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Out of warranty concerns about Tesla

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Why would "diy fixes" affect the warranty at all if done correctly and in accordance with the tesla procedures and specifications with OEM parts purchased from tesla? (Hint: they wouldn't).

Once my car is out of warranty, I intend to do most work that needs to be done myself. While the car is in warranty, I expect Tesla to handle warranty issues, and I desire to do my own maintenance and repairs for out of warranty items. I will very likely take my car to Tesla to perform the annual maintenence while it is under warranty, if for no other reason than to minimize any possible warranty disputes. But I still want the option to work on and diagnose the car myself, especially for items that are not covered under warranty. I have a legal right to this in my state. Tesla is NOT in compliance with state laws that every other auto manufacturer has and does follow. Why should they be treated any differently?

Not in any disagreement with you and like you mentioned, I usually don't want to touch anything too mechanical as I don't want the car maker to have a reason to disallow any warranty work but after the warranty is over, many things we can on our own and for a few that I can't do myself, the service center should be offering services ala carte but not sure if Tesla does.

Tesla did promise the Right to Repair but so far hasn't delivered and even removed MA consumers' rights / access to something as per a TMC member in MA.

I am pro consumer and I don't believe black box information are fool proof and are always accurate unless they are certified or audited every time there is an upgrade. I am in audit so I know not everything that appears perfect from the outside is working properly 100% of the time.
 
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After the warranty period, Tesla will no longer be on the hook for any issues correct?.
Legally, perhaps not. PR wise, very much so. Tesla is different from legacy car companies in that there are entire industries who want to see it fail and massive disinformation campaigns against it. The press jumps all over any hint of a negative story about a Tesla. The DIY causing the problem would be buried if mentioned at all. Can't you see the stories? It would be "Tesla Model S does whatever", not "Some idiot did this to a Tesla".
 
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Legally, perhaps not. PR wise, very much so. Tesla is different from legacy car companies in that there are entire industries who want to see it fail and massive disinformation campaigns against it. The press jumps all over any hint of a negative story about a Tesla. The DIY causing the problem would be buried if mentioned at all. Can't you see the stories? It would be "Tesla Model S does whatever", not "Some idiot did this to a Tesla".

Not likely car makers, maybe the oil industry. Once battery prices go down and technology improves, barrier to profitability compared to ICE vehicles will no longer exists. Dinosaur car makers will lose market share eventually.

With the internet and discussion forums, at least it is easier to hear both sides of the story and facts can be ascertained more objectively.

Not everyone complaining about Tesla will have ungrounded justifications. And if those criticisms will make Tesla more customer-centric instead of being a master showman, then all for the better.

And with false accusations, it will likely be a minority unless Tesla alienates its customers and screw them over.

Just pay attention to how much people bash anyone who says anything negative about Tesla on this forum. :)
 
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Huh? Mass, not MD.
I apologize. I wasn't sure which of those it was, so I guessed.

And no, the toolbox software is NOT availible to me, for any amount of money. Their service manuals are, for an exorbitant subscription fee (which I have paid for, but still doesn't get me access to the software I need to actually complete many of the tasks included). It's $30 per hour for access, $100 per day.
So... Perhaps you should point out to your State Legislature that access to vehicle manuals is not enough when advanced vehicles also require specific software to diagnose and remedy their repair needs...? Just find a concerned representative and have them move to expand and/or amend current laws to make it so that Tesla must do as you ask. Then, Tesla can decide to either comply with the law, or simply not do business in that State going forward. That said, don't be surprised if the software costs $25,000+ per license.

Why is it so hard for you guys to accept that some people (like me) enjoy working on cars, and would rather spend their own time fixing things than pay someone else to do it? (Warranty or otherwise?)
Why is it so hard for you guys to accept the notion that people weren't turning the 1917 to 1928 Ford Model T into T-Bucket Hotrods until the 1950s? Yes, DECADES later for the most part, if you overlook the criminal activity of bootleggers during Prohibition. Sure, some of you may literally only do regular maintenance on your own cars and enjoy that activity... But let's be honest here -- most people who consider themselves gearheads and spend more time under the hood wrenching than behind the wheel driving absolutely swear they are personally able to IMPROVE those vehicles beyond the specifications of the engineers that designed them -- and they set out to prove that, to do that, every time they set foot in the garage. Find a way to mitigate the inherent, obvious, and existent 'RISK FACTORS' that stay Tesla's hand, and then you will have a leg to stand on. There is no such thing as 'Right to Repair'. There are a wide variety of 'Limited Warranty' provisions and among them are that 'unauthorized personnel' cannot be used for repairs, customization, or modification of a product. Several electronic devices, and yes, certain automobiles, also include warnings that if a certain seal is broken for the purpose of inspection, repair, or modification of a product, the warranty becomes void. The obvious intent is to direct Customers to trusted sources for those services. There is nothing wrong with the fact that Tesla currently trusts Tesla alone when it comes to diagnosis and repair of their drive systems and use of their software suite.
 
