Infinite Mile Battery Warranty [Now] Being Honored By Tesla [Issue Resolved]

[MikeBur]

Thanks for the info TSLA Pilot. I'll look into those options if no resolution is met. It is an expensive car and i accepted that this car would not last forver, but i gave it a good try. lol

You might also want to ask Jason (@wk057) if there still might be logs to determine if there was a known fault at time of last service. Sounds suspicious that 3 months ago, in warranty, there was no issue then suddenly catastrophic battery failure 3 days out of warranty. Suspecting there’s likely some interesting wear indicators...

 

[henderrj]

My S, 8 years 215k battery finally went 3 days after warranty. Service center say escalated to corporate and response out of warranty.
My cost for new battery $22,280.25. As an early adopter, I am at a loss of Tesla customer service. Tesla has let me down. I brought the car in for service 3 months for battery issues, and corporate indicated everything was working normally. Very disappointing.

This isn't great news for me either. I have a December 2014 build, so sometime left on the warranty, but I'm also at 230k miles.

 

[BigNick]

My S, 8 years 215k battery finally went 3 days after warranty. Service center say escalated to corporate and response out of warranty.
My cost for new battery $22,280.25. As an early adopter, I am at a loss of Tesla customer service. Tesla has let me down. I brought the car in for service 3 months for battery issues, and corporate indicated everything was working normally. Very disappointing.

Was the quoted price for a new or re-manufactured pack?
Also: 85, 90, or 100 pack?
I would think a reman pack would be less.

 

[T.R.T.e.s.l.a.]

My S, 8 years 215k battery finally went 3 days after warranty. Service center say escalated to corporate and response out of warranty.
My cost for new battery $22,280.25. As an early adopter, I am at a loss of Tesla customer service. Tesla has let me down. I brought the car in for service 3 months for battery issues, and corporate indicated everything was working normally. Very disappointing.

Only 3 days after the warranty expired?
Damn! That's really bad luck... or... Tesla has a ticking thing that goes on a day after warranty expires....

BTW if you brought the car in to the service center for battery issues 3 months before, you could fight it in court if necessary because the issue was already there before the warranty expired.

 

[Electric700]

I really hope Tesla service centers will start opening packs & repair them instead of handing over bill for ~20K with core charge

Me too. Tesla does this now by sending them back to one of the factories for refurbishing / updating packs that have issues under warranty. I am not sure of the cost for the shipment and repair out of warranty, but I suspect it would be a lot less than a brand new battery. Some service centers may now be offering an on-premises battery repair option which should cost even less than that, perhaps under $1,000.

 

[henderrj]

Me too. Tesla does this now by sending them back to one of the factories for refurbishing / updating packs that have issues under warranty. I am not sure of the cost for the shipment and repair out of warranty, but I suspect it would be a lot less than a brand new battery. Some service centers may now be offering an on-premises battery repair option which should cost even less than that, perhaps under $1,000.

actually there's no way they could do it for a thousand. If you've not watched one of Jason Hughes' videos of disassembling a pack, you should. It is an amazing amount of work! They weren't designed to be worked on that way. But, they could certainly do better than 20 grand!

On the other hand, I've got nearly 230,000 mi on my original pack. Maybe with the new ones you'd get 300,000. the amount of money doesn't seem quite so bad when you amortize it over that long of a time/distance.

 

[goodbadboys9]

I dont expect it to be 1k but ~2-3K would be reasonable. When we watch Grubber Motors video he specifies hardest part is opening battery cover without damaging it.If Tesla starts opening these packs they can have replacement covers so they don't need to be as careful & hope they can snap the dead cell or even swap that module for fast turnaround.

Does anyone know which service centers are opening these packs?

 

[MP3Mike]

hope they can snap the dead cell

@wk057 tweeted today that snipping the one bad cell isn't actually a fix, that it is just a temporary Band-Aid. He is supposed to provide more details later.

But I can see at a minimum it makes that the weakest brick; which will in turn limit the performance of the whole pack.

 

[mongo]

@wk057 tweeted today that snipping the one bad cell isn't actually a fix, that it is just a temporary Band-Aid. He is supposed to provide more details later.

But I can see at a minimum it makes that the weakest brick; which will in turn limit the performance of the whole pack.

Yeah, one missing cell means that group has less self discharge than the rest. To keep things even, it probably requires snipping one cell on every module.
That is assuming the bad cell didn't damage the parallel group it was in.

 

[MP3Mike]

Yeah, one missing cell means that group has less self discharge than the rest. To keep things even, it probably requires snipping one cell on every module.

The issue is that that brick now has less capacity. So it charges to 100% before all the other groups, thus halting charging before most of the pack can get fully charged. It also discharges faster, hitting the bottom limit before the rest of the pack, leaving stranded energy in the remaining portion of the pack.

