DC Charging a rebuild title Tesla

[Electriccarnut]

I find it interesting that DC fast charging appears turned off on Ss but not on 3s and Ys. I also find it interesting that no one is suing Tesla yet for remotely changing a feature in a car after the car was purchased as-is-where-is with SC enabled. With my 3 I can still 3rd party charge so I'm not yet that motivated. The act of Tesla tinkering with someone's car remotely is wrong and hopefully illegal. Tesla can ban you from Supercharging by putting a guard in front of stations or putting the lockout to salvage cars into the supply equipment but they cannot turn features on and off in a car that was purchased as is where is just like they can't limit your speed, limit your power, etc... Btw that has nothing to do with Tesla owning their software. Owning software and changing vehicle features through software are completely different subjects.

Uhhh..........Yeah. Haven't heard anything about GM breaking into garages where there are salvage title corvettes and re-programming the fuel injection to reduce power because they don't want the liability. The worst of this is that Tesla allows no way back.

I definitely think there is the fabric for a damage lawsuit here.

Too bad the results of this thread are so poor so far. I was hoping to get info like "does anyone know of a salvage title Tesla causing any damage at a supercharger or any other DC charger? Only salvage title car catching fire that I know of was the first one rebuilt by Rich Rebuilds and I'm guessing that was just a learning curve issue.

 

[BritneySpears]

I think the apathy amongst viewers of this website is due to it not being their problem and some jealousy on allowing salvage vehicle owners to be on par with clean title owners as a sort of exclusive club salvage owners didn’t pay enough to be a part of. They think if you spent 50k on a 70k car you should be banished but don’t seem to put any value into the 100s of hours of time salvage owners put into their rebuild. I know people that think I just cobbled my cars back together and can’t fathom I actually did it on par with manufacturers specs.

Lastly the concept of Tesla reaching into owners cars and changing features should have nothing to do with the title of a car and should be abhorrent to everyone but again they want to punish salvage owners. It’s shadenfreunden (spelling?)

 

[teacher]

Model S, 2012, VIN 00007, salvage title, passed High Voltage Test, no supercharging. As a test, my local SC loaned me a ChaDemO adapter. I signed up with one of the independent charging networks. It did not work. Returned to SC and tech said it looked like the access to direct charging had been cut off. So, stuck with Tesla wall charger and local driving.

didn't this car have FUSC when you bought it already with salvage title? P85 Signature Model S for Sale (VIN - S00007)

 

[rodney1william]

@Electriccarnut . This just happened to me and I stand with you. 2014 MS P85, purchased with Salvage/rebuilt title, verified SC was working prior to purchase and 6 months later, they disabled my DCFC. My qualm is the same, I haven't heard of any vehicles damaging their SC or network, nor have I seen it online. Bad part is, they had no issue taking my vehicle and upgrading my MCU, out of pocket of course and I had my 12v battery replaced by them but not once did they mention that my car was deemed a hazard for them to work on or that it failed any test in their Service Center. My SC feature was there during purchase and I spoke to a Virtual Service Advisor and stated that I feel that was unfair and Tesla needs to have these features turned off prior to sale as 6 months later, it wasn't a bad sale nor was I misled but you logged into my vehicle and disabled something I've had access to, up until March 26, 2022. That proves my vehicle is safe to DCFC and why wasn't that addressed prior to my purchase or when I paid for the services at your center? As others may disagree but you see new vehicles on the side of the road, doesn't mean their can't be an underlining issue. Manufactures have recalls all the time, so a Salvage/rebuilt vehicle has no greater chance of causing issues than a off the line vehicle. If Tesla can remote into your vehicle after sale and disable features, they should be the owner of said vehicle, other wise, they stole a feature from my vehicle. To knowingly purchase a Tesla and SC is not functioning, that's the deal you took but if that feature is present, honor it, let's say, AutoPilot and FSD, if you purchase a Tesla with those features and you pay the owner $55k but without those features, you would have negotiated the price to maybe $40k, 6 months later, Tesla removes them because you were not the one that purchased them and now they want to resell the features back to you, there's no integrity in doing that and that's a dirty business practice and that's how I feel in this instance. I'm with you!

