2015 Model S 90D Problems. Any others similar experience?

[tkizzy]

As someone who played in both worlds, I would choose even these older Teslas vs the competition. That said, Every EV has my approval if it replaces an ICE vehicle.

The only costs for our 2015 so far have been about $200 just recently to fix a noise caused by a worn bushing in the suspension. We had a windshield (cold weather package = more expensive replacement) replaced free of charge for a crack, tires obviously (not cheap, granted), and some free warranty work on a steering bolt issue as well as airbag recall. Other than that, autopilot cost us a couple grand, but that’s a feature not a repair. Also should have our MCU emmc replaced for free soon now, or maybe in for another $1500 to upgrade to MCU 2 for a better experience....

 

[jeremy0916]

Guys I just figured out this part costs $120 for generally used but decent condition ones.

2012-2019 Tesla Model S Electric Battery Heater 1038901-00-H OEM 12-19 | eBay

Autobahn Parts - Electrical, Tesla Model S (2015-2017) OEM Electric Battery Heater Part # 1038901-00-H, 1038901-00-H

Any folks technically inclined or know of a guide to install or replace the electric battery heater part? Or have done it themselves?

Would be awesome if I could just do it myself, I enjoy tinkering if its not too complex a problem to fix and folks here have experience. The part generally looks small and does not have too many connectors to deal with.

Bingo found the guide: Coolant Heater - Electric - Battery - 1st Generation (Remove and Replace)

Seems there is risk of electric shock though? Recommends to wear PPE and such? Still seems an easy change out.

Best,
Jeremy

Then I deal with no tow, no service center, and gain a little experience messing with my car.

 

[jeremy0916]

Okay new snag folks, so seems there is a special software tool called tesla toolbox(that the general public briefly could hack their way into basically early December 2020, now that loophole has been closed and I can't get the tool) that helps bleed the battery coolant system, anyone have experience doing this on their own, do you really need special software to do the drain or can educated ev auto shops do a proper bleed without the fancy tech, or is a bleed really necessary when changing out the batter heater component? Ofc the tubes will pop off and likely lose a bit of coolant but is a drain necessary? Can I not just top off the reservoir in the frunk? Appreciate any insight from tesla tinkerers.

 

[AlphaTango11]

Yes, that is almost certainly an isolation fault related to the battery heater. You can't really see the values but the resistance is constantly monitored in the background and typically as the heater fails it causes this value to throw a code.

It would be ideal for you to wear some HV gloves, but if you properly disconnect the safety responder loop and the 12V battery, it is nearly impossible for there to be high voltage present. Better to be safe than sorry, though.

More info on the isolation fault uploaded below as well as how to replace the coolant heater for a dual motor vehicle.

 

[jeremy0916]

Appreciate it! Will review this.

 

[jeremy0916]

Anyone ever done a battery coolant top off, or flush the coolant without the tesla toolbox app? Local auto shop asking about it just looking for some extra feedback there. If replacing the battery heater and not having the tesla toolbox app is okay wanted general consensus that it would be safe to do. Planning to skip the coolant flush all together, seems unnecessary on a closed system. glycol+water mix should last longer than the 6 years this car has been around at only 30k mileage.

Looks like this video details how to force something to help get air bubbles out

, hope this works on my 2015 Model as well.

 

[jeremy0916]

@murphyS90D / @David_Cary I replaced the battery heater at a local shop an hr ago. 36 degrees out, now parked in my garage still cold inside there too. Still seeing the indicator warnings and the cold soaked battery dashes it seems and all the error alarms from my original post. Tried a power down and power up while not sitting in the seat using center console, still see the errors. I tried plugging in my wall charger and I could here the swish of the coolant mix again so I know the pumps are working too. So maybe it wasn't the battery heater after all? Super disappointing if by tomorrow the indicators don't go away(maybe it takes time for heater to get battery temp/coolant temp it back where it should?). May have to actually go into tesla and get a diagnostics done.

