I would read this as a cautionary tale against renting your cars. If you can’t buy it, don’t! This holds true for any depreciating asset.
You should have access to the documentation and parts- I and many other gear heads will refuse to drive/own/buy any Tesla car until I can turn a wrench on it.
How would you feel if I told you only Dell/HP should make computers because people make dangerous repairs that will allow hackers to attack systems? It's just as ridiculous when people make claims that fixing a busted fitting is a 'hack'.
imho Tesla Autos are straight-up 'unauthorised bread'.
Unless Tesla can state exactly how this fix is inferior to it's original design.
Putting a brass nipple in a plastic pipe is a tried and tested process. The stated pressure is 2 psi, or max 5 psi during testing. 5 psi is about 3.5 meters of water column. So the pressure is equivalent to what you get in your home.
The piping is essentially house plumbing level stuff.
Much lower pressure, actually - domestic water is supplied closer to 50-60psi.
This fix is only inferior to Tesla because it exposed a design flaw and removed their chance to massively overcharge for a tiny repair.
Cries in England where domestic water can be as low as 10 psi and sometimes won't even reach the top of your house and you have to go downstairs to get water...
Pretty cheap and easy to install.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Water-Booster-Pump/s?k=Water+Booste...
Imagine if other cars were like that: "Sorry, we're not able to service engines so instead of replacing your timing belt for $400 you have to buy a new engine for $6000"
In this case, Tesla under-equips service centers so local battery repairs aren't possible. Shipping it back to the factory is necessary. So I can kind of understand if they charge the customer a $1200 freight fee + the cost of the repair itself, but that would still be > $10,000 less than the cost of an entire new battery pack.
Although I think it would be much better if Tesla actually enabled their service centers to do repairs like this. They can get away with it right now since they're more of a luxury/prestige brand and have minimal competition in that EV segment, but if you buy a Cadillac you don't deal with this type of thing:
As other manufacturers are catching up with offerings that compete on the lucury/prestige side of EV's as well as entry level cars. These are manufacturers with more experience in engineering their cars for decentralized service, with customers that expect that: Honda knows that their Civic customers won't buy a comparable EV if a little road debris will either cost them $10k out of pocket or raise their insurance by getting a $10k at-fault claim that raises their insurance costs. Tesla may have a hard time facing such competition without changing their model.
Currently the extra price of an EV makes attracts customers where price is not as much of an issue. As manufacturers significantly larger than Tesla enter the marker with their economies of scale and lower prices, the target customer for an EV will change, as will their expectations.
My house runs at 60psi, +/-3psi, and I think it is pretty bog-standard for US plumbing. It's about 11m from the basement to the attic, and still needs decent pressure upstairs, so, yes, 2-5 psi is silly low pressure to worry about - it's only going to be a slow leak even while running, the only problem is if it runs out, for which I expect Tesla has a sensor.
This repair is not some janky hack, it is more of an upgrade
Never knew this.
In India, 99.99% of all homes have gravity flow and static pressure, so except for very tall buildings, no one gets pressure more than 5 - 10 psi.
Pressure reducing valves are used anywhere the pressure going into a home is above 80 PSI, and those are a lot more common than homes needing their own booster pumps.
Plenty of pressure here (USA) without a pump.
Edit: Plus, I've got to say that it is really cool to get perspectives from all over the world here - India, Norway, and a few other places, just in a few comments - just how differently things are done, and what we each take for granted in our environment.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/mythbusters-part-2-tesla-roadster...
I have a hard time saying it isn't "based on" the Elise because they look so similar but it's definitely more different than I suggested in my previous comment.
They can make fart noises when you honk, find me another car that can do that /s
Yeah, that's pretty much what Apple, the Tesla of computer manufacturers, does.
When was the last time you insured your PC for 3rd-party damage?
This is a mute argument.
Also the correct word it moot, not mute. And neither apply in this situation, so the issue of mute is completely moot.
I would add that leasing is actually considered a temporary transfer of property in many legal systems.
Just like if you rent a flat the owner cannot tell you to use only a certain company to paint it or do some repairs (expect of course the ones that are paid by the owner)
But why are you calling it a hack fix? Also, why would a competent third-party repair shop be "risky"? A customer should be free to pick out an experienced and competent repair-shop just the way they currently do for their cars. And if they don't want to, they can take it to the dealership like they would have anyway.
Right to repair is an extra _option_ for the consumer. Manufacturers are taking it away for future guaranteed service income (ala subscription model). In my opinion, it has absolutely nothing to do with "risk".
> that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk
How is the risk different from the existing leased model in any industry?
My first question would relate to "dezincification". A chemical process where the zinc leaves brass and leaves a copper sponge behind. Does the coolant cause dezincification? Is zinc tolerable in the coolant?
Learned this one in my home when my city water dezincified a kitchen faucet causing water to escape through to "solid" surfaces.
My second question would be about how that female threaded material holds up under vibration over time.
That said, I'd might accept this as a fix if I broke my own car and just peek at it once in a while to see if it was weeping. But if someone else broke my car, fixed it like this and told me it was good enough I would not be happy. That's the kind of confusion I get for thinking with meat.
Vibration is a non-issue. Pipe threads are is 200yr old tech. Pipe threads in all manner of materials have been in service in all manner of environments the world over. Some of them for a century or more.
Unfortunately, there are just as much of them just trying to get your money and then fixing it the simplest and cheapest way possible, without the consideration for long term safety and secondary effects that Tesla has probably put in.
As an outsider, it's hard to tell the difference, but I agree with the grandparent that an order of magnitude cheaper does look too good to be true at first.
EG, a specific Tesla shop can be stuck with bad management too.
