Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

2013 MS battery failure

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
So I got the dreaded BMS and GTW error codes on Wednesday. See pic.

Tesla had originally replaced the HV battery in 2019 while still under warranty. I actually thought this was good since it happened towards the latter part of the warranty and I would have a new (reman) battery to carry me through the next 5-6 years. Yeah. Sadly two and a half years later it failed again. Originally in Feb 2022 I started getting error messages, especially on really cold days (17 degrees F) but once the temp went back up the car started again.

Tesla diagnosed it then and quoted $13k for a swap. I was told that the remans only came with a 1 year warranty and I thought it was crazy to spend that and risk ending up in the same place. So I hoped for the best and kept driving. She drive fine all summer.

Then this week without any warning she died and displayed the codes in the pic. I called Tesla and this time they quoted $15k but it’s my understanding that the reman battery comes with a 4 year or 50k mile warranty. Either this is new or I was told something wrong back in February.

I’m in NY so I called Electrified Garage but they told me that they no longer do modules repairs. And based on the codes I got they think I would need a new battery pack. My next place is 057.

The car is probably worth $25k running and maybe $10k if not.

I love this car. Silver. Pano. Rear facing seats. Carbon fiber interior. All the stuff you can’t get now. But as these get older there’s going to be more and more issues.

Need some advice/consolation.

I could have Tesla fix it and would be fine on the battery for at least the next 4 years assuming no other issues come up.

I could try a third party.
Or I could try to sell it as a nonrunner. If so how do I go about doing that? Anyone have experience?

Also while I wait to see what to do what do I do with the car. The HV is charged to 75% and The 12 v is working since I can still use the key fob but I’m afraid that eventually both batteries could drain.

Thanks guys.
E2C16977-6A9E-4E3F-A5F4-21F1001AF0CC.jpeg
 
With those errors, 99% sure a moisture ingress issue.

We're about 2 months deep on scheduling for paid battery replacements. :( We're also running into more packs that aren't refurbishable, which is slowing our processes a bit.

If you're down for a wait, we can still beat Tesla on price most likely, but it'll be a little while.

I called Electrified Garage but they told me that they no longer do modules repairs.

Well this is good news. I only pointed out that swapping/repairing modules doesn't actually fix things a year ago. At least they said they're not doing it, unlike the other company that's just claiming they're scheduled years out. lol
 
With those errors, 99% sure a moisture ingress issue.

We're about 2 months deep on scheduling for paid battery replacements. :( We're also running into more packs that aren't refurbishable, which is slowing our processes a bit.

If you're down for a wait, we can still beat Tesla on price most likely, but it'll be a little while.



Well this is good news. I only pointed out that swapping/repairing modules doesn't actually fix things a year ago. At least they said they're not doing it, unlike the other company that's just claiming they're scheduled years out. lol
Ouch. I had sent in my contact info via your site. Please reach out to me. I’d love to got some more info from you. Thanks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wk057
So what did the OP decide to do?

Call me curious!
Hi. Still working through options but there may be a silver lining. Won’t know for sure till late November.

In the meantime I put a booster pack on the jump terminals and got the mcu running. Then wife kids and I put the car in tow mode and pushed it up the driveway so that I could put a trickle charger on it to keep the 12v alive. We learned that in tow mode you have no power steering. Also if the mcu is dead there’s no way to put the car in and out of park.
 
Last edited:
I got replacement month before warranty ran out. Now they say it's bad. I'm struggling with it ,but it has gotten better. No errors 7 months later. In my opinion,they don't care about our antiques. But I think we can keep them going forever if we be careful. No 100% charging or let them run dead.
They also said the NEW motor they put in 3 years ago, has water in it. I changed oil, no water, and it's still fine 7 months later.
My glove box door latch broke, they wanted $500 to replace entire dashboard. I cut door open. Fixed it.
I'm beginning to see the service centers are over worked. And are getting worse.
 
Update. Has the battery replaced by tesla. Instead of an 85 they replaced it with a brand new 90 kWh. Charged to 80% and based on that the full charge would give a 290 mile range which means that it’s not software limited down to what am 85 would have given.

The swap took two days although it did take 3 weeks for the battery to come in. Haven’t had a chance to super charge yet but lifetime free charging should still be in the car.
 
What was your total cost for this work again, and what was your trade-in value from Tesla if you had not done the battery swap?
Tesla quoted $18k as a trade in but I’m not sure if that was as is or assuming that the car ran.

