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Comment by marcinzm | Hacker News Reader

As I understand it, if you buy a non-salvage used car from another individual then the package follows the car. If you buy a salvage car then the package does not follow it as the car is officially junk (it also loses warranty, etc). If you buy a used car from Tesla they will remove the package before sale.

There's one case where Tesla apparently messed up and didn't remove the package from a car they re-sold until after sale. I can't find any other cases of that or removing packages during private sales.

edit: This seems to be about Tesla discouraging salvage cars rather than private sales of non-salvage cars.

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I read in the past that Tesla does this also to normal used cars that weren't totaled and salvaged.

Either way, you paid for it, and even it it's technically "totaled" it's still fucking yours. When Tesla disables functionality remotely, they don't say it's because the warranty ran out or because it's unsafe now, they say they are happy to re-enable it for fresh money.

That's why I wouldn't buy a Tesla (or any car of a manufacturer pulling the same crap) now, and if I did already buy one, would be looking into filing a class action against the company, because remotely disabling features like that that you already paid for is fraud.

You should read into the supercharging debacle, where they charged people $10k to recertify their used/salvage Teslas for supercharging and then later changed their minds and disabled the feature (except for Model 3s) again for those who paid.

Even if you buy a used Tesla direct, it can take _months_ before they get it to you.

>Either way, you paid for it, and even it it's technically "totaled" it's still fucking yours.

Technically, the insurance company probably owns it as they paid you for it after declaring it totaled.

... and he bought it from the insurance company at the vehicle auction.

That's what insurance companies do when they total a vehicle: they buy it from the insured and sell it to somebody else at an auction.

A sale is a sale.

This sounds like an argument for the Insurance company being defrauded instead of the argument you intended.

I am reasonably confident a large percentage of Tesla's antics are blatantly illegal, but Tesla owners are still too few for someone to have actually gotten fed up with them enough to start suing them.

Refusing to activate a car you have the legal title to in any scenario is almost certainly illegal, whether you "salvaged" it or not, for instance. Some of the ways they restrict your car they already sold you, the way they use your cars sensors to collect data for their use, even if those sensors are disabled for the owners' use (Autopilot not purchased), etc. are probably one good lawsuit away from being thrown out.

Yep, sounds like a class action lawsuit that sounds easy to win. It might be tangled in with right to repair lawsuits as well. Also, I think the first sale doctrine should apply. Usually the VIN itself maps to a complete list of specifications. Supercharger access seems to be a harder one to sort out.

It is amazing that ludicrous performance mode is a software upgrade. That makes for amazing margins.

This is the reason Rich Rebuilds stopped rebuilding Teslas. It is as if you don't own the car.

Telsa is junking out cars with minor fender damage and no frame/battery problems because they don't have the labor pool available to recertify their cars.

The insurance companies would much prefer minor repairs than to write off the whole asset, but they can't get quality work done to the asset.

This practice is driving up _everyone's_ insurance rates.

Why would it not just drive up Tesla owners’ insurance rates?

I guess it might affect everyone if it increases liability costs in cases where the Tesla driver is not at fault, but I imagine that’s an extremely minor portion of expenses considering the tiny proportion of Tesla cars.

Because all vehicles are getting more complicated with sensor recalibration requirements.

A salvage title doesn't necessarily mean the car is junk, though. The fact that you can revive a salvage title clearly shows this. A lot of the cars my family has driven were revived by my father, it is economical and more sustainable in my opinion.

I personally don't support any attempts by auto makers to make cars more disposable.

I'm keeping a 33 year old vehicle alive and it's still a joy to drive.

My other car is newer but still with low mileage and in excellent condition.

It's not really that hard, but so much has been done deliberately to make it more difficult. I'm finding older vehicles more and more desirable than newer ones.

I've never understood how tesla doesn't get subjected to a very expensive recall to retrofit their vehicles with an OBDII port that actually works. Bare minimum it should have to provide the subset of PIDs that are applicable to it. Odometer, time since start, voltages, throttle position, battery pack remain life, etc.

Legislators, lobbyists and car manufacturers are working hard together to obsolete and replace OBDII with something that is completely locked away from consumers and independent mechanics forever.

