That's the whole point. Not sure why others are ignoring this, as it is the most key part. If I have a problem with my battery, and they say so, then it's a problem. No arguing that.

 

[tomsla]

I appreciate your vast knowledge about Tesla's in general, but that's some unwarranted accusation and conjecture of the OP's motives on this particular situation.

He has written communication from the technicians there that they see something that doesn't look right and are researching it.

So we don't have information of what the problem is here in this thread. That would be unknown for us. That's not enough to declare there isn't any problem when Tesla technicians have said the opposite.

Also, that wouldn't make sense from the longstanding pattern of Tesla behavior. The default from all of people's thousands of range complaints was dismissal and ignoring and refusing to even consider there is a problem. That's what they always do. This is shockingly different in them actually saying they DO see a problem.

I agree with you 100%.
I feel sad that it seems that the battery warranty isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Sorry for all the troubles the posters here having major battery issues have had! Quite sad, really. Tesla service needs to improve their communication and escalation procedures.

 

[henderrj]

I can understand that you may have fewer potential customers if Tesla pays for batteries under warranty and no one needs 3rd party services, but I've never seen a vendor attack a potential customer and speculate so negatively about their intentions only for reporting frustrations with service.

I can see things got heated here, but many were casting stones, you included.
But is it a bad thing if someone shares warnings with the community of what the experience may be like with Tesla Service, if others find themselves in this situation? I don't see it as bad to seek alternatives.

However, it does seem unprofessional to share potential clients old one-on-one communications with you to a message forum to discredit them.
I would be very hesitant getting service from you after reading this thread, or even communicating with you privately.

So, help me to understand correctly. You are saying that you did in fact ask the folks there about how to kill your battery so that you could get a new one? If so, this would seem to be precisely the place where someone would share that sort of information. Carefully not giving anyone's name, since who wants to be sued!

 

[ucmndd]

Yes, you actually read the thread. That's the whole point. Not sure why others are ignoring this, as it is the most key part. If I have a problem with my battery, and they say so, then it's a problem. No arguing that.

So the simple act of investigating a potential problem and communicating as much to a relentless customer hellbent on a specific outcome means the problem is 100% real and said customer is owed a replacement battery?

That’s absurd. They investigated. They found the vehicle, which was displaying no errors and charges to a healthy range, has no warrantable problems. Case closed.

 

[wk057]

I can understand that you may have fewer potential customers if Tesla pays for batteries under warranty and no one needs 3rd party services, but I've never seen a vendor attack a potential customer and speculate so negatively about their intentions only for reporting frustrations with service.

I can see things got heated here, but many were casting stones, you included.
But is it a bad thing if someone shares warnings with the community of what the experience may be like with Tesla Service, if others find themselves in this situation? I don't see it as bad to seek alternatives.

However, it does seem unprofessional to share potential clients old one-on-one communications with you to a message forum to discredit them.
I would be very hesitant getting service from you after reading this thread, or even communicating with you privately.

First off, I send people to Tesla all the time to get things fixed under warranty, and even advocate for customers when they have failures outside of warranty when the vehicle logs show there were impending issues within Tesla's warranty. If Tesla will do a repair for free, I don't want you using my company for the same service. That's just silly, and it'd be wrong to suggest anything different to a customer. I'm not going to tell someone facing an expensive repair cost, "You should pay us $10,000 to fix this problem that Tesla will fix for you for free." Really? I mean, I'm sure there are some companies like this, but not here.

The problem with this particular poster is that they continually contradicted themselves, providing conflicting information and metrics, continuously ignored suggested diagnostics and remedies for the potential issues they claimed to have (low usable range), and continued to press for Tesla to replace a battery that was clearly not defective, going so far as to publicly write that they thought they could get a new 90 pack out of the deal if they did. They dragged this on for months and months, never accepting any information that didn't further their quest to get a free new battery pack out of Tesla.

