Buying a crash damaged model S in the UK

[Japtastic]

Hi all, great forum! Been lurking for a while but needed to start asking some questions.

I'm looking at buying a crash damaged S. Staying away from flooded. This could be either a cat S or N. I'll be doing most the work my self but may need to pay for some services/expertise if needed.

Has anyone here got some experience in doing this? How did you find it? What kind of ballpark price did you pay for what kind of damage and what did your bill end up as? I'm not doing this to make money or sell the car afterwards. It will be a fun project for myself and my son.

I have a fair bit of experience in rebuilding cars and have been in the IT consultancy industry for the last 20 years. One of my first projects was an R32 GTR Skyline CAT C. Another project was an R33 with head damage from snapped cam belt.

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Parts seem to be fairly available on the used market or from other breaker cars so not too worried about that aspect.

A couple of important questions I have that may or may not differ from the US.

Are all S and N cars disabled from using 3G?

Are all S and N cars disabled from getting updates? If so, is there a way around this?

Are all S and N cars disabled from using supercharging? If so, are all model years/firmware rootable to enable supercharging again?

Thanks for any help

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Tesla don't like cars that are accident damaged and won't allow super charging, software updates or anything unless you go through a tortuous recertification process which they don't want to do.

Check Rich Rebuilds on youtube for his stories from the US. Can't help from a UK perspective but its generally seen as a PIA

 

[Japtastic]

Thanks, yes did gather it was a PITA. I'm not really interested in paying out thousands to Tesla to certify it if there is a way to enable Supercharging again from a third party.

@Ingineer @wk057 Can you shed any light on this?

 

[.jg.]

Thanks, yes did gather it was a PITA. I'm not really interested in paying out thousands to Tesla to certify it if there is a way to enable Supercharging again from a third party.

@Ingineer @wk057 Can you shed any light on this?

As I understand it, when a car is connected to a supercharger, the charging session is associated with that car's Tesla account - I guess they use the VIN to idenitfy the car. This allows Tesla to apply any charges for electricity or idle fees, appropriate for that car/owner. I cannot think of any third party approach which would not be getting into the territory of fraud, abstraction of electricity, etc.

If you are lucky, you might find a car that has not been listed as salvage by Tesla.

When buying secondhand Tesla parts, you may want to consider how ebay vendors in Lithuania came by so many parts for RHD Teslas and how this relates to Tesla thefts in the UK.

 

[Japtastic]

Oh, ok. My understanding was different. I thought this was held car side and the restriction was put in place as a safety measure to stop battery damaged cars using that feature. This makes sense of course but if the car can be inspected by an expert over here and they are happy with the charging system and cells, I'd like to be able to supercharge without Tesla dictating what I can and can't do.

Is the only way to supercharge via an official Tesla supercharger? I thought other 3rd party ones would be able to do this/provide the extra amps? Depenidng on the answer to this it may make my question more relevant as if Tesla doesn't want me using their superchargers, that is their decision but it shouldn't stop me from paying to use others.

Thanks for the heads up about the parts.

 

[.jg.]

Oh, ok. My understanding was different. I thought this was held car side and the restriction was put in place as a safety measure to stop battery damaged cars using that feature. This makes sense of course but if the car can be inspected by an expert over here and they are happy with the charging system and cells, I'd like to be able to supercharge without Tesla dictating what I can and can't do.

Is the only way to supercharge via an official Tesla supercharger? I thought other 3rd party ones would be able to do this/provide the extra amps? Depenidng on the answer to this it may make my question more relevant as if Tesla doesn't want me using their superchargers, that is their decision but it shouldn't stop me from paying to use others.

Thanks for the heads up about the parts.

"Supercharger" is a Tesla specific term and with a car banned from Superchargers, you would still be able to charge at home or use other charging networks (including Tesla Destination Chargers). The Tesla Superchargers use the Type 2 connector in a non-conventional way for high speed DC charging, so you would be restricted to AC charging at something like 11kW - 22kW, depending on the specific car and the charging point concerned. However, if you get a Chademo adaptor, you could charge using DC at higher rates at supporting chargers. As the European Model 3s use a CCS socket, there are rumours that Tesla may introduce a relatively cheap CCS to Tesla Type 2 adaptor at some point, which would be nice.

