Drive Unit Replacement Poll

[kennybobby]

Now if only someone had a complete motor, inverter and gearbox somewhere mounted on a maple top workbench that could run the motor and probe various places with an oscilloscope to find those voltage waveforms, hmmm....

 

[tomas]

Now if only someone had a complete motor, inverter and gearbox somewhere mounted on a maple top workbench that could run the motor and probe various places with an oscilloscope to find those voltage waveforms, hmmm....

You do???:smile:

 

[ljwobker]

Replaced at ~26k miles due to the "milling" sound that occurs under low power accel at 20-40kW power settings.

 

[Only Trons]

Just had my DU replaced. First replacement. Looks like a "Q" unit (new?). Description found at link below (post #77)

100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 8

 

[apacheguy]

Just had my DU replaced. First replacement. Looks like a "Q" unit (new?). Description found at link below (post #77)

100% drive unit failure rate?? - Page 8

What you have there is a brand new part number as well. First report we've seen of this AFAIK.

Spoke too soon. Upon further review that unit looks quite a bit older based on the part numbers posted:

I have had 3 replacements as follows:
10548 miles on 8/29/2013 part 1002633-00-E
26455 miles on 5/27/2014 part 1025276-00-A
53640 miles on 6/25/2015 part 1025276-00-K
Last replacement was to cure a low speed high pitch whine that I couldn't hear (old age) but drove my wife crazy and she refused to take vacation until fixed.

 

[AndreyATC]

Mine was just replaced:
ASY,P-TRAIN,RMN,MDLS,SPORT,CMC,HS 1(1025598-00-P)
I hope it is one of those latest and greatest

 

[ohmman]

Mine was just replaced:
ASY,P-TRAIN,RMN,MDLS,SPORT,CMC,HS 1(1025598-00-P)
I hope it is one of those latest and greatest

I had this same replacement over the summer. So far, so good.

 

[evp]

Mine's just back from getting the drive unit replaced. It's been milling for over 5000 miles now. It was almost replaced 2-1/2 months ago, but when I got there they said they had no replacement units because they'd been "embargoed" by the factory. I interpreted that to mean they were recalled to install a longer-lasting fix. Fingers crossed. I have a brand-new "Q" part number:

I had a day to drive the loaner with autopilot. Damn, now I gotta save up and swap out my "classic" S85 for the new hotness.

 

[MrBravo]

At the last earnings call they were discussing the drive unit quality. It seems relevant to this topic:

Daniel V. Galves - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker)Okay. Maybe just to squeeze in one more. The newer drive unit, how is kind of the quality level been on that versus I think you had kind of a bigger drive unit that you used initially for the first couple of years?
Elon Reeve Musk - Chairman & Chief Executive OfficerYeah, right now, we're actually very happy with the quality of the drive units. I mean, internally, our goal – we changed the goal of the drive unit endurance from being approximately 200,000 miles to being 1 million miles. Just basically we want drive units that just never wear out. That's our goal. And I think we've made really good progress in that direction. So the drive units going out now and for the last several months have been excellent. So...
Jeffrey B. Straubel - Chief Technology OfficerYeah, we should probably note that, I mean, we've also made improvements to the large drive unit and those issues were really limited to early population large drive units. So today we hold the same standard on both units that are being built.
Elon Reeve Musk - Chairman & Chief Executive OfficerYeah, exactly. There was like this one period of time where we had, I mean, it was like that was getting into the weeds, like we transitioned from manual, just before we transitioned to automatic grease injection into the spline of the large drive unit, we had variation in how much grease was put into the spline. And if not enough grease was put into the spline, it would have premature wear. That's, like, one example. But other than that, the large drive units have been great.

 

[kennybobby]

Wow what a wealth of information those guys shared...so now there is another explanation--spline grease!

So it must have been the motor splines, since the differential output splines for the drive shafts would be accessible by a service center to just pull out, clean, and add more grease.

 

[Forty Creek]

That earnings call info seems confusing. So, if you happen to have an older car, what exactly is the new DU fix?

 

[tomas]

Tesla is consistent in one thing: when Musk or JB talk about something being "fixed", or "improved", or "solved", it is only for NEW units... probably not re-manufactured. Their entire though processes is focused on the cars they are building NOW. They do a decent job of rolling advancements back into prior cars when it is not too difficult. So, question for us "classic" owners will always be whether the newer, better drive unit improvements are retro-fitted during re-manufacturing, or whether they are only in new units. And, next question is how do you know you got a new unit? And, since my understanding is that classic 85s and P85s have different drive units, are they also different from the current 85 or rear 85D units? And, if so, will they ever make new ones, or will we always be re-manufactured.

Given Tesla's tight lipped approach on this, I suspect the only way we will ever know is if this thread dries up and reports of DU "milling" just cease.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Tesla is consistent in one thing: when Musk or JB talk about something being "fixed", or "improved", or "solved", it is only for NEW units... probably not re-manufactured. Their entire though processes is focused on the cars they are building NOW. They do a decent job of rolling advancements back into prior cars when it is not too difficult. So, question for us "classic" owners will always be whether the newer, better drive unit improvements are retro-fitted during re-manufacturing, or whether they are only in new units. And, next question is how do you know you got a new unit? And, since my understanding is that classic 85s and P85s have different drive units, are they also different from the current 85 or rear 85D units? And, if so, will they ever make new ones, or will we always be re-manufactured.

Given Tesla's tight lipped approach on this, I suspect the only way we will ever know is if this thread dries up and reports of DU "milling" just cease.

