Need some help figuring out my salvage model S

[wk057]

I must disagree. This implies that after my warranty is over, I should be paying Tesla to regularly service my car in order to continue using 3G or the supercharger network. That's not free supercharging.

You're free to disagree. I think the overall health of the network is the most important and would definitely require that the cars utilizing it be given periodic checkups. I'll say again, no where in any of my paperwork do I see anything about the supercharger network at all, let alone it being free forever with no caveats. My car is supercharging/DC charging capable per the paperwork. That doesn't say that access to the Tesla-owned-and-operated supercharger network is free forever without anything required.

Granted, I think this will be the case for most. But I'm all for Tesla being strict on enforcement of who and what cars are allowed to use the network, especially when it comes to salvage/total loss repairs.

According to Tesla, the car is simpler and easier to maintain than a comparable ICE car. How then is $1200 in any shape of form a reasonable price for a yearly 'inspection'?

At that point it would be more of a fee for continued use of the supercharger network for which they're not obligated to support for the salvage vehicle, as well as the on-board 3G service for the year. $1200/yr for fuel and unlimited 3G? The unlimited 3G alone is virtually nonexistent elsewhere and even limited data hotspot plans cost at least ~$500/yr.
I'm not saying they're going to actually do this, but I think in the case of salvage vehicles it wouldn't be unwarranted and you can't expect them to continue to provide these service for free indefinitely.

Edit: As an owner of two in-warranty vehicles, I'm not even expecting free 3G forever, or even while still under warranty. I believe Tesla will hold up the free supercharging stance at least for non-salvage Model S and Model X. I doubt it will be free for Model 3, however, and it wouldn't surprise me if eventually it were not free for Model S/X either (say 10-15 years from now).

 

[rlang59]

Do I believe they'll go back on that particular feature? Probably not, would be horrible PR. Do I believe they're eventually going to start charging for 3G? Yep.

Tesla has stated that 3G will be free for the first four years of ownership, so I wouldn't count on it being free past then. The also started the clock on January 1 2014 for anyone that was an owner before then.

 

[wk057]

Tesla has stated that 3G will be free for the first four years of ownership, so I wouldn't count on it being free past then. The also started the clock on January 1 2014 for anyone that was an owner before then.

Yeah, this isn't documented anywhere in any paperwork I have either, so, guess we'll see how it goes in ~4 years.

 

[Gizmotoy]

Which SC are you dealing with? Can you just visit another one? To me, this sounds a lot like a cranky SC. If not, I think you should politely write to Jerome or one of his direct reports. PM me if you need more info.

The reason I say that is because the car was already inspected once. It is surprising and, IMO, unreasonable to require a follow-up inspection after they've already blessed the vehicle. Your car should be treated like any other out-of-warranty vehicle (salvage titles from all manufacturers that I'm aware of automatically void the warranty). Your original inspection paperwork should negate the need for ongoing inspections.

 

[Andyw2100]

As for superchargers being "free for life," unfortunately regardless of what Elon Musk has said, this particular line item is not in any of my paperwork after three Model S purchases. No where in any of my documentation, purchase agreements, order confirmations, etc does it say anything about superchargers being free for life and/or accessible forever or anything else along those lines. The purchase agreement specifically excludes any verbal promises, if I recall correctly, also.

I'm not making any comment on how this applies to salvage vehicles. But with respect to regular Model S vehicles, I think we are safe to expect free supercharging for life, even though it may not be in the purchase agreement. As discussed in other threads, every detail of the car can't be in the purchase agreement. We rely on what Tesla publishes on their website to supplement the purchase agreement. In this case, on this subject, we have a pretty clear promise of free supercharging for life, as seen here:

Supercharging | Tesla Motors

How much does it cost to use the Supercharger?
Supercharging is free for the life of Model S, once the Supercharger option is enabled.

Why is it free?
We want to encourage Model S owners to take road trips.

Will it always be free?
Yes, Superchargers will be free to use for Supercharging-enabled vehicles for the life of Model S.


Again, I am not trying to say that this should apply to a salvage vehicle. I'm just saying that for regular, non-salvage vehicles, the fact that there is nothing in the purchase agreement about it does not worry me.

 

[JRP3]

I am honestly thinking of starting a kickstarter project to completely reverse engineer the car creating repair manuals, and convert the OS to android and other open source software so that others will not suffer the same problems as we salvage owners, and future non warranty cars WILL have.

You might contact Jack Rickard of EVTV.me. He and others have had luck using their GEVCU to gain control of the Siemens/Azure motor/inverter combo, along with the UQM coda units, and maybe a LEAF. EVTV Motor Verks Store: 1 Generalized Vehicle Control Unit (GEVCU), Motors and Controllers, gevcu It's also open source if you don't want to deal with Jack.