 

[Electriccarnut]

I find it interesting that DC fast charging appears turned off on Ss but not on 3s and Ys. I also find it interesting that no one is suing Tesla yet for remotely changing a feature in a car after the car was purchased as-is-where-is with SC enabled. With my 3 I can still 3rd party charge so I'm not yet that motivated. The act of Tesla tinkering with someone's car remotely is wrong and hopefully illegal. Tesla can ban you from Supercharging by putting a guard in front of stations or putting the lockout to salvage cars into the supply equipment but they cannot turn features on and off in a car that was purchased as is where is just like they can't limit your speed, limit your power, etc... Btw that has nothing to do with Tesla owning their software. Owning software and changing vehicle features through software are completely different subjects.

totally agree with that. I think that there is a winner in that. All it would take is basically a lot of money. I haven't seen much committment type of interest (as in Class Action) from owners of cars in this situation. Too bad. I'm not all that interested in going it alone since I'm getting along nicely without it. 90 percent of my driving doesn't need it and there's my ICE car that needs a run from time-to-time (a Mustang) anyway. If Elon wants me out of the ICE car he can just turn my DC charging back on.

I'm a believer that Tesla had no right to kill DC charging in this manner. I thought I heard that in the early days Tesla was buying up all the wrecks, turning off the supercharging, then selling or scrapping them. I think that would be legit since they own the car when they do it.

Denying use of superchargers is another matter.

BTW: For everybody: EVgo is putting Tesla connectors on their Chademo chargers. I had the opportunity to try one- It's official! All DC charging is cut off and with the MCU2 upgrade the car now says "Supercharging not enabled" and the charge port turns red.

 

[Electriccarnut]

@Electriccarnut . This just happened to me and I stand with you. 2014 MS P85, purchased with Salvage/rebuilt title, verified SC was working prior to purchase and 6 months later, they disabled my DCFC. My qualm is the same, I haven't heard of any vehicles damaging their SC or network, nor have I seen it online. Bad part is, they had no issue taking my vehicle and upgrading my MCU, out of pocket of course and I had my 12v battery replaced by them but not once did they mention that my car was deemed a hazard for them to work on or that it failed any test in their Service Center. My SC feature was there during purchase and I spoke to a Virtual Service Advisor and stated that I feel that was unfair and Tesla needs to have these features turned off prior to sale as 6 months later, it wasn't a bad sale nor was I misled but you logged into my vehicle and disabled something I've had access to, up until March 26, 2022. That proves my vehicle is safe to DCFC and why wasn't that addressed prior to my purchase or when I paid for the services at your center? As others may disagree but you see new vehicles on the side of the road, doesn't mean their can't be an underlining issue. Manufactures have recalls all the time, so a Salvage/rebuilt vehicle has no greater chance of causing issues than a off the line vehicle. If Tesla can remote into your vehicle after sale and disable features, they should be the owner of said vehicle, other wise, they stole a feature from my vehicle. To knowingly purchase a Tesla and SC is not functioning, that's the deal you took but if that feature is present, honor it, let's say, AutoPilot and FSD, if you purchase a Tesla with those features and you pay the owner $55k but without those features, you would have negotiated the price to maybe $40k, 6 months later, Tesla removes them because you were not the one that purchased them and now they want to resell the features back to you, there's no integrity in doing that and that's a dirty business practice and that's how I feel in this instance. I'm with you!

Thanks for that. It would seem that Tesla also has little interest in any of the cars with expired warranty. They seem to want them gone and a new plaid sold instead. I thought I heard that Tesla killed it's public relations dept some time ago.

I'm also not all that impressed with their service centers either.