Again, I'm all for helping people get what they're entitled from Tesla's warranty, and there are many people who can attest to that. But if you've been told by multiple people multiple times that there isn't an issue, and continue to blindly insist that there is in your mission to get free stuff... that's a problem, and I'm going to call out that BS.

As for private conversations: Private conversations are generally private conversations. I communicate with thousands of people throughout the year, including some prominent folks who clearly have a high value on privacy. Anyone who's DM'd me or spoken with me directly knows I don't go around sharing them, or even noting anything about them or that they happened or whatever.

But, I don't care who you are, if you suggest that I help you do something illegal. Then any expectation of privacy, implied or otherwise, is out the window as far as I'm concerned. Like, don't even joke about it. I won't tolerate that at all. In this particular case, I did nothing with that original note from this person, and ignored it completely when I replied to them with my professional opinion on their situation (not the pack, something else causing low range like driving style, bad tires, bad alignment, etc etc etc etc etc). Yet that advice was ignored and they continued to push the same things publicly.

If you have an issue with your car, I'm happy to help if I can. We spend a LOT of time helping Tesla owners who never spend a dime with my company. I've no issue doing so to help people get the service they need when I can. But I'm not going to help someone commit fraud.

If you've got a problem with that, then I don't want your business anyway.

 

[tomsla]

First off, I send people to Tesla all the time to get things fixed under warranty, and even advocate for customers when they have failures outside of warranty when the vehicle logs show there were impending issues within Tesla's warranty. If Tesla will do a repair for free, I don't want you using my company for the same service. That's just silly, and it'd be wrong to suggest anything different to a customer. I'm not going to tell someone facing an expensive repair cost, "You should pay us $10,000 to fix this problem that Tesla will fix for you for free." Really? I mean, I'm sure there are some companies like this, but not here.

The problem with this particular poster is that they continually contradicted themselves, providing conflicting information and metrics, continuously ignored suggested diagnostics and remedies for the potential issues they claimed to have (low usable range), and continued to press for Tesla to replace a battery that was clearly not defective, going so far as to publicly write that they thought they could get a new 90 pack out of the deal if they did. They dragged this on for months and months, never accepting any information that didn't further their quest to get a free new battery pack out of Tesla.

Again, I'm all for helping people get what they're entitled from Tesla's warranty, and there are many people who can attest to that. But if you've been told by multiple people multiple times that there isn't an issue, and continue to blindly insist that there is in your mission to get free stuff... that's a problem, and I'm going to call out that BS.

As for private conversations: Private conversations are generally private conversations. I communicate with thousands of people throughout the year, including some prominent folks who clearly have a high value on privacy. Anyone who's DM'd me or spoken with me directly knows I don't go around sharing them, or even noting anything about them or that they happened or whatever.

But, I don't care who you are, if you suggest that I help you do something illegal. Then any expectation of privacy, implied or otherwise, is out the window as far as I'm concerned. Like, don't even joke about it. I won't tolerate that at all. In this particular case, I did nothing with that original note from this person, and ignored it completely when I replied to them with my professional opinion on their situation (not the pack, something else causing low range like driving style, bad tires, bad alignment, etc etc etc etc etc). Yet that advice was ignored and they continued to push the same things publicly.

If you have an issue with your car, I'm happy to help if I can. We spend a LOT of time helping Tesla owners who never spend a dime with my company. I've no issue doing so to help people get the service they need when I can. But I'm not going to help someone commit fraud.

If you've got a problem with that, then I don't want your business anyway.

Convenient - now you don't have to be private at all Whenever you violate a customer's trust, just go ahead and say that you think a customer may have wanted to do something illegal! I'm joking, but whatever your justification, I found your behavior of bashing someone looking for help and your finger pointing to be a bad look.

My feeling and opinion is when you join in on bashing someone publicly - that's already bad. But when you pour fuel on the fire by adding your opinion of the customer (based on possible facts, or alleged private communications), you're going out of your way to air private (alleged) dirty laundry in public. Just bad business. I'm pointing this out to help you be more professional and not bash people in the future, not because I want your business after seeing this. If it isn't clear already, I wouldn't do business with you or anyone who exhibits public harassment / bashing of potential customers.

