High maintenance car ever I owned

[EVortex]

David.85D, I was sold Model S as low maintenance car.

In my experience, it is best to never be “sold” anything. Do your own research, decide what you want and then make a purchase offer. Letting others convince you of what is best for you is usually based on what is best for them and may not result in the outcome you desire.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

+1, and I'm not in the habit of making my charitable donations to for-profit companies like this guy seems to suggest is some noble pursuit.

Yeah, that's right.

Elon Musk risked all of his assets to keep Tesla alive just for kicks (and he takes no salary either).

Of course Tesla has NOTHING to do with securing our planet's future.

Here's a question: Why are so many so uninformed as to why Tesla exists?

Master Plan, Part Deux

 

[TMThree]

The early cars had some well known problems, and there were a couple sore spots like the MCU all the way up until 2018.

You bought basically the first model year of a new car with a novel drivetrain from essentially a startup company. I’d say to a degree your experience should be expected.

As a counterpoint, my 2016 S75 is approaching 110,000 miles. I just had my very first out of warranty repair cost TODAY, $338 for a new trunk latch and actuator.

I spent more on my early 1990's porsche 993s than this guy did, by a lot. And Porsche isn't a startup.

 

[Art VandeIay]

I hope I am as fortunate, but I like the peace of mind of having ESA in case my car does have major problems during my intended long term ownership. I realize the ESA is priced using data from statistical failures and corresponding costs plus profit, but for me the discounted price was worth it because I am risk adverse on things outside of my control. I think everyone has a different take on it, I’m just glad I had a choice.

Someone very wise over here at TMC wrote that instead of purchasing the ESA, you can take the money destined for the ESA and put it aside on another bank account or in a shoe box inside the closet or just put the money under the mattress and use that to pay for any costs of repairs needed for your vehicle.

The best case scenario, you never need it and by the end of a 2 or 4 year period you have your money back.

Worst case scenario you need to replace the battery, both drive units, full suspension architecture and 2 MCU1's with it's IC's and you will wish you didn't take any advice from the internet.

Everything in between, is just a win-win for your wallet.

 

[ucmndd]

Yeah, that's right.

Elon Musk risked all of his assets to keep Tesla alive just for kicks (and he takes no salary either).

Of course Tesla has NOTHING to do with securing our planet's future.

Here's a question: Why are so many so uninformed as to why Tesla exists?

Master Plan, Part Deux

Your incessant climate pearl clutching and hyperbole is tired and off-topic. If you think giving Tesla $5,000 is somehow better or more noble than giving the same to Greenpeace or Clean Air Task Force or frankly any other environmental charity in existence, you're fully deluded.

 

[dhrivnak]

I owned Model S 2013. In my knowledge, it has following items replaced during warranty period:

Entire 60KW battery
MCU
Drive unit

After warranty period,
MCU screen (air bubble issue) replaced: Costing $1000
Passanger side door handle stop working: Costing $350
Driver window open/close motor (regulator) failed: Costing $300
Control low voltage Battery died: Costing $275
Now MCU failed: replacement cost $2200 + taxes

This car is computer on wheels. If MCU is so unreliable, think how much this car going to cost down the road costing you out of your pocket after spending $85000 for this car.

On other hand Lexus that I owned for last 9 years. Total breakdown cost so far $600 for radiator leak besides regular maintenance.

I would suggest stay away from buying Tesla especially after warranty. Please share your thoughts.

Sorry to hear of your pain and fortunately I have spent less than you on my 12 year old Tesla Roadster on out of warranty work. A light ring for $450 and a high voltage controller for $1100. And at 57,000 miles it does get driven.

 

[sorka]

I hope I am as fortunate, but I like the peace of mind of having ESA in case my car does have major problems during my intended long term ownership. I realize the ESA is priced using data from statistical failures and corresponding costs plus profit, but for me the discounted price was worth it because I am risk adverse on things outside of my control. I think everyone has a different take on it, I’m just glad I had a choice.

And keep in mind you get charged $200 for each incident with the ESA. If it hadn't been for that, I probably would have bought it....or if they'd kept the price at $2500 which is what it was when I bought my P85D in 2015, but by the time I had to decide, it was 2018 and already $4K.

 

[glide]

Yeah, that's right.

Elon Musk risked all of his assets to keep Tesla alive just for kicks (and he takes no salary either).

Of course Tesla has NOTHING to do with securing our planet's future.

Here's a question: Why are so many so uninformed as to why Tesla exists?

Master Plan, Part Deux

These posts are like bad info-mercials

 

[EVortex]

And keep in mind you get charged $200 for each incident with the ESA. If it hadn't been for that, I probably would have bought it....or if they'd kept the price at $2500 which is what it was when I bought my P85D in 2015, but by the time I had to decide, it was 2018 and already $4K.