I also got chased out of a HPWC I was using at a Tesla dealer. The guy said it was not for customers. More good PR!

 

[MP3Mike]

totally agree with that. I think that there is a winner in that. All it would take is basically a lot of money. I haven't seen much committment type of interest (as in Class Action) from owners of cars in this situation.

I think it would be a waste of time. If you win Tesla would probably just move the block to the Supercharger side. (Wk057 has said that they have a block list on the Superchargers already.)

Though if they are blocking CHAdeMO as well that would probably get unblocked.

 

[Electriccarnut]

I think the apathy amongst viewers of this website is due to it not being their problem and some jealousy on allowing salvage vehicle owners to be on par with clean title owners as a sort of exclusive club salvage owners didn’t pay enough to be a part of. They think if you spent 50k on a 70k car you should be banished but don’t seem to put any value into the 100s of hours of time salvage owners put into their rebuild. I know people that think I just cobbled my cars back together and can’t fathom I actually did it on par with manufacturers specs.

Lastly the concept of Tesla reaching into owners cars and changing features should have nothing to do with the title of a car and should be abhorrent to everyone but again they want to punish salvage owners. It’s shadenfreunden (spelling?)

I would think that there is value for Tesla in this! Sure is an example of how rugged the cars are if aftermarket people can repair and maintain them!

Wonder how far Chevrolet would have gotten with this kind of policy?

Curious to see if Rivian, Lucid or any of the other upstarts will have a policy like this!

 

[Fabricpath]

It's plain stupid that they turn off the SC on rebranded cars. Unless goverment get invovled nothing will change. I like Tesla and I do want to see them succeed but it doesn't make sense to certify a car that has no problems and still block SC.... people have to step up as Dr Seuss said :

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,​

Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”​

Dr. Seuss

 

[Electriccarnut]

I think it would be a waste of time. If you win Tesla would probably just move the block to the Supercharger side. (Wk057 has said that they have a block list on the Superchargers already.)

Though if they are blocking CHAdeMO as well that would probably get unblocked.

It's done in the car by modifying it's software, not in the charger although Tesla has the ability to do it at the Supercharger also. My understanding is that the superchargers will be sending the mods to the car to shut them off if somebody has restored them.

I was willing to accept Chademo or CCS only. They are getting more plentiful as time goes on.......

 

[Electriccarnut]

It's plain stupid that they turn off the SC on rebranded cars. Unless goverment get invovled nothing will change. I like Tesla and I do want to see them succeed but it doesn't make sense to certify a car that has no problems and still block SC.... people have to step up as Dr Seuss said :

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,​

Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”​

Dr. Seuss

Agreed!!!! Not enough horsepower in my retirement benefit though. That's why I bought the car. I couldn't really afford one but my enthusiasm for the technology was too much not to get in on the ground floor and I was betting that a super clean car like this with low miles would give lots of trouble-free performance and enjoyment. Price was good too! Four years of use later that has turned out to be the case. Absolutely love the car!!

 

[beatle]

BTW: For everybody: EVgo is putting Tesla connectors on their Chademo chargers. I had the opportunity to try one- It's official! All DC charging is cut off and with the MCU2 upgrade the car now says "Supercharging not enabled" and the charge port turns red.

This should get more attention. Tesla corporate scum.

 

[saflak]

Yes, I would be interested in a class action response. This policy by Tesla makes no sense, safety or otherwise, is no justification. See my post: Why Tesla's policy on banning Superchargers to salvage title Tesla owners

I own a Tesla Model S85 that has a history of salvage title-rebuild. For the first year of ownership it had supercharging capability, then....... just like the rest of you out there it suddenly quit working. The instrument cluster didn't even say that Supercharging was disabled, just that there was a problem with it. Then I found out about the Tesla policy regarding cars like this.

