Usually, I'm a very risk averse person. Usually.
Backstory: I go through cars like shoes. Even when I was a broke 16 year old, I always found ways to trade/barter or save for a new car on an almost yearly basis. Now that I'm in my mid 30s and have a career to lean back on, my habit of swapping out cars every year has just gotten worse. When covid hit and car prices went crazy, I sold a car for almost 10k over what I paid for it and have been using that negative equity to try out different cars I may have wanted but never felt were practical enough to have as a daily driver. I've always stuck with ICE cars, mostly smaller sports cars. When the $4k used EV tax credit was announced earlier this year, I started looking around to see what might be available and found out that my most recent car (a 2020 Mazda MX-5) had some equity in it.
Since covid, I haven't been driving much at all. The MX-5 saw fewer than 5k miles per year for the time I had it and my current drive to work is only 3 miles 3 days a week. The better half works from home full time now and I've been using our second car a lot lately since I installed a Comma.ai device in it and it's been fun seeing it drive itself. You don't often get a chance to take a risk on something as large as a car purchase, but with my current situation, even if something catastrophic happened to my car, I would still have a fallback option, so I decided to take a risk on an older used Model S vs a newer Model 3/Y.
There don't seem to be many people that have documented their experience with their used cars, other than when something major needs replacing, like a HV battery or LDU. I thought I'd get this started since I'm only a week into ownership and keep a log of my progress with the car, showing the good bad and ugly of owning a decade old battery powered car.
My 2013 Tesla Model S P85+
Original Purchase Date: July 1, 2013
My Purchase Date: June 20, 2024
Mileage at purchase: 39,220
Price: $18k after $4k tax rebate
Battery Revision: B; original battery
LDU Revision: unknown
Doorhandles: V2.5
Color: Black
Wheels: Silver Turbine (lots of curbing, unfortunately)
Features: Unlimited Supercharging, Unlimited Premium Connectivity, Tech package, Air Suspension package, 21"
VIN: 5YJSA1DP0DFP13250
To add to my bad decisions, I purchased this car sight unseen. The dealership was great about working with me to answer all the questions and send pictures of anything I asked for. I knew it had a B revision battery which apparently is less prone to failure per forum posts I found. I also knew it had fully transferrable supercharging free for life, which really attracted me to the car if I ever wanted to travel with it. The car was delivered in great condition (for the year) but needs some paint correction to get the shine back and remove the old PPF from the prior owner. The car was mixed ownership, half of it's life it was in New Jersey and the other half was in South Florida. I got pictures of the underside of the car remotely and there was no rust on the frame and only minor corrosion on some of the suspension bolts. Not bad for an 11 year old car in my opinion.
As with all things, you don't know what you don't know. Drive units didn't concern me as much when I was originally looking for the car, but while waiting for delivery, I found out about the dreaded seal failure in the LDUs. Fortunately, it seems some fixes are available now and I've already prepared a bypass kit for this weekend when I get a chance to put the car on ramps. The drive unit is silent when driving but does have a 'clunk' on hard accel or deceleration. This leads me to believe this may be the factory drive unit and the bushings are worn which makes me nervous every time I drive it. After reading through the threads, I'm almost certain I'm going to see coolant in the speed sensor, but *fingers crossed*! If not, I'll apply the fix and rest a little easier (while still stressing over a 11 year old battery). If the drive unit is good, I'm going to see if Electrified Garage can replace the subframe bushings for me.
In my week of ownership, I've noticed a few other things I'd like to get fixed. Both visor mirrors are broken; something I didn't even notice until driving into the sun a few days after delivery. I also have a weird 'whomp whomp' sound coming from the HVAC system, but everything is working great and it goes away after a few miles of driving so I'm not super concerned about it. The B-pillar fabric is sagging a bit where your elbow sits on the door frame. Not sure if I'll even worry about those since I keep my arm there and it'll likely wear again if I purchase new parts.
Other than that, the car seems to be perfect. At 20% charge, I was able to supercharge at 100kWh without issue. The suspension raises and lowers as it should and all 4 doors have functional door handles. I'm going to diagnose the LDU this weekend and will update my post on what I find. If there is water ingress, I'm not sure if I'll just apply the fix and ride it out until it dies, or have Tesla put in a new DU. The battery I'm actually less scared of, outside of being stranded. I've built lithium packs for years using the cells Tesla uses and have enough knowledge to fix individual packs if they go out. Other than that, the degradation seems minimal; estimated 100% is still around 265 miles.