You know, a newer thing that gets lots of remarks like that is the Security Gateway Module (SGM) from FCA (Chrysler) on 2018+ models. Everybody thinks its getting locked away from end users except read access. Less understood is along with this change they now they sell their micropods for $1800. (obd2 wifi dongle) Meaning, for under 2k you literally have the same tool the dealers have to use. And you can pay for 3 day subscriptions for $50 a pop that give you access to everything (firmware updates, repair procedures, wiring diagrams, etc)

But if you still want to use a 3rd party tool you pay $100 a year for an autoauth subscription that supports all tools an independent shop could possible have among all their employees. That effectively allows the 3rd party tools to request FCA unlock the SGM so they can program the car directly with aftermarket tools. And if you just don't want to deal with chrysler or care if nefarious actors can potentially hijack and program your car over a cellular connection. You can replace the SGM with a bypass and even ditch the cellular connection. Or you can add another OBD port for yourself by plugging in at the star port. Or use something like the 8+12 method.

So its not like John Deer or Tesla where you can't do anything. Its more like if you owned an Apple computer and Apple allowed you to purchase their software to work with it. And did so at a very reasonable price (comparatively) any independent shop could afford. But also allowed you to register with a auth service that allows you to disable all the stuff blocking you from doing things with 3rd party software.

If we're going to go down this road of cellular vehicles I really hope FCA being out there ahead of others rubs off on how other manufacturers handle it. I think its a pretty good engineering design to address modern concerns as well as support independent shops by extending access to their tools to work with. You don't have to worry if Autel or Snap-On understood something well enough to program the various modules correctly. But you can still go that route if desired.

I mean, with my 30+ year old car I can buy a Haynes manual for $10 once and I have the wiring diagrams and guides for how to make specific repairs forever.

Plus you only get those subscription services for as long as FCA decides they want to sell them to you. Will they still offer that 10 years from now? 20? Consider me extremely skeptical.

I understand the skepticism and you're right certain things remains to be seen. Specifically that they keep techauthority open to aftermarket. Less so that they'd drop support for 20 year old cars on their dealerships.

WiTECH isn't entirely brand new here. This release (WiTECH 2.0) is a continuation of WiTech 1.0 (installed software) that has existed for decades with full support for all OBD2 model years up to 2017. v2.0 is all web based so you can print off whatever you feel is important while you have an active subscription.

You can still get a haynes, chilton, etc manual but I feel we're comparing apples to oranges there. Those sorts of things are not shop manuals + dealer tools even on a 30 year old car. I'm pointing out that the dealer tools are starting to be within grasp of a shade tree mechanic and they're letting YOU service the modules. You don't have to settle for a reverse engineered manual based on a teardown or 3rd party tools. But they aren't stopping you from using those either. I appreciate it with how computerized cars are getting. Who else lets aftermarket flash modules with OEM firmware updates? This is the exact opposite direction tesla has been going in.

All that said. I very much respect a carbureted vehicle that only needs a dull spark on 6 out of 8 cyls to get you down the road. No question about it.

Culture of throw-away cars that Tesla is promoting is extremely at odds with their environmental message.

One of the most common reasons for Salvage title in Ohklahoma is hail damage.

"In Oklahoma, the insurance companies will declare a total loss and deem a vehicle as salvage when the damage is greater than 60% of the fair market value of the vehicle."

PBR is ~$3K, anything more severe and they will write whole car down due to cosmetic damage.

That depends on the feature. They generally do not remove EAP/FSD on cars they resell. There have been mistakes though, and it takes some pressure to get them to fix those mistakes. There have also been cases of people getting EAP/FSD when they didn't pay for it.

Other features, like unlimited supercharging on newer cars (older unlimited supercharging followed the car) or free data were only for the original buyer, and they will remove those when they resell a car.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/4496271/

Wait. So features are onwer AND car bounded? It does not carry to the next owner of the same car and does not carry to the next car of the same owner? At least when going through Tesla dealership? That would be pretty despicable..

On trade ins through tesla yes. They account for paid features in trade in value but then remove them and require used buyers to repurchase them.

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