A Canadian banks was caught because tellers were signing people up, unaware, with free credit cards, over draft protection, monthly plans, and even lines of credit. Why?
Management tying performance and promotion, and even job security, with overly aggressive conversion numbers.
So, even a Tesla shop may try an upsale, to get monthly profit numbers up.
In terms of the hack? It's not a hack. It is a simple, sensible fix. Bear in mind, the Tesla shop he went to? Seems to be little more than a component swapping repair site. They likely know little about car repair.
One other thing. You get good at car repair, when you work on 10, 20, 30 year old cars.
Fixing new, in lease cars is easy by comparison. Tesla has little experience with 20 year old wear and tear fixes...
Yet independent shops and experienced mechanics do.
Whereas, looking at it the other way around, an order of magnitude more expensive on the part of the manufacturer unfortunately doesn't look too bad to be true at all.
This seems like an incredibly wild assumption. The German concept of 'keine ehrfurcht fur deine maschine' will keep you from seeing every problem as a chance for your box to shine.
But we're talking about a 40k$ car and a system which is critical for cooling a part that is very eager to start a fire. I can easily imagine that the higher pressure or temperature tolerance would be needed if you're using the car in extremely hot weather (which can be a bit unexpected [0]) or when the battery experiences a critical failure. When working with systems that can have very bad failures, a bit of Ehrfurcht might be appropriate.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2021/jul/08/weatherwatch...
I watched the actual video. The mechanic, who previously worked at Tesla, indicated that brass would handle the coolant just fine; a friend of his had been driving the same fix for quite some time.
> My second question would be about how that female threaded material holds up under vibration over time.
Adhesive.
That repair will likely last longer than the car. Brass fittings have been standard for hydraulic and cooling systems for over 150 years. Tesla has been cheap and used plastic instead.
At least its not glued in https://rennlist.com/forums/cayenne-958-2011-2018/1045931-20...
because of terminology like this "Electrified Garage also notes that the cooling system doesn't get anywhere near as hot as an internal combustion engine, and it's not likely that it would either, given that the operating temperature for most lithium-ion batteries is well below 60 degrees Celsius."
So this repair is made on anecdotal observation of ideal conditions, and disregarding factory specifications, and actual Tesla trained technicians.
If this was your car, and this damaged was caused by someone else's fault, would you want a hack fix, or it fixed to the manufactures specification? He Broke Telsa's car.
>How is the risk different from the existing leased model in any industry?
Have you looked at a standard lease for cars, they dictate the terms of how their vehicles are to be maintained and repair, often hold authority of who, and how those repairs are done.
Some simply reserve the right to charge you, for services not performed by them.
Other's make even simpler, they charge you for damaging the vehicle or require you to convert the lease to a purchase, before work is done.
>So this repair is made on anecdotal observation of ideal conditions, and disregarding factory specifications, and actual Tesla trained technicians.
The context here is not "they're half-assing it because the system demand are minimal so they can". It's "this repair technique works just fine on real automotive cooling systems that are much more demanding".
>If this was your car, and this damaged was caused by someone else's fault, would you want a hack fix, or it fixed to the manufactures specification? He Broke Telsa's car.
Why don't you just be honest and say "if money was not object because it wasn't your money"? That's all your hypothetical situation changes.
Most people's answer is going to be along the lines of "sure I'll take a free battery but if the hose barb is functionally equivalent and gets me my car a week sooner than it'll depend on how badly I want the car back"
As far as the shoddy work, people keep acting like Telsa is a hivemind, and that every dept. in the company had signed off on these bad choices as a matter of corporate policy. Doesn't seem far more likely somebody working in the factory was worried about making quota, and did a very shitty job?
And as far as the "Not every repair needs to be done with perfect oem replacement parts." I agree, but that should be the owner of the car's choice, and in this case the car is owned by Telsa.
"You shouldn't have the right to make shitty choices! That's the Big Corporations' prerogative!"
And I'm one that is for right to repair, I just don't think it holds up for the lease scenario, I expect my repairs to be done to manufacturers spec and would be concerned about any mechanic for any make making "half arsed" repairs.
To fix panel damage on jet airliners, instead of replacing half the skin, they usually just rivet a patch over the hole. Or in the case of the composite-skinned Boeing 787, they basically glue a patch over it [1].
Sometimes they don't even bother with that, and just tape it up instead [2].
[1] https://www.aviationpros.com/aircraft/commercial-airline/new...
No. That solution might be acceptable if the alternative is spending 15k$, but if money is not a factor, I bet anyone would take a manufacturer approved replacement over "some screwed in thingy that's probably within temperature range" just to get out of your rental a week early.
Firstly, using a tap to reverse thread into plastic housing, and then using brass threading into the housing and into a cut hose with a screw clamps.
Internal combustion or not, its hackish, the article even recognizes that, and their defense is that some people in Tesla's factory shipped some cars with fake bits of wood from home depot. You don't put metal threads into plastic in something that is exposed to vibration, in this fix they do it 4 times, it might work, for a while, but it isn't a good long term solution.
It's not a hypothetical, it happens literally every single day, I spend my youth working in a car shop, and people expect their cars to be fixed the way they where made, and even more so when someone else damaged it, and they (or their insurance company) are financially responsible.
It would be foolish for Tesla to allow this, they will likely want to sell that car after the fact, and I doubt they want to take on the liability of selling that car, that had this sort of hackish work done to it.
Also, I don't know where you reference for "Most people's answer is going to be..." but it wasn't my experience when working in a shop, so on that we can agree to disagree.
At the end of the day, he signed a lease, and agreed to the terms, those terms include how this maintenance and repair should be handled. Right to repair isn't going to change those terms, even more so when he isn't the owner of the vehicle.
