A friend of ours just bought a 2021 M3 with FSD, is that going to stay is it going to be deleted?
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FSD on a used car
- Thread starter Lucas007
- Start date
btownalset
Member
It’ll stay with the car.
Edit - sorry read the question wrong. It depends on if it went thru Tesla at any point in time during from when sold with FSD to when your friend bought. If your friend bought it from the original owner, yes it’ll stay. If it was bought from a dealer that got it wholesale from Tesla, tesla has been known to remove it whenever they (Tesla) audits their systems.
Edit - sorry read the question wrong. It depends on if it went thru Tesla at any point in time during from when sold with FSD to when your friend bought. If your friend bought it from the original owner, yes it’ll stay. If it was bought from a dealer that got it wholesale from Tesla, tesla has been known to remove it whenever they (Tesla) audits their systems.
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The answer is "it depends" on....
1. Whether your friend purchased the car from the person who purchased it from tesla, and that person purchased the car from tesla with FSD
2. Whether the was traded into tesla, and then sent to auction, then purchased by some other dealer to sell to your friend.
3. whether the FSD on the car is actually the fully purchased FSD, or a subscription
So, there is no way for you to know or for your friend to know either. They do not know the chain of custody of the vehicle, meaning they dont know where the car dealer bought it from.
If the car dealer (which by the way you said it, is likely not tesla) bought it directly from the person who bought it from tesla, AND the person who bought it from tesla paid for the feature (and didnt subscribe to it), then it will stay.
If the car dealer bought it from auction, you have no idea if that car was traded into tesla or not. It sucks, but in my opinion, FSD as a vehicle option is only worth something if you:
1. Buy it from Tesla
2. Buy it directly from someone who bought the car from tesla, and they can prove they bought it and didnt subscribe to it.
In no other case would "I" every pay extra for a vehicle because it has FSD.
Now, if the "car dealer" advertised the vehicle as having FSD, if it goes away, they are on the hook for providing it... but you will almost assuredly find that they did not advertise the vehicle as specifically having FSD.
So, neither we, nor your friend knows if its going to stay.
Im trying to figure this out too as I am in the market for a 3. I was just on the Tesla site and spoke with someone via chat. They said 100%, if a car is used and purchased through a non-Tesla dealer, the FSD will be removed once I purchase it and transfer it to me.
So now I'm thinking of just finding a LR with AB, or a performance. And, if i want FSD I'll just subscribe to it.
So now I'm thinking of just finding a LR with AB, or a performance. And, if i want FSD I'll just subscribe to it.
They also cant know that, because they dont know if the used car dealer bought the car from auction, or bought the car directly from the first owner and is now selling it.
There is absolutely, positively, 1000000000000% no way to know for a used car purchased from a non tesla vehicle dealer, regardless of what tesla says on the matter. It could or it couldnt, however it would be better to "assume" it wont since there is no way to track the custody of the car on the dealers lot.
Doesnt it show up on the carfax? It says when the car was registered and when/where it was sold. I just saw a car from some dealer on CarGurus, and in the carfax it showed "sold at auction"
Seems like that would be pretty easy to know. But this woman Sarah from the Tesla chat said that regardless, if its bought from a used car dealer, the FSD will be taken away once I transfer it to my name/account. Which in itself is absurd because someone already paid for that option.
Carfax does not = a full history of every cars ownership journey, so no, carfax will not tell you for every vehicle.
I think the scenarios pointed out by jjrandorin where the previously-paid FSD is removed are where the used vehicle has been traded back to Tesla at some point. By Tesla's own twisted logic, once they own it again, they can strip the car of any physical or digital parts, and then re-sell it in a different condition than the first time it is sold.
The fundamental problem with their logic is that they frequently forget to actually "remove" said digital licenses from the car, so the car goes to dealer auction with a bunch of software-enabled features that Tesla may or may not consider licensed. The used-car dealers purchase at auction thus without knowing (or caring), sell it "as-is". The new buyer can look at photos or screens showing certain feature are working, may test-drive that certain features are working - but when they go to actually register said used car in their Tesla account after buying it, Tesla will then strip the car of the digital licenses...
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
This is simply an internal IT problem at Tesla. One trivially fixed but their internal IT sucks and they've put not effort into changing that.
Anyway, trying to sum up:
If you buy a used Tesla and it never, ever, went BACK to being owned by Tesla, and it has paid-for FSD, that stays with the car- period full stop.
If you buy a used Tesla and it DID go BACK to being owned by Tesla, even if just for a day before going to auction, then there's a chance it will lose FSD even if it has it when you initially buy it used.
Essentially when Tesla owns it they flag FSD removal on the back end system- but this doesn't automatically get immediately pushed out to the car itself- nor do they have any check in place to prevent the car from going to auction before this update is pushed and received. Hence why you get stuff like the guy who bought it from a dealer post-auction- FSD having shown on the car AT auction, but it vanished once the update actually got to the car after the auction. A simple sell-block in Teslas system until the update is acknowledged as received from the vehicle fixes this- as would an auto-push/receive check WHEN the back end flag is changed- but they can't be bothered to add either.
Anyway, trying to sum up:
If you buy a used Tesla and it never, ever, went BACK to being owned by Tesla, and it has paid-for FSD, that stays with the car- period full stop.
If you buy a used Tesla and it DID go BACK to being owned by Tesla, even if just for a day before going to auction, then there's a chance it will lose FSD even if it has it when you initially buy it used.
Essentially when Tesla owns it they flag FSD removal on the back end system- but this doesn't automatically get immediately pushed out to the car itself- nor do they have any check in place to prevent the car from going to auction before this update is pushed and received. Hence why you get stuff like the guy who bought it from a dealer post-auction- FSD having shown on the car AT auction, but it vanished once the update actually got to the car after the auction. A simple sell-block in Teslas system until the update is acknowledged as received from the vehicle fixes this- as would an auto-push/receive check WHEN the back end flag is changed- but they can't be bothered to add either.
thesmokingman
Active Member
If that car had ever passed thru Tesla's possession then it could be removed at any time.
Got it. That’s what I understood until the Tesla chat rep said otherwise.
I guess if I go to a used dealer I have do try and find proof that the vehicle was sold by its first owner or something. And pray. Lol.
Tho I don’t mind paying the subscription for long trips, it’s more of the thinking it already has it when it doesn’t. So I guess searching for a used car with fsd might not be as important anymore.
Thanks y’all
android04
Active Member
You can also try to get the used car dealer to make a written guarantee in the sales documents that the car includes the Full Self Driving software license, and go after them if it gets removed later (though this can screw them over if they are ignorant of how the FSD licensing works, but at least they would learn to do some due diligence on future Tesla trade-ins). Or just always assume the car doesn't come with FSD from the used car dealer and only be willing to pay the appropriate price for it. Finally, you can have the dealer try to get info from the seller (if it was a private sale) on whether and when they bought FSD (and print out the receipt for it that shows up on their Tesla account).
