I am considering buying a Tesla 2014 model S 85 for 20K. It has 163k miles on it with original battery. Also hasn’t had the drive unit replaced. I figured I would pencil in 5k to fix the leaky drive unit in the future. But I have had some people say the original batteries in these cars tend to fail if they haven’t been replaced with the new ones under warranty. I am wondering what my chances are that the original battery fails. So far the battery has only degraded 5%. What was the weakness in the original battery? Did it affect all Teslas of that year?
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Is this a deal or a money pit?
- Thread starter Jawitt
- Start date
Tam
Well-Known Member
The weakness is: All batteries will have to die sooner or later, depending on who you believe:
I wouldn't trust what Elon Musk said anymore. And I don't think the battery replacement is cheap, either.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
What evidence do you have that this is true? 5% is very low for a 2014 with that many miles. Are you certain the state of charge at 100% is in “rated” range and not “ideal”?
AMPd
Well-Known Member
That guys math is interesting. He’s assuming every single mile would be a paid mile. Which isn’t true in the real world, as someone who did Uber as an experiment, I drove quite a few unpaid miles.
Not that it matters. That robotaxi idea is a pipe dream in our lifetime.
Back to OP: I would honestly pass on it. 5k for the drive unit and then if the battery fails, another 14k and you’re up to 39k.
I guess it depends on how comfortable you are with risk. The battery could keep chugging along for another 100k miles or it could fail tomorrow.
If you do buy it, one thing I’d recommend is getting a high voltage battery service plan from @wk057 especially if that battery really is the original one.
A good reason to not believe Elon on this topic is that it was posted almost 4 years ago and he was tossing around the idea of "module replacements." For those unaware, a battery is made up of separate modules (3-4 of them, depending on what you buy.) Tesla has never offered any such service, and its unlikely they ever will. The new Model Y structural battery pack is designed in a way that makes individual module replacement basically impossible. The battery is basically held together by a pink foam substance that took Sandy Munro and his team several days of effort to tear apart. They basically made the pack unserviceable.
So, expect $20k+ repairs any time a battery dies. Tesla will happily sell you the battery for basically full price and take back the old one as a 'core charge' that they will probably make a good chunk of money back on when they recycle it. I basically wouldn't trust any Tesla (or any EV for that matter) made before 2020 on the used market, but that is just me.
Just get this instead
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Used Tesla Model 3 for Sale in Beverly Hills, CA - CarGurus
Save $9,846 on a used Tesla Model 3 near you. Search over 5,800 listings to find the best Beverly Hills, CA deals. We analyze millions of used cars daily.
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HankLloydRight
No Roads
Just reposting my question to make sure you find out the true degradation.
He said Model S.
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