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Bought a non-running Tesla Model S at auction - Have questions

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Hey Brain, appreciate the detail explanation to my questions. As I said initially this vehicle was a parts vehicle for a body damage tesla that I wasn't able to secure. I have been rebuilding ice vehicles for a while and body repair is my thing but I'm new to tesla and it's hv components if that's not obvious yet. You guys have been very helpful and thank you for sharing your knowledge with this newbie. I have learned a lot about my tesla already but will need to continuing educating myself more if I ever want tackle this issue at that level. I was intrigue but I think I'm at the end of my comfort zone. I think my best option is to find a complete p85 battery pack to swap it in or go back to my initial plan of trying to secure a body damage one to rebuild using this parts vehicle. I'll post updates to this when I get to that point. Thanks again!
if u do go with other pack, get at least a 90kwh or 100, don't get 85... those have lots of issues...
 
Thanks again for the heads up on that! So would the car be able to use 100kwh battery when it came factory as an 85kwh that I've read is software limited?

There was only one person doing the 100 KW hour upgrades, Jason hughes, and he's out of the business now. You can get a hold of recell in Texas and talk to them. It's probably well worth it to talk to them anyway because you need to know what kind of trade in they would give you on your battery pack towards a "new" one. Or how much they would charge you to fix yours. It doesn't cost all that much to have a car flat bedded to them, but you can't be in a hurry! In any event give them a call and see what they say. That, at least, won't cost you anything.
 
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There was only one person doing the 100 KW hour upgrades, Jason hughes, and he's out of the business now. You can get a hold of recell in Texas and talk to them. It's probably well worth it to talk to them anyway because you need to know what kind of trade in they would give you on your battery pack towards a "new" one. Or how much they would charge you to fix yours. It doesn't cost all that much to have a car flat bedded to them, but you can't be in a hurry! In any event give them a call and see what they say. That, at least, won't cost you anything.
There's also EV's Republic in California I've seen mention that they do 100kwh upgrades.
 
on P85, 100kwh upgrade might be more involved but like i said, contact the member i told u about earlier or use ref above, i'm sure there's others just have to search or ask around.
on P85d i believe its easier
but 90 upgrade should be easiest on both, many, including Tesla, done it many times
 
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So I just found a candidate to rebuild, a 2013 MS 85 with very low miles (30k) with a minor front end accident and has a damaged front radiator that's leaking coolant. It runs and drives fine and currently has over 50% charge on it but has a bms_u019 error with a low coolant error. I wasn't able to connect my scan my tesla to it so I don't know the details of the bricks and this might be a stupid question but is there any chance that this bms_u019 error is a result of the lost of coolant or is it just the battery itself failing and I should run front anything that has a bms_uxxx error? I have read that this might be the coolant related or failing contactors but giving it only has 30k miles, I would be surprise that the battery has already started to fail. Thanks.
 
contactors replacement isn't hard but will require lifting up main cover a bit on older packs
but p85 is a better car n batteries aren't compatible (as a whole) between them i think...
I think you misunderstood me. I'm not going to swap this 85 battery pack into the p85. I am thinking of rebuilding the running body damaged one using the parts car. Basically if I take this one, I will need to replace the front end and paint it to match, something I have done numerous times with ice vehicles. I already have everything needed to do a complete body using the p85 front end parts. My concern was the bms_u019 error that's present and from what you're say it's a contactor issue, meaning the battery pack has to be drop and open up for repairs on older packs, so how can I tell if it's an older or newer pack? Thanks.
 
So I just found a candidate to rebuild, a 2013 MS 85 with very low miles (30k) with a minor front end accident and has a damaged front radiator that's leaking coolant. It runs and drives fine and currently has over 50% charge on it but has a bms_u019 error with a low coolant error. I wasn't able to connect my scan my tesla to it so I don't know the details of the bricks and this might be a stupid question but is there any chance that this bms_u019 error is a result of the lost of coolant or is it just the battery itself failing and I should run front anything that has a bms_uxxx error? I have read that this might be the coolant related or failing contactors but giving it only has 30k miles, I would be surprise that the battery has already started to fail. Thanks.
Age is the issue. Low mileage could be due to the car sitting for years and that's not good for the battery.
 
