MCU died out of warranty. Heres info on my experience

[TheFro]

The browser does work.

The MCU itself was $1300. Thats before factoring in the other parts and labor to install.

Labor rate here is $175/hr.

I was charged $1800 for a replacement MCU part ($2100 total with labor) back in October so you got a really good price! My screen was leaking adhesive and with the eMMC being a ticking time bomb, I just replaced the whole MCU. I also liked the 4 year, unlimited mileage warranty that comes with having Tesla replace the unit; the navigation MicroSD card just failed so they should replace that for no charge.

My part number was different - MCU,MDLX,NA PREMIUM,REMAN(1098010-00-D). Did you get a free LTE upgrade out of it as well?

 

[Pismo]

$1300 aint bad. It was $850 for a radiator in 06 BMW 335.
Ill take that.

 

[JoeB3]

Did they upgrade it to MCU2?

 

[msdickerson]

2013 Model S 85 103,900 miles CPO warranty expired 7/2019

Symptoms:
waiting for systems to start
phone wouldn't connect
black center screen after reboot
odo didn't change while driving
wouldn't charge
heater staying on/car not turning off

Center screen wouldn't reboot after a soft restart. I also tried a hard reboot and that did nothing either. Tesla Service Columbus called me back and was able to get it in that day and put me into a loaner.

They called and said that they were unable to reboot the MCU and that a replacement was the only option. They gave me 2 cost options, one was replacing the MCU and keeping the old one for $2,115 OR I could essentially get a "core credit" for the old unit and it would become $1,615.

I believe both options were the cost of a remanufactured MCU.

I also had the infamous bubble on the touchscreen that I was going to put off until this summer. So this replacement MCU was also going to include getting a new screen.

I picked up the car and it looked great. The screen really feels a lot snappier. Everything works, although I did have to reset all of my settings like it was a brand new car. (I wish Tesla would finally implement a way to transfer/save setting via the cloud). I also ended up getting the LTE upgrade too. That was something I was not expecting and didn't notice until I got home.

Ive posted a screen shot of the invoice incase it can help any others. I would have liked to send out my MCU to have it repaired by a 3rd party cheaper, but this is my DD and with the car not shutting off it was more of a necessity and also completely unexpected so I didn't have much of a choice. Also since it completely died, it seemed like there was less of a chance it could have been fixed and just been back in the same boat.

View attachment 505969

That actually is not too bad. I had a MCU on my old Prius go bad and it was going to cost about 2000$ if you bought a new one. I found a junk yard one, and it worked fine, but still cost about 800$. We now have a 2020 Model 3 and I am not really worried about the computers at this time.

 

[msdickerson]

What kind of mileage out of curiosity?




I think they are getting plenty of practice with this lately. After a dozen times of doing this I am sure anyone with decent dexterity could remove the unit in under 20 minutes. Here is video of Jason doing it in under 2 minutes!

Also much better than the CVT I had replaced on an old Prius after 105,000 miles. 5,500$ I guess its nice not to have a tranny.

 

[bmoores]

It always surprises me how car owners are happy to toss benjamins out the window after owning BMW’s etc.

 

[murse]

I did get a free upgrade to LTE so thats been nice. My screen was leaking as well and I'm pretty happy I hadn't replaced that yet. They quoted me $1,100 for just the screen back in August.

My warranty is 2yrs/25,000 miles on the MCU (hopefully enough time for the Cybertruck to arrive and trade out of the S)

 

[Ferrycraigs]

Interesting. In UK there appear to be a growing number of eMMC failures. Some within Warranty period, others not. Tesla have recently been saying it’s not a Warranty failure, even if it is within Warranty period. It is causing a lot of angst amongst owners.

The issue, apparently, is the amount of (useless) data being stored to the eMMC Chip. Virtually all of it is overwritten. The car appears to write hundreds, if not thousands, of writes to the chip every second. NB this is not the car,s logs, which are stored on a different chip.

Although the eMMC is 8Gb, it can only take so many rewrites. After around 4 years it gives up the ghost. That’s when the problems start. Because it freezes the MCU, all functions that are controlled through the MCU no longer work. The car drives, and the pedals work, but that's about it.

What should be a simple chip replacement, isn’t, because for whatever reason, the chip is soldered to the circuit board. Tesla’s solution is, rather than extract the chip, they simply replace the entire MCU including the circuit board with new chip! In UK that costs £2500. + Tax, so £3000, plus labour for fitting! There are now some 3rd Party garages offering to replace the chip for around £600-£700.

