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Comment by drewg123 | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like not much has changed since 2015.

A good friend ordered a new Model S in 2015. It arrived with a "squeak" that turned out to be due to missing welds in structural components of the chassis. They wanted him to sign an NDA to get a replacement vehicle (which he refused to do, both on principle, and because he'd talked to friends about it already). So he was forced to keep his vehicle, which was then repaired under warranty for what they initially said was not a warrantable defect. To quote him "They took a huge proponent and turned them into someone who will never, ever, recommend them"

And this is how they treated their early adopters that were paying $100K in 2015 for their higher end cars.

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My 2015's battery "died" the day after the warranty was up.

$15k for a refurbished battery from another old broken car. Once fixed, the cars resell value is at about $20k.

And they took my battery back to sell to someone else for $15k.

Definitely feel like a HUGE sucker for supporting them. This thing was $101k new.

I had a few very smart friends who were very successful in business at a young age. They all sort of celebrated having made it by buying high-end Audi’s when they were the hot luxury cars in the mid-2000’s.

The cars weren’t very reliable (even dumb shit like the electric windows would break) and the repairs were notably more expensive than they should have been. One of them explained that he finally understood that someone willing to pay triple the price of a standard car can be charged triple for repairs too.

He sold the luxury car and bought a Prius and said it was 100x better just because of how reliable it was, and it had the same bells and whistles anyway.

> it had the same bells and whistles anyway

Electric windows, sure.

I mean, I didn't own the car so I have no idea what "options" a luxury car could have over a standard car with all the extra options included, but he sure seemed to think that the Prius had exactly the same things he enjoyed in the Audi.

Note, we were in Austin where something like leather seats would be a bad idea.

I remember 7-8 years ago taking a trip down HWY35, then dropped down into Portola Valley. 5-10M dollar houses. Lot of them had a Prius sitting in the driveway next way more expensive cars.

Who's to stop the victim from recording evidence, accepting the replacement car, and submitting said evidence anonymously to the media and / or consumer protection and / or the car safety institutions?

Are NDAs like that actually enforceable?

My bet is that becomes a scenerio where the party with the most money for lawyers wins. If it was me, I would have almost no money for lawyers.

No money for lawyers, before or after you spent $100k on a car?

It's pretty painful to drop thousands on lawyers when you know they have significantly more money and better lawyers

I say this as a person who very much wanted to sue Tesla and backed down on the advice of my lawyer friend -- I was most likely only increasing my net loss and severely stressing myself out

Thank you for confirming one of the many reasons I'd probably never buy a Tesla.

It (and the blue check), just isn't worth it.

Having recently dealt with this very situation. Lawyers are honestly not __that__ expensive for these disputes and NDA’s are largely unenforceable.

How expensive is not that expensive, out of curiosity?

Was it with Tesla? Curious what happened..

>NDA’s are largely unenforceable

source?

File a lawsuit to get them to lemon law the thing. Court testimony is public record that can’t be NDAd.

That doesn't mean NDAs are unenforceable. It just means you're getting them to fix the problem without signing their NDA, and presumably going through more hassle in the process.

Yeah not so sure about that. States will have different laws, and NDAs are not Non-Competes -- different story altogether.

Most states can't / won't enforce Non-Competes, but NDAs often have teeth.

Most states also have warranty and lemon laws, often specifically aimed at cars, so you could fight the NDA or ignore it and push for a warranty violation or lemon law case.

This is exactly why NDA's are enforceable. If you sign one, you can not break it without risking litigation. In Tesla's case, they totally would. You can't share any information that is called out in the NDA. This would probably include video, recordings, messages, media, any and all online posts referring to the incident and future discussions of the incident. Whatever is specifically called out in the NDA as far as terms, timeframe, etc. There are some NDA's that are for life.

It would be a weird play for anyone to sign such a thing. Most states in the U.S. have lemon laws that prevent maufacturers from selling such vehicles. A manufacturer only gets a certain number of attempts at repairs (usually 3 for new cars) on new vehicles or a limited time frame to fix them before they must offer a full replacement.

> A manufacturer only gets a certain number of attempts at repairs (usually 3 for new cars) on new vehicles or a limited time frame to fix them before they must offer a full replacement

Wow that would be awesome. Someone I know here in the EU had a leaking sun roof on their Toyota and after so many fixes and replacements that did nothing (and she had to pay for) the dealer basically said "we can't fix it, the parts are made by another company bla bla ...".

Some dealers offer third-party accessories as options on new cars. I had a car whose aftermarket sunroof was installed by the dealer when it was bought by the original owner. Fortunately, mine never leaked, but I'm not sure the US Lemon Laws would have covered it if it had.

When buying in the EU (at least where I'm from) the contract is between the consumer and the seller. So if something is wrong the seller can't shift blame to the manufacturer and have me have to deal with them. How they handle the issue with the manufacturer is their problem. If they can't offer a repair or replacement they need to refund. Manufacturers can offer additional warranty on top of the legally required warranty the seller has to offer which will fall outside of the sellers responsibility.

