My love for Tesla has taken a huge hit

[Tam]

yes, I've seen the article, but there is no rampant theft of Tesla's.

True. It's also true that the risk of Tesla thefts is not zero.

Pin-to-drive is a risk management option.

I pay premiums for my home and car insurance for 4 decades without benefiting from them but I still continue to pay for them in a foreseeable.

I pay a very little cost for Pin-to-drive (entering 4 digits) so it's a good option that I value and use it ever since it's available.

 

[Veezer]

Thanks for all of the help you guys. And yes I like to keep the pin to drive on for peace of mind. And I'm not sure how the door handles keep falling off but they do. Easy piece to fix. Just annoying to get them ordered when they fall off. And mine is also black on black on black.

 

[spectrum]

Congratulations with another sensational anti-Tesla headline that is now trending on Reddit. Your MCU failed on your first-generation (first year) of the first electric SUV that Tesla ever made? That sucks, but it happens.

How can 1 computer failure (that should be no more than $2,000 even if out of warranty) ruin your love for an entire brand? Oh right, it's because the tow truck drivers didn't do their job. Makes sense— blame Tesla for not training every tow truck driver in the world on how a smartphone with wheels works.

 

[linux-works]

the reason I blame tesla for the design is because I work in the field, I write firmware (for embedded systems) and its pretty well known that if you syslog in verbose mode, and your sw devs write code that is very chatty (in debug mode) - well, that is fine for spinning disks on hosts in a data center or for removable media that you don't mind replacing, when it wears out. but for a car, where the end-user cannot replace the worn out memory, the guys controlling the sw release are just not doing their job. they have been letting builds reach customers with too high a logging level for years before they finally raised the severity of the bug and actually addressed it.

the developers are mostly younger guys and they either come from a windows or mac background, or they are used to unix (linux) on larger hosts that don't have flash mem wear issues. I'm guessing a very small percentage of their 'embedded systems' people really understood the implications of their design approach. its how it goes in the bay area - we mostly hire kids and they just don't have enough experience to know about this.

but I do blame tesla. how could I blame the user?? user is driving the car. I find it amazing that some of you are perfectly fine with the board failure and with paying for it or accepting that you must pay for it. I can understand that you may not have much choice, but please don't rationalize it away by thinking its ok for a car company to design a part that they know - or should know - is going to fail much sooner than it should due to their design approach.

if they designed a metal part that was thinner than it had to be and it broke sooner than it was expected, would you also give them a free pass on that? why is this any different? its a part that, when used properly, will last a long time. when used improperly, it will wear and fail during the expected lifetime of the car. tesla 'used' this flash for something it was not designed for - verbose syslog and apps logging. no good reason to make the user pay for this, even outside warranty.

unethical to do this. legal, by all means, but really unethical.

 

[Tam]

...even outside warranty...

There are wear and tear or consumable parts that are perfectly legal to fail after a warranty runs out such as tires.

However, I do agree that it's not an optimal design for Tesla to make the predictable life-limited memory part so inaccessible unlike the ease to swap out tires.

 

[kavyboy]

I know there is not much that can be done on these forums but I figured I would reach out here anyway. I have a 2016 p90d X. The MCU has been going bad just as many other peoples older vehicles have. I called service about it a couple months ago and they tried to fix it remotely and could not. They sent out a mobile rep to fix that and a door handle the fell off. He supposedly rebooted the computer and fixed it. (He also broke the door handle he was trying to put back on but thats another story.) Today almost 3 weeks later my Tesla is completely dead because the MCU will not boot up at all.

I knew this was going to happen at some point so I just took it and called Roadside assistance from Tesla. I figured to call them because they have their preferred people. They sent out two different two trucks who were both unable to tow it because they could not put the car in tow mode without access to the MCU. I had originally explained this to the roadside assistance so found it very disheartening that two different trucks came out who could not fix the problem. So 3 hours after not being able to start my car, I still can not. They're supposedly going to send a truck tomorrow sometime to get it from the parking lot it is in.

Sorry for the long-winded story but I find it awful that they knew there was a big problem with the MCU, said they fixed it when they didnt, then could not get it to a service center to get something done with it. Instead I was stranded and had to eventually get a ride back to my house by other means. I LOVE the car but this experience has completely soured me on ever owning another one. /endrant

At least they didn't look at the car in warranty, get it working just long enough to get it out of warranty before it died, then replace it with a remanufactured part for $1600+.

 

[linux-works]

There are wear and tear or consumable parts that are perfectly legal to fail after a warranty runs out such as tires.