 

[Wratran]

I bought 2015 used w 80k miles..no extended warranty....the only repairs was the door handles...did it myself for $5 each for the gear from Tesla...still no emmc problems

the thing about forums is that you will only hear bad things cuz...this is how we learn how to DYI...so it’s not a real world percentage of good or bad

 

[jeremy0916]

Decided to bite the bullet and will take it up to tesla service center now. Battery heater obviously was not the problem. I can turn my heat remotely from App onto high and see the battery snowflake symbol and then it goes away after 10-15 mins once car is warmed up. Something else is awry causing these generic bms errors.

 

[David_Cary]

I don't remember, is your 12V battery ok? That will cause some error codes.
Sorry it wasn't the heater but is it possible you just don't have a way to clear the code properly?
Are you able to do things now (like get the snowflake to appear) that you couldn't do before?

I have to admit that I have never seen a battery snowflake symbol of the app. I almost always use range mode so I don't think I use the heater at all. I park in a garage most of the time and when outside it is rarely cold.

 

[Boeingpilot]

I'm going to chime in.... The yellow triangle, you're going to get that unless you really pre-condition the car. I'm in PA, get it all the time.

As for the battery heater, did you or your shop ohm out the old one and prove it was dead? It's a resistance heater, should be easy to test.

As for the costs..... I'm going to agree with the other posters.... a) you're driving what is essentially a $90k car. I can assure, even my VW dealer charged me diagnostics. Sometimes they pulled it off the bill when repaired, sometimes they didn't. Tesla isn't doing anything any other car manufacturer or dealer does.

My wife has a Range Rover which she bought at 70k miles (it's at 145k now). First oil change, when she got the $140 bill she almost flipped out. Had to explain, just because you bought it for $30k, the parts don't get discounted, nor does the labor. She's better about it now. (Oh, and part of the reason an oil change on a RR is $140 ish is that it has an 8 quart sump and they use really expensive synthetic oil FWIW)

I just purchased a 2015 90d as well. Got it with 70k miles. 3 weeks in, the 12V battery started to complain. $220 at the SC. Compared to what I've paid for other vehicles, comparable. I went in eyes full open. I bought it with no warranty and 3 years drive unit and pack left. My budget will always allow for some repairs.

 

[Palmtree]

Decided to bite the bullet and will take it up to tesla service center now. Battery heater obviously was not the problem. I can turn my heat remotely from App onto high and see the battery snowflake symbol and then it goes away after 10-15 mins once car is warmed up. Something else is awry causing these generic bms errors.

I had the same codes come up on my 2014 p85d last week. My story here Battery heater diagnosis . I suspected the battery heater -- tesla ran a remote diagnostic eval and confirmed battery heater. It seems that a failing battery heater may be intermittent. Mine seemed to work later when I was trying to trouble shoot the problem in my garage. Tesla wanted $705 to replace it. I bought a 2018 battery heater off Ebay for $55. I am planning to replace it myself on Wednesday. When is your service appointment? I will be very interested to hear what they have to say. I don't want to spend my day off replacing the battery heater if it isn't going to take car of the problem.
Also I would like to know how your local garage bled the air from the coolant system after replacement. Please keep us informed.

 

[David.85D]

I don’t see any reason a vacuum bleeder (commonly used on ice cars) wouldn’t do the job.

Or, the simpler way is fill it, drive it a bit and top it off. There are many owners posting they have done fine filling it, drive a bit with the heater, then top off. Repeat until no change is seen…

 

[EZBoy]

I would think replacing battery heater would require software redeploy for it to work, correct me if I am wrong? ( you can even try to and ask local SC to do remote software redeploy on your car, I heard they do it sometimes)

btw, I had to replace my radiator and had to add about a gallon of battery coolant. Was also concerned I would need toolbox to to do flush and fill, but the car was able to remove air bubbles by itself over time ( the way how you know that is coolant level in the reservoir will be dropping slowly over couple of days/a week). To help the car flush the air pockets from the coolant, it seems it helps to repeatedly connect/disconnect it to charging cables.