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I enjoyed reading your post, but I wonder if your ICE rebuilding skills extend to EVs in general, and Teslas in particular?

When you add up the cost of both cars, and expected time spent putting things back to operating condition, what will be the total you’ve invested? For that amount are you confident that you’ll have a safe vehicle free of continuing problems? Would you feel confident in the car’s reliability and safety?

Only you can answer these questions, but years ago I remember a friend who tried a similar experiment with a well worn Ferrari that had lots of issues. He’s a skilled mechanic and thought all would turn out well. It didn’t and he wound up going to a Ferrari expert to get everything sorted. The mechanic told him the famous line: “There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap Ferrari”.

I’m not saying this will happen to you, but before you jump in with both feet maybe checking with Tesla would be worth the expense and time. Ferrari has proprietary diagnostic computers that are highly specialized to sort out problems. My guess is that Tesla does as well. Compare that cost to trying things on your own, and possibly finding out that some of the work you did won’t solve the problem.

Best of luck - You’re a braver man than I!
 
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I enjoyed reading your post, but I wonder if your ICE rebuilding skills extend to EVs in general, and Teslas in particular?

When you add up the cost of both cars, and expected time spent putting things back to operating condition, what will be the total you’ve invested? For that amount are you confident that you’ll have a safe vehicle free of continuing problems? Would you feel confident in the car’s reliability and safety?

Only you can answer these questions, but years ago I remember a friend who tried a similar experiment with a well worn Ferrari that had lots of issues. He’s a skilled mechanic and thought all would turn out well. It didn’t and he wound up going to a Ferrari expert to get everything sorted. The mechanic told him the famous line: “There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap Ferrari”.

I’m not saying this will happen to you, but before you jump in with both feet maybe checking with Tesla would be worth the expense and time. Ferrari has proprietary diagnostic computers that are highly specialized to sort out problems. My guess is that Tesla does as well. Compare that cost to trying things on your own, and possibly finding out that some of the work you did won’t solve the problem.

Best of luck - You’re a braver man than I!
Hello, I have a 14 MS, considering Frankenstiening some MX's, I might not be smart enough to be scared. current issues with my MS (see what I did there) are similar and I am going to look at my dc-dc next.. Good Luck MVT72
 
Yeah I wasn't smart enough so I doubled down and got another ms85 that not only had body damaged but also bms error. Was planning to use the wreck 85 to repair the p85+ but decided to go ahead and repair it instead. I got it running aside from some small issues I'm still trying to work out, side mirrors doesn't fold automatically when lock, no lock sounds and no autopark or auto assist features bc of some damaged sonars that I need to replace... body work is nothing special except for aluminum panels and so my experienced with ICE vehicle body work transfer over relatively well.. I don't have tesla's diagnostic software and don't plan on paying for it bc I don't think these small issues justify the cost of the software so I'll have to find other ways of troubleshooting it. other then that, the car seems to be relatively happy, bms readings seems good, it charges fine at the supercharger, it charges fine at home and updates fine via tesla app. runs and drives great.. my end goal is to get my p85+ up and running so this one will be for sale soon after I'm done with the p85+ if anyone is interested, currently 37k miles on it but it's going to go up bc I'm driving it.
 

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I have heard that salvage vehicles will be black listed from Tesla supercharging network but I guess Tesla either didn’t catch it yet or they are now allowing it.. either way I have supercharged 3 times without any issues
Once the government paperwork hits the system they'll shut off your supercharging. It happens in the middle of trips for people, like my brother. You have to pay them to do an inspection and then they will, usually, reinstate supercharging.
 
Once the government paperwork hits the system they'll shut off your supercharging. It happens in the middle of trips for people, like my brother. You have to pay them to do an inspection and then they will, usually, reinstate supercharging.
For my S it happened after 1 or 2 mo after I got it from auction, before I even finished fixing it.
Initially when I added it to app (with Bill of sale) it showed warranty still existing, then later changed to expired.
I haven't tried supercharging in both states but pretty sure they go together for salvage...
 
i still do, according to app/account (sc01) but i haven't tested it at all
I think one thing you can do to verify if you still can supercharge or not is to simply plug in a destination route and it would let you know where you should stop to supercharged. I have heard that if your vehicle supercharging ability has been disabled, you will not get supercharging in your route.
 
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