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LTE Retrofit $200

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A few days ago I made an appointment to get the 4G LTE upgrade and then I got an invoice for $350 ($108 for parts and the rest for labor). So I called the service center, told them it's supposed to be $200, and he agreed to adjust the price down to what it's supposed to be. However he also told me that 9 out of 10 times the upgrade does not work on older vehicles such as my 2013 Model S, because of issues related to the MCU - and if it doesn't work then I'm SOL because there's no warranty on it. So, I'd appreciate some feedback from anyone who has actually gone ahead with the upgrade. Have you experienced any issues?

Mine is early 2014 build. They had some issues getting Maps to load after the upgrade but they resolved it. So far I don't have any issues, but it's only been few weeks.
 
2013 Model S in SoCal. Mobile service tech just completed LTE upgrade after 3 hours. WiFi is weak outside of my garage and AT&T signal is weak around the area. Tech tried hard to persuade me to go to service center instead, and only agreed to start work after I got a wifi repeater installed. While working on it , he kept warning me things can go wrong and he might have to tow the car to service center. Apart from WiFi connection to download software (he said 6gb in size, which is oddly big to me), he said the LTE chip, the MCU and the software can all go awry. ( It did appear to me this was his first time doing the LTE upgrade). Fortunately everything appears to be working after a super long 3 hours. Will have to test it on the road though.
 
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2013 Model S in SoCal. Mobile service tech just completed LTE upgrade after 3 hours. WiFi is weak outside of my garage and AT&T signal is weak around the area. Tech tried hard to persuade me to go to service center instead, and only agreed to start work after I got a wifi repeater installed. While working on it , he kept warning me things can go wrong and he might have to tow the car to service center. Apart from WiFi connection to download software (he said 6gb in size, which is oddly big to me), he said the LTE chip, the MCU and the software can all go awry. ( It did appear to me this was his first time doing the LTE upgrade). Fortunately everything appears to be working after a super long 3 hours. Will have to test it on the road though.
Did he mention that, if it had to be towed to the service center, if Tesla would cover that?

It doesn't feel legal to me that they say that you can pay for an upgrade and then they brick your car and charge you more.
 
it's a BS PRICE WHEN YOU SCHEDULE IT FOR SERVICE THEY JACK IT UP TO OVER $500
 

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A few days ago I made an appointment to get the 4G LTE upgrade and then I got an invoice for $350 ($108 for parts and the rest for labor). So I called the service center, told them it's supposed to be $200, and he agreed to adjust the price down to what it's supposed to be. However he also told me that 9 out of 10 times the upgrade does not work on older vehicles such as my 2013 Model S, because of issues related to the MCU - and if it doesn't work then I'm SOL because there's no warranty on it. So, I'd appreciate some feedback from anyone who has actually gone ahead with the upgrade. Have you experienced any issues?
I updraded a 03/2015 85D and a 12/2014 P85D with zero issues.

I don’t believe there is no warranty. Tesla offers a warranty on both accessories and parts. Don’t know what they would call this.

Sounds like BS to me…
 
Warranty, including labor for reinstall if installed by Tesla, is:
Coverage Period - Parts This Tesla Parts, Body & Paint Repair Limited Warranty begins on the Part(s)’ purchase date and provides coverage for the period of 12 months or 12,500 miles (20,000 km), whichever comes first, with the exception that specific categories of parts have unique warranty coverage periods as outlined in the table below: Sheet MetalLimited Lifetime Drive Unit*4 years or 50,000 miles (80,000 km), whichever comes first Vehicle High Voltage Battery*4 years or 50,000 miles (80,000 km), whichever comes first Wall Connector4 years Touchscreen and Media Control Unit2 years or 25,000 miles (40,000 km), whichever comes first *Excludes the Tesla Roadster which has a warranty of 2 years or 25,000 miles (40,000 km),
 
TESLA SHENANIGANS!
I had just gotten the go-ahead to schedule my eMMC recall for my 2013 "S." Then Sparky [his name, dontcha know!] popped up with the 3g/4g reminder, even mentioning the $200 fee. I think the car can get along without it, using wi-fi for upgrades, but I added this to the other task; I live 100 miles from the Tesla Repair shop, and the eMMC can't evidently be done by mobile repair unit. Maybe we'll get a discount on the 4g job - I mean, the screen is open anyway, right?
No way; it was patiently explained to me that they price by the job, not labor time as is usual with car repair shops. It's very hard to talk to a real human about repairs, unless you're in the workshop. OK, time to bite the bullet. But the day before comes a message on the app that the whole job will cost $351, and please tap here to Ok this amount.. WOT? No, and I decided that when I got there, if this kept up, I would cancel the 4g upgrade. An hour later comes another text: the amount is $300 and please tap this OK bar. Wait - did I just enter a Mexican street market? By the next morning the amount had reached the original $200 figure. Well, I think, if we're bargaining, perhaps I can try for $100! Alas, after arrival, the figure stayed at $200 so it got installed. But the Repair Rep did get Sparky charged up as well as giving me a $100 Uber credit to run off to lunch or wherever during the 4 hours all this took.
 
4G will be around a long time. Most 5G implemented now is really 4G enhanced, not real 5G which is currently implemented block by block in a few big cities because it can't service a large 4G area. While you need "5G" to take advantage of some higher 4G speeds on 5G (4G enhanced areas), it is still run on the existing 4G networks because it services the same areas as the 4G offerings. Verizon has a few limited "real" 5G areas in big cities. The rest of the nation runs on their existing 4G networks as a slower "not real" 5G offering.
 
Has anyone asked about any possible 5G upgrade yet? Does the new Plaid or refreshed LR have 5G yet? Seems like it won't be too long before the cell carriers start going 5G exclusively.
No US carrier has announced any plans to shut down LTE networks, with the exception of T-Mobile, which is killing *Sprint's* LTE network in 6 months (but not T-Mobile's) to make room for more 5G spectrum. Nobody is in a particular hurry to kill LTE because wide swaths of new spectrum were recently made available to deploy 5G networks.

4G will be around a long time. Most 5G implemented now is really 4G enhanced, not real 5G which is currently implemented block by block in a few big cities because it can't service a large 4G area. While you need "5G" to take advantage of some higher 4G speeds on 5G (4G enhanced areas), it is still run on the existing 4G networks because it services the same areas as the 4G offerings. Verizon has a few limited "real" 5G areas in big cities. The rest of the nation runs on their existing 4G networks as a slower "not real" 5G offering.
This is a bit of an oversimplification, you're confusing the different "flavors" of 5g (mmWave and Sub6). The "block by block" 5G is mmWave, which is very high bandwidth but also very high frequency, which limits its range and penetration. The more common sub-6Ghz "mid-band" 5G is much closer to LTE speeds, but is still unique radio spectrum that is completely different from 4G/LTE. There's also "low-band" 5G - this is why carriers are trying to aggressively kill off 3G networks, to re-use the ~600-850Mhz spectrum for faster 5G networks with the favorable RF characteristics of lower-frequency signals.

Splitting hairs, there IS a transitional 5G technology that shares LTE bands to achieve 5G speeds called DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing) - but it's really intended to be transitional and to my knowledge Verizon is the only company currently using it in the US. But in general, 4G and 5G networks are very much separate things, even if they often have similar real-world performance.

Muddying the waters further, AT&T decided to completely make up their own arbitrary marketing term called "5Ge", which is not 5G at all, but rather their faster flavor of 4G/LTE. Because they're AT&T and doing stupid stuff like that is kinda their thing.