 

[mongo]

The issue is that that brick now has less capacity. So it charges to 100% before all the other groups, thus halting charging before most of the pack can get fully charged. It also discharges faster, hitting the bottom limit before the rest of the pack, leaving stranded energy in the remaining portion of the pack.

The pack capacity is permanently less by 1 cell * 96 groups (pack dependent) and if the small group hits both the high end and low end limit, it's as balanced as it can be This can be guaranteed at first by fully charging all the groups during the repair. The longer term issue is that if this group drifts differently than the rest (and more than the balancing circuitry can handle), eventually either it or the rest will be flat and the other will be full.

 

[fbitz777]

Thanks for the info TSLA Pilot. I'll look into those options if no resolution is met. It is an expensive car and i accepted that this car would not last forver, but i gave it a good try. lol

How is your car failin? Is it b

@wk057 tweeted today that snipping the one bad cell isn't actually a fix, that it is just a temporary Band-Aid. He is supposed to provide more details later.

But I can see at a minimum it makes that the weakest brick; which will in turn limit the performance of the whole pack.

Yes I am surprised Gruber did not discuss that...only solution would have been to replace the whole module assuming you can find a close match (not a new one)....might actually have been LESS work
At 5k I think they could have done more IMHO.

Tesla 5.3 kWh Module (85 kWh Pack) | Batteries | Stealth EV

 

[fbitz777]

The issue is that that brick now has less capacity. So it charges to 100% before all the other groups, thus halting charging before most of the pack can get fully charged. It also discharges faster, hitting the bottom limit before the rest of the pack, leaving stranded energy in the remaining portion of the pack.

we are talking about a 1/74 (1.3%) hit on total capacity...however it will make the BMS work very hard

 

[2101Guy]

My S, 8 years 215k battery finally went 3 days after warranty. Service center say escalated to corporate and response out of warranty.
My cost for new battery $22,280.25. As an early adopter, I am at a loss of Tesla customer service. Tesla has let me down. I brought the car in for service 3 months for battery issues, and corporate indicated everything was working normally. Very disappointing.

If you are stating that you formally reported (to Tesla) battery related issues multiple times prior to the warranty expiring, then Tesla only admitted to battery issue AFTER the warranty expired, and that now Tesla is stating you need to pay them over $20k for a new battery pack?

Did you opt out of mandatory arbitration when you purchased your car?

 

[MP3Mike]

If you are stating that you formally reported (to Tesla) battery related issues multiple times prior to the warranty expiring, then Tesla only admitted to battery issue AFTER the warranty expired, and that now Tesla is stating you need to pay them over $20k for a new battery pack?

My guess would be that they were complaining about lost range, or slow charging speeds, but the pack was still working. And that it has now failed while out of warranty. So while it would be nice of Tesla to cover it when it was only 3 days out of warranty they have no obligation to. (I have seen plenty of other OEMs refuse to cover something under warranty when it fails even 1 day out of warranty.)

 

[henderrj]

My guess would be that they were complaining about lost range, or slow charging speeds, but the pack was still working. And that it has now failed while out of warranty. So while it would be nice of Tesla to cover it when it was only 3 days out of warranty they have no obligation to. (I have seen plenty of other OEMs refuse to cover something under warranty when it fails even 1 day out of warranty.)

yes, if you replace it after 3 days out, do you replace it after 4? 5? 20? That's what the warranty period is about, a cut off time when everything after that is your responsibility. Makes me nervous too, I'm less than 2 years from my battery cutoff now. Still, it would be nice of Tesla to cover it. I mean how many can fail that close to warranty ending?

 

[Electroman]

yes, if you replace it after 3 days out, do you replace it after 4? 5? 20? That's what the warranty period is about, a cut off time when everything after that is your responsibility. Makes me nervous too, I'm less than 2 years from my battery cutoff now. Still, it would be nice of Tesla to cover it. I mean how many can fail that close to warranty ending?

It will be nice if there is a ramp down period of 12 months after the original warranty period. Sort of like you reduce the warranty coverage proportionately every month till it becomes zero at the end of the 12th month

 

[henderrj]

It will be nice if there is a ramp down period of 12 months after the original warranty period. Sort of like you reduce the warranty coverage proportionately every month till it becomes zero at the end of the 12th month

I like that idea. Do we know if anyone does that yet in the automotive world?

 

[goodbadboys9]

But in the remaining automotive world if there is cylinder misfire or some sort of that nature no other automaker wants to replace whole engine.

With EV'S one dead cell can severely limit the car or make it inoperable & cost upwards of 10-15K

 

[Electroman]

With EV'S one dead cell can severely limit the car or make it inoperable & cost upwards of 10-15K

That kind of design is going to be a serious concern for EV adoption. Battery repairs and refurbishments should be cheap and a cottage industry