My Chip failed. The warning signs were very slow start up/wake up. Very slow reboots (2-3 minutes), extremely poor browser (how could you tell) and more recently no browser at all. Mine died during a software update install. It stalled at 10% Install. The Main screen went black, could not charge, could not operate any functions that use the MCU. Rang Tesla Roadside who confirmed the software had installed, but they would try another upload. This only made matters worse. Dash, whilst still visible became very dull. I was able to drive the 9 miles to my local Service Centre, but it was touch and go.

They were able to resurrect the Screen (not something they are normally able to do). So my car is back running, but I have booked it in for a chip replacement by a 3rd Party next week. They are going to use a 32Gb chip.

I did ask the question if I was going to have to pay for a new MCU, could I buy a MCU2. Tesla will not do that, was the reply.

 

[OurP85+]

Yep - after owning BMWs for north of 25 years, even at $2k this seems excellent. Fingers crossed my '14 P85+ will get through one more AZ summer and off it goes...in favor of a new P Model Y Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Ferrycraigs]

I did get a free upgrade to LTE so thats been nice. My screen was leaking as well and I'm pretty happy I hadn't replaced that yet. They quoted me $1,100 for just the screen back in August.

My warranty is 2yrs/25,000 miles on the MCU (hopefully enough time for the Cybertruck to arrive and trade out of the S)

This seems a good and cheap solution, but it will not work. The new chip requires some critical files, specific to the old car, to be transferred to the new chip. Apparently it’s not that easy a process. And I have absolutely no idea how easy, or difficult, taking the MCU out would be.

 

[rich0]

The only thing I found a bit annoying in that invoice was the charge for diagnostic time. In my experience with other cars this usually isn't charged unless the problem is unusual in some way, like an odd wire that broke and it cost $10 to replace the wire but $300 to figure out which wire failed.

I'd think something like a bad MCU would be such that the diagnostic cost would be part of the replacement cost. I mean, when they said they couldn't reboot the MCU that was about 30 seconds of diagnostic effort - I can reboot the thing while driving down the highway.

I get that it was only 10% of the bill, but really...

 

[Calbeach95]

I, too, have a 2013 P85. I had a similar issue with the MCU. I begged them to simply replace it since I have had 2 occasions where it went black, but they simply repaired it. I was hoping it would be replaced so I could get the LTE upgrade too. Fortunately, there was only a $50 deductible to me. Prior to the issue, I'd researched aftermarket warranties for my son's new Model 3 and found an aftermarket "service contract" - it works like a warranty and coverage is really solid. I didn't want my son having a car without some type of warranty. Since I typically have my cars for 10 years, I wanted extended service coverage for my P85, knowing it will likely have some expensive issue in the near future. I know the cost is a gamble v cost of repair, but I took the chance. Xcelerate covers most everything X-Care - Xcelerate Auto

 

[hill]

With this being an older S
......snip......
that the newer Model S's don't have as many issues as the early versions .....snip.....

newer ones get that ugly yellow border, which Tesla fought for years to deny, opting instead to Simply say it's normal. Only after a ton of people turned the issue into a giant be-otch-fest, did Tesla finally become able to create a repair/fix, sort of. Some have said it returns after a while. So that whole issue may still be looming once warranties expire.
Then you have the issue of higher-powered processors on newer units, which create more heat, which is the enemy of all Electronics.
.

 

[TheFro]

It always surprises me how car owners are happy to toss benjamins out the window after owning BMW’s etc. View attachment 506379

Hahahahaha! You're funny. If it was a simple board swap, this forum would be all over it. While the eMMC that is affected is on a daughterboard and not on the mainboard of the MCU, you need to retrieve and copy over vehicle specific data when you swap it out; which is not easy to do when the chip is going bad and you need specific tools and software to do it.

 

[Gt1948]

2013 Model S 85 103,900 miles CPO warranty expired 7/2019

Symptoms:
waiting for systems to start
phone wouldn't connect
black center screen after reboot
odo didn't change while driving
wouldn't charge
heater staying on/car not turning off

Center screen wouldn't reboot after a soft restart. I also tried a hard reboot and that did nothing either. Tesla Service Columbus called me back and was able to get it in that day and put me into a loaner.

They called and said that they were unable to reboot the MCU and that a replacement was the only option. They gave me 2 cost options, one was replacing the MCU and keeping the old one for $2,115 OR I could essentially get a "core credit" for the old unit and it would become $1,615.

I believe both options were the cost of a remanufactured MCU.

I also had the infamous bubble on the touchscreen that I was going to put off until this summer. So this replacement MCU was also going to include getting a new screen.

