The 'breathable' thing is BS. I've had all but one rear light replaced, one of them twice, and the final remaining one gets replaced next month when the ranger comes again. Currently the replaced ones are fine, they must be just as 'breathable' as the one that's full of water drops.
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Condensation in rear lights
- Thread starter Rooster6655
- Start date
Well tell them it’s by design and as long as it still works that it’s still legal and as the unit isn’t defective what is the actual reasoning for the caution?
I wouldn’t speak to them about anything you don’t need to
MrBadger
Badger out
It wasn't a comment about car learning, just one road that I was unfamiliar with wrt TACC along its whole length so it may have been as bad as that previously.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
I think the problem is mainly the hassle of having to deal with a possible fixed penalty by disputing it, or of having to get it fixed by Tesla if the police are feeling generous and just warn you about it.
It's one area of the law where things are skewed against the normal presumption of innocence, as if you get stopped for having a partially obscured rear light, you're either going to get told to get it fixed or you may get a fixed penalty. If the latter happens it's then up to you to fight it, by arguing with the police that Tesla state this is "just cosmetic". My experience is that arguing with the police generally results in a worse outcome, YMMV. Either way you're in for additional hassle, and it will not be Tesla that have to carry the can, it will be the driver of the car.
If the police are that bothered by them I would get a written statement from them along with their contact details and take it to Tesla and tell them to sort it out and if they believe all is fine, here are the police's contact details and they can talk between themselves. Given you've done nothing wrong here I wouldn't be at all happy receiving even a caution.
There is a way of fixing the lights, apparently. There’s a guy on here that removed them and applied some special penetrating glue around the seam that fixed it.
I’ve got a ranger visit next month, if they don’t replace both lights then I’ll be doing this. It’s possible that replacement lights have a different/better design that stops it happening?
EDIT: This is the thread I found last time I looked into this, and @ajp558 is the man who solved the problem.
I’ve got a ranger visit next month, if they don’t replace both lights then I’ll be doing this. It’s possible that replacement lights have a different/better design that stops it happening?
EDIT: This is the thread I found last time I looked into this, and @ajp558 is the man who solved the problem.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
My experience was this:
The police officer was looking over the car, in a car park, seemingly just because he'd not seen one before and was clearly interested in it, as he asked the usual questions about performance, range etc. When he spotted the misted up real lights, he warned me that they were defective, and that I needed to get them fixed immediately, or else risk getting a fixed penalty for driving with defective rear lights. He was very polite about it, and when I explained that Tesla considered this to be just cosmetic, he replied with words to the effect of "Tell Tesla the police consider them defective, and will prosecute the drivers of cars with lights like this". He was very friendly about it, and I'm sure his intention was to give me leverage to get Tesla to sort them (they had refused to fix them on a previous SC visit). This worked, when I told Tesla that the police had ordered me to get them fixed, they agreed to replace them
The law seems clear, though. It will not be the car manufacturer that gets penalised for something like this, it will be the driver of the car (not the owner, either). It's the driver's responsibility to ensure the vehicle complies with the C&U regs at all times when being driven on the road, to the best of their ability. It would be hard for a driver to argue that partially obscured rear lights weren't something that could have been easily checked before setting off, so probably hard to get any penalty quashed, I think.
We're all supposed to check our cars are roadworthy before we drive them, for every single journey. I know that very few people do in practice, but that's what the law expects. Back when I was working, and we had pool cars for staff use, this inspection procedure was rigidly adhered to. The first person signing a car out in the morning had to give it a full DI (daily inspection) with a check list (tyre condition and pressures, lights all functioning, windscreen wipers OK, washer bottle, radiator, oil level, etc OK). Subsequent journeys were recorded line by line on a chit in the car, with a signature to say that the vehicle had been checked before that trip. It seems OTT, but it is what the law expects us to do as drivers, and my employer had just, rather pedantically, put that into a written procedure, most probably to cover their backside.
Anyway, the main issue here is that there is a recurring problem with the rear lights becoming partially obscured by water ingress, and whether Tesla believe this is acceptable or not makes not a jot of difference when it comes to the hassle a driver may have if he/she encounters a particularly awkward police officer. Arguing that it's Tesla's fault won't wash with the police at all, although it may result in an outcome like mine, with the police officer lending weight to my argument with Tesla about this if someone's lucky. If someone's unlucky, perhaps because they've encountered a particularly awkward police officer, then they could easily get a fixed penalty, and have the hassle of trying to argue their way out of it.