Backstory: I go through cars like shoes. Even when I was a broke 16 year old, I always found ways to trade/barter or save for a new car on an almost yearly basis. Now that I'm in my mid 30s and have a career to lean back on, my habit of swapping out cars every year has just gotten worse. When covid hit and car prices went crazy, I sold a car for almost 10k over what I paid for it and have been using that negative equity to try out different cars I may have wanted but never felt were practical enough to have as a daily driver. I've always stuck with ICE cars, mostly smaller sports cars. When the $4k used EV tax credit was announced earlier this year, I started looking around to see what might be available and found out that my most recent car (a 2020 Mazda MX-5) had some equity in it.
Since covid, I haven't been driving much at all. The MX-5 saw fewer than 5k miles per year for the time I had it and my current drive to work is only 3 miles 3 days a week. The better half works from home full time now and I've been using our second car a lot lately since I installed a Comma.ai device in it and it's been fun seeing it drive itself. You don't often get a chance to take a risk on something as large as a car purchase, but with my current situation, even if something catastrophic happened to my car, I would still have a fallback option, so I decided to take a risk on an older used Model S vs a newer Model 3/Y.
There don't seem to be many people that have documented their experience with their used cars, other than when something major needs replacing, like a HV battery or LDU. I thought I'd get this started since I'm only a week into ownership and keep a log of my progress with the car, showing the good bad and ugly of owning a decade old battery powered car.
My 2013 Tesla Model S P85+
Original Purchase Date: July 1, 2013
My Purchase Date: June 20, 2024
Mileage at purchase: 39,220
Price: $18k after $4k tax rebate
Battery Revision: B; original battery
LDU Revision: unknown
Doorhandles: V2.5
Color: Black
Wheels: Silver Turbine (lots of curbing, unfortunately)
Features: Unlimited Supercharging, Unlimited Premium Connectivity, Tech package, Air Suspension package, 21"
VIN: 5YJSA1DP0DFP13250
To add to my bad decisions, I purchased this car sight unseen. The dealership was great about working with me to answer all the questions and send pictures of anything I asked for. I knew it had a B revision battery which apparently is less prone to failure per forum posts I found. I also knew it had fully transferrable supercharging free for life, which really attracted me to the car if I ever wanted to travel with it. The car was delivered in great condition (for the year) but needs some paint correction to get the shine back and remove the old PPF from the prior owner. The car was mixed ownership, half of it's life it was in New Jersey and the other half was in South Florida. I got pictures of the underside of the car remotely and there was no rust on the frame and only minor corrosion on some of the suspension bolts. Not bad for an 11 year old car in my opinion.
As with all things, you don't know what you don't know. Drive units didn't concern me as much when I was originally looking for the car, but while waiting for delivery, I found out about the dreaded seal failure in the LDUs. Fortunately, it seems some fixes are available now and I've already prepared a bypass kit for this weekend when I get a chance to put the car on ramps. The drive unit is silent when driving but does have a 'clunk' on hard accel or deceleration. This leads me to believe this may be the factory drive unit and the bushings are worn which makes me nervous every time I drive it. After reading through the threads, I'm almost certain I'm going to see coolant in the speed sensor, but *fingers crossed*! If not, I'll apply the fix and rest a little easier (while still stressing over a 11 year old battery). If the drive unit is good, I'm going to see if Electrified Garage can replace the subframe bushings for me.
In my week of ownership, I've noticed a few other things I'd like to get fixed. Both visor mirrors are broken; something I didn't even notice until driving into the sun a few days after delivery. I also have a weird 'whomp whomp' sound coming from the HVAC system, but everything is working great and it goes away after a few miles of driving so I'm not super concerned about it. The B-pillar fabric is sagging a bit where your elbow sits on the door frame. Not sure if I'll even worry about those since I keep my arm there and it'll likely wear again if I purchase new parts.
Other than that, the car seems to be perfect. At 20% charge, I was able to supercharge at 100kWh without issue. The suspension raises and lowers as it should and all 4 doors have functional door handles. I'm going to diagnose the LDU this weekend and will update my post on what I find. If there is water ingress, I'm not sure if I'll just apply the fix and ride it out until it dies, or have Tesla put in a new DU. The battery I'm actually less scared of, outside of being stranded. I've built lithium packs for years using the cells Tesla uses and have enough knowledge to fix individual packs if they go out. Other than that, the degradation seems minimal; estimated 100% is still around 265 miles.
