I can't say Tesla "handled it well" if they haven't notified the affected owners.
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Charge ports may not be tracked as closely as safety (TREAD Act) items. I.e. no individual serial number scanned and logged against VIN. So they wouldn't know which owners of previously sold vehicles were impacted. That said, if they could identify the errant lot, they could bulk warn everyone with cars built after that point. Heck, could even have a pop up warning on the center display for cars that have never supercharged.
I actually think this is happening to me, kind of a normalization of the Tesla experience. If I go to my car and the screen reboots now, I hardly notice, but during my first few months I was on the phone with the SC Manager. I guess at some point you end up deciding whether to live with the quirks and issues if you keep the car otherwise every day would be a bad day, and the car is really great when it is working properly
Might be the 5 stages of Tesla Ownership:
Excitement - This car is awesome, it is so fast and smooth --> First Major Issue (Note some never leave this phase)
Anger - This thing is a POS, and I hate it --> Issue rectified, but with some pain dealing with Tesla processes
Bargaining - If this thing has one more issue I will file for Lemon Law Protection --> Next Issue
Depression - I cannot believe I spent over $100k on this thing that is making me miserable and why does everyone at the SC know my name????
Acceptance - OK, I am willing to live with all the faults and I think I have the major issues fixed for the most part, now I just need periodic SC visits for rattles and to fix whatever the next FW version breaks.
I think I am probably at Stage 5 now with my S and Stage 4 with my X, moving to Stage 5.
Interesting take on it. I’m definitely a stage 2. Hate hate hate my car but very glad most of y’all are having no trouble and love yours. My favorite SVC manager was not at my local svc when they asked me to come trade the rental van for a tesla, after we broke down on that trip. When she got there the next day they told her what had happened and how upset and angry I was. She told me her response was, “Oh no! He’s always so happy, excited, and loves us. And now we broke him.” Yup. I wish they didn’t know me from Adam.
There's certainly a range; they don't need to know exactly which cars were affected. Notify every owner in that range.
They had no problems notifying every owner over that seatbelt issue even though it didn't affect the vast majority of us (were there any confirmed cases of folks actually getting theirs replaced?)
mkspeedr
Member
What type of $100K car gets this type of treatment.
I can personally check off Porsche and Aston Martin not doing it.
It comes down to how smart is their smart factory.
Tracking lot codes to VIN serial numbers for every part is complicated. Tracking lot codes to a range of VIN serial numbers is much easier.
A TS 16949 automotive supplier in theory should not ship bad parts but it happens every day....
whitex
Well-Known Member
I've never been stuck in a Porsche or owned an Aston, but have a friend whose Toyota Tercel roadside assistance allowed her to tow up to 150km as many times as needed. Her car broke down once over a long weekend, she had it towed to the camping site (original destination), then 2 days later back home to a Toyota dealer. We joked it was cheaper than her driving herself, except she had to wait for the tow truck each time.
Off topic, but it sounds like a couple of Tesla Powerwalls might be of some use at your home.
Again, there is no need for them to know exactly which cars were affected.
They can simply bound it by production date given the reports of this issue that they have received thus far and what they know about the parts that they ordered from the supplier. Even if they can only narrow it down to all cars produced in 2017, there's no harm in sending it to owners who are not affected. That's why I cited the seatbelt case, where they also knew most owners weren't affected yet notified everyone anyways. In this case, an owner who's already supercharged is going to know his port is fine and disregard. An owner who hasn't supercharged, but has no trips planned where they will need supercharging is probably going to ignore until he has such a trip planned or has to bring the car in for service anyways, or when they can check it with minimal inconvenience. An owner like the OP, who has a tripped planned, is probably going to take that 2 hour trip to/fro the supercharger to ensure the family isn't inconvenienced on the trip where supercharging is needed. Owners in all three buckets are going to appreciate Tesla for looking out for owners.
mdk1a
Member
Thanks. I appreciate the suggestions, but I'm still not convinced I have the same issue, if there's even one in my case. I've been able to charge at home pretty much every day for over a month now with practically no issue. And it took me 1-2 seconds extra to make it work at not one, but two Superchargers. It's taking me longer to write this paragraph than the combined extra time that it will probably take me to use the Supercharges for all my road trips this year. I simply consider it to be a non-issue for me.