 

[InternetDude]

I would think replacing battery heater would require software redeploy for it to work, correct me if I am wrong?

Yes the car will need to recognize the changed part. My heater failed but also the high voltage junction box, it turned into a bit of an ordeal...

 

[jeremy0916]

Final wrap up: Yeah I took my car to service center. They initially diagnosed it as needing a battery heater replaced. Only when I told them I did replace that item myself did they then bounce back and say to get rid of the "latching" errors they needed to do a software trigger("redeploy") I guess so the car would accept the new part for the error message to go away. They mentioned a service center or mobile service guy should be able to do it but no way for me as a customer or car owner to do so. I imagine this infringes on some states right to repair laws.

So will remember that if I ever decide to part swap on my own for some of the electronic parts. I ended up spending more by doing the part swap myself at a auto shop and still taking it to SC for diagnosis(+375 extra) than I would have if I had gone to SC and gotten a new part installed by them... Oh well live and learn.

 

[Palmtree]

Final wrap up: Yeah I took my car to service center. They initially diagnosed it as needing a battery heater replaced. Only when I told them I did replace that item myself did they then bounce back and say to get rid of the "latching" errors they needed to do a software trigger("redeploy") I guess so the car would accept the new part for the error message to go away. They mentioned a service center or mobile service guy should be able to do it but no way for me as a customer or car owner to do so. I imagine this infringes on some states right to repair laws.

So will remember that if I ever decide to part swap on my own for some of the electronic parts. I ended up spending more by doing the part swap myself at a auto shop and still taking it to SC for diagnosis(+375 extra) than I would have if I had gone to SC and gotten a new part installed by them... Oh well live and learn.

So you are saying that they charged you $375 just to do the software redeploy? How can that not be something they do for free? What if you have new software waiting to be installed? Maybe that would take care of it? Anybody know?

 

[jeremy0916]

They told me after I told them I had replaced the part that they could have charged me much less. I replaced the part and power cycled my car expecting it to just work, no where online did it say I needed special tesla software to get the error to go away from what I had read. I wanted them to find the problem and they technically misdiagnosed it telling me the part was bad when it wasn't until I told them I had replaced it (guessing they were just going by common BMS errors and the likelihood it was the battery heater for the error they were seeing in old logs). I think they inspected my HV battery too as part of the BMS hunt.

 

[EZBoy]

So you are saying that they charged you $375 just to do the software redeploy? How can that not be something they do for free? What if you have new software waiting to be installed? Maybe that would take care of it? Anybody know?

Yes, the trick is to have new software downloaded and ready, then swap your part, then run new software install. I can confirm this, software install triggers redeploy.
Otherwise you would need a special cable to connect to your car and run a command to initiate redeploy. Cable is 50$ I think.

but yeah ,375$ is outrageous , we have a right to repair our cars, and software redeploy should be a free feature you can initiate from your Tesla account

 

[jeremy0916]

Yes, the trick is to have new software downloaded and ready, then swap your part, then run new software install. I can confirm this, software install triggers redeploy.
Otherwise you would need a special cable to connect to your car and run a command to initiate redeploy. Cable is 50$ I think.

but yeah ,375$ is outrageous , we have a right to repair our cars, and software redeploy should be a free feature you can initiate from your Tesla account

Neat to know that trick, but that is a crazy thing to have to do and wait for lol. Sometimes I don't get updates for weeks at a time maybe even a month or so can go by, so not really satisfied with that approach long term. Yeah I ended up losing money slightly by installing the part locally then going to Service Center when the part replacement didn't get rid of the error messages. Was a crappy ordeal, not to mention 4 hours of driving between taking my car to the closest service center and getting back home. Once they get a Service Center in South Carolina it may not suck as hard but it seems to not be a priority for them(I think we have local laws preventing a service center at the moment because there is no "dealership" here, sold old auto law the big money ICE companies put in place with their old dealership sales model). With Tesla now having bankroll from shares skyrocketing I would think they could pay off the politicians and get me a service center somewhere in the middle of South Carolina or the Upstate.