Somehow tesla was willing to do the battery swap at no cost. Maybe because the reman battery failed in 2.5 years. Otherwise it would cost $15k.
 
Jedi. Tesla gave u new 90 pack free? That's great. They gave me RE manufactured 85 pack. Also zero warranty. They said it was bad last February. I said thank you and left. Have driven it since then, no battery issues. I'm having many software compatibility problems now.
 
Jedi. Tesla gave u new 90 pack free? That's great. They gave me RE manufactured 85 pack. Also zero warranty. They said it was bad last February. I said thank you and left. Have driven it since then, no battery issues. I'm having many software compatibility problems now.
My first battery pack failure was replaced under warranty with a reman. I think that either they don’t have any more 85s or they realized that the remans were failing also and now just swap with new 90s.

My reman pack started to fail earlier this year and I did the same as you. I just kept driving it. It was good all summer but then failed in September. Tesla tech told me that even though I don’t see a notification there may be error codes being tripped. He was able to remote in and confirmed that was the case. For me it was just a matter of time. Thankfully it worked out for me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Droschke
It's been many months since I logged on to this site but a recent experience made me look for similar owners.

I've got a 2019 Model S with ~45K miles. Several long road trips to Toronto. Ten days ago stopped in Millen, GA for my first charge stop of the day. When charging was complete and trying to resume the trip, I got all the same error messages you did. Tesla Roadside Assistance determined that a tow to Savannah, GA (closest) was required. Had a fun trip in the tow truck cab and I left the car there, transferred all luggage to a Model 3 loaner and resumed my trip to south Florida - adding 6 hours to the usual trip. The Savannah service folks described the first error message as "limp mode".

The service message on the app estimated 45 days to repair. Fault was diagnosed as a failure in the Voltage Sensing Harness inside the HV battery pack. The fix is a new HV battery estimated complete 1/27/23. I got a no fuss loaner and an unplanned night in Savannah along with two 8 hour road trips to reclaim the car. The Tesla service folks could not have been nicer, but my car was still dead, and I'll be out of pocket the night stay in Savannah to retrieve my car.

This is my second S and I've got a total of ~85K miles between both cars and this is my first "dead" car. It will take a few uneventful road trips for my confidence to be restored. Pity there is not some sort of soft failure that at least makes the car driveable. What if this had happened on one of the back roads that the navigation system takes me on. Some with dicey cell service.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NV Ray
It's been many months since I logged on to this site but a recent experience made me look for similar owners.

I've got a 2019 Model S with ~45K miles. Several long road trips to Toronto. Ten days ago stopped in Millen, GA for my first charge stop of the day. When charging was complete and trying to resume the trip, I got all the same error messages you did. Tesla Roadside Assistance determined that a tow to Savannah, GA (closest) was required. Had a fun trip in the tow truck cab and I left the car there, transferred all luggage to a Model 3 loaner and resumed my trip to south Florida - adding 6 hours to the usual trip. The Savannah service folks described the first error message as "limp mode".

The service message on the app estimated 45 days to repair. Fault was diagnosed as a failure in the Voltage Sensing Harness inside the HV battery pack. The fix is a new HV battery estimated complete 1/27/23. I got a no fuss loaner and an unplanned night in Savannah along with two 8 hour road trips to reclaim the car. The Tesla service folks could not have been nicer, but my car was still dead, and I'll be out of pocket the night stay in Savannah to retrieve my car.

This is my second S and I've got a total of ~85K miles between both cars and this is my first "dead" car. It will take a few uneventful road trips for my confidence to be restored. Pity there is not some sort of soft failure that at least makes the car driveable. What if this had happened on one of the back roads that the navigation system takes me on. Some with dicey cell service.
So based on my discussions with tesla remote techs there are error codes that the system logs in the background but these errors have to be frequent enough to show up as a notification that you can see on the MCU. If tesla allowed you to see these there may be many false positive error codes but at least you might see a trend and have some advanced notice.
 
Yes, but based on what’s happen in the background they will trigger some changes to protect the battery. I see on mine a lot of power limits that are triggered based on voltage drops (that I see in scan my tesla) that were not there 2 months ago. It seems Tesla would do whatever they can to prevent the car from triggering the BMS errors and without those they will say everything is ok. I’m not saying this is 100% valid, but this is what I see on my case