Yes, we each decide if the benefit is worth the cost from our own perspectives. I am fine with $200 per visit. I view the $4,250 I paid for the discounted 4 year ESA as sunk cost. I don’t have to be concerned about any other unplanned costs during my 8 year planned ownership. That provides value to me. I get where you are coming from, though.

 

[ucmndd]

Yes, we each decide if the benefit is worth the cost from our own perspectives. I am fine with $200 per visit. I view the $4,250 I paid for the discounted 4 year ESA as sunk cost. I don’t have to be concerned about any other unplanned costs during my 8 year planned ownership. That provides value to me. I get where you are coming from, though.

I think mileage adds a huge value factor to the ESA as well. If you drive a lot like I do (and like sorka does I believe), the opportunity to realize your investment diminishes considerably. The ESA would have covered me for less than 3 years of ownership. Lots of time-based (vs mileage based) failures that would be covered in 8 years aren’t covered if you blow through 100k miles in 3. This is the main reason I’ve never found ESAs to have value in my individual situation.

 

[whitex]

I'm aware, which is why I specifically referenced the MCU in my post.

I'm about 95% certain I'm going to pay the $500 for an eMMC swap, as I don't see a whole lot of value in the MCU2 upgrade for my personal use case.

Unless Tesla offers emmc swap for $500, you really cannot use that figure for cost of ownership comparison. I swapped mine with a 64GB chip for less than a $100, it doesn't mean everyone can do that. Maintenance costs should always be counted as per official repair costs, not what it would cost you if you could do it all yourself and/or from used parts on ebay. I knew a guy who owned an old Hyundai, and his cost of ownership was almost $0 because he worked in a junk yard where he got parts for free or maybe a lunch for his boss, and he did all the work himself - that doesn't make an old junkyard Hyundai the lowest cost of maintenance/ownership car ever. Actually, IIRC the guy bought the car for $300, drove it for 4 years (while fixing it with junkyard parts), and then sold it for $1,000, so technically his cost of ownership was negative, right?

Toyota is obviously the high water mark for reliability and literally wrote the book on it. Lamenting that literally every other car company on the planet can't meet their reliability benchmarks isn't particularly interesting to me.

Prior to Tesla, I've owned from new a number of cars from Honda, Toyota, VW, Lexus, and Porsche. All of them were much more reliable and costed me less in repairs than the Teslas, even though I kept some of them longer than 5 years, which is how old my oldest Tesla is today.

All that said, if you are good with computers/electronics and are not afraid to work on your own car, I think a used Model S might actually be a decent option for a car. If you are willing to fight Tesla to sell you parts and/or find parts on ebay and swap them in when needed, do things like replace your own emmc, the cost of ownership excluding your own labor might not be bad, especially that the car quiet fun to drive compared to almost anything out there. However, I don't think this will be true of Model 3 or Model Y, as Tesla has put a lot more security around their design there and things are a lot more locked down (and Tesla can lock down a lot tighter than other manufacturers as they don't have the dealership model to worry about). I suspect as time goes by, all Tesla cars will get more and more locked down, so at some not so distant future, you will not able to swap parts in from ebay, as all parts will require "digital activation" for a specific car, and that will require a Tesla service center to do.

One last thing to add, the end of battery warranty is definitely your biggest drop in value. A Tesla post 8 year battery warranty is a much bigger gamble than a Tesla post its comprehensive 4 year warranty.

 

[whitex]

Elon Musk risked all of his assets to keep Tesla alive just for kicks (and he takes no salary either).

ROFL. He doesn't need salary given the billions in bonuses he's getting (recently unlocked one, or is about if IIRC).

Elon did risk a lot, but he also got paid and is still getting paid for that gamble. He's not doing Tesla as a charity, or a gift to the planet. Get him to sign off all of his current and future Tesla stock to some charity, maybe Bill Gates' foundation, then we can talk about his selflessness.

 

[Snerruc]

I have had 2 S’s. So far neither one has had a repair or trip to the shop for any reason. Good thing since it was a 2 day boat ride to the shop for the first one. On the other hand, my last MB cost me 2 @5000.00 a/c repairs and several other expensive repairs. If you check the internet, you will find horror stories about any car brand. Someone posted on TMC that Toyota budgeted for over 100 lemons a month in CA alone. I happened to have one several years ago that went through 4 cylinder heads. My BIL had one that split the crankshaft going down the highway. I’ve also had them go 200,000 miles with minimal problems.

 

[cduzz]

My choice was to buy a medium mileage used tesla -- got a 2016 with 45k miles last year, so I get B2B until 2023 (and sadly battery/motor coverage only until 2024).

My car's had to have the rear door handles replaced after the original warranty would have expired; I expect the MCU and screen to fail as well; I'm shocked that even in Boston in the not-quite-summer the interior temps get to 135+ in the afternoon when the car (dark blue with solid roof) has been in the full sun for a couple hours.

