In a car most parts are not necessarily easy to swap. I looked it up and most people say the whole process takes 2.5 hours, including driving the car to test it and calibrate cameras. The later posts say the actual install of the parts only took 45 minutes, the firmware update and transferring of profiles took longer. I think that's fairly reasonable.
When you subscribe to FSD, it will verify if you have the FSD computer. If not it will give you the option to order the computer upgrade. It won't subscribe you to FSD unless you come back after the upgrade and then select to subscribe. I opted not to subscribe after the FSD upgrade.
I had basic AP when I had the upgrade done. I am not that interested in paying the extra for EAP.
I wouldn't say it's routine replacement, the idea is it is a one time replacement for the life of the vehicle (even though that may change if HW4 is deemed necessary), so 45 minutes is quite reasonable. I don't think that makes it necessary to separate the parts, as typically you make some sacrifices for such modularity.
I hope you don't have the same issues I had! I think they ended up replacing something that was preventing them from updating the computer.
When I had it installed last year it was $1000. The tech also did the ball joint service and installed the air filters I provided. Due to the other items, it did take much longer than expected. One great thing is that prior to install of the FSD computer, the car would not do scheduled charging for the past year after a particular firmware update. Had mobile tech come out and when his troubleshooting didn't work I took it into the service center. They couldn't find the issue either. All settings were proper. After the FSD computer install, the complete low level systems reset cleared the issue and scheduled charging has been working flawlessly since then.
Go to to car settings and touch 'Software'. This will list your car info. If you have FSD computer, the Autopilot Computer field will have the value of Full Self Driving Computer.