If anything we should take away, is that leasing cars is stupid, on many levels, and this just high lights another one.
You don't put metal threads into plastic in something that is exposed to vibration
...have you seen how a lot of modern internal combustion engines --- which vibrate a lot more than an EV --- are put together?
It recognizes that someone might want to call it hackish, and effectively says "don't even start".
That's not an agreement that it actually is hackish.
Given the many examples of poor build quality with Tesla cars, it’s laughable to make some sort of case that any third party part doesn’t meet some standards that nobody can see.
I have leased many cars in my lifetime, and never used anything but the cheapest parts available for out of warranty parts. Federal law allows you to use a third party part.
They flaunt it when they flout the law.
Additionally, the terms of your lease, dictate how maintenance is done, and if third party parts are allowed.
Magnuson-Moss act is likely what you are talking about, which wouldn't apply here, firstly because it only applies to warranty claims, and voiding warranties it wouldn't play a role here, additionally because Tesla owns the car, this person is just renting it it has no barring.
But yeah, it's the lease contract dictating things. Read your contracts carefully kids, they're often designed to screw you over and (sadly) rarely negotiable.
But this case is, that the guy is renting the car, and Tesla wants him to fix to their standards, and he's trying to pass of this fix, which you have to admit is questionably, and they didn't agree to it.
In this case, I'm not sure how right to repair would make any difference.
And when your motor is going to only last 30k miles, you can probably get away with a lot more, as opposed to a fix that is expected to last 200-300k.
If Tesla the manufacturer charges twenty times more for a repair, it's certainly reasonable to check other alternatives first.
If Tesla the leasor insists that repairs must be done by Tesla the manufacturer, then it seems only fair and equitable that the leasor pays the 1,900 % excess charge to the manufacturer. (It's not as if they'll be that much out of pocket anyway.)
Does Tesla share those specifications, if they dont share it, can you really blame third party repair?
I would agree, as long as that third party has insurance in the event their fix (due to work performed on the high voltage battery pack) causes a failure resulting in the loss of the vehicle and liability from that failure event.
In this specific case, I hope Mr. Benoit or his garage has robust liability coverage (at least $1M, hopefully more), especially if a failure event happens while the vehicle is fast DC charging or charging in someone's home overnight.
(disclosure: Tesla owner who performs his own work)
Homeowners insurance covers the fire. They probably don't go after anyone unless they have specific reason to believe the loss was probably caused by a pattern of action that could result in a winnable lawsuit (good luck figuring that out when you have a melted lump of car to to work with). If someone does somehow go after the shop their insurance goes to bat for them and digs up all the reasons they're not liable and this was a reasonable repair that their customer performed.
I'm not in the repair business, and I own no TSLA stock; I have no incentive to peddle FUD, and actively support right to repair. Crucially, right to repair does not mean an absence of or indemnification from liability.
Funny, that's exactly what I did.
> I'm reiterating the opinion they provided
So am I.
I repair and modify things, typically light commercial vehicles and the equipment mounted to or towed by them. I work on the economic low end of the market so I get all the stuff that real shops want nothing to do with and have had to consider how liable I am for my work. I have had these sorts of discussions in a non-professional context (i.e no money changed hands) with an attorney who specializes in businesses in social services settings (so the advice is probably biased toward whatever he finds his clients defending against most often) and aside from the typical disclaimers[0][1][2][3][4][5] that any responsible lawyer will give you I feel confident enough in my analysis that I put my money where my mouth is making similiar repairs in my day to day life.
The general gist of things is that for a successful lawsuit there has to be some evidence that the work you performed caused the injury and even if so there then also needs to be a precedent of strict liability or you would to have had to do something negligent or check the boxes for some other tort, but I've been advised negligence is the one you really have to watch out for in a professional setting. Negligence is a fuzzy concept but it suffices to say that proving it to the standard required for a civil suit would be a very uphill battle for a reasonably standard repair procedure performed in a reasonably standard setting.
Strict liability scares me far more than a lawsuit arising out of alleged negligence. I can do good, defensible work and stand by it. I cannot know all the areas of law where strict liability may be an issue. I cannot control whether my customers use the things I have repaired for them in a strict liability context (e.g. fumigation, overhead lifting) which could make my party to a lawsuit.
No I didn't pay for the advice but for the volume and riskiness of work I do I'm content.
[0] if you're not paying for it it's not legal advice
[1] nobody can make guarantees about what will happen in court
[2] you have the wrong demographics to get sympathy from judges in this state, they'll expect you to know better than to cut corners so don't cut corners
[3] bad facts, bad case law, hope your malpractice kills a skinhead and not a single mother or you'll be the case law
[4] just defending yourself can be no more than a consultation fee or it can be ruinously expensive
[5] if a megacorp or the state sues you everything goes out the window because the playing field is so unlevel.
CA is a joint and several liability state. Joint and several liability is the legal doctrine that each defendant in a personal injury claim may be held responsible for ALL the victim's economic damages. Importantly this can occur if you are fractionally at fault.
You've parked 10 feet off the side of the freeway, 16 feet away from any lane. Someone is going 80 miles an hour, passing cars, then (likely) falls asleep and veers sharply off the road, then along the side of the road and hits your parked truck.
Even though you are fractionally at fault you are on the hook for everything.
From actually seeing cases first hand
1) If you have money
2) you have a connection to an accident however small, particularly a fatal one, and very particularly with any kind of sympathetic angle (wife and children bereaved and at risk of being homeless etc
then you will be named in the lawsuit. And at least in CA - even if the husband was 90% at fault (to a normal person the one who did things wrong). YOU could pay out everything
I dunno. I think if I walked in with some random "brake rotor" that wasn't like any of the OEM or aftermarket ones they were used to seeing, the mechanic didn't know much about and couldn't verify would work sufficiently, even if it bolted into place, they might tell me to take a hike. I expect they would do a similar thing if I wanted airbags that went off replaced with something that looked like it wouldn't work right. Or a gas tank that looked suspect.