I picked up the car and it looked great. The screen really feels a lot snappier. Everything works, although I did have to reset all of my settings like it was a brand new car. (I wish Tesla would finally implement a way to transfer/save setting via the cloud). I also ended up getting the LTE upgrade too. That was something I was not expecting and didn't notice until I got home.

Ive posted a screen shot of the invoice incase it can help any others. I would have liked to send out my MCU to have it repaired by a 3rd party cheaper, but this is my DD and with the car not shutting off it was more of a necessity and also completely unexpected so I didn't have much of a choice. Also since it completely died, it seemed like there was less of a chance it could have been fixed and just been back in the same boat.

View attachment 505969

Great info, not sure why anyone would want to keep old MCU?

 

[MrCritterfur]

when I first saw this in my email, I couldn’t figure out why people were posting about the marvel movies here.

then I realized I am a nerd and felt dumb.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

Folks - the failing MCU is just wrong - poorly engineered and/or inferior parts, and/or poorly executed.
We all know about the superfluous writing to the chip. But how about sub-standard components?
All of these things have been identified and discussed to death.

TESLA needs to step-up.
Their financial situation is unreal right now: $500+.sh, their valuation is off the charts of reality.
If this starts happening with the Mdl 3 & Y - what a sh*t show Elon will have.

My situation:
2012 Signature
I purchased it as a 'Used" Model S at the Tesla dealership July 2017. It is not a CPO.

The original MCU was replaced Jun 23, 2018 at 29261 miles under warranty.
I paid $500 additional for the 4G LTE upgrade.
ASY,MCU SUB-ASSY SHP OGS DISP AND PKG (1087293-00-A)

Then recently replace again on Dec 28, 2019 at 39916 mile with version F for $2136 out the door (Misc parts, Tax, ...)
MCU,MDLX,NA PREMIUM,REMAN(1098010-00-F) 1.0 $1,800.00

The second replacement was:

1. 5 months out of the 2 year warranty on the car itself
2. 6 months out of warranty on the 1 yr warranty on the first replacement MCU.
3. Only 10655 miles of use on the car.​

Come on Elon - address the problem - don't pass it on to the consumer.
Make it right.

 

[SCharged]

2013 Model S 85 103,900 miles CPO warranty expired 7/2019

Symptoms:
waiting for systems to start
phone wouldn't connect
black center screen after reboot
odo didn't change while driving
wouldn't charge
heater staying on/car not turning off

Center screen wouldn't reboot after a soft restart. I also tried a hard reboot and that did nothing either. Tesla Service Columbus called me back and was able to get it in that day and put me into a loaner.

They called and said that they were unable to reboot the MCU and that a replacement was the only option. They gave me 2 cost options, one was replacing the MCU and keeping the old one for $2,115 OR I could essentially get a "core credit" for the old unit and it would become $1,615.

I believe both options were the cost of a remanufactured MCU.

I also had the infamous bubble on the touchscreen that I was going to put off until this summer. So this replacement MCU was also going to include getting a new screen.

I picked up the car and it looked great. The screen really feels a lot snappier. Everything works, although I did have to reset all of my settings like it was a brand new car. (I wish Tesla would finally implement a way to transfer/save setting via the cloud). I also ended up getting the LTE upgrade too. That was something I was not expecting and didn't notice until I got home.

Ive posted a screen shot of the invoice incase it can help any others. I would have liked to send out my MCU to have it repaired by a 3rd party cheaper, but this is my DD and with the car not shutting off it was more of a necessity and also completely unexpected so I didn't have much of a choice. Also since it completely died, it seemed like there was less of a chance it could have been fixed and just been back in the same boat.

View attachment 505969

I have a 2016 Model S 75D (facelift) and just had the MCU replaced last week. It was generating static noises when pressing the brake pedal, using the signal indicator and there was a substantial hum when you turned the brightness down on the touchscreen. Also when you press the cubby area the noises go in and out..
My list of items replaced matches your list. I didn't realize it included the touchscreen also?

 

[SCharged]

Hahahahaha! You're funny. If it was a simple board swap, this forum would be all over it. While the eMMC that is affected is on a daughterboard and not on the mainboard of the MCU, you need to retrieve and copy over vehicle specific data when you swap it out; which is not easy to do when the chip is going bad and you need specific tools and software to do it.

Wow good to know of the part.. I will do that if it happens out of warranty. I wonder if there's any coding involved.

 

[SCharged]

Better than the $6K I have paid on two different BMWs for turbochargers and a wastegates at 85K miles. All those 1800 degree exhaust gases hitting impellers and valves eats them up.

The most amazing thing on this bill is the low labor charge. It must be very easy and quick to replace this unit.

I feel your pain, once had a E65 that ran me into the ground as it went into the ground.