Does anyone think MCU1 is fine?

[Akikiki]

Are you sure about that? I'm 74 and feel like I could live forever.

HA HA, LOL, Michael. You and plain old rocks will likely live forever.

Amended to add "And we hope you live forever, "

 

[plumazul]

I have a Heidelberg Windmill (printing press - jack of all trades type) at my business that I think was made in 1946. It says "made in the US Zone of Germany" (West Germany). We run it almost every day and it must have millions upon millions of impressions. And it still runs great as long as you oil it and replace the rubber elements. So yes everything eventually dies, but some things, if built well, will last a hell of a long time. Those Germans...

That's impressive. Perhaps it will outlive the B-52 or the B-52s?

 

[Altes]

Technically the failure rate of anything is eventually 100% and the mortality rate of the human race is also 100%

Does anyone understand "expected lifetime"? If someone dies at 40 it's like whoa WTF, If someone dies at 80 or 90, they had a good life.... For F-ucks sake I have 10 year old laptops running automated testing 24/7 for months at a time doing JUST FINE. No yellow screens, no mysterious reboots, no "excessive logging failures" and HEY GUESS WHAT If they do experience memory write failures i can replace the memory!!!
I would write it off to wear and tear if it failed at ten years but it failed in four years, like a great many others, some were lucky and got in under the wire under warranty. Either Tesla has no idea what their doing and released an MCU without accelerated age testing or they new EXACTLY what they were doing and used the MCU to do their data gathering at the customers expense (insuring they logged maximum amount of data in warranty period before EMMC failure). SO negligence or bad faith, take your pick

 

[Akikiki]

 

[tobasuyi]

It has 30k miles. I bought it used from Tesla 3 weeks ago so the warranty is to 80k miles. Prior to purchase I had planned to upgrade when available but now that I’ve been driving it for a few weeks I questioned whether it’s worth it. If there is minimal downside to waiting a year or two I will probably wait. If there is a reason to upgrade sooner than later I will probably go for it.

My 2017 MX is currently at the Tesla service Center for FSD v3 and MCU2 upgrade. The MCU2 performance is way better than MCU1. It's almost like getting a new car for $2500. If you plan on keeping your car for at least 4 years or more, I would say YES get the MCU2 upgrade, and especially if you have FSD. Tesla will be releasing more software updates in the next few weeks/months that MCU1 may not be able to perform very well. Personally I think it's worth the price of $2500.

 

[tobasuyi]

I am going on week 3 of my first Tesla - used 2017 model x 75d. MCU1 is so much better than any car I’ve ever owned and seems amazing to me. Is MCU2 REALLY worth the $2500? Am I missing something?

I just picked up my car from the Service center after installing the new MCU2. It's like night and day. It's so fast and you'll notice the difference right-away. Like I have said before in this forum, going from MCU1 to MCU2 is like getting the same model car but a newer version but without paying a new car price. And it's even better if you have AP and FSD. Moreover, MCU1 may not be able to support future Tesla software releases. I would advice you to get it (if you have $$$) to do so.............it's worth it.

 

[BrownOuttaSpec]

I am going on week 3 of my first Tesla - used 2017 model x 75d. MCU1 is so much better than any car I’ve ever owned and seems amazing to me. Is MCU2 REALLY worth the $2500? Am I missing something?

When I got my 2016 MS90D in May of 2019 my MCU1 was decently fast and the browser actually kind of worked, I was very skeptical of people on these forums saying how slow it was, but over the last year it gets a tiny bit slower every day and the browser is unusable for more than 1-2 web pages after a reboot. I think what you are seeing is that your MCU1 was wiped so it runs faster but over time your computer's memory will collect logs, GPS destinations, geo-locate places where you raise your suspension and all other kinds of data and will get slower and slower and then eventually fail (It may be tomorrow or may be in 5 years).


I plan to get the $2500 MCU2 upgrade when its available for AP1 people but if i didn't I would at least do the MCU1 eMMC 3rd party upgrade to a more resilient chip. Check out this page for more info about MCU1 failure and the replacement.: Consolidated eMMC Thread (MCU repair) (Black Center Screen)

 

[plumazul]

I just picked up my car from the Service center after installing the new MCU2. It's like night and day. It's so fast and you'll notice the difference right-away. Like I have said before in this forum, going from MCU1 to MCU2 is like getting the same model car but a newer version but without paying a new car price. And it's even better if you have AP and FSD. Moreover, MCU1 may not be able to support future Tesla software releases. I would advice you to get it (if you have $$$) to do so.............it's worth it.

If this does happen, that might be the point where Tesla will negotiate on the radio?

 

[Akikiki]

I am going on week 3 of my first Tesla - used 2017 model x 75d. MCU1 is so much better than any car I’ve ever owned and seems amazing to me. Is MCU2 REALLY worth the $2500? Am I missing something?

If these reports from other owners that upgraded to MCU2 don't convince you, go down to your local store and drive a X or S that's newer than '18. You don't even need to drive it. Sit in it and use the screen.

Aside from the leapfrog improvement in performance, the assurance of a 4 year warranty on this part; simply getting off MCU1's eMMC that underserves the car firmware and operation and doing it on my timetable is worth the money. I'm just pleased as punch they didn't charge us what this is really worth - double what they charge us.

 

[Akikiki]

I won't get it. It's typical Tesla arrogance that they would propose an "upgrade" that removes options that you paid for when you bought the car, and then offer no other solution. This is similar to how they've striped options from the new S. You take what they offer or forget it. I've owned my S for almost 3 years, I usually buy a new car after 4. It won't be a Tesla. It WILL be a car with a roof that will open, just like I have now.