I know I would turn people away if I was a mechanic and they came to me with those requests. Maybe those items worked perfectly fine, but if I don't have assurance I'm making a good call (like, for example, by knowing I'm replacing components with parts that are trusted by the OEM or have a proven rack record), why would I take that risk, legally or morally (if I think the person is making a bad decision)? Some decisions impact safety (especially when dealing with components that have a lot to do with safety), and I think those deserve some consideration.
That doesn't mean Tesla should be the only entity allowed to repair though. Perhaps some of these components are perfectly fine, and you just need to find a mechanic that has enough experience with them to know that (but good luck finding the experienced mechanic instead of the one that doesn't care when looking around I guess, I'm not sure how you tell them apart). Competition is generally good.
They'd tell you not to bring your own parts because they make money off parts and it's a variable they can't control and can introduce warranty headaches for them if it fails and it can waste their time if it's not rich (which is a real PITA for the tech in a flat rate pay system, they lose money directly). They have suppliers they like to deal with and want to stick to. As you get into less cookie cutter, higher dollar or more informal work it is much more common for the customer to provide parts. Oddball or obsolete heavy equipment is often dropped off with a rebuild-able core the repair shop is expected to use and/or modify because that's more economically efficient than having the repair entity source parts. Of course this can create hang-ups but these businesses expect that to happen sometimes. It's not super streamlined for high speed parts swapping on consumer automobile repair is. For side gig type work the mechanic might just tell the customer to go to the car parts store or Rockauto and buy it himself.
>wasn't like any of the OEM or aftermarket ones they were used to seeing
>couldn't verify would work sufficiently
You're giving examples where the professional using their judgement is assessing the parts to be suspect causing the potential work to be sub par and not something they can stand behind. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a case where the professional used their judgement and called the repair (tap the plastic, install a nipple) good enough and there was no reason to believe it wasn't other than pure speculation.
>but if I don't have assurance I'm making a good call
That's the thing, the guy tapping the plastic does have fairly good assurance he is making a good call because he has training and or experience repairing vehicles. He's going to have a good idea what does and doesn't work. At some point someone has to stick their neck out and make a judgement call. That's why people get paid, to make decisions. You can try and be a drone kick all the thinking up the chain to corporate but you're leaving money and satisfied customers on the table. You can run a business that way. It's perfectly valid. But you can also be the independent shop that just uses their professional judgement to do things like repair the battery on a Tesla or, a drain and fill plug to a Ford PTU or replace the Toyota oil filter cap with the metal one after the plastic one gets chewed up.
That would technically be part of "right to repair" legislation.
thats enough to frighten anyone. insurance companies live on FUD
People get all sorts of repairs done all the time. What makes a Tesla so special? Ever had your brakes replaced at a repair shop? Somehow the world doesn't stop turning and all the liability issues you speak of don't seem to be a problem, yet brake failure would be very bad.
Just slip out the pack, Jack Plug it into a new toy, Roy Hook it up to the wrong bus, Gus Don't need to discuss much!
If they didn't, that hypothetical failure when charging would be Tesla's fault.
But I guess Tesla would try hard to pin it on the garage if they knew about the fix.
Hacky too me would be using JBweld, while its a strong epoxy that would be getting into what i would call hack territory.
Maybe I don’t understand the industry, but I was under the assumption that most OEMs don’t do the repairs but only supply the OEM parts. Is this incorrect?
>How is the risk different
It's not but Tesla has decided to not participate in it.
Again, I don't think it's the right call, but it doesn't seem nonsensical either.
I think you're vastly undervaluing the cost of operating a auto shop + skilled labor. $700 was the cost for an auto repair business to 1) have a skilled technician find the problem 2) devise a repair method and 3) execute the repair.
Car repair is an expensive business to operate. Rent/building costs are high, lots of expensive equipment, one of the highest insurance rates around (you're lifting expensive heavy weights up and down over people all day) and labor is us usually relatively skilled and costly.
$50 for the repair and overhead ($5 supplies after markup, 1/3hr labor to include testing the system for leaks after the repair)
$200 for being the only people able and willing to do the repair.
$300 because they know how much the only available alternative costs.
1. invest money in a supply chain to have parts in stock for the battery assembly(take many months).
2. do a repair in Tesla warranty and pick up the Tab again if it breaks or worse the battery is damaged.
3. force a repair on the owner/lessee to pay for a new battery assembly which is less likely to have issues/safer
They already have this for other parts, it's trivial to extend the model to the battery. The problem is that the battery was not designed to be serviced without specialized tooling and expertise.
It doesn't have to be that way. It was their choice. They made that choice because it costs them less money to service the batteries in bulk at a specialized facility, at the expense of the customer. It's not like the customer has a choice. They already bought the car. What are they going to do?
Here is another option:
4. Design your vehicles in a way where a $1 part can be easily detached and replaced by anyone with basic tooling, instead of charging the customer $18k for a new battery.
This isn't just an issue with Tesla. This is an issue with almost all manufacturers today. They make more money when they replace the entire assembly.
Apple operates in the same way. If one of the keys breaks on your laptop, Apple will replace half the laptop. That's the only option. You can't replace the key. It was designed this way.
There are many repairs on existing cars that can be done incorrectly and lead to injury or worse. What are the extra guarantees that Tesla is providing for repairs done by them?
[1] https://twitter.com/Beastlyorion/status/1288242333864079360
Because there is no official process to repairing/replacing parts within the pack.
