Tesla Wanted $22,500 to Replace a Battery. An Independent Shop Fixed It for $5k
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I'm already having a load of trouble this morning getting a flat fixed because it has a slow leak and the tires have the acoustic foam inside them that prevents using green slime. Tesla wants $81 to fix it- if I drive an hour and a half to a service center.
I love the gas savings but I don't want to drive a John Deere that can't be worked on when things go wrong.
I had the same issue with Costco and another tire shop refusing to patch a nail in my 2020 Model Y tire.
I tried a Discount Tire - they fixed it within a few hours for free, with a smile. They only asked I consider purchasing from them when I'm in the market for new tires.
I called Walmart and they said they could do it, we shall see...
That's not to say I haven't driven a plugged tire until it's bald. And that's not to say that I wouldn't tell my sister to go ahead and get that pricey tire patched. But if you think that repaired tire is now as good as new, you are wrong. Would I do a track day on a repaired tire? Would I whip my Tesla up to ludicrous speed on a patched tire? Would I ride a plugged motorcycle tire any further than I have to? Fuck no. If I can afford a track day, I can afford a new tire.
And I agree if it's not in the sidewall or something it would definitely at least get you by. until you get a cheap tire.
John Dunlop didn't invent the pneumatic tire, but he put it into production. Dunlop's son was getting headaches riding his tricycle, so John D. softened the ride (as pointed out by sibling comment).
And so using air gives us three things that apparently haven't been found with any other material in combination: minimal weight, cushioning, and it can support the weight of the vehicle. If it needs replacing, one need only find an air compressor.
Patches when done correctly are more than safe enough for 99%+ of drivers.
I definitely would try to avoid going to the service center for it. Discount Tire tends to be better.
https://www.amazon.com/ITW-GLOBAL-BRANDS-1034-HANDLE/dp/B00P...
And the few times I've aided others with installing a plug, attempting it without removing the wheel first just made it more difficult, sweaty and dirty, than had we just taken the wheel off for better access.
Sometimes you do get lucky on the fronts though, if the puncture is near the outside edge. Especially if your vehicle has a lot of caster presenting more of the wear surface at full lock.
But either way, we're deep in the realm of "sounds too much like manual labor to me" for someone drawing the line at attaching a can of green slime to the valve stem and pressing down the button. Wheel on or off, it ain't happening.
That's true for most used cars right now.
Unless you have a truly ridiculously high salary/net worth and can afford to buy something like a model S plaid edition on a whim, for fun. At which point you're into the territory of people who do things like buy Nissan GT-R for fun and then pay aftermarket modification shops to make $65,000 of additional enhancements to them.
Shouldn't you have rotated your tires a few times at least?
A tire rotation would probably be a good idea, though.
25k over 2 years is over-average at least. I did 15k/year but I drove 75mi/day back then (pre-COVID).
New ICE cars are lower maintenance, for sure. But they're nowhere near 0-maintenance like an EV. I've spent like $250 on maintenance activities on my EV over 4 years.
Not having to visit a dirty gas station or repair shop (the than tires) is quite liberating.
I had to replace the O2 sensor too, but that was about $50 IIRC, and it took me 15 minutes in my driveway after O'Reilly diagnosed it for free using OBD2. No $3k/yr "Toolbox" sub required.
Live outside of a small bubble, and it adds up pretty quick... then again, leases aren't very popular around here.
Certainly an EV will have less maintenance, but even ICE cars have practically zero maintenance outside of the occasional 15 minutes at a quick lube oil change place before they hit 50k miles. Not having to fill the truck up with gas would be nice, if it could last a day logging in the forest on a single charge.
[0] https://www.thinkmoney.co.uk/blog/what-is-the-average-miles-...
Average yearly mileage is greatly affected by where you live. Someone who lives in a rural area is almost guaranteed to put far more miles on a vehicle than a person who lives in the city. It's the difference between a 15 mile trip to the nearest grocery store and a 45 minute commute on open roads to taking the bus to work and only using the car on some weekends.