Companies do sometimes make it difficult in a way I hope more of them get slapped one. The largest electronics retailer in my country will have their front line staff try their hardest to deflect you to the manufacturer warranty, their online return form will make you enter a manufacturer ticket number as a mandatory field, so to actually get that honoured, your best bet is usually to go in store and escalate to a manager.

Normally I try to support stores over Amazon in a "use it or lose it" sense but that particular retailer is the exception.

We don't have lemon laws in Canada either, I had a major problem with my brand new truck and the manufacturer and dealer were useless, strung me along and refused to help. I ended up giving up and trading it in and buying something else (obviously another brand), it wasn't worth the fight.

>Wow that would be awesome. Someone I know here in the EU had a leaking sun roof on their Toyota and after so many fixes and replacements that did nothing (and she had to pay for) the dealer basically said "we can't fix it, the parts are made by another company bla bla

I never heard of a US lemon law equivalent for the EU, but the EU has pretty good general consumer protection. It varies somewhat between countries, but here in Poland if you buy a new item, if it breaks, it gets repaired under warranty and then it breaks again (it doesn't have to be the same component) the consumer has a choice of asking for a replacement, lowering of the price, or even withdrawing from the purchase altogether. Most people are not aware of this and are getting strung along by unscrupulous sellers. I myself had a situation like this with an induction hob that broke 6 times during the warranty. They then replaced it for a new one and that too broke a month later. I didn't even call them, I threw the damn thing out and I bought a different brand. It has been 3 years and that one has been working fine. Had I known I can withdraw from the purchase back then I'd definitely do it.

> the dealer basically said "we can't fix it, the parts are made by another company bla bla ...".

If that was a new car recently bought from that dealer, that’s their problem. In the EU (for sales to consumers), it’s the seller that’s responsible for delivering a product that’s fit for purpose. This dealer can’t hide behind the manufacturer or its suppliers (https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...)

If the car wasn’t bought there or was older than 2 years, the rules only apply to the repair, not to the entire car. I think that means they would either have to fully repair the roof or give you something that’s at least as good as what you brought in for free (things do get murky there for my understanding of the law)

(of course, all that is in theory. In practice, companies will try to avoid having to do that)

> And this is how they treated their early adopters that were paying $100K in 2015 for their higher end cars.

And yet it didn't stop anyone from buying Teslas... It's almost as if they knew they could get away with murder.

This kind of thing certainly stopped me from buying one, even in the days before they were referred to as “MAGAmobiles”.

Instead I waited for companies that actually know how to make cars to work out how to make electric cars.

Who is calling them MAGAmobiles?

A MAGAmobile is a lifted truck that rolls coal and has a huge lets go brandon decal

Everyone I know with a Tesla is very much anti-Musk and bought before he totally jumped the horse

Yeah, I thought it was way more MAGA to burn fossil fuels than drive an electric car.

Teslas are being called MAGAmobiles now that Musk bought Twitter and has shown his love for rightwing disinformation and keeps replying to and platforming alt-right racists and other neo-nazi adjacent folks.

Maybe in some tiny bubble, not in the actual world.

? https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=560664892&rlz=1C5GCEM_...

1(!) Google result for Tesla MAGAmobile.

? There's obviously more than one relevant result about this topic.

I have this theory that Musk is just playing a long con and deep fake on all of us. He wasn't selling his cars to the likes of MAGA, so he jumped ship and switched sides to make Teslas look cool to the red consumers. The timing of the Cybertruck somewhat coincides with this flip.

So now, Teslas are cool according to those right fringe folks. Of course, the blue side consumers are not super excited about Tesla anymore, but they are already "stuck" with their models (in general). And the red consumers are a bit more likely (maybe?) to follow a fad.

Eventually, Musk will level out and Tesla Motors will just be a mediocre line of vehicles without too much political pop culture. But for now, he's basically playing with everyone to sway various opinions of himself and his companies (e.g. stroking his ego along the way).

Nah most of the world doesn’t see themselves as red or blue and just wants an electric car. People who see everything through the lens of a party and a 2 party system are suckers.

I know a guy with a tesla who is most decidedly on the red side of the political spectrum. He had that tesla from before musk turned into his current evolution and my guy currently wants to get rid of his tesla. Build quality issues or something.

Called by whom? Two dudes in Berkeley? Never heard anything like that.

Aren't there some laws that require a car manufacturer to buy back a faulty car like this?

lemon laws will vary by state and level of impact. but, basically, yeah.

most have warranty laws, too.

Your friend was a fool to not take the new vehicle (removing his financial burden) and then just do whatever he wanted with the info...

Granted, I'd lease a Hyundai before ever considering buying a Tesla. It's too bad bc I like the tech, but lack of ownership, software telemetry and shoddy service is a deal breaker.

Yeah shoddy service that is. A colleague has model S, in Switzerland, when going for some service checks they kept him there, in the middle of nowhere without any good public transport for half a day without any warning during work day, he was furious.

Every single crappy dealer/official service here will give you a replacement car to not mess up your life for just stupid car checks, whatever basic car is fine. Tesla no, fuck off we don't care, wait.

>(removing his financial burden) and then just do whatever he wanted with the info..

Thus creating a whole new financial burden.

He was a fool to avoid a legal battle with Tesla?

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