Gen 3 charger from ebay - warning

[munkypuzel]

I purchased a brand new and sealed in a a box Gen 3 charger from Ebay - this saved me around £100. Some might say, why? Why save £100 and risk failure without warranty?

Well the answer to that is simple. I have spent years buying this way and saved thousands of pounds on new and almost new goods, so my philosophy is - if something does fails then I suck it up and move on. In the long run the savings have been well worth it due to general reliability of 'stuff' these days.

So- the Gen 3 worked faultlessly for 3 months- then failed. Dead. will not charge- permanent blue light- will not communicate with the car. The warning as such, is that when researching this, there seemed to be a lot of early failures of these due to an unspecified component overheating. I do wonder how these wall chargers have made their way to ebay and if they could be old batches that should have been destroyed/fixed? I have no way of knowing, its just guesswork and I may have just been unlucky..

Unbelievably, without going into detail, Tesla have honoured a warranty claim for me and have sent me a brand new one, but if you are going to buy like I did- Do not rely on this process - I consider myself very lucky!

 

[GRiLLA]

I'm always going to ask why is something cheaper on eBay etc. If there is a sensible reason then all good, but if not I'm not going to support whatever's been going on.

I buy a lot of electronics from Amazon Warehouse, never been disappointed with what I've received.

 

[Godsense]

Me also with Amazon warehouse but Amazons return policy is miles better and or different to eBay.
I used to use eBay alot for similar reasons to the OP but it mostly seems to much trouble and hassle these days.

 

[ACarneiro]

I purchased a brand new and sealed in a a box Gen 3 charger from Ebay - this saved me around £100. Some might say, why? Why save £100 and risk failure without warranty?

Well the answer to that is simple. I have spent years buying this way and saved thousands of pounds on new and almost new goods, so my philosophy is - if something does fails then I suck it up and move on. In the long run the savings have been well worth it due to general reliability of 'stuff' these days.

So- the Gen 3 worked faultlessly for 3 months- then failed. Dead. will not charge- permanent blue light- will not communicate with the car. The warning as such, is that when researching this, there seemed to be a lot of early failures of these due to an unspecified component overheating. I do wonder how these wall chargers have made their way to ebay and if they could be old batches that should have been destroyed/fixed? I have no way of knowing, its just guesswork and I may have just been unlucky..

Unbelievably, without going into detail, Tesla have honoured a warranty claim for me and have sent me a brand new one, but if you are going to buy like I did- Do not rely on this process - I consider myself very lucky!

Whilst this is a perfectly valid point of view for the “usual tat” on eBay, it may not be so wise when dealing with high power kit which could have catastrophic, safety of life failure modes (although these are admitted quite unlikely).
Stuff that deals with up to 11kW for hours on end is too serious for eBay, IMHO.
Glad Tesla are honouring your warranty, though, which suggests it probably was a bona fide item and not some cheap Chinese knock-off.
Sounds you got another good deal in the end!

 

[MrMoonUK]

That’s not the reason they are cheaper! The reason is they are gray imports, they are no different than any other gen3 in Europe they just don’t come from Tesla

 

[NewbieT]

I’m sure I heard about a consignment of Gen 3 being stolen. When I read the OP my mind went to supporting criminal enterprise and receiving of stolen goods.

I have bought stuff cheaper than expected and I’ve been disappointed by the poorer quality or for find the reason it failed QC. I concluded it is generally too much of a gamble.

 

[OUTATIME1]

I purchased a brand new and sealed in a a box Gen 3 charger from Ebay - this saved me around £100. Some might say, why? Why save £100 and risk failure without warranty?

Well the answer to that is simple. I have spent years buying this way and saved thousands of pounds on new and almost new goods, so my philosophy is - if something does fails then I suck it up and move on. In the long run the savings have been well worth it due to general reliability of 'stuff' these days.

So- the Gen 3 worked faultlessly for 3 months- then failed. Dead. will not charge- permanent blue light- will not communicate with the car. The warning as such, is that when researching this, there seemed to be a lot of early failures of these due to an unspecified component overheating. I do wonder how these wall chargers have made their way to ebay and if they could be old batches that should have been destroyed/fixed? I have no way of knowing, its just guesswork and I may have just been unlucky..

Unbelievably, without going into detail, Tesla have honoured a warranty claim for me and have sent me a brand new one, but if you are going to buy like I did- Do not rely on this process - I consider myself very lucky!

My gen 2 wall charger came from eBay and I had a similar issue. Tesla just needed convincing that I was the original buyer from new (little bit of fibbing required) and yep, they sent me a brand new unit.

Shipping me the unit took ages and in the meantime the one already wired up started working again. That was getting on for two years ago now so I flogged the new and sealed unit on you guessed it, eBay... The circle of life!

 

[munkypuzel]

When I read the OP my mind went to supporting criminal enterprise and receiving of stolen goods.

I think this is a bit dramatic. Ebay is a legitimate place to buy goods, you cant sell without being directly attached to a UK bank account. You cannot be accused or convicted of handling stolen goods when you buy through this platform. I am not saying that there has never been 'stolen' items on there but you could apply that risk to almost any independent retail outlet these days.

As for the danger of buying high powered electrical items.... anything you plug into a 240v outlet is potentially dangerous. I purchased some apple chargers from amazon - sold as genuine. Both eventually burnt inside and blew the house RCD. From my subsequent inspection- definitely not genuine. At least the Tesla charger was new and sealed in its box.

 

[NewbieT]

I didn’t say don’t do- I just said that was where my mind first went to. You take your chances.

 

[ACarneiro]

As for the danger of buying high powered electrical items.... anything you plug into a 240v outlet is potentially dangerous. I purchased some apple chargers from amazon - sold as genuine. Both eventually burnt inside and blew the house RCD.

Well, yes quite.
But my point is that there is likely a difference between a small device that goes ping and something that's channeling 32 or 48A of power. I would suspect that the latter can have much more spectacular failures than the former, although all of them can be dangerous ultimately (how many house fires from Christmas lights every year?)