They measured each tire tread and said they are wearing very even, and suggested I wait longer to get them rotated.
Likely something a dealership wouldn't have recommended during an oil change of a vehicle purchased from them ;-)
I do need to replace our cabin air filter. Likely sooner than typical, since we've driven on a number of very, very dirty roads on camping trips.
No other serious maintenance in sight! https://www.tesla.com/support/car-maintenance
What's remarkable about Tesla (but should be entirely obvious) is that given their small market share relative to ICE vehicles, this marketplace doesn't really exist. Your options are to 'wing it' with DIY or somewhat iffy greymarket fixes (such as the one described here), or deal with Tesla, which from an outsider's perspective seems to have some severe quality and customer service issues when it comes to maintenance and repairs.
From another outsider's perspective they have these same issues when it comes to just getting you a decent car in the first place. Some big tech influencer was posting on Twitter the other day about how he was accepting his new Model Y even though it was a piece of crap, because he was worried he'd get an even worse piece of crap if he sent it back based on photos he'd seen from other Model Y owners. Seems real cool...
It seems like Teslas (and other EVs) have a different typical cycle of costs than typical ICE cars. In the ICE world, maintenance and repair costs start fairly low, then become moderate, and eventually moderate to high ("I'm tired of throwing a couple grand at this car every 6 months, I'll just put that towards a new car", says the American consumer). EVs start with incredibly low cost maintenance, then continue with incredibly low cost maintenance, and then even more low cost maintenance ... until WHAM! the battery bill hits.
This isn't really a surprise to folks who have been paying attention to electric cars, but as more and more people go EV, it seems newsworthy to point it out, as well as to encourage Tesla to play nice with third-party repair shops.
From cross-threaded drain plugs to unnecessary access holes cut in aero panels out of laziness, there's enough examples out there to be concerned.
Even when I lived in an apartment with no garage, I could easily change the oil in my car (mk4 VW Jetta TDI) out in the parking lot. I use an oil extractor to suck it out the dipstick hole, and since the filter is front and centre, I don't need to get under the car at all. In fact, I've never removed the oilpan drain plug.
You see, I had brought quality Mobil 1 full synthetic oil in quart bottles, which the career oil changers didn't seem to understand how to pour without spilling everywhere. Pro-tip: the offset spout is supposed to be at the top, not the bottom orientation.
Oil changes are inherently a probable interaction with either children or clowns. And I'm saying this as someone who did oil changes as a summer job, back before I had a driver's license. The things I've seen... I pity the fool who relies on random third parties for maintenance. EVs are a potentially huge improvement in this department.
There's nothing weird about a 1-quart bottle of Mobil 1, it's the same basic form factor retail oil quarts have been sold in since they stopped being steel cans, i.e. before most Jiffy Lube employees were born.
The problem isn't the bottle, the problem is a combination of carelessness and incompetence. Which is what you're going to get with a high probability at these low-level positions, good luck with that.
He sold Mazda's for a living and literally had no idea the oil needed to be changed....
That was the main reason car dealers did not want to touch an electric car, they make more than half of their income from the repair shop, and they know with electric cars that business is mostly gone.
New business will be created, though. Changing the batteries, balancing them when dead, putting a new technology when batteries improve,or improving the driving assistant will be necessary.
I've also owned cars for a long time, from new to 300k miles, and typically the expensive fixes that start to creep up are due to components wearing out. Things like rubber seals in the suspension, brake lines rusting out due to the salt used on the roads or a manufacturing defect leading to premature rust, electrical harnesses needing replacing. I don't think electric cars are immune to these issues since they have nothing to do with the powerplant, usually that part of the car is bulletproof in my experiences if you buy from reliable manufacturers like Honda.
But to each their own.
Avoiding driving altogether should be step 1, though.
I think your charge could be leveled against most hobbies, especially collectibles. It seems a bit mean-spirited.
Clearly.
