Tesla owners file class-action alleging repair, parts monopoly

I've both had to fight an at fault motorist's insurance on extended rental coverage, and I've also been hand delivered a rental and told to keep it until I'm comfortable with my repaired car by another at fault motorist's insurance.

Ultimately, insurance is in the game of saving money, avoiding court, and reputation damage mitigation. Sometimes you get an insurer that puts their reputation above saving money, but it falls on the claim and the agent to decide how to go about it.

Going 4 years on our Hyundai and we’ve literally only had to replace tires. Both of our prior vehicles, Chevys, only required tires and brakes outside of a single, major repair - melted catalytic converter. That would have been a $2k repair tops over respective 8 and 18 year life span of both of those vehicles.

For example when I had it turned on and running the A/C on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry it decided that the suspension was borked and refused to release the emergency brake once the ferry arrived at dock. You know what happens when you can't push your bricked car off the ferry? They put cones around your car and load everyone else on the ferry around you while you try to explain to the tow company on the phone how you have a luxury AWD EV bouncing back and forth across the Puget Sound that needs to be winched onto a flatbed.

Then when the auxiliary battery died it decided to roll into the middle of a parking lot and gradually glitch out and clamp down on the emergency brakes again as the main 12v battery then died, and you get to have it winched onto another flatbed as it's also impossible to release the emergency brakes once the 12v batteries have given up the ghost.

Hence why my most recent vehicle has a clutch pedal, a stick attached to a gearbox, and an emergency brake attached to a lever via a cable.

> Question 1, as the measure was called on the ballot, will force car manufacturers to ensure independent repair stores have access to the same diagnostic tools as manufacturer run repair stores. That will change the automobile repair landscape in Massachusetts, especially for Tesla, a notoriously secretive company that has made it hard and expensive to service its electric vehicles.

> Tesla has pushed back against these kinds of laws before. A similar law passed in 2012, one that said dealerships had to make service manuals and diagnostic information available to repair stores. Notably, Tesla also wasn't part of a memorandum of understanding signed by car manufacturers nationwide that effectively made the Massachusetts legislation a national law.

> But Tesla did make some information available. “Out of the kindness of their heart, they made a portal so that you could log in and access their diagnostics,” Benoit said. “It’s available, but it’s only available to Tesla certified shops.”

Service manuals free of charge. I was wrong, though, 24 hours, not one:

> The Tesla Service and Repair Information Portal allows body shops to sign up and get certified for “complimentary account access.” Anyone else looking to get repair and diagnostic information out of Tesla has to pay for a subscription. $100 buys you 24 hours of access. An annual subscription costs $3,000.

> Tesla has also repeatedly, for example, used software to lock consumers out of certain aspects of their cars. Tesla has also fought against independent repair companies, and has at times refused to certify them.

Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wy8v/newly-passed-right-to...

So while things may be better now (great!), it's revisionist to think they've always been that way.

> Tesla was outspoken in opposing Massachusetts’ auto right to repair law last November. The story this week of Tesla’s $16,000 quote for a repair that an independent garage did for $700 suggests why.

> The company sent a letter to its Massachusetts customers urging them to vote against Question 1, arguing - without evidence - that the measure would open vehicles to cyber attacks.

Luckily the costs and effort are minimal, but it's still annoying, given the problems shouldn't be happening in the first place.

That said, Tesla do improve their car parts radically over time.

The retracting door handles used to fail after a few years due to microswitch wear, so they redesigned the handles to use Hall Effect sensors instead (solid state) and now they're flawless. The new design can be retrofitted.

Some daylight running lights would eventually fail due to overheating. They redesigned with heatsinks and the new design can be retrofitted. It's a costly repair (~£700) but I don't think it's strictly necessary to fix these on my car as it was a 2016 model, and it wasn't a legal requirement to have DRLs at that time.

The computer storage eMMC chip would eventually fail due to writing wear. They have replaced this system design with a new chip and will replace the affected part for free, even for cars out of warranty.

And the whole computer unit in older models is replacable by Tesla for a couple of thousand pounds. While expensive, I admire Tesla for going to the effort of producing a retrofit upgrade. Other manufacturers would have simply abandoned owners with old infotainment systems. It's not mandatory for manufacturers to produce computer upgrades for cars, but Tesla goes the extra mile in order that customers can enjoy the latest software features if they want them.

As regards the warranty - I'm not entirely sure if replacing my bolts would void a warranty, but for me the point was moot as my four year warranty had expired anyway. Annecdotally I think Tesla are quite liberal in this regard. I made a proactive repair to my car by using a third party to de-solder the eMMC chip and replace it with a larger and newer model. When Tesla did the eMMC "recall" in the following year, they actually paid the expense (£500) of my chip replacement, even though it was done by a third party and was performed before the "recall" was live. They simply put £500 in my bank account. I thought that was unusually impressive, and leads me to believe they're amenable to third party repair where it's viable.

https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/ https://centerjd.org/system/files/ArbitrationWhitePaper.pdf

You can even read Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc, where even when the agreement said the courts could review. Where, no, courts of law may not review an arbiter's decision if you both agree it would be able to after arbitration.

You can read Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., where SCOTUS explicitly declared the American Arbitration Act overrides the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

You can read Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, where you find out you have no substantive rights where the AAA is involved.

There's still weak attempts to save it, but the The National Labor Relations Act is also likely superseded by the American Arbitration Act, basically voiding the NLRA from being ever applicable.

Courts of law are barred where arbitration is inserted, anywhere, whether you know it or not. You lose basic rights where arbitration is concerned.

My parents provided the full design specs for me. Repair documentation is available at the hospital.