On a side note, I find all this discussion over Tesla's "attitude" to its customers or the quality of the cars it makes interesting. I have owned cars from about 10 different manufacturers over my lifetime and there have always been flaws with either the company or the car. Every single damn one of them. I've just learned a long time ago to be more of a realist and not a perfectionist regardless of how much I pay, simply because there are other and better things in life to worry about. There's a limit to this, of course, and what it looks like is probably different for different people.
I did a lot of research before buying my S75D. Telsa to me is a flawed but intriguing company producing flawed but intriguing cars. It is what it is. If you demand perfection or "standard" behavior from them, well, you're likely going to be disappointed. In many ways, I feel like buying a car from them is even more of rolling the dice. In my case, I was, and still am, willing to do so because the intrigue factor, existing owners' satisfaction, and that my wanting to support the overall EV technology far outweigh the flaws with the company and my car (for which there are definitely several). Most importantly, if you decide to do it, you may want to take some precautionary measures to mitigate the risks. For example, in my case, I deliberately added the rental car coverage to the auto insurance policy for my Tesla just in case any fixes take longer (like they are prone to do based on my research), something that I'd never done with any of my previous cars. You may also want to just better plan ahead before taking it for any extended road trips, which includes things like testing the Supercharger if you've never tried it at all and are really concerned about it. By all means, push them to get better when/where you can, but if you're ultimately that unhappy with Tesla or your S/X/3, let your action and money do all the talking by having someone else have your business. It's just not worth the stress. Plus, if you really want to get their attention, there's probably no better way to do it.
Some lubricants can also trap dirt and grime, causing buildup inside of the supercharger plug and your charge port.
The problem does not manifest itself in home charging, so that is not really something that needs comparing notes anyway.
I of course have no information whether or not you have a problematic charging port, just noting that AFAIK normally no extra effort is needed to operate Superchargers even with the U.S. port. So if you do have to use extra effort, that happens to be the (only) symptom of the charge port issue. It certainly is possible you have no issue and your description was related to something else like a problematic Supercharger. And naturally I have even less basis on telling you what you should do about it.
So, consider it just FYI.Historically speaking, posting on TMC seems to be the best way of reaching Tesla. We call it the TMC escalation.
An update on this whole ordeal...
I contacted the Oakville SC to get the port replaced. They were gracious and fit me in for today - which was my first availability. At the time we booked I was told it would take about an hour to complete the repair.
Arrived and the car was taken in right away.
That was four hours ago.
Still sitting in the SC. Apparently they need to update the firmware before releasing the car due to the new charge port. They appear to be having problems doing so.
They just now suggested sending me home in a loaner and getting the car when they can update properly. There seems to be little concern that it’s a two hour round trip for me.
Needless to say my patience is starting to wear a little thin with this.....
I contacted the Oakville SC to get the port replaced. They were gracious and fit me in for today - which was my first availability. At the time we booked I was told it would take about an hour to complete the repair.
Arrived and the car was taken in right away.
That was four hours ago.
Still sitting in the SC. Apparently they need to update the firmware before releasing the car due to the new charge port. They appear to be having problems doing so.
They just now suggested sending me home in a loaner and getting the car when they can update properly. There seems to be little concern that it’s a two hour round trip for me.
Needless to say my patience is starting to wear a little thin with this.....
The firmware updates do take a long time. I have the same problem...more than two hours round trip. I have spent about 35 hours on the road taking mine in for problems. Now they are flat bedding a loaner to me and picking mine up on the flat bed to take back to the SVC tomorrow because as I told them...I just cant stomach another road trip to the SVC for more repairs. I hope your problems are short lived and few between.
clostridium
Member
Do they have a supercharger in the service center there after all? It would definitely be more than nice for you to have the satisfaction of knowing that the new port works fine before finding out the hard way.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Let's hope they have a standard supercharger sized plug, or it's one of those "we hope we fixed it, but have no way to verify it" scenarios.
I can see a pissed off customer one day arriving with a ripped off supercharger cable claiming "here, I can show it to you now".
sakimano
Active Member
Your map skills are failing you. He lives in cambridge Ontario Canada. There is a newly opened supercharger there that opened this week. The next closest supercharger is in Woodstock or Grimsby. They're each an hr from where the op lives. And then an hr home.
Damn, emergency charging stop for 90 minutes with a pissed off wife.
Every minute of a late night 17 minute (notice I still remember the exact duration) charging stop in my Bolt during a recent road trip was bad with a ticked wife next to me..... couldn't imagine 90 minutes. Time must have felt like it stopped.