That's okay with us. Why wait another year?

 

[mxnym]

the assurance of a 4 year warranty on this part

First I've heard of that. Is this in writing somewhere?

 

[Akikiki]

yes.

 

[Hwood]

MCU1 is fine - until it breaks or until you use the console in a 3/Y or MCU2..
Think about this way: if you've only seen one iphone in your life and it's a iPhone 5.. pretty cool and it does all you need, and it's absolutely amazing...

Like your metaphor. If MCU1 is iPhone 5, what do you say MCU2? iPhone 11? Really that much difference? They don’t even raise the screen resolution or make the screen even bigger lol

 

[Hwood]

Does anyone know of a factory spec sheet on MCU2 upgrade benefits.sounds like it’s surrounded by lots of “here say”. I’ve been considering it because of being tired to the sluggish response of MCU1.

Same asking. Is there any spec sheet for MCU2?

 

[chillaban]

Like your metaphor. If MCU1 is iPhone 5, what do you say MCU2? iPhone 11? Really that much difference? They don’t even raise the screen resolution or make the screen even bigger lol

I think that’s kind of the beauty of the analogy. For some people iPhone 5 and iPhone 11 are basically the same thing. To others they are a world apart given the latter has 50x the total compute power and breezes through operations that makes the iPhone 5 choke like vectorized maps and so on.


A few years ago I upgraded my parents’ main computer from a 1GHz Pentium 3 to a modern 8-core Core i7 with a SSD. For techies that’s such a huge improvement — showed them how Chrome doesn’t take 30 seconds to open and how webpages don’t take a minute (literally) to render. They are not as impressed, as far as they’re concerned it still does the same thing that it did before.

 

[plumazul]

That's okay with us. Why wait another year?

Because I have another year of full warranty.

My question to you: Does your fandom have any limits?? Or is it some kind of abusive relationship?

 

[manttium]

Do you think Tesla would discount the upgrade cost to MCU2 if MCU1 failed under warranty? Logically, it would make sense: they would spend $1700-x dollars internally, where $1700 is the quoted cost to replace the MCU1 under warranty, and x is their markup. So presumably they would be ahead of the game if they offered to instead replace the broken MCU1 with an upgraded MCU2 by discounting its installation by by $1700-x-y, where y is an additional margin to make sure they are making money. Win-win!

Unfortunately, I kind of doubt that they would do this.

Either way, this is my plan. I just bought a 2017 100D as a CPO with 2 years of warranty. If my MCU1 fails before the warranty is up, I will ask about the upgrade. If it doesn't fail under the warranty period, I will upgrade a few months before the warranty expires. Who knows, maybe they will have MCU3 by then ;-)

My reasoning is - and to answer OP's question - MCU1 is fine with me. I have a P3D, and yes loading maps and such is faster, but I don’t care about web browsing, Netflix, games, etc. - I have a perfectly fine phone that I keep upgraded that is more than capable of doing all of these things - so I’m ok waiting. The loss of FM radio is actually a bigger deal to me. The ability to rapidly change between morning talk shows is very useful to me! My only hesitation is the map loading speed - it does get frustrating at times when trying to load new destinations quickly after plans change, and viewing traffic updates on the fly.

 

[mkhalasi85]

Do you think Tesla would discount the upgrade cost to MCU2 if MCU1 failed under warranty? Logically, it would make sense: they would spend $1700-x dollars internally, where $1700 is the quoted cost to replace the MCU1 under warranty, and x is their markup. So presumably they would be ahead of the game if they offered to instead replace the broken MCU1 with an upgraded MCU2 by discounting its installation by by $1700-x-y, where y is an additional margin to make sure they are making money. Win-win!

Unfortunately, I kind of doubt that they would do this.

Either way, this is my plan. I just bought a 2017 100D as a CPO with 2 years of warranty. If my MCU1 fails before the warranty is up, I will ask about the upgrade. If it doesn't fail under the warranty period, I will upgrade a few months before the warranty expires. Who knows, maybe they will have MCU3 by then ;-)

My reasoning is - and to answer OP's question - MCU1 is fine with me. I have a P3D, and yes loading maps and such is faster, but I don’t care about web browsing, Netflix, games, etc. - I have a perfectly fine phone that I keep upgraded that is more than capable of doing all of these things - so I’m ok waiting. The loss of FM radio is actually a bigger deal to me. The ability to rapidly change between morning talk shows is very useful to me! My only hesitation is the map loading speed - it does get frustrating at times when trying to load new destinations quickly after plans change, and viewing traffic updates on the fly.

My 2016 MX is in for service right now. It went in for a 12v battery replacement but I got a call saying the MCU needs to be replaced as well. I asked if they would be replacing it with the MCU2 and the gentleman stated No. It would be replaced with whatever came with the car. Now I'm wondering if I should ask about upgrading right now instead of waiting till a later date. I am still in warranty for another 10k miles. Although I did see a post recently stating the MCU warranty is now 2 Years or 25k miles, which ever comes first.

 

[Akikiki]

Yes, you should ask, if you are interested/willing to pay for the $2500 upgrade. You will not get it for free, just because MCU1 is failing. Your '16 is in the window to be allowed/offered for MCU2

Likely the wording of your request threw him a curve. If you are willing to pay, call or text him and tell him.

 

[manttium]

@mkhalasi85 - this is exactly the scenario I was envisioning. I would argue that Tesla will pay $x dollars to replace MCU1 under warranty if I don't say anything, so why don't I upgrade to MCU2 for a discount (perhaps less than $x for Tesla's own margins)? This will save Tesla money, and make you happy by upgrading to MCU2 at less cost than it normally would. It's a win-win in my books.