Legally, perhaps not. PR wise, very much so. Tesla is different from legacy car companies in that there are entire industries who want to see it fail and massive disinformation campaigns against it. The press jumps all over any hint of a negative story about a Tesla. The DIY causing the problem would be buried if mentioned at all. Can't you see the stories? It would be "Tesla Model S does whatever", not "Some idiot did this to a Tesla".
Precisely. There must be an iron clad case that can be brought to light that, "Some idiot did this to a Tesla." Just as there are plenty of examples of what idiots do to their Mustang, 911, Civic, or whatever. Tesla cannot afford the narrative becoming, "Just how unsafe are Tesla's cars?" instead. The same sort of people who try to blame comic books, movies, television, rock & roll, or videogames for all the ills of the world would be the very same that would accept with no proof whatsoever that there was something 'wrong' about electric cars. You know, stupid people.
 
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Not likely car makers, maybe the oil industry. Once battery prices go down and technology improves, barrier to profitability compared to ICE vehicles will no longer exists. Dinosaur car makers will lose market share eventually.

With the internet and discussion forums, at least it is easier to hear both sides of the story and facts can be ascertained more objectively.

Not everyone complaining about Tesla will have ungrounded justifications. And if those criticisms will make Tesla more customer-centric instead of being a master showman, then all for the better.

And with false accusations, it will likely be a minority unless Tesla alienates its customers and screw them over.

Just pay attention to how much people bash anyone who says anything negative about Tesla on this forum. :)
The false accusations keep on coming though. Because people have an agenda, because people want to make a buck, because people are stupid.

The worst of the false accusations came from a guy who bought a Model S, then immediately began claiming it was a lemon. He hired a nationally famous lawyer, one referred to as 'The Lemon Lawyer', who had successfully sued a number of automobile companies over the years. Turned out the 'recurrent issue' with that guy's car only happened after someone opened the frunk of the car. It turned out that the car kept logs of all activity, so there was a record of each time that someone accessed the frunk, and how the complaint lodged (a faulty 12v battery) was obviously due to tampering by the owner of the car.

In the end, Tesla ended up buying that car back from the owner, and maybe paying his legal fees. But it is rumored that as a concession, Tesla earned the right to never sell to that guy ever again... And Tesla also may have barred The Lemon Lawyer from bringing suit against them ever again.

The problem is that not all stupid people realize they are stupid. Some of them believe they are instead very clever. And to prove the height of their cleverness, they decide that they can prove that Tesla is stupid, or at least, in some way, 'unfair' somehow.

Do I bash people here? Sure. By delivering truckloads of honest, straightforward, direct and to-the-point LOGIC to combat their RHETORIC. If your position cannot stand up to truth, justice, and facts you don't deserve to leave with your pride intact. So I won't allow you to do so. Ever.
 
I apologize. I wasn't sure which of those it was, so I guessed.


So... Perhaps you should point out to your State Legislature that access to vehicle manuals is not enough when advanced vehicles also require specific software to diagnose and remedy their repair needs...? Just find a concerned representative and have them move to expand and/or amend current laws to make it so that Tesla must do as you ask. Then, Tesla can decide to either comply with the law, or simply not do business in that State going forward. That said, don't be surprised if the software costs $25,000+ per license.


Why is it so hard for you guys to accept the notion that people weren't turning the 1917 to 1928 Ford Model T into T-Bucket Hotrods until the 1950s? Yes, DECADES later for the most part, if you overlook the criminal activity of bootleggers during Prohibition. Sure, some of you may literally only do regular maintenance on your own cars and enjoy that activity... But let's be honest here -- most people who consider themselves gearheads and spend more time under the hood wrenching than behind the wheel driving absolutely swear they are personally able to IMPROVE those vehicles beyond the specifications of the engineers that designed them -- and they set out to prove that, to do that, every time they set foot in the garage. Find a way to mitigate the inherent, obvious, and existent 'RISK FACTORS' that stay Tesla's hand, and then you will have a leg to stand on. There is no such thing as 'Right to Repair'. There are a wide variety of 'Limited Warranty' provisions and among them are that 'unauthorized personnel' cannot be used for repairs, customization, or modification of a product. Several electronic devices, and yes, certain automobiles, also include warnings that if a certain seal is broken for the purpose of inspection, repair, or modification of a product, the warranty becomes void. The obvious intent is to direct Customers to trusted sources for those services. There is nothing wrong with the fact that Tesla currently trusts Tesla alone when it comes to diagnosis and repair of their drive systems and use of their software suite.

What a load of horse @#$%.

These cars are REMARKABLY simple in both design and implementation. Even the software is just a Linux computer cluster that if you know what you are doing . . . isn't difficult to play with.

Tesla is TURFING to protect their reputation as an nascent company right now, plain and simple, nothing more.