For the record, I believe the right to repair to an extent. But I believe when we back the movement with crappy data points like this one, the whole movement loses legitimacy.
> Benoit and the team at Electrified Garage are huge proponents of Right to Repair and say that this is a lesson on that very subject.
I also think that it’s still a good case. The owner wanted an alternative to just throwing away the $16000 part, and found a shop that provided a legit way to do that (until proven otherwise at least).
Hopefully getting punished for choosing alternatives to Tesla to service it would be prohibited by right to repair clauses.
> I would read this as a cautionary tale against renting your cars. If you can’t buy it, don’t! This holds true for any depreciating asset.
If the asset depreciates what's the benefit in buying it? The fact that cars depreciate seems like the best reason to "rent" them. The manufacturer ends up dealing with the now less valuable asset.
Tesla lessors pay for depreciation the same way owners do, but the lease is effectively bundled in with a 6% APR loan, which is a lot worse than people with good credit would pay for a new car auto loan.
Except that they charge you for all of the depreciation plus a rental fee. The dealer/manufacturer ends up with an asset that is more valuable than the price they paid for it less the money they've received for it through the terms of the lease.
Further, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if the manufacturer makes or loses money. I only care about maximizing utility per dollar.
Also because lease terms are complex they can stack with other promotions or incentives and allow for leases lower than the cost of ownership would have been otherwise. There is a whole lease community dedicated to finding these crazy deals but they wouldn’t be something you could do by just walking into a random dealer.
You certainly are, in most places, if you crash it into something. This wasn't a failure of the manufacturer's materials or workmanship, it was a collision loss.
Making subassemblies replaceable in part rather than in whole is definitely a bonus. When they're only replaceable in whole, I do consider it deficient engineering, especially if a small change would make it possible.
An example from motorbikes: I would never buy a Triumph Tiger 800 because the rear subframe is welded to the rest of the frame. Any drop which causes a bend in the rear subframe - easily enough done since the passenger footpegs and exhaust are attached to it - would require replacing the whole frame to fix. In most high performance bikes, the rear subframe is bolted on.
Although if we're just talking plain-english and not legalese, I'd say that your assertion is a stretch: that colliding with debris is not a "collision".
And yes, Tesla repairability is poor. That's kind of what you can expect to get when you prioritize time-to-market above anything else. I like to buy old motorcycles that don't have any parts availability and everything has to be custom done... but I wouldn't do that with my daily driver.
I also think insurance is a bit of a red herring here. You wouldn't claim on insurance for a flat tyre either; some things are just bad luck. It's the quality of engineering - what I do think is on topic - which controls the risk.
This I would say is more of design oversight on tesla’s part. At the very least there should have been a shroud or cover over more vulnerable parts.
The insurance that covers such an event is literally called collison insurance.
For posterity: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/collision-insurance.asp
> ... it will cover damage from potholes, and accidents involving an inanimate object.
In the rental space, collision damage waivers - CDWs - explicitly don't cover undercarriage, wheels, windshields and so on, the kind of damage we're talking about here.
https://www.aviva.co.uk/insurance/motor/car-insurance/what-a...
https://www.avis.com/en/help/usa-faqs/cdw-insurance
https://www.avis.com/en/products-and-services/protections/lo...
Well the other night some asshole decided to pac-man all the cones on the highway late at night so we had to navigate a field of almost impossible to see cones (the borders are black and there were no lights up). Several cars, including mine ended up running over a few. I got lucky as it just messed up my paint a bit on the front bumper and I lost a license plate. Two other vehicles crashed over it, really sucked.
Called Geico when I got home and was informed I don't have collision coverage. They told me for this I would have needed comprehensive coverage and collision coverage.
Well joke's on them, my renewal is this month and I'm bouncing. I'd rather find another company that won't weasel out on me. When I signed up I said I wanted to be covered no matter what. I pay enough monthly I should be.
Forcing nsurance (health and renters, cars,etc) should be illegal,it doesn't work as it should. It ends up being a tax we pay to still have to pay out of pocket no matter what.
I am fairly certain that it would be illegal for an agent to sell that to you without clarifying.
Funny enough, one of the first articles to pop up in a search for this is from Geico: https://www.geico.com/information/aboutinsurance/auto/full-c...
I have a feeling the rats are collaborating on price.
What's your alternative to mandatory liability insurance, given that there are drivers with much greater liability risk than others?
As another reply to me mentioned, 'full-coverage' should be just that. The US allows so much lies I believe nothing, our gov't lies ,ads lie, politicians lie,police lie,lawyers...well
Definition of collide
intransitive verb 1 : to come together with solid or direct impact
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collide
Its a stretch to describe road debris coming together with solid impact to the undercarriage a collision?
Relying on the dictionary alone can mislead you.
Here's the pertinent definition from my policy (USAA specifically):
"Collision" means the impact with an object and includes upset of a vehicle. Loss caused by the following is covered under Comprehensive Coverage and is not considered collision: fire; missiles or falling objects; hail, water or flood; malicious mischief or vandalism; theft or larceny; riot or civil commotion; explosion orearthquake; contact with bird or animal; windstorm; or breakage of window glassThe person I was replying to wasn't referencing any particular contract. They were just speaking generally about hitting road debris being a stretch to define as a collision.
> It's a stretch to describe road debris hitting the undercarriage of a car a "collision".
Seeing as how neither I nor he referenced any particular insurance contract, why would we then bother to use your insurance contract to define the term instead of probably the one shared point between us to define the term (the dictionary)? Why not reference a contract I'll sign with a friend where for the purposes of the contract a collision is defined only as a 5 foot person running into a blue colored wall. I guess a car slamming into a wall isn't a collision anymore since this one contract defines it a different arbitrary way!
