All I wanted to add is that I agree completely, that ability to do independent repair on Teslas is going to become much more of a desired thing. I'm driving a 2014 Model S P85D that was purchased used, and has no warranty left besides the remaining 4 years or so on the battery and drivetrain.
I've seen a few YouTube videos that illustrate various service procedures (such as repairing the stuck door handle problem), and time and time again? It looks like so many of these things can be solved with just a few dollars worth of parts and a lot of patience to do a bunch of disassembly and reassembly that's required.
I think because these vehicles are still so expensive, a lot of owners just take a hands-off attitude that they'll let the authorized Tesla service people handle everything and pay whatever it costs. But quite frankly? The attitude that "If you could afford to buy one of these cars, you can afford to pay the repair costs to fix it!" doesn't accurately describe an increasing number of owners.
I just read about a guy who got a $4,500 repair bill for his Model S with around 120,000 miles on it. Basically, they swapped out all 3 coolant pumps in the car, plus a few related gaskets, seals, etc. The general reaction was, "Great deal if that's the only major repair you've had to pay for so far!" My reaction would be a lot different..... I've seen entire 4 cylinder engines get swapped out with rebuilt replacements for that kind of money. There's GOT to be a cheaper way to service something like that!
The crowd buying the used 2012-2014 Tesla S's with higher mileage, from various used car lots, are NOT necessarily financially well off. They may just be making a stretch to make that monthly car payment with the idea that the savings on gas and oil changes will allow it to be doable for them. These people are going to be VERY interested in independent shops that can actually service a Tesla. I know some parts are going to be difficult to source, but that's also where general knowledge of cars might help places offer non OEM substitute parts that may even be superior to the originals.
Greetings all - I have owned/worked on a wide variety of cars and airplanes, so I am not a novice mechanic [although not a professional either!]. I have also worked on high voltage radio frequency amplifiers, so have a great respect for the lethality of the juice.
With that as a preamble, is it reasonable to think that an owner of a Tesla can do serious work on their own vehicle? Taking the infamous "milling noise" as an example, this seems to boil down to all steel bearings getting pitted by very high EMF. The fix seems to be an off-the shelf SKF ceramic-coated bearing. Is this someone who as worked on Jaguar fuel injected V12's pull off? This will get to be a more serious question as more and more model S cars go off warrantee.
Perhaps I havn't looked very hard, but I don't see many references to this sort of thing?
best,