 

[rlang59]

Yeah, this isn't documented anywhere in any paperwork I have either, so, guess we'll see how it goes in ~4 years.

It's in the shareholder letter from Q4 of 2013 (see page 2):
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/0x0x727013/9885dd26-2e82-4052-b171-3685fd8150b3/Q4%2713%20Shareholder%20Letter.pdf

To further enhance the driver experience, new Model S customers will now receive free data connectivity andInternet radio for four years. As an added benefit to our existing Model S customers, the free four year periodstarts on January 1, 2014. To be fair to all, in rare cases a customer may be charged for extreme data use.

 

[schonelucht]

At that point it would be more of a fee for continued use of the supercharger network for which they're not obligated to support for the salvage vehicle, as well as the on-board 3G service for the year. $1200/yr for fuel and unlimited 3G? The unlimited 3G alone is virtually nonexistent elsewhere and even limited data hotspot plans cost at least ~$500/yr.
I'm not saying they're going to actually do this, but I think in the case of salvage vehicles it wouldn't be unwarranted and you can't expect them to continue to provide these service for free indefinitely.

If they come out with stating it as such, fine. Own up to your price, if they want that money for continued connectivity and fast charging, why not, everyone still has the choice not to be their customer. But CJS2 stated that his car 'won't start'. To fix it, he needs to pay $1200 for the service center to do a software upgrade. He's paying, again according to the service center,a $1200 yearly to 'keep the car up to their specs' just so he can continue to drive the thing not 'for the supercharging and connectivity'. We know Tesla's communication is exceptionally poor, so you could still be right : what they say is not what they mean. But until they clarify their salvage title policy it is still reasonable for me and CJS2 to take their words at face value... That $1200 is not a reasonable price to keep a vehicle driveable while Tesla claims it to be so much simpler and lower on maintenance than everything else on the market.

 

[zhur0002]

Sorry to hear about your car CJS2. My car is a 60 so supercharging was never paid for.

What computer controls everything in the car lets tesla know what vin# the car is etc.? Is it the BMS or does it have some other ecu that controls the car? When I was in Russia and was convinced that my car was turned off by Tesla I talked to a computer hack, he was very confident that he would be able to create a program that would be able get into the cars system and I would be able to scan the car, turn on supercharging. Does anyone have a spare BMS that they are willing to donate for research? It would probably cost me about $3k to create a program.

Latest update on my car: Clearing SRS module, cloning key and trying to figure out why I have torque steer under very heavy acceleration above 180kw. Car want's to move over into the left lane if I floor it, alignment is all set to spec.

 

[zhur0002]

From my experience the 12V low battery message occurs when main pack stops feeding power to the 12v through the DC DC inverter. Voltage drops and the car displays that message, does not mean your 12v is bad. Occasionally my car will display the 3 messages when it decides to shut off "car may not restart, car unable to drive, 12v bat is low car may shut down" that only happens when I hear a solenoid click open somewhere underneath the where the motor is. Click sounds the same as when car is a sleep and you open a door.

I have not been able to solve my issue yet, only happens when I charge the car sometimes. Its either moisture or a bad connection somewhere. I already put a 1000 miles on the car.

 

[Gizmotoy]

From my experience the 12V low battery message occurs when main pack stops feeding power to the 12v through the DC DC inverter. Voltage drops and the car displays that message, does not mean your 12v is bad. Occasionally my car will display the 3 messages when it decides to shut off "car may not restart, car unable to drive, 12v bat is low car may shut down" that only happens when I hear a solenoid click open somewhere underneath the where the motor is. Click sounds the same as when car is a sleep and you open a door.

I have not been able to solve my issue yet, only happens when I charge the car sometimes. Its either moisture or a bad connection somewhere. I already put a 1000 miles on the car.

I'm sure that's true in some cases, but not all. Certainly it's possible for the 12V to go bad, as tons of us can attest, without needing new DC/DC converters. Without a functioning DC/DC converter, your 12V is not going to last very long at all. A day or two? Something like that. The constant current draw on these things is pretty substantial.

 

[breser]

I'm sure that's true in some cases, but not all. Certainly it's possible for the 12V to go bad, as tons of us can attest, without needing new DC/DC converters. Without a functioning DC/DC converter, your 12V is not going to last very long at all. A day or two? Something like that. The constant current draw on these things is pretty substantial.

Not even that someone on another thread calculated the number of discharges a day the 12V does just from the vampire draw and I seem to think it was roughly every 8 hours. That's not accounting for using anything while driving which would increase that rate. Without a working DC to DC converter you've got a dead car pretty quick.

Edit: Here's the post I was thinking of:
Near annual replacement of 12V battery is typical according to Tesla Service Tech - Page 3

 

[Gizmotoy]

Not even that someone on another thread calculated the number of discharges a day the 12V does just from the vampire draw and I seem to think it was roughly every 8 hours. That's not accounting for using anything while driving which would increase that rate. Without a working DC to DC converter you've got a dead car pretty quick.