I don't believe Elon for one minute on this issue. I respect him greatly, but he's obfuscating. A year ago he said it was cable ties and other non-DU things causing vibration. Now he says it's spline grease. If we are to believe him, these are easy things to fix. Yet for over 2 years now, remanufactured DUs have been exhibiting the same issues. You'd think, if it were only a matter of grease, that could very easily be addressed in a remanufactured unit. As could loose cable ties. Yet problems persist. I don't believe Tesla on this. There is something they aren't telling us.

 

[tomas]

I don't believe Elon for one minute on this issue. I respect him greatly, but he's obfuscating. A year ago he said it was cable ties and other non-DU things causing vibration. Now he says it's spline grease. If we are to believe him, these are easy things to fix. Yet for over 2 years now, remanufactured DUs have been exhibiting the same issues. You'd think, if it were only a matter of grease, that could very easily be addressed in a remanufactured unit. As could loose cable ties. Yet problems persist. I don't believe Tesla on this. There is something they aren't telling us.

You missed my point. I was saying, anything Elon says (true or not) about "solving" drive unit issues applies to NEW units only. You cannot count on all improvements flowing back into re-manufactured units. I'm sure that new drive units are better than old ones. Maybe not 1,000,000 miles, but better and reflecting whatever Tesla is learning. I'm not sure that re-manufactured ones are.

 

[apacheguy]

Pretty sure a new -Q unit and reman -Q unit carry the same hardware components. The revision increments seem to be in sync with each other which is good evidence of this.

 

[Vger]

My Sig P85 just got its second DU replacement. The first replacement was for the "milling" sound. This time the noise was different. Tesla Service gave a detailed diagnosis which you can see here, in case it helps understand the issues:

Note that this is a "P" unit but stated as the "sport" variant for the P85. Also note that I did not push them do do it; they made the determination on their own.

The car is at ~103,000 kms. I could not track down the invoice to confirm when the first one was replaced, but I think it was at around 50-60,000 kms.

 

[cwerdna]

At the last earnings call they were discussing the drive unit quality. It seems relevant to this topic:

Elon Reeve Musk - Chairman & Chief Executive OfficerYeah, right now, we're actually very happy with the quality of the drive units. I mean, internally, our goal – we changed the goal of the drive unit endurance from being approximately 200,000 miles to being 1 million miles. Just basically we want drive units that just never wear out. That's our goal. And I think we've made really good progress in that direction. So the drive units going out now and for the last several months have been excellent. So...
Jeffrey B. Straubel - Chief Technology OfficerYeah, we should probably note that, I mean, we've also made improvements to the large drive unit and those issues were really limited to early population large drive units. So today we hold the same standard on both units that are being built.
Elon Reeve Musk - Chairman & Chief Executive OfficerYeah, exactly. There was like this one period of time where we had, I mean, it was like that was getting into the weeds, like we transitioned from manual, just before we transitioned to automatic grease injection into the spline of the large drive unit, we had variation in how much grease was put into the spline. And if not enough grease was put into the spline, it would have premature wear. That's, like, one example. But other than that, the large drive units have been great.

Interesting that they stated their previous goal. I don't think anyone here has made it to 200K miles on their Model S. And, it sure seems like there are very few high mileage (e.g. over 50K miles) Model S that haven't had their DU replaced at least once already. Wonder if their goal was approx. 200K miles all along? Did they actually meet or exceed it reliably in internal testing? What % failed or developed excessive noise before that?

As for "the drive units going out now and for the last several months have been excellent..." well, there have been pretty early DU failures on recent cars, including the D models.

 

[markb1]

My Model S is at the service center now for a drive unit replacement. Earlier in the year, I starting hearing a clunking noise, and the service center told me the drive unit needed to be replaced, and they would order one for me. I never heard back from them about that. Then yesterday, suddenly, it started making a rhythmic scraping noise while driving and a squealing noise whenever regen kicked in. Took it into service without an appointment, and they found the noise concerning enough (mostly because the tech hadn't heard this particular noise before) that they made time to take the car in and replace the drive unit the same day.

 

[Btr_ftw]

Many of the rear drive units were manufactured with inadequate grease which will eventually lead to a clunk or whining noise under acceleration, leading to premature wear of the drive unit. It depends on how long the drive unit has been making the noise or having symptoms for if it warrants a replacement or not, also depends on if the unit has been replaced before, if it has then they typically discourage a second replacement but it does depend on the noise level of the unit.

If no prior replacement they will typically drop the unit and replace with a unit that has re manufactured shims

 

[JRP3]

I don't believe Elon for one minute on this issue. I respect him greatly, but he's obfuscating. A year ago he said it was cable ties and other non-DU things causing vibration. Now he says it's spline grease. If we are to believe him, these are easy things to fix. Yet for over 2 years now, remanufactured DUs have been exhibiting the same issues. You'd think, if it were only a matter of grease, that could very easily be addressed in a remanufactured unit. As could loose cable ties. Yet problems persist. I don't believe Tesla on this. There is something they aren't telling us.

While that may be true I think to be fair there were multiple issues going on with the drive units, so all the items he's mentioned probably were issues at various times on various drives. His actual quote on the spline grease was:

There was like this one period of time where we had, I mean, it was like that was getting into the weeds, like we transitioned from manual, just before we transitioned to automatic grease injection into the spline of the large drive unit, we had variation in how much grease was put into the spline. And if not enough grease was put into the spline, it would have premature wear. That's, like, one example.

Bolding mine. We've had balloon squeal, milling noise, clunking, outright failure, and maybe some other noises that I'm forgetting, so it's likely that different drives had different issues at different times. Hopefully they've eliminated all the issues by now.