Might I suggest that anyone with misting lights asks their local cop-shop for a written statement as to whether they consider that an issue - and then make their service appt with the answer? Why wait until you have 'sufficient' photo evidence?
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Good idea, if they will cooperate like this. There's probably an element of judgement required, though, as to whether a police officer considers the degree of misting to be obscuring the rear lights or not. This were the state of mine on the day that the officer said it was obscured, and is the photo I sent to the SC the same day:
Condensation? Misting? Ah, kids today, don't know they're born... ;-)
I'm waiting for a ranger to visit because I have actual water sloshing around in there. (You can hear it when the boot is opened, as well as seeing it sloshing.) Other than that, I'm loving the car. Just a little un-nerving...
I'm waiting for a ranger to visit because I have actual water sloshing around in there. (You can hear it when the boot is opened, as well as seeing it sloshing.) Other than that, I'm loving the car. Just a little un-nerving...
Fair enough, this all seems like another hassle with Tesla, I already reported these and they gave me the excuses, they should do a recall if the police classify them as defective, What happens when we are out of warranty and they state that they need replacing only to replace them with more defective ones, they shouldn't be allowed on the road if this is how they were intended to work.
Perhaps time to fill in a complaint to the driving authority if Tesla doesn't accept this.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
My hope was that informing Tesla that a police officer had stated the rear lights were defective, as a consequence of being partially obscured by water droplets, might help raise the priority of this issue, so that Tesla start to take it seriously. On my first SC visit, with the lights misted up, they just said that this was normal, and wouldn't replace them. It was only when I made it clear that the police had told me that the lights were defective that they replaced them.
TBH, I'm losing faith in Tesla's ability to fix little things like this. I'm fairly sure that I'll start seeing the misting up problem again come the winter, so may try taking the light units out and finding a proper way to seal them up.
That’s the special self-cleaning lights at work...
elliot_holder
Member
Seems to be an issue on later cars as well.
Collected mine on 12th Sept and its been in Brooklands SC for the last week having various paint and interior trim repairs/replacements..
Unfortunately on collection yesterday found they'd not even fixed all of the issues, but at least the work that had been done was of good quality so thats some consolidation I guess...
Came out to it this morning to find pretty significant condensation in the off-side rear light cluster (other side seems fine).
Hoping it disappears but if not, they can sort it when i goes back into the SC for fixing the paint which they should have fixed on the last 8 day long visit.
Collected mine on 12th Sept and its been in Brooklands SC for the last week having various paint and interior trim repairs/replacements..
Unfortunately on collection yesterday found they'd not even fixed all of the issues, but at least the work that had been done was of good quality so thats some consolidation I guess...
Came out to it this morning to find pretty significant condensation in the off-side rear light cluster (other side seems fine).
Hoping it disappears but if not, they can sort it when i goes back into the SC for fixing the paint which they should have fixed on the last 8 day long visit.
ACarneiro
Active Member
I’ve had mine since the start. When I originally pointed it out I was fobbed off.
Got worse this summer so booked a mobile appointment. Lovely Ranger came over yesterday and swapped it in literally 5 minutes
Got worse this summer so booked a mobile appointment. Lovely Ranger came over yesterday and swapped it in literally 5 minutes
I've got a mobile appointment for the 13th of this month. When I was last at the SC they saw that it had droplets in, so booked that appointment, but Sod's Law it has pretty much cleared up in that time despite being in there for weeks previously. It's like the car knows it's about to be attacked with a socket set.
My left one, which for several weeks looked like this...
...somehow cleared up just a couple of days before my SC visit. When I turned up I was told, predictably, that if they don't see water droplets in it then it won't get replaced.
The problem I have found is that because mobile & SC appointments are usually several weeks ahead, you have to hope (?) that it stays like this long enough to get swapped out.
My inner two light parts on both sides don't do this, so I refuse to believe that it's "normal" regardless of what Tesla say.
My left one, which for several weeks looked like this...
...somehow cleared up just a couple of days before my SC visit. When I turned up I was told, predictably, that if they don't see water droplets in it then it won't get replaced.
The problem I have found is that because mobile & SC appointments are usually several weeks ahead, you have to hope (?) that it stays like this long enough to get swapped out.
My inner two light parts on both sides don't do this, so I refuse to believe that it's "normal" regardless of what Tesla say.
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