I’m in the $9k used car camp. How much pleasure do you derive from your car? For me driving is somewhere between absolutely miserable to slightly uncomfortable and the things that determines where my experience falls outside factors such as how much traffic is on the road, how far do I have to be, how much of a hurry I am in, and how long I’ve been in the car. I’ve driven all sorts of things: trucks, suvs, sport cars, luxury sedans, jeeps, and the economy sedan. As long as I trust the reliability and the AC/heat is working none of other aspects of a car make it more or less pleasurable for me. Driving sucks hard stop.
The total cost difference between a base model Tesla and my $9k sedan is about $25k, and having an extra 25k in my brokerage account at my age reduces my estimated retirement age by 1 year. With the opportunity cost in mind owning a Tesla would actually reduce my overall pleasure from life.
What am I missing? How are people getting so much pleasure from their cars? Do people actually like driving? Do you live in a place with no traffic and perfect roads?
That said, my "sporty" car is a Chevy Volt in sport mode, not a Tesla Model S Plaid. I'd still like to be able to retire someday.
I bought a Hyundai EV about a year ago and I actually kinda like driving now. The electric drive train is somehow more logical to my brain. I tell it to go faster and it does without any fuss or noise. No switching gears manually or alternating engine RPMs from the automatic gearbox.
The best part is the lane keeping assistant and smart cruise. When I'm on a bigger road with proper markings, I can just lightly hold the wheel and the car does the annoying minutiae of driving.
Now I can easily drive 400km+ in a single day and not feel completely drained afterwards.
Something about the need to slightly manage the steering wheel every second while also maintaining a safe distance to the car in front of me drained my brain. I was unable relax at the wheel. Now I can focus on actually following the traffic around me.
Would I gain what I subjectively consider to be $45,000 worth of additional comfort and pleasure by buying a model 3? Or $85,000 of comfort and pleasure by buying a model S?
At the end of the day you still wind up with an asset that was 85k. If you bought say a 3/4 year old car and bought wisely, it will have minimum depreciation. So while you are certainly out more money, it's not like you've lost 85k, it's more like 10-30. Whereas you probably are only going to be able to sell your corolla for let's say 4. We're now talking about the comfort/pleasure of ~25k, but the cost between the vehicles of between 9k - 85k. Let's say you have this car for 5 years, the difference in ownership is 4/5k per year. If you can afford this, even if I'm off by a factor of 2/3, it's really not that bad.
by far their biggest cost was the liability insurance.
I don't think it's intrinsic to EVs, is what I'm saying. But more to how Tesla has positioned themselves re: market segment.
e.g. the Chevy Volt is now in its 10th year and only now are people starting to have real difficulties with gen-1 10 year old Volts and battery packs and getting GM to service and replace them. Prior to that it was just smooth sailing. Most are not seeing serious degradation and the warranty has been excellent on them up to 8 years or so. A third party market is building up around older Volt battery servicing in some cities, despite not many Volts having been sold.
I think it's entirely feasible we will see the equivalent of a fully electric Toyota Corolla in the next 5-10 years. I don't think Toyota will make it though.
* Parts are always available and inexpensive for the mass-market models and any repair ship can get you sorted.
* If I get into an accident the most I can ever be out is $8-10k but with depreciation more likely $4-5k.
* If they don't offer you 0% interest you just buy the car outright.
* Insurance is cheeeeap because the car isn't worth anything and it's not the kind of car anyone will drive fast or target for vandalism or theft.
* You can buy cars with high mileage and still easily get another 100k miles out of it. If the thing is a scrap heap by the end who cares?
We're currently at a point where 15-year old vehicles have ~144 deaths per million registered vehicles [1], and 5-year old vehicles have ~40 deaths per million registered vehicles [2]. Sure, you may be willing to pay a premium to get 40 down to 10, but are you willing to pay as much of a premium to get that 10 down to 2.5? 2.5 down to 0.6?
[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... (~2004 - 14.4 occupant deaths per 100,000 vehicles)
[2] https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-... (~2016 - 14 to 64 driver deaths per 1,000,000 vehicles)
It's not fair at all to compare any Tesla even to a 20 year old Toyota. The Toyota will embarrass even respectable, older car makers.