Edit: Here's the post I was thinking of:
Near annual replacement of 12V battery is typical according to Tesla Service Tech - Page 3

Worse than I remembered. Yikes. Thanks for the link.

 

[skilly]

You're free to disagree. I think the overall health of the network is the most important and would definitely require that the cars utilizing it be given periodic checkups. I'll say again, no where in any of my paperwork do I see anything about the supercharger network at all, let alone it being free forever with no caveats. My car is supercharging/DC charging capable per the paperwork. That doesn't say that access to the Tesla-owned-and-operated supercharger network is free forever without anything required.

Granted, I think this will be the case for most. But I'm all for Tesla being strict on enforcement of who and what cars are allowed to use the network, especially when it comes to salvage/total loss repairs.

.

Supercharging isn't free. Its included with the 85kW battery and thats kind of like saying the stock radio is free as long as you buy the car. They appear to have a value associated with it - noted in the build that its 2500.00 iif your car didnt come with the Supercharging option.

 

[zhur0002]

Another interesting thing I learned about model S. Disconnecting the 12V negative terminal before the car goes to sleep(contactors still closed) will not kill the car. Car will still function doors will open headlights will work, I did not try but will most likely be able to drive also. That surprised me because I thought it needed 12V power to keep contactors closed. The only thing I could think of its getting a ground from somewhere else and only uses 12V positive side to keep contactors closed. Meaning that the contactors will open instantly once positive side is disconnected. I did not disconnect the positive connection. Or another possibility is that I have sticky contactors that would explain why sometimes they open when I charge and leave the car dead. Any input anyone?

Going back to alignment shop today, car wants to torque steer to left if more than 120kw of power is delivered.

 

[wk057]

Another interesting thing I learned about model S. Disconnecting the 12V negative terminal before the car goes to sleep(contactors still closed) will not kill the car. Car will still function doors will open headlights will work, I did not try but will most likely be able to drive also. That surprised me because I thought it needed 12V power to keep contactors closed. The only thing I could think of its getting a ground from somewhere else and only uses 12V positive side to keep contactors closed. Meaning that the contactors will open instantly once positive side is disconnected. I did not disconnect the positive connection. Or another possibility is that I have sticky contactors that would explain why sometimes they open when I charge and leave the car dead. Any input anyone?

Going back to alignment shop today, car wants to torque steer to left if more than 120kw of power is delivered.

The HVDC to 12V converter is operating while the contactors are closed, so the 12V battery shouldn't be used once they're closed. This seems like normal behavior.

 

[kennybobby]

Your pack contactors may need replacing, such as has been done for several battery packs as reported on this site. No telling what the throttle position was at the time of the accident, but the motor was likely spinning and pulling current, so the contactor life may have been used up or degraded in breaking the circuit while under a current load.

i don't know if your battery pack would be considered to still have a warranty and the contactors being covered under that.

Maybe you could find another battery pack to swap out and see if that fixes the problem, although any salvage pack may have also been running at the time of accident and have degraded contactors-- but at least you could know even if that is an expensive troubleshooting cost. i assume you could sell or part out any extra battery packs.

If that turns out to be the case then i think you could purchase a set of replacement contactors for about $1k from Tyco. The hard part will be the R/R since HV DC tends to have a high pucker factor and is not forgiving of mistakes. i have probed and made measurements on an 800 VDC buss while troubleshooting a 300 hp inverter and it is not for the faint of heart or those with shaky hands, so be careful if you pursue that route...

 

[zhur0002]

Ok that makes sense, I'm just used to the Chevy Volt disconnecting the 12V shuts the thing down completely. With a Tesla once contactors are closed you could theoretically take out the 12v battery and car would function, HVDC would supply 12V for electronics to keep contactors closed. A way to disable contactors instantly would be take out the pyro-fuse or the fuse right before the pyro-fuse or unplug the loop for the emergency responders, that would cut the 12V supply to contactors and open them. Thanks

- - - Updated - - -

There is nothing under warranty on my car, it makes me sad. Tesla is replacing the power-switches as part of preventative maintenance in a lot cars right now. That would most likely cure my problem, I wish they would issue an actual recall, than my car would qualify.

 

[breser]

For those that don't realize it an insurance company totaling a car voids the warranty.

From the warranty (page 42 as labeled in the document):

The following will also void this New Vehicle Limited Warranty:

• Vehicles that have been labeled or branded as dismantled, fire-damaged, flood-damaged, junk, rebuilt, salvaged, reconstructed, irreparable or a total loss; and
• Vehicles that have been determined to be a total loss by an insurance company.

 

[zhur0002]

If you install a 85kw battery into a 60kw car, will the car realize its an 85kw battery?