Although I pretty much knew what the results would be, I have carried out the following initial steps in an attempt to get supercharging enabled:
-Had the car High Voltage Safety inspected by Tesla to determine that it's HV system is not dangerous.
-Wrote an appeal for exemption to Tesla. The result: Ran headlong into "Mrs. Roboto", who Emailed me what looks like a standard letter sent to everyone with this request To Tesla's credit, at least they answered. It termed my request an "Escalation"(?) and was written to "Ryan" (That's not me. There must be a lot of others who have made a similar request) To make it short, the answer was "No".

I am looking into legal possibilities and have a few ideas. Are you interested? I can use the following information:
-Have you attempted any legal action? What was it and how far did you get?
-Have you heard of any incidents where a salvage history Tesla did harm to a Supercharger or caught fire while Supercharging?
-Have you heard of any incidents where a non-salvage titled Tesla damaged a Supercharger or caught fire while Supercharging?
-Would you be interested in a Class Action should that be a viable option?

Thanks for any info you may have. I am speaking with an attorney. "News at 11" and may the force..........Awww, you know the rest.

Electriccarnut

 

[saflak]

It's plain stupid that they turn off the SC on rebranded cars. Unless goverment get invovled nothing will change. I like Tesla and I do want to see them succeed but it doesn't make sense to certify a car that has no problems and still block SC.... people have to step up as Dr Seuss said :

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,​

Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”​

Dr. Seuss

Trying to organize as a group. There are many reasons why the Tesla policy is plain wrong, and probably legally wrong. See my post: Why Tesla's policy on banning Superchargers to salvage title Tesla owners

 

[saflak]

Tesla is under no obligation to provide you access to their charging network. I don’t know why you think legal action is going to change that.

They may not have a legal obligation, but from a moral and ethical and reputational standpoint, they need to reconsider. Why Tesla's policy on banning Superchargers to salvage title Tesla owners

 

[ucmndd]

They may not have a legal obligation, but from a moral and ethical and reputational standpoint, they need to reconsider. Why Tesla's policy on banning Superchargers to salvage title Tesla owners

I fail to see any moral or ethical considerations at play here for a corporation.

As for reputation, they have clearly decided allowing wrecked cars to use their charging network has no material impact on their reputation. I’d argue even ONE news story about a salvaged car catching fire or otherwise conspicuously malfunctioning while supercharging would have a FAR greater reputational impact than telling every salvaged car owner to “go charge somewhere else.”

I understand you don’t like that as it’s counter to your personal interests, but I find the argument as to why Tesla should reconsider lacking.

 

[saflak]

I fail to see any moral or ethical considerations at play here for a corporation.

As for reputation, they have clearly decided allowing wrecked cars to use their charging network has no material impact on their reputation. I’d argue even ONE news story about a salvaged car catching fire or otherwise malfunctioning while supercharging would have a FAR greater reputational impact than telling every salvaged car owner to go charge somewhere else.

I understand you don’t like that as it’s counter to your personal interests, but I find the argument as to why Tesla should reconsider lacking.

Have there been any salvaged Teslas catching fire at supercharger stations? I have not heard of any. Tesla is now allowing Chevy Bolts to use their chargers, and they do have a reputation for catching fire. My Tesla used the SC 100's of times as a salvaged vehicle and had no issues. Furthermore, my safety was in jeopardy as I was counting on getting charged so I could make it home, I was close to being stranded from not being warned I was now banned.

 

[Mvg1984]

Well, that's dismal! Thought I might have some responses by now. Aren't you "Unsupported" car owners interested?

I'm interested...what is the next step?

 

[ucmndd]

Tesla is now allowing Chevy Bolts to use their chargers, and they do have a reputation for catching fire.

1) Where are all these mythical Bolts using Tesla Superchargers?

2) A Chevrolet catching fire has no material reputational impact on Tesla.

 

[MP3Mike]

1) Where are all these mythical Bolts using Tesla Superchargers?

There aren't any. But there are Ampera-Es in Europe that can use a Supercharger and they should have come with the same faulty packs.