Given some of the manufactures are starting to sell crate electric motors, I am a lot more interested in the Ford F-150 Lightning and anything Honda builds than Tesla given the repair stories of time and expense.
That said, my insurance covered the cost without a problem and I had my car back in 4 days. I don't know if they took possession of the original battery or negotiated a different rate, but it sounds like Tesla makes bank on this kind of repair. $15k for a new battery pack, a quick turnaround from their service center, and someone gets the old pack which in all likelihood was perfectly fine.
There aren't a lot of shops that know how to repair a battery pack (in most of the country anyway). With less than 2% of cars on the road being EVs that's not surprising, but as more are sold you'll see more come about. The insurance companies will be very motivated to reduce these kinds of claims, and with real competition Tesla will no longer be able to justify the practice.
(aka at least in the US they can basically charge whatever they want extra if you demand your old parts)
The case in this thread doesn't seem like a "we screwed a replacement piece on to fix the coolant leak" level fix like that thread, it sounds like serious work to the battery pack. I don't think it's pearl clutching to have concerns on $5,000 worth of unspecified repairs to a battery unit knowing Tesla does not hand out the information on how to properly service the vehicle to that level. I think Tesla should support this kind of fix by 3rd party shops though but barring that at the moment I think it's a fair question to ask.
If a 3rd party shop botches a battery fix and the car burns down killing all the passengers the headlines won't be "3rd party botch-job kills family in EV"
It will be "TESLA BATTERY FIRE KILLS FAMILY" and _maybe_ they'll mention the fact that the battery had 3rd party repairs in the middle of the article.
This is why companies don't want random 3rd party shops fixing sensitive stuff. No matter how good they are.
Maybe this is similar to when you have something really bad happen to an ICE motor (ie. broken valve), but you drain and flush the engine oil, which "fixes" the problem. And then 6 months later the engine grenades requiring a full replacement.
My point being : Yeah Luxury is overpriced but that's the point. If you can't afford having status symbols, don't.
Also, folks on Twitter are posting their Model S battery replacement work for about half that price.
https://twitter.com/Ellesmaera/status/1434996312324419584
The tweet and invoice is from September 2021. Electrek has a picture of the invoice in question and it's from 2019: https://electrek.co/2021/09/13/tesla-battery-pack-replacemen...
They discussed all details in the video.
/1 stupid because it was engineered for numbers and not real life use. Service intervals set by marketing - 15K miles engine oil changes, ZF transmission "lifetime fluid" LOL, all to appease fleet buyers with 3 year leases.
Considering that a break (sic) and oil change is a simple DIY task, it's no surprise that we trust teenagers with no experience to do it. I trust myself to do it, and I'm not a gearhead.
> But Tesla has done a great job of marketing the Teslas as a complicated piece of machinery that needs certified technicians to do repairs. Many basic repairs are impossible to do on its cars because of software locks. “Tesla, first and foremost, is a software company,” Benoit said.
How does this square with the oft-touted claim that other automakers are dragging their feet on getting rid of ICEs, because fixing them is a huge profit center for them? Are electric vehicles actually easier to maintain and fix, or not? And if they are, why does Tesla charge so much for these repairs?
As an end-user, I don't really care about whether or not a car-in-the-shop fix is a ten-hour job, or a five-minute one. What I care about is how much it costs me.
Because...they can?
King Gilette immortalized the business model of selling low-margin razors and high margin blades. Tesla is trying the car equivalent?
Why can Tesla do it, but Ford, Toyota, Honda can't? I'm sure the latter would love to regularly charge twenty grand for a five-grand fix. What's the difference?
The brands you mentioned also have a reputation for reliable cars that are cheap to repair.
Maybe if the comparison is done against the likes of Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Ferrari and so on, it would paint a different picture.