> bird or animal
I want to know the background behind why some lawyer found that necessary. :)
Now insurance certainly can exclude things that are collisions. A common on in the US are animal collisions like deer ect...
While I am on the side of right to repair I don't see how this is that relevant to the issue. It seems like more of an issue with insurance/rental laws, transparency in legal agreements, tesla's pricing & service being a bad deal, and possibly negligence on the renter's behalf. I don't think that any company should be allowed to hold a renter liable unless it's proven they damaged the property on purpose. Usually there are a lot of protections in place for renters so it's possible tesla is breaking the law or the renter accepted some liability attempting to save money.
Rentals and shared ownership situations are always messy anyways... A lot of this just reminds me of: "My condo HOA decided to hire the most expensive roof repair company in town!! Why can't we just pour some cheap tar across the roof and call it good for a few more years?!?!"
An other possible reason would be you don't have enough money on hand at the moment the issue was discovered giving you a few months to set asside enough money. Similar, thing the contractors schedule is packed so a quick temp repair can hold you off while you wait the week or two for his crew to begin work. An other similar issue is waiting on materials if your roof uses a material that is not locally stocked.
Tar also has a nasty problem of becoming brittle from UV light something roofs get plenty of. So instead of flexing under thermal expansion and contraction it just cracks. So its not ideal for anything but a temporary fix.
Now for choosing the most expensive contractor that is on your condo. Although they could have certainly been valid reasons.
If he has comprehensive at all then he almost certainly has collision coverage. It’s just that, then it’s $16k accident that’s he’s at fault for.
> "the owner's insurance policy didn't cover comprehensive claims from road debris"
My guess was that this would have been a comprehensive claim, but he didn't have that insurance plan. Could just be a deceptive play on words to evade the real issue...
Last I checked, the average age of cars in the US is 13 years. on average you are going to be better off buying.
The number of people who, after an item is paid of, go out and replace it immediately are the same people who are bad with money anyway, so it makes sense that those people think it's financially better to rent.
Of course both of those are moving targets to some extent.
Not in my experience. You either pay in depreciation or in maintenance, there is no escaping car expenses.
A 10 year depreciated car may need a timing belt/water pump, possible head gasket issues, possible transmission issues, etc.
And, in snow belt areas, you start to run into rust issues 15 or so years on.
A nice new BMW SUV is likely to depreciate 30k in 5 years, but that same car is extremely unlikely to need 30k of repairs if bought after 10 years and kept for another 5.
More critically you’re also paying dramatically more in sales and property taxes.
Head gasket shouldn't be a problem if the pump and coolant are changed before they go bad.
Anecdotal source; bought a 7 year old bmw at 123k miles (timing chain is still good at 185k), clutch is still good, brake parts cost $250, shocks less than $500, a valve cover gasket and oil filter housing gasket. Coolant expansion tank has to be replaced every 5 years ($150). My 10 years, 180k miles has been a better experience than many friend's first 5 years.
Eventually starting over is cheaper, but that’s usually at 15+ years when facing a major repair.
Like any other depreciating asset, the renter charges the rentee(sp?) the depreciation anyway, plus a small profit.
You appear to be under the impression that renting is better; this cannot be correct. The rent for any asset is ($COST_OF_PRODUCT + $COST_OF_ADMIN + $PROFIT). How do you figure that it's cheaper to pay those additional costs than to buy?
You only rent if you want something temporarily and don't want to deal with the hassle of resale. For this convenience, you pay extra.
Except that it obviously can be correct by virtue of being a common financial construct. Your formula is meaningless to a person making a choice between buying a renting. There’s seller profit in both situations but it’s irrelevant to the purchaser. A fundamental assumption of our economic system is that value can be created in parallel with profit.
If I always want a car that is less than five years old then a lease is a great option. It’s a matter of what fulfills my needs for the least money. That could be buying or leasing depending on my needs.
In the early 2000s it was not unusual for leases on slow-selling models to have negative interest rates (and that's with a realistic residual), not sure if that is still the case today. I certainly don't ever remember seeing a negative interest rate on non-lease financing offers, not sure why.
Pushing those costs years into the future can be to my advantage. That argument applies to any loan.
Leasing also gives me the option to buy the car at the end of my term, so I can end up owning the car while deferring much of the up-front cost in exchange for interest payments.
It’s stuff like this that’s the real reason dealerships love leases. Their much more complex than a sale so the dealerships have far more options to screw people.
Close but it's a little more nuanced.
You lease a trendy car (4Runner or something) and they expect able to turn it around, detail it and sell it on their CPO lot for way to much money to someone who thinks they're being savvy by buying CPO. You wanna keep it then you gotta pay them the way too much money they'd otherwise make.
You lease a black sheep (say a Sentra, Chrysler 200, Focus or some other cheap lower end compact that there's gonna be a ton of with high miles in a few years) and the buyout will be minimal because they expect to make peanuts reselling it.
Your lease rate is based in part on their expectation of how much profit the car will get them at the end of your lease. Something with a low MSRP and customer base that drives the used value straight into the ground won't make them squat after cost of turning it around and selling it used. So in those case you pay much less on the buy out.
For example, if there is heavy tax on new cars, but no tax on cars over 6 months old, then you add more terms to your addition: + $DEPRECIATION - $EXTREME_TAX
They aren't on the hook for anything - those costs are billed to you in the standard lease so you're paying the cost of the vehicle, plus the cost of the expected maintenance, plus a profit for the bank.
Trust me, no bank is leasing assets at a loss.
You are replying to a counter argument to the claim that leases are always a bad idea.