The "it is going to fail" MCU somewhat changes the calculation. The refurbished unit costs $1800 ish? but comes with a 4 year warranty. Other bits and pieces like suspension are wear items on a (non toyota) 120k mile car.

Spending $40k to $80k on a new car to avoid maintenance costs on a 4 year old fully paid off car is probably not a good financial bet. Even if stacks of secondary systems break, each repair has a warranty and there aren't $30k worth of secondary systems to break on the car. There *are* reasonable modifications to that advice -- such as if it is extraordinarily difficult to get service for the car (I live in the northern territories and need a Chinook to take the car to Saskatoon for service).

The real question isn't if secondary systems fail at random (some will, some won't, you may or may not get lucky with getting nickel and dimed by the car) -- the real question is if the car's going to get totaled by a battery failure after the 8 year power train warranty expires. If piles of 2012 and 2013 Ss start having a useful range that's less than a leaf, it'll be a serious problem.

 

[A-Wimoweh]

This is only true if you haven’t owned a BMW, MINI, Jag, Land Rover, MB, Ferrari, Maserati, Bugatti,

hmmm did I forget anyone?

Yes, Audi

 

[Xenoilphobe]

I owned Model S 2013. In my knowledge, it has following items replaced during warranty period:

Entire 60KW battery
MCU
Drive unit

After warranty period,
MCU screen (air bubble issue) replaced: Costing $1000
Passanger side door handle stop working: Costing $350
Driver window open/close motor (regulator) failed: Costing $300
Control low voltage Battery died: Costing $275
Now MCU failed: replacement cost $2200 + taxes

This car is computer on wheels. If MCU is so unreliable, think how much this car going to cost down the road costing you out of your pocket after spending $85000 for this car.

On other hand Lexus that I owned for last 9 years. Total breakdown cost so far $600 for radiator leak besides regular maintenance.

I would suggest stay away from buying Tesla especially after warranty. Please share your thoughts.

The 12 volt battery is a maintenance item, I assume you never owned a VW if you think this is a lot of repairs. Also your nine year old Camry is built from dated parts that have had decades to work out the bugs and it performs like a Camry, no thanks. I'll tolerate some bugs in order to out perform everything else on the road, I'm at 100K on my S and its been a tires, wipers refills, two 12 volt batteries, a couple of CR 2032 FOB batteries, a couple $10 door microswitches and $30 windshield sprayer motor and this is my 3rd Tesla, they keep getting better and better.

Also your failed MCU can be repaired & upgraded for $500 in the aftermarket, basically the solid state hard drive "eMMC" only has so many lifecycles, once the drop a larger one it, it was last 10X longer.

 

[RiknChar]

If you go spend some time on the Lexus forums, you'll find many expensive problems are fairly common even with these cars which have the top ratings for reliability. I owned several Lexus LS's prior to making the switch to Tesla this spring, and was really active on the Lexus forums. The LS's are pretty famous for having expensive suspension issues (all 8 control arms often fail at 60-80k miles, air ride suspensions fail fairly commonly between 50k-100k, and the Mark Levinson amplifiers are known to fail quite a bit).

From what I've heard and learned on the Tesla forums, the cost to repair the various things that do tend to fail (door handles, etc.) is actually pretty low compared to Lexus repair costs. No luxury car is 100% reliable, but EVs do have a serious leg up on all ICE cars in the lower number of mechanical parts that can fail. Go spend some time on the Mercedes or BMW forums if you want to hear real horror stories!

Bottom line is "you gotta pay to play," and owners of other luxury cars (MB, BMW, Audi, and yes, even Lexus) understand they will likely have to live with enormous repair bills when their cars are out of warranty. For me, the joy I find in driving my Tesla is definitely worth the risk of potential future repairs when my warranty is over (and I may buy the ESA before the 6-month point for extended peace of mind).

 

[CapeOne]

Elon’s proclamation that EV’s are virtually maintenance free is a flat out lie.

But don't you find that a lot of the high cost/problematic items are unrelated to the car being an EV and instead are due to its level of high-tech gizmos?

 

[2101Guy]

The early cars had some well known problems, and there were a couple sore spots like the MCU all the way up until 2018.

You bought basically the first model year of a new car with a novel drivetrain from essentially a startup company. I’d say to a degree your experience should be expected.

As a counterpoint, my 2016 S75 is approaching 110,000 miles. I just had my very first out of warranty repair cost TODAY, $338 for a new trunk latch and actuator.

And i'd argue, that the cost for that same repair at BMW or Mercedes? Would absolutely be more than $338. I guarantee that 100%

 

[2101Guy]

Also, let's clarify and make sure we all understand the difference between "maintenance" and "repairs".....