Toyota could do it too. And for a decade their blindly rabid fanboys would probably still be screeching about how they're the most reliable, facts be damned. and it would probably work quite well. And then when consumers wise up to the fact that they're being sold something on a premise and getting something else it would all come crashing down because high maintenance cars are not consistent with their brand image.
Agree, the argument is that many tasks on Teslas should be simple DIY tasks but Tesla has engineered away access so that they are no longer simple DIY tasks. As you quoted FTA: "Many basic repairs are impossible to do on its cars because of software locks"
See what some Tesla owners reported for bills for bills for brake replacements, which should be cheap and DIY-able, about $8500[1]
[1] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/ouch-first-huge-repa...
Buy a Nissan Leaf.
I, as a customer, don't have a business relationship with that subcontractor. I do have a business relationship with the manufacturer. They own the profits, and they own the problems. If the subcontractors they choose produce crap, it is reflected in ratings of their products.
What to do? If the battery costs as much as the car is worth?
With the recent lifespan of ICE cars, they just seem better after 10+ years for this reason.
What is saved in gas is lost in repairs! :-(
It's directly in the swim lane of the entire battery recycling/full use lifecycle conversation.
There's going to soon be a very healthy aftermarket in people adapting tesla batteries for bespoke projects and electrifying classic car chassis. People are scooping up salvage Teslas right and left for this stuff.
I'm wondering how shady the service is being. "We have to replace the battery for 22k", OK do I get to keep the original battery component?
(Exactly as with Apple products, but Teslas cost an order of magnitude more, so it's possible that Tesla will burn up customer goodwill faster; on the other hand, John Deere farming machines, which can cost a magnitude further at hundreds of thousands of dollars, are still purchased by customers as well, even with the John Deere right-to-repair and computerization issues.)
Are these unwise choices that customers are making? It's probably only unwise when something goes wrong. ;)
But people have bought many other expensive-to-repair vehicles (and other delicate machinery, like watches) for hundreds of years, so Tesla isn't exactly unique in that respect.
The long term solution might be for Tesla to offer longer leases, renewable warranty or other kind of recurring deals. Something like that would create a situation where all parties benefit:
- Tesla engineers can truly focus on reliability, repairability, sustainability
- Shareholders are happy about a reliable recurring revenue
- Customers get cheaper/faster fixes and have no reason to fix things themselves
Too idealistic?
> Replacement Tesla parts have to be installed by a certified Tesla dealership. Which begs the question, how did Benoit and his team replace Hoover’s battery? “We have alternate means of getting into things,” he said. “We don’t necessarily need the Toolbox in a lot of cases, but it would make our lives 10 time easier…Tesla is locking down more and more access to cars. There’s a lot of things that you used to be able to do that you no longer can do. They’re definitely tightening restrictions.”
Am I reading this right, that the problem is solved by a $100 charge for a tool that could easily be passed on to the consumer?
They imply the toolbox isn't all that's needed but then say “We don’t necessarily need the Toolbox in a lot of cases, but it would make our lives 10 time easier"
Sounds like they're loosening restrictions, not tightening them?
IDENTIFYING the problem is done by the $100 charge for 24 hours. They did without.
Solving the problem was costing tens of thousands of dollars from Tesla if using their "certified" network, while they did it for 5k.
> Which begs the question, how did Benoit and his team replace Hoover’s battery? “We have alternate means of getting into things,” he said. “We don’t necessarily need the Toolbox in a lot of cases, but it would make our lives 10 time easier"
It certainly sounds to me like they're saying if they had the toolbox they would not need the alternate means to replace the battery. I recognize the previous passage says otherwise. But this part is a direct quote from the mechanic.
The quote doesn't make sense either. Why would you not purchase something that costs $100 if it makes your life ten times easier? This thing is surely paying for itself if what they say is true.
On the other hand, it seems this toolbox thing was released in response to right to repair laws in other states.
edit: also don't conflate cost to fix with price to repair. The bulk of the $5k is almost certainly labor. If $100 makes the job easier, it will probably cost the consumer less than $5k.