If you're talking about a short-term rental to pootle around in for a while: they're on the hook for the car itself, because that's now a car they can't rent to someone else.
If they weren't on the hook for anything, there wouldn't be much of a business.
Another question to consider is why the repair is 16k. Does is actually cost Tesla that much or do they just quote that much because they are realistically the only ones who can fix it so they can charge the price?
Driving around with a shoddy fix on a combustion engine can be just as dangerous. Yet, there are plenty independent mechanics that do a great job because they have access to OEM parts and manuals.
[0] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/36274/tesla-model-y-owners-fin...
Drilling and tapping a broken off plastic barb for a brass (or steel, or plastic, or whatever) barb is a very, very, very, standard procedure in any trade where you repair things.
I wouldn't call this hack. Appealing to authority is fashionable. People will poo-poo anything if they think they can get a few cheap virtue points for appealing to authority. Heck people will poo-poo the aftermarket versions of OEM stuff that's designed to fix specific issues with the OEM stuff on the basis of if the OEM wanted it that way they would have done it that way.
>Another question to consider is why the repair is 16k
Because the service writer couldn't get that part separately so they chose to quote for the whole assembly rather than ask the tech who did the diagnosis if there's any other options. They are not accustomed to having to think for themselves and do a quick fix. The environment of a service center is set up for a part replacing workflow. When all you have is a hammer everything is a nail. Whatever, shit happens. Rookie mistake.
This makes it sound like the part in question could have been easily replaced. The assembly in this case was the seal pack that isn't intended to be serviced. Even if they could have ordered the plastic coolant line, the removal and tear down of the pack to replace the line would have been a tremendous effort. It's debatable that it would have been easier to replace the pack AND then part out the old pack.
The plastic coolant tube should have ended at the pack housing with a threaded insert and the tap should have just threaded into it. If pack had been designed in this manner, the repair would have been trivial.
The pack is has a severe design flaw in my opinion.
That's what Tesla should have done. Charge $16k for a new pack including a $15k core charge. They aren't out the cost of the whole pack and the customer doesn't get screwed over.
<140°F @ <5 psi? JB Weld and call it a day.
There are super ergonomic and foolproof products that I feel like everyone should have around in that one kitchen drawer that accumulates all the miscellaneous stuff: https://www.jbweld.com/product/j-b-weld-syringe
Tesla really loves to integrate parts together - look up the "superbottle" for a previous example.
If you watch the video on 'Rich Rebuilds' YouTube channel that this article comes from, they mention the problem... The battery pack _can_ be opened and repaired, but it requires special training, equipment, and a specialized area of the service center to perform the work. They mention that Tesla _used_ to do this work and some of the Service Centers were properly equipped/trained to do handle it. However, Tesla found it was cost prohibitive to do at individual Service Centers, so now they have one central facility that repairs/reprocesses packs.
Rather than equip and train every Service Center, they've found it makes more sense to just replace the whole battery pack and send the old one back to the one central facility for service.
The battery pack is considered a high-voltage part. Tesla, by their policy (safety and liability reasons, presumably), won't sell you any of the high-voltage components.
The quote is to replace the whole battery pack so I really doubt that they are making a profit on it since it's one of the actually expensive part of the car.
As GP pointed out this is hardly right to repair, if Tesla quoted a whole pack that means there aren't any official operating procedures to replace to fix that part without replacing it while you can 100% blame Tesla for that, right-to-repair is about making parts available to do official repair, it's not about letting you figure out clever fixes on your car.
We can speculate pretty easily on how profitable that $16k pack is.
Let’s assume the customer has the largest pack Tesla fit to a model 3 (~75kwh). He has just been offered a new one at approx 213 dollars per kWh.
While only Tesla know for certain, it’s widly assumed in 2021 this costs Tesla around 140 dollars a kWh.
Aside from a couple of hoses, high and low voltage connectors, the battery is held to the bottom of the car by just 12 bolts if memory serves. If you have an appropriate workshop (like Tesla!) the labour costs will be minimal.
I’d have to disagree and suggest Tesla are likely making a typical car industry margin on the replacement battery.
Auto manufacturers are allowed to sell the spare parts at a profit as well.
That being said, the design of the car underside and this pack is poor. It should not be a single 16k part which has to be replaced as a unit, that's just purely incompetent. I also guarantee that Tesla DOES make money on this part. Nobody sells parts at no profit.
Right to repair is about availability of replacement parts and repair manuals so that third parties can do repair on X. It's about Apple no controlling flow of parts so tightly that they can sue someone for doing "unauthorized repairs" when they change a broken screen.
Most importantly right-to-repair is about things that you own, which was not even the case here seeing how the car was leased.
So it does not matter if this is a "clever fix" or the equivalent of tie-wrapping your bumper so it does not fall off while driving. In both cases it has nothing to do with right-to-repair and trying to use it as an umbrella term for every automakers shady practice is how you end up with no legislation at all because lawmakers won't enact bills that allow you to fix a leased car with something that isn't prescribed by the manufacturer.
It would obviously be absurd for Tesla to claim that the entire car is one part so when this coolant fitting breaks the vehicle is totaled.
It doesn't necessarily mean that Tesla must change their designs, recategorize products, or sell "parts for parts" as separate SKUs. But it is probably not unreasonable for Right to Repair regulations to require that Tesla document reports of damage like this and make those documents available to third parties.
They're also assuming they will get to keep the broken pack. They end up with $16,000 plus anything recoverable from the pack, like the battery cells.
As OP pointed out, it wasn't even OP's car - it was a lease, not a loan. The risk of allowing mechanics to do quick fixes is too high for them.
Though, in this case, I'm not sure why the owner didn't have comprehensive on a presumably fairly new vehicle. I actually did but decided it wasn't the deductible and presumed hike in premium.