However, I do agree that it's not an optimal design for Tesla to make the predictable life-limited memory part so inaccessible unlike the ease to swap out tires.

tires are fully expected to wear well before the life of the 4 year warranty. that's a false equiv.

flash life is MUCH more related to the PROGRAMMER's talents (or lack of) - and has zero, zilch, zip to do with user driving behavior.

more to my proof: if my car sits 100% of the time, tires are not wearing (ignoring flatspotting). and yet, the simple act of 'being on' causes sylog and app logging, and maybe other wearing side-effects of designs that could have avoided it.

we're being fair, here. we're not expecting a vendor to replace tires. the flash is 100% controlled by the vendor and bears zero correlation to driver behavior. you can't 'reduce flash wear' by being a better owner or driver.

tl;dr - tesla can't validly say 'we are holding it wrong'

 

[Veezer]

How can 1 computer failure (that should be no more than $2,000 even if out of warranty) ruin your love for an entire brand? Oh right, it's because the tow truck drivers didn't do their job. Makes sense— blame Tesla for not training every tow truck driver in the world on how a smartphone with wheels works.

I'm sorry that your superiority complex trumps my experience. Yes it is incumbent upon Tesla to educate their roadside on making sure that a car gets towed correctly in all situations. As was stated earlier they have not done so and that was why I was in the situation I was in. Yes the computer is annoying but the process of getting to the point of repair is the biggest problem. I did not call any Joe Schmoe towing company. I called TESLA. What if it had not been me? What if had been my wife and 5 kids? Stranded for 24 hours while two different trucks come and then go without being to help? I'm sorry but not all experiences with Tesla are going to be positive. But hopefully they learn and make this better because of this. I'm not some anti-Tesla clown. Just someone who expects Tesla to do the right thing and be there for their customer for a when new was $130k vehicle.

 

[SO16]

There are options for the failing EMMC for MCU1 including just having the chip replaced by EV-Fixme.

Also can upgrade to MCU2.

According to green, MCU2 will probably not have the same issue with the EMMC as noted here. Twitter

Not ideal and Tesla should do the right thing for MCU1 customers and replace the EMMC. But to not recommend a Tesla because of concern about this issue happening again with MCU2 or a 3/Y seems unwarranted.

I don’t use pin to drive on my MCU1 right now because if the screen doesn’t turn on, I can’t enter the pin. Will upgrade to MCU2. In the meantime I just don’t have the walk up unlock option turned on. The only way to Unlock/drive my car is to actually push on the keyfob.

 

[Veezer]

There are options for the failing EMMC for MCU1 including just having the chip replaced by EV-Fixme.

Also can upgrade to MCU2.

According to green, MCU2 will probably not have the same issue with the EMMC as noted here. Twitter

Not ideal and Tesla should do the right thing for MCU1 customers and replace the EMMC. But to not recommend a Tesla because of concern about this issue happening again with MCU2 or a 3/Y seems unwarranted.

I don’t use pin to drive on my MCU1 right now because if the screen doesn’t turn on, I can’t enter the pin. Will upgrade to MCU2. In the meantime I just don’t have the walk up unlock option turned on. The only way to Unlock/drive my car is to actually push on the keyfob.

Yes thats what I'm doing now. Upgrading to MCU2. Like i said I love my car. And I never said I would not recommend to a other person not to buy a Tesla. I said that this whole experience of the issue itself to a smaller extent but the process in which everything has unfolded has made me rethink ever owning another one myself. I'm sorry for the confusion that is present in that regard.

 

[SO16]

Yes thats what I'm doing now. Upgrading to MCU2. Like i said I love my car. And I never said I would not recommend to a other person not to buy a Tesla. I said that this whole experience of the issue itself to a smaller extent but the process in which everything has unfolded has made me rethink ever owning another one myself. I'm sorry for the confusion that is present in that regard.

I forgot to link in Linux-works post. I was responding to him about the unwarranted part. Sorry

 

[aaron0k]

Yeah i understand that with the tow trucks. My problem was roadside sent out two different tow trucks without the proper equipment to tow it even though they knew the MCU was dead.

Similar experience when the MCU bricked on my S40; the two trucks Tesla sent refused to tow it saying they would damage it. I had to call AAA... they came with tire dollies.

How Tesla has handled/serviced MCU issues has significantly changed my opinion of the company as well. Design issues happen (cough, butterfly keyboard)... however they're still the best cars I've ever owned; but that doesn't mean we can't focus some stink eye where they could have easily done better addressing the problem.

 

[SO16]

Similar experience when the MCU bricked on my S40; the two trucks Tesla sent refused to tow it saying they would damage it. I had to call AAA... they came with tire dollies.

How Tesla has handled/serviced MCU issues has significantly changed my opinion of the company as well. Design issues happen (cough, butterfly keyboard)... however they're still the best cars I've ever owned; but that doesn't mean we can't focus some stink eye where they could have easily done better addressing the problem.

What are you going to do about your failed MCUs?

Just get the EMMC replaced, replace with MCU1 or upgrade to MCU2?

 

[aaron0k]

What are you going to do about your failed MCUs?

Just get the EMMC replaced, replace with MCU1 or upgrade to MCU2?

For my S40, I swallowed the bitter pill and paid Tesla $$$$ for a new MCU1. If the MCU2 were an option at the time, I would have paid the extra. A year later the MCU died on my 70D... a TMC member replaced the eMMC after I pulled out the Tegra.