 

[Japtastic]

Thanks for the info. I have a lot to learn!

 

[wk057]

CHAdeMO is actually also disabled when Tesla illegally reaches in and disables supercharging on vehicles, since they disable the fast charging hardware entirely when doing so, not just supercharging.

Currently, it's possible to hack a vehicle and correct this, but it looks like Tesla's working on fixing this loophole so we can't do so (can't provide more details).

Edit: Oh, and per the latest rules on salvage vehicles, Tesla will never re-enable supercharging, even if you pay. Long story short, someone or a group of someones needs to sue them and win on this.

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla don't like cars that are accident damaged and won't allow super charging, software updates or anything unless you go through a tortuous recertification process which they don't want to do.

There is no longer a tortuous recertification process, there is just a ~$500 HV inspection fee. But all that gets you is updates and the ability to have Tesla service the HV system, at your own cost.

Currently, under no circumstances will Tesla re-enable Supercharging on a totaled car.

 

[wk057]

There is no longer a tortuous recertification process, there is just a ~$500 HV inspection fee. But all that gets you is updates and the ability to have Tesla service the HV system, at your own cost.

Currently, under no circumstances will Tesla re-enable Supercharging on a totaled car.

Yeah, lets just put a part of Tesla's own document on blast here:

Long story short, do not sign SC-14-00-007.

 

[Japtastic]

CHAdeMO is actually also disabled when Tesla illegally reaches in and disables supercharging on vehicles, since they disable the fast charging hardware entirely when doing so, not just supercharging.

Currently, it's possible to hack a vehicle and correct this, but it looks like Tesla's working on fixing this loophole so we can't do so (can't provide more details).

Edit: Oh, and per the latest rules on salvage vehicles, Tesla will never re-enable supercharging, even if you pay. Long story short, someone or a group of someones needs to sue them and win on this.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm definitely against Tesla reaching in and doing anything like that without notification first.

Is there certain hardware or an MY that will always be vulnerable to rooting or could Tesla stop that also? If this q is better replied to via PM, please do so

There is no longer a tortuous recertification process, there is just a ~$500 HV inspection fee. But all that gets you is updates and the ability to have Tesla service the HV system, at your own cost.

Currently, under no circumstances will Tesla re-enable Supercharging on a totaled car.

Ok, that's good to know. So they will continue to block CHAdeMO after this inspection as well or just official Tesla supercharging?

Ultimately, I just need to know what I'm in for and what I'm going to be missing if I go this route of repair.

Thanks

 

[MP3Mike]

Ok, that's good to know. So they will continue to block CHAdeMO after this inspection as well or just official Tesla supercharging?

I can't answer that, but I assume CHAdeMO would still be disabled.

 

[.jg.]

CHAdeMO is actually also disabled when Tesla illegally reaches in and disables supercharging on vehicles, since they disable the fast charging hardware entirely when doing so, not just supercharging.

Wow! That's really overreaching. I could understand their position as regards their own charging network but to disable DC charging altogether is extreme and probably, not legal.

 

[wk057]

It looks like at some point they worked to separate them (like, 3+ years ago), as there's an internal option for "otherfastchargeallowed" or something like that, but it doesn't do anything even on the latest firmware. So, no way to get CHAdeMO reinstated either.

As for rooting... yeah, if you want to maintain updates and such (which I presume will eventually be required to maintain supercharging as they update protocols more and more), then it's going to be somewhat impossible/impractical to maintain root on a vehicle eventually. They're really putting in the effort to prevent people from accessing the vehicle internals.

 

[Japtastic]

It looks like at some point they worked to separate them (like, 3+ years ago), as there's an internal option for "otherfastchargeallowed" or something like that, but it doesn't do anything even on the latest firmware. So, no way to get CHAdeMO reinstated either.

As for rooting... yeah, if you want to maintain updates and such (which I presume will eventually be required to maintain supercharging as they update protocols more and more), then it's going to be somewhat impossible/impractical to maintain root on a vehicle eventually. They're really putting in the effort to prevent people from accessing the vehicle internals.

Thanks for the info, although that really isn’t great news. That really is a bit of pain to have an S without the ability to fast charge