And even IF OP is on the hook they should be able to choose how to repair it, as long as it fits NHTSA/DMV/whatever code.
Niche technology is never cheap and they'll do it as long as their customers tolerate/pay it.
No, they used a standard off-the-shelf fitting out of convenience.
Will it work? Probably. Is it a compromise in terms of engineering design and testing? absolutely. Mind you, Tesla owns this car, and they probably would like to keep it in the condition in which they lent it out.
Legally subject to the terms of the lease, of course. But it feels unfair not to accept normal wear and tear and reasonable repair.
If Tesla designed the car with a part and sold said part, everyone would be better off: Tesla (less risk of catastrophic repair expenses), insurance companies (lower repair costs, less variability), and the customer (cheaper repairs and insurance).
I get that's not a trivial request, but other car manufacturers manage the task.
If it were my car, I would probably do it. If I were lending my car to someone, I probably would not want them doing it.
It's also not constrained the nose that was damaged here - whenever a part of the battery pack is damaged (could be a single cell) Tesla will replace the whole battery pack but not the part.
I believe Chad calls it "assembly replacement". It's not cost effective to train staff, have facilities and parts, and do the (dis-)assembly. Which is exactly why we need right to repair.
but then in that case, the sticker price of the repair also doesn't seem like it should be 16k, since Tesla's taking the old battery and capturing that side of the value too.
I think he means "Its not cost effective "for Tesla" to train staff, have facilities and parts ..."
Surely its more cost effective for the customer that requires this repair?
I think that’s a fairly smart idea, exactly to avoid issues like this.
If it flies, floats...
The calculation on whether to lease or buy is a little more complicated than can be captured with rules of thumb.
car and house insurance are different. Trying for spurious similarities to suggest otherwise bears no useful insights.
That puts the onus on the car company to look for the cheapest but most effective maintenance and repairs. If they're routinely paying $16k for an $800 repair, the average cost of tesla leases would go up by a bit to the point they're not competitive in lease pricing versus others who get it done for the $800.
And any car manufacturer which creates a system that inflates repair prices for whatever reason, would be similarly unfavourable for leasing.
If this was a personal car, very different story. Now you have an individual getting screwed 75% of the cost of the car for a minor plastic replacement, with no recourse. Here you need right to repair.
But for lease companies it all averages out, lease prices are positioned based on that average, and if the average is consistently high, Tesla is just disqualifying themselves from the market. There's no need for a legal framework to solve that when there's plenty of market incentives already.
But somehow for this guy it wasn't covered, but the solution seems to me not to have right to unlicensed repair of a car that another company owns, but rather that the lease contract (particularly insurance coverage) was poor and should've had coverage for stuff like this. That responsibility lies with the consumer, but because insurance can be technical and hard to understand, I'm entirely in favour of more mandatory insurances for consumer protection. But that's often not a popular take on HN. (we just had a discussion a week ago about mandatory insurance being too high in the US).
Renting and leasing are different. If it really is a rental they should be able to return the car at any time and stop payments at no cost. They should not have to foot the bill for repair unless it was due to negligence. That's the whole point of renting.
When the lease is turned in, it will just have to go back to the factory. Destination/freight charges on a car are often about $1200, and this was otherwise a simple fix.
If Tesla feels the need to charge the customer for using a 3rd party repair service that recreated a stronger version of the original fittings then the current owner will still have saved about $14,000, AND all of.your concerns will have been addressed.
So you're cool with Tesla choosing to repair it for 30k? For 100k? Where does this stop?
> And it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they won’t accept a hack fix (however safe it may be) - that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk
What do you mean by "however safe it can be"? If it's as safe as Tesla's other repair method, then there is no increase in risk.
In that future and without right to repair, a crack in this tiny plastic hose fitting would total the car (heck, depending on your insurer, this already does).
Remember that car insurance costs are pooled. This kind of behavior makes _everyone's_ driving more expensive.
I would not be surprised if they expects from that future making extra profit by "recycling" damaged structures, or something related to such structure. Something for cover the decline in carbon-emissions sales in such future.
Anyway, I think that is called "Programed obsolescence".
It's like when led bulbs suddenly fails, you know it can be repaired, even you know how to replace the bad quality capacitor chosen by the manufacturer, but the plastic encapsulation prevents it. Programed obsolescence + prevent to repair.
This is because Tesla is doing exactly what you'd expect from a company undergoing rapid growth: they're spending every dollar they can on growing. Yes, Tesla have received a windfall of cash from credit sales, but all these have done is turbocharged their growth spending. If they didn't have this extra cash, they probably would have had to wait 12 months before beginning construction in either Berlin or Texas.
This feels like a classic repair rip off and they were fishing for a customer who had more money than brains.
From the article it reads as if he took it to the dealer to get it repaired, they quoted him $16k, so he took it somewhere else. I could be wrong though.
However I completely understand the complaints people are making about repairability and insurance shennanigans etc.
[1]: https://electrek.co/2017/01/30/tesla-opening-up-service-repl...
Also, the first sentence of that article is about how this is only a thing in Massachusetts because of right to repair laws.
If Tesla could, they would brick or make certain systems not operational if you don't use first party parts.
[1] https://www.sculpteo.com/blog/2020/04/29/tesla-replaces-flaw...
I hope people that lease vechicles see this.
(I was under the assumption that all leases had to have full coverage auto insurance before you even signed the lease? And yes--on most insurance policies road hazard insurance is extra, but just assumed on a lease it would be included. I still remember the battle axe who kept questioning me over a broken windshield. She wouldn't shut up, until I mentioned CA has an Insurance Commissioner.)