Fortunately, both my cars are disconnected from the "mothership". I'll mod them to my heart's content, and Tesla can kiss mine if they think they can tell me what I can, and cannot do with them.
 
Not in any disagreement with you and like you mentioned, I usually don't want to touch anything too mechanical as I don't want the car maker to have a reason to disallow any warranty work but after the warranty is over, many things we can on our own and for a few that I can't do myself, the service center should be offering services ala carte but not sure if Tesla does.

Tesla did promise the Right to Repair but so far hasn't delivered and even removed MA consumers' rights / access to something as per a TMC member in MA.

I am pro consumer and I don't believe black box information are fool proof and are always accurate unless they are certified or audited every time there is an upgrade. I am in audit so I know not everything that appears perfect from the outside is working properly 100% of the time.
You wrote, "Tesla did promise the Right to Repair but so far hasn't delivered..." Please show me where they made such a 'promise'. Then, explain why you are dissatisfied that it 'hasn't been delivered' since said announcement. Did Tesla provide a certain date by which this supposed 'promise' was to be fulfilled? Has that date come and gone? Have other automobile manufacturers also promised a 'Right to Repair'? Which ones? How long ago?

No. These aren't rhetorical questions. I honestly want to know the answers. If you can offer proof of your statements, then you will have won me to your cause. But seeing as I'm fairly certain you are full of [BOLSHEVIK], I won't be holding my breath while awaiting a reply.
 
You wrote, "Tesla did promise the Right to Repair but so far hasn't delivered..." Please show me where they made such a 'promise'. Then, explain why you are dissatisfied that it 'hasn't been delivered' since said announcement. Did Tesla provide a certain date by which this supposed 'promise' was to be fulfilled? Has that date come and gone? Have other automobile manufacturers also promised a 'Right to Repair'? Which ones? How long ago?

No. These aren't rhetorical questions. I honestly want to know the answers. If you can offer proof of your statements, then you will have won me to your cause. But seeing as I'm fairly certain you are full of [BOLSHEVIK], I won't be holding my breath while awaiting a reply.

Tesla President of Sales and Service Says Program To Allow Owners To Perform Own Repairs Is "In The Works"
Pack Performance and Launch Mode Limits

Guess that's a vague "maybe in the future"
 
Easy google search that the fellow above already did.
Tesla President of Sales and Service Says Program To Allow Owners To Perform Own Repairs Is "In The Works"

Someone from MA, nice enough to explain here on TMC that Tesla took away access from him. I'm not going to bother searching that post for you Red Sage as you are already a subject matter expert in your own little world.

You are going to say a statement is not a promise but hey, you can always have the last say but not sure if everyone think you are correct just because another member didn't bother responding back to you.
 
The false accusations keep on coming though. Because people have an agenda, because people want to make a buck, because people are stupid.

The worst of the false accusations came from a guy who bought a Model S, then immediately began claiming it was a lemon. He hired a nationally famous lawyer, one referred to as 'The Lemon Lawyer', who had successfully sued a number of automobile companies over the years. Turned out the 'recurrent issue' with that guy's car only happened after someone opened the frunk of the car. It turned out that the car kept logs of all activity, so there was a record of each time that someone accessed the frunk, and how the complaint lodged (a faulty 12v battery) was obviously due to tampering by the owner of the car.

In the end, Tesla ended up buying that car back from the owner, and maybe paying his legal fees. But it is rumored that as a concession, Tesla earned the right to never sell to that guy ever again... And Tesla also may have barred The Lemon Lawyer from bringing suit against them ever again.

The problem is that not all stupid people realize they are stupid. Some of them believe they are instead very clever. And to prove the height of their cleverness, they decide that they can prove that Tesla is stupid, or at least, in some way, 'unfair' somehow.

Do I bash people here? Sure. By delivering truckloads of honest, straightforward, direct and to-the-point LOGIC to combat their RHETORIC. If your position cannot stand up to truth, justice, and facts you don't deserve to leave with your pride intact. So I won't allow you to do so. Ever.

I don't care if you bash me. Your opinion about my posts mean nothing to me.
 
What a load of horse @#$%.
I agree. That is exactly what your post is composed of, from beginning to end.

These cars are REMARKABLY simple in both design and implementation. Even the software is just a Linux computer cluster that if you know what you are doing . . . isn't difficult to play with.
I'm posting from a LINUX computer I built myself, thank you very much. I find it strange though, that with the incredible amount of production capacity enjoyed by companies such as Volkswagen, Toyota, General Motors, and Ford... not ONE of them has taken it upon themselves to offer a long range fully electric vehicle in mass market quantities to rival their own best selling vehicles. You'd think it would be easy to make a fully electric Corolla, Camry, Prius, CRUZE, or MALIBU -- but they don't exist at all. Sure there is the e-GOLF and Focus Electric, but while those are fully electric versions of the best selling vehicