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2016 75D - CPO with a major heart-wrenching issue

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maybe we just need to wait until tomorrow...

Nope. The morning drive in the Model Slow was not fun.

We'll have to wait and see what my advisor says, if he can get support again to check. Maybe their firmware push was not that successful. I don't have wifi where the car was when he said they did something yesterday and the LTE signal is poor. I'd rather wait for him to get back (he's off on Fridays) than spend a lot of time on the phone.

I guess if he won't be able to help, the next step will be to schedule a visit at another service center, since everyone seems to be giving me completely different answers.
 
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you now have a solid reason for a service center visit -- hope it leads to uncorking the double corked car

Yes, that's the plan. I'll wait until Monday to see if my email advisor gets back to me.

For sure they messed something up, I tried a soft reboot today and a regular "power off" from the MCU settings. Nothing helped. It still drives fine, no errors, it's just very very slow to accelerate. It may be a clue that the kW dial on the dashboard (I know it's not accurate) never goes past 150 (top center), no matter how hard I press...
 
No good deed goes unpunished. Tesla, out of the blue, offered to uncork as many 75D as possible. They were going to do this, at no charge, to as many as had the correct configuration.

Ever since then there has been a constant wailing of owners that also wanted THEIR cars updated. This has caused untold hours of technician, support and management time dealing with all the possibilities.

They have attempted multiple uncorkings, sent out Ranger Service, made countless service center appointments. It has turned out to be a massive financial disaster, as everyone wanted to get it, even if it was not possible for their personal car.

Sorry the OP was not able to get this performance upgrade, but it certainly is not the end of the world, even though he still feels not complete.

Tesla tried to do a solid for many of their owners, but it has come back to bite them in the ass.
 
No good deed goes unpunished. Tesla, out of the blue, offered to uncork as many 75D as possible. They were going to do this, at no charge, to as many as had the correct configuration.

Ever since then there has been a constant wailing of owners that also wanted THEIR cars updated. This has caused untold hours of technician, support and management time dealing with all the possibilities.

They have attempted multiple uncorkings, sent out Ranger Service, made countless service center appointments. It has turned out to be a massive financial disaster, as everyone wanted to get it, even if it was not possible for their personal car.

Sorry the OP was not able to get this performance upgrade, but it certainly is not the end of the world, even though he still feels not complete.

Tesla tried to do a solid for many of their owners, but it has come back to bite them in the ass.

Sorry but I don't see it like this. We are talking here about cars sold by Tesla, advertised with uncorked performance. Had they done their jobs properly, they should have advertised uncorked/uncorkable 75Ds at 4.2 seconds and the rest at 5.2.

If they sell a car clearly advertised as the faster one and then, after they get their paws on the money, they say it's not uncorkable, it's not ok and I feel zero pity for the "countless service center appointments and massive financial disaster".


Yes, it's not that big of a deal. Even uncorked it feels like a beast when it accelerates, but for some, myself included, the car being under 5 seconds 0-60 really was the decision tipping point. If they won't uncork mine, I will probably make daily service center appointments and contact a lawyer.
 
I'm getting a little concerned here, I'm looking to purchase a 2016 75D myself... are we talking about a car that was a 60D/70D that was advertised & supposed to be upgraded ("uncorked") to a 75D OR a base model 75D? How do i tell if the car I'm looking to get is a manufactured 75D with a 4.2 0-60 or an "uncorked" version?

Regardless, if Tesla is advertising the car as a 75D with a 4.2sec 0-60 then that is what the car should be capable of. Its not like this guy purchased a 60D and is looking to have the upgrade retrofitted.... he literally purchased a car advertised as a 75D with a 4.2sec 0-60. In no way is Tesla doing cucubits a solid by selling him a falsely advertised vehicle. Am I missing something from the dissenting opinion here?
 
All facelift (starting around mid 2016) S-es had 75kWh battery. Some were sold software locked to 60, some to 70. Unlocking the battery to 75kWh is no big deal, it should be already done by the time you pickup the car (even if in the pictures you see 60 or 70 badge), if you bought it as a 75(D). Keep in mind this is for facelift models only. Pre facelift there were smaller batteries sold as well, I don't know about those. Also, this is only about the battery capacity. Uncorking is a different story. Be prepared to talk to reps/advistors who don't know this and when you ask about uncorking, they will say "of course, it's already uncorked to 75kWh".

There's no easy way to tell if it's uncorked before you take delivery. When I went to pick mine up, this was one of the first questions to the boy presenting the car to me. Be prepared to get lied to your face. When you drive it, it should be easy to tell if it takes over 5 seconds to reach 60mph. Most noticeable is between 50 - 60mph. Not uncorked, it's noticeably slower in that range.


My story is still pending. I finally got some communication from my sales advisor today and apparently the firmware push didn't go through. Probably my bad too since the car is not always in wifi range where I park it. Kept it on wifi today but no luck so far. Last thing the guy emailed me was if it didn't work, I'll need to go to a service center. Trouble is, the app won't let me choose that, it just schedules a mobile ranger, which is probably useless in this case (especially if the same guy comes as last time).

I'll stop by the service center tomorrow and try to explain. I don't know how they treat walk-ins.
 
..it should be easy to tell if it takes over 5 seconds to reach 60mph. Most noticeable is between 50 - 60mph...I don't know how they treat walk-ins.
I actually felt that the increased torque at low speeds was considerably more noticable that the increased power at high speeds. Unfortunately, measuring the 0-60 is the only really easy way to ascertain whether the car is uncorked. Uncorking changes max torque and max power on the car. Measuring the rate of change of power output over time on the API via third party apps will give you data to calculate max torque, which is most important. But you need a login to do so. Measuring torque and power over the CANBus during a performance run will tell you both values but involves car disassembly, special cables and adapters

As for the service center on drop in visits, They may vary but mine is always super polite. Forcing a firmware update should be easy for them.
 
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Well, now I clearly have a way to compare how corked vs uncorked drives. Took the car to another service center (not the one I went first time) and these guys checked it and said they would be able to do the uncorking but it'll take some time so they gave me a loaner. Here's the fun part: it's an almost new 6k miles 100D. This thing is a beast, the acceleration is insane and it's not even a P car. If mine will drive close to what this feels like, it'll be a whole new machine.

A few side notes.
- air suspension is awesome. I wish I would have waited to get one with it too. Seems way smoother on rough roads.
- strangely this new one seems to have more squeaks and rattles compared to my over 40k miles S
- the 100D has almost no noticeable low pressure buffeting like noise on some roads where my 75D seems pretty bad with this. I kept adjusting the rear hatch on mine but that may not be the culprit. This 100D has the rear hatch adjusters screwed all the way in, probably they don't even touch properly. Will investigate this further in mine after this episode.

To be continued... (maybe later today or tomorrow)
 
It's done! It's done! It accelerates exactly like the 100D loaner. It's exactly as I said, a whole new machine. It's a beast. Very hard to describe but very obvious. The difference feels huge even though on paper it is only about 1 second.
I nearly made myself sick driving home from the service center :D

Apparently all it took was a firmware upgrade but the tech did say that there's no way this could have been done remotely.


Also, it completely blows my mind how incompetent and straight up liars were the advisor and tech at my first service center visit (the one in Plano, TX). That tech actually came up front and started to explain to me how only some older cars could be uncorked and that she checked mine and there was no way to do it. It's baffling that Tesla has this level of incompetence among their employees. Night and day difference to the experience I had today in Dallas Service Center. Way more professional, friendly and knowledgeable.



Just for fun here are the work invoice details from both. Same car, a few weeks apart.

Plano, TX service center:
plano.jpg





and Dallas Service center from today:
dallas.jpg
 
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Also, it completely blows my mind how incompetent and straight up liars were the advisor and tech at my first service center visit (the one in Plano, TX). That tech actually came up front and started to explain to me how only some older cars could be uncorked and that she checked mine and there was no way to do it. It's baffling that Tesla has this level of incompetence among their employees. Night and day difference to the experience I had today in Dallas Service Center. Way more professional, friendly and knowledgeable.

Glad they got you fixed up. Sometime I wonder if the SC staff get confused and are looking for a battery capacity unlock option instead of an acceleration unlock option. (Even though you were very clear in your service request.)
 
Congratulations! That's awesome.

I emailed my SA and he said the model I'm looking to buy is uncorked, so if its not... at least I have proof that it was supposed to be.

One more price drop and I'm pulling the trigger on my first Tesla!
 
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Thats awesome. So glad you got it all worked out. Have you thought about sending the final paper work to the Plano SC? I think they should look into it and see exactly what was done so that they do push away future people requesting uncorking for a model that would support it.
 
Thats awesome. So glad you got it all worked out. Have you thought about sending the final paper work to the Plano SC? I think they should look into it and see exactly what was done so that they do push away future people requesting uncorking for a model that would support it.

Actually I have. Not necessarily to get them in trouble but to have them open their eyes and as you say, maybe avoid something like this with other customers. The problem is I don't know what's the best way to make sure someone who can do something about this will notice. An email with the manager's name in attn would work, but I don't have that info.
 
Glad to bring awareness and discussion to existing and future Tesla owners. Cucubits, your journey didn't seem that rough and I'm glad they made you whole - you are completely right about that sour taste... that feeling of being duped or ripped off, and powerless to do anything about it. I agree, the drop from 5.2 to 4.2 is very noticeable and exhilarating. Fortunately your vehicle's hardware was already fully compatible and just required the firmware update. If you read any of my previous posts, they had to drop my battery pack and replace several parts to uncork mine (4/2016 build).

For anyone else looking at a used 2016 75D, there is no easy answer. Tesla (purposefully) took away the ability to query the car's computer and pull the attribute indicating if it's uncorked - perf_config. Ignorance and/or apathy will prevent most corked owners from having an uncorked 75D, and I'm sure Tesla banks on this in the long run. If the 4.2 seconds is a deciding factory during your purchase, be prepared to test it, and, if it's corked, be prepared to put in some work to push to have it uncorked.

This community here is extremely knowledgeable and supportive. Many on here played a large role in helping me resolve my issue. If you are reading this and run into issues, you will not be left stranded on these forums.
 
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Sadly it's true. While it's still a very cool and fast car, if I don't get this solved, it'll just eat at me. Had this been disclosed correctly on the website, 100% I would have not purchased it.

By the way, this is what the service center said:
View attachment 500658
I have the same issue, I purchased mine used a month ago, its a 137xxx vin number, 4 scheduled appointments and still no answer. It is eating me up and I will push till the do it. This is why I hate not being able to inspect my car before purchase.