You're entitled to your opinion, I'm entitled to mine.

Business 101 tip: Don't spread unproven "facts" and character assassinations (which are simply your opinions, and rather aggressive and negative ones) about your supposed *private communications* to slander a customer publicly.

You did help derail this thread with mud slinging. It seems that was your goal, and you succeeded. Anyone who looks back on this thread will see that you started this - and for no reason. Just immature.

 

[ucmndd]

Whenever you violate a customer's trust

What trust violation? Nobody here has done any reputational damage to anyone. None of us know "P85D-low-range" from Adam - they remain perfectly anonymous.

 

[tomsla]

What trust violation? Nobody here has done any reputational damage to anyone. None of us know "P85D-low-range" from Adam - they remain perfectly anonymous.

Someone may or may not know who is behind an internet handle, there is tons of information on this thread and others. It's not that difficult to piece things together - for local people especially.

But the business owner doing something they claim they normally wouldn't do was my point, that is the trust violation. The point being that if you change your ethics / privacy policy / whatever method you claim to operate based on opinion on an internet forum, and decide it is then ok to act in a way that violates your own normal code of conduct / ethics / privacy policy otherwise, you are now operating with a set of conditional ethics. “An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.”

Conditional ethics by forum sponsors or anyone at all based on internet bashing / opinions of others / finger pointing is not an ideal criteria for customer trust with businesses. I conduct business and relationships with those who have consistent and reliable behavior, not a conditional set of policies or those who sometimes engage in customer bashing - and if you look back on this thread - that was before he later claimed he suddenly remembered he knows the customer! He claimed he had 'extra' information to layer on suddenly - purposely stated only for added public reputational damage, whether names were shared or not. AFTER already having bashed his earlier posts. That is poor / unconstructive behavior in my book.

I also see you thumbs downing positive posts from others here, that is also unconstructive. The forum does not need negativity, mud slinging, or distractions. Some bad apples here make this place more contentious than a BMW forum at times. If you or others want to keep arguing or disagreeing, PLEASE take side discussions PRIVATE - rather than spamming this thread. Thank you!

The discussion is (or rather, was) the (non)warranty customer experience and what to expect when dealing with Tesla service on aging battery cars, even if they are under warranty still, and this subject is an important one and does throw red flags worth looking into. Learning the ins and outs of that experience is what forum browsers are more interested in - not your opinion of when it's ok to bash a forum member seeking help from a poor service experience.

Anyone can see the customer experience with Tesla service and contradictory information is (or was) the point of this thread, and was not handled in a great way by Tesla. People who own Teslas and service them should probably know about this.

From what I've seen I would question the consistency of how the warranty practices are handled, and do not feel their warranty is applied equally to all customers. I have had multiple Teslas and used to think I would trust a used pack for 4-6 years. Based on recent trends and inconsistent warranty claim outcomes, I wouldn't want one more than 3 years old. That's great for Tesla because they keep selling more new cars, which gives them much more revenue than service or warranty claims. I think it's important to know and share Tesla service experiences, and how they follow up or play down range issues and possible hardware issues especially when they admit there is a hardware problem but don't fix it.

Bottom line: These cars are great in general when they work well, and don't need much service. Except when they need it, it can be VERY BAD news financially, and is highly conditional on your local Tesla service and their willingness to help.
We are now getting into the time period where more of these cars with warranty ending will be out of warranty, and there will be a lot of long-term owners as well as new buyers to the brand who will be getting very ugly and expensive surprises, sometimes very suddenly! I feel sorry for those who are slightly past or near the end of their warranty and have battery problems. This situation is going to become more common and Tesla needs to provide better and more cost effective solutions for servicing and repairing bad / poor battery packs, bottom line.