"Charge-gate" on Dec Model S builds

[ironwaffle]

Folks, this is real. Today Tesla replaced my port under warranty. All done in two hours or so (they said it'd be faster except they needed to install today's software update). At the service center they said they're aware of the problem and suggested it was a supplier issue. Regardless of why, they made it simple and pleasant. My suggestion: call and bring it in. This is not normal. Even the tech/mechanic/team lead said they all struggled with it during service. The replacement is vastly easier — with a break in period of exactly zero charges. Don't wait and don't fret.

My Model S was delivered not long before Xmas and had this issue. Over two weeks I tried multiple chargers at each of three SuperCharger locations. It could take 3-9 attempts each. Many times I'd get the blue ring a second before It turned orange. Had to put my full body weight to insert or remove it — to the point I was concerned I might be damaging it. Three other owners with more experience tried my car and said this was not normal.

I'm skipping my longer, deeply frustrating story of the last two weeks because the important thing is getting it fixed and moving on... Call, go from 0-60 mph to your local service center and get it replaced and enjoy. Don't mess with it, don't try workarounds, don't let them (or posts here) suggest workarounds or more "breaking in." Replace it.

 

[bmah]

Moderator note: Deleted a post (plus two follow-ups) at its author's request, as it was advocating doing a dangerous/harmful practice with graphite.

Bruce.

 

[Xd85]

@ironwaffle wonder what I should do now that I got the sub-optimal fix? Thoughts?

 

[ironwaffle]

@ironwaffle wonder what I should do now that I got the sub-optimal fix? Thoughts?

Call them. Ask for a replacement. With this investment they should. It's not an unreasonable request. If they say no, ask (politely) for a supervisor. Point out that this is now a known problem and that you've read replacement was recommended. Forums aren't official but I was told that was their rxomemmendstion. They commmented that some locations that don't have ports were dong alternate fixes but shouldn't. I bunk it's worth it even if you have to wait a few days or more for them to get them in stock. In the meantime, I wouldn't worry. I'm sure whatever they did is at least a safe quick fix for the interim. At this price point protect your investment.

 

[SMAlset]

Might want to schedule an appointment once they have the port in stock and "reserved" for your car. We have an issue with a yellow border on our screen and got set up for an appointment. Person who set it up was not at the service center and just saw that they were showing screens in stock. Got to find out that all those "in stock" were already ordered for other cars and tagged by VIN. Going in this week for the replacement. Wise to make sure the parts are there for you ahead of time.

 

[Xd85]

Not worried at all about safety, just curious if it was worth replacement if all it was is a physical problem in a largely non critical place (plastic surrounding assembly but not part of charge apparatus)

Somewhat related note: would replacement impact the full xpel wrap? They’ve gotten started already.

 

[kvandivo]

Same problem for me. Very, very annoying. Waiting to hear from service center.

 

[CRASHER]

This explains why I was unable to plug in @ a supercharger station after multiple tries, without thinking I switched to another station and it worked. I picked mine on 5 Dec.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Moderator note: Deleted a post (plus two follow-ups) at its author's request, as it was advocating doing a dangerous/harmful practice with graphite.

Bruce.

Wow I actually thought about graphite, then immediately remembered how conductive it was. Good call on removing those posts, that could be nasty.

 

[bhakan]

10-second summary: if you have a recent build with poor UMC fit, (a) it might take inhuman extra effort or (b) worse, as in my case, superchargers are impossible to plug because they have a wider connector.

either way, your service center can "resculpt" your port for this issue.

Didn't expect first week of Tesla ownership to involve 4 trips to the service center, but it showcased a very positive (Austin) service experience.

Metallic Blue 75D, built 12/9, delivered 12/22 (early!) Smooth delivery experience, but found charge port extremely difficult to plug UMC, repeated triggering an amber "UMC unlatched", even though the connection seemed fully stuck. A couple of more times it triggered a red ring at the port, and UMC red LED. Breaker resets later and some luck and brute force, it charges overnight.

11pm service call, tech was knowledgable about the fitment issue and tells me it should wear down with use. Other forums confirm this. Fine. Had no idea what gen 2 UMC lights meant and struggled to dig out manual.

Next day (Saturday) skeleton crew Austin SC fits me in before closing. UMC checks out and the red LED assumed to be normal. But uncovered unusual charge port behavior (later found out to be normal). Set up for an appointment next business day. Told them had a 4-day trip planned and needed a loaner.

Fast forward. Amazingly, loaner (100D Model S, late 2017) was available but charged to 75%. Would have had to add an additional stop on way to NOLA anyway so decided to try out the long awaited Austin supercharger. Get there and then act a fool, the cable would not latch. Fellow owner (P85 tho) stumped too. Good thing found this out before getting stranded!

Went back to SC, showed the crew and stumped them too. Most of them couldn't plug in their test supercharger. Yet they had a second (!!) loaner MS 100D with a normally constructed port.

4 days and 1100 miles of mostly AP, results below. Straight off to xpel!

 

[bhakan]

10-second summary: if you have a recent build with poor UMC fit, (a) it might take inhuman extra effort or (b) worse, as in my case, superchargers are impossible to plug because they have a wider connector.

either way, your service center can "resculpt" your port for this issue.

Didn't expect first week of Tesla ownership to involve 4 trips to the service center, but it showcased a very positive (Austin) service experience.

Metallic Blue 75D, built 12/9, delivered 12/22 (early!) Smooth delivery experience, but found charge port extremely difficult to plug UMC, repeated triggering an amber "UMC unlatched", even though the connection seemed fully stuck. A couple of more times it triggered a red ring at the port, and UMC red LED. Breaker resets later and some luck and brute force, it charges overnight.

11pm service call, tech was knowledgable about the fitment issue and tells me it should wear down with use. Other forums confirm this. Fine. Had no idea what gen 2 UMC lights meant and struggled to dig out manual.

Next day (Saturday) skeleton crew Austin SC fits me in before closing. UMC checks out and the red LED assumed to be normal. But uncovered unusual charge port behavior (later found out to be normal). Set up for an appointment next business day. Told them had a 4-day trip planned and needed a loaner.

Fast forward. Amazingly, loaner (100D Model S, late 2017) was available but charged to 75%. Would have had to add an additional stop on way to NOLA anyway so decided to try out the long awaited Austin supercharger. Get there and then act a fool, the cable would not latch. Fellow owner (P85 tho) stumped too. Good thing found this out before getting stranded!

Went back to SC, showed the crew and stumped them too. Most of them couldn't plug in their test supercharger. Yet they had a second (!!) loaner MS 100D with a normally constructed port.

4 days and 1100 miles of mostly AP, results below. Straight off to xpel!

 

[bhakan]

I recently took delivery of Model S. I have a Tesla wall connector to cahrge at home. However, I cannot use any supercharging stations as the supercharger does not latch into my Tesla charging port. Some of the other Tesla owners have tried but it does not latch. It seems like Tesla has to change my charging port. Has anyone expereinced this ?

Now it makes sense. A moderator answered my question with this thread "Charge-gate-dec model s builds". Following is my reply from that thread to moderator:

Thanks. Sure sounds like "charge gate." Without access to supercharging I cannot go on a road trip. Limits my driving. i am wondering why Tesla did not not verify this before they sold the car(s). The irony was one of the service center techs' comment about how I need to use more force at the supercharging station...because we are females??? Interesting.

 

[Xd85]

Thought I’d post a conclusion for my case. Service center “resculpting” worked out as expected, now it’s just as easy as the “worn” loaner I had. Go to your service center if your charging experience is anything but smooth!

 

[JayyyDeee]

I’m sorry to sound like a troll, but this is just piss poor build quality control. How can Tesla not perform a quality test to ensure a supercharger cable will properly support insert into the charging port?

You don't sound like a troll because Tesla actually doesn't seem to perform quality control before shipping their cars. I didn't have the super charger issue but I had a broken Bpillar with obvious green foam sticking out.(all you had to do was glance in the general direction to see the Green foam sticking out of black interior).

All new Model S we had were a but snug at first, especially when using a brand new HPWC, but they loosened up withing few days of use.

I truly doubt the shape of the charge connector has anything whatsoever to do with the team building your car. It comes as a molded piece of plastic. Maybe there was a batch that was tighter than speced, but if so that's a supplier issue, not the build team. On all 3 of our Model 3's the charge connector was tight at the very beginning. The mobile connector is for some reason the smallest and works easiest. HPWC connector is bigger, so on a new MS you can feel it really tight. Supercharger is for some reason the biggest. Out 75 hasn't seen a supercharger yet, but over the first few weeks the HPWC went from tight to smooth and easy to plug/remove.

No that is the fault of the build team its there job to test everything is working. Its literally 5 second test for them to see if the charger plugs in

 

[whitex]

No that is the fault of the build team its there job to test everything is working. Its literally 5 second test for them to see if the charger plugs in

I bet they plugged in their charger at the factory, which likely has a lot of wear on it and it fit just fine. In this case they'd need to design a test where the tester size doesn't change even 0.1mm in diameter throughout the life of the tester. Can it be done? Sure. Should it be done for every car? Questionable. This all comes down to practicality of running such tests and how many such tests should be performed. It is not practical to test each and every component of a car (think each screw that is in the car for example) to ensure quality and dimensions down to fractions of millimeters - if they did that the cars would be way to expensive - it is cheaper and more practical to occasionally rework a batch of cars. Typically Tesla would require specific tolerances from the supplier and random sample test each batch, then have it in the contract that if more than x parts are found to be out of tolerance they will cover the recall cost. If something becomes a repeating problem, increase the quality test frequency (or change suppliers).

Nothing will ever be 100% perfect 100% of the time when you're producing large quantities of anything. The goal is to hit high percentage yield, but never 100% - the last % is prohibitively expensive and doesn't scale well in quantity (think Rolls Royce, great quality, expensive, but couldn't produce 5000 cars per week at the same quality no matter how much you paid them).

 

[R.S]

It sounds as if a manufactured part was changed (slightly), not that someone assembled it wrong. Maybe a new supplier?

This is Tesla, so it's either a parts supplier, a sub system supplier, or maybe even a material supplier issue.

 

[AZ Desert Driver]

This is Tesla, so it's either a parts supplier, a sub system supplier, or maybe even a material supplier issue.

Well, that pretty well covers everything. Like - it was either inside or outside. By Us or someone else. Its either mineral or vegetable. Any other choices?

 

[R.S]

Well, that pretty well covers everything. Like - it was either inside or outside. By Us or someone else. Its either mineral or vegetable. Any other choices?

True, if something on a Tesla doesn't work, who else but a parts supplier, a sub system supplier, or a material supplier could be blamed?

 

[jjh1234]

True, if something on a Tesla doesn't work, who else but a parts supplier, a sub system supplier, or a material supplier could be blamed?

Tesla themselves if the part was made in house.

 

[pdxgibby]

I can also confirm that this is a real issue. I have a Dec '17 build loaner and was contacted today (proactively) that they would like to send a ranger to swap the charge port as the loaner car may be unable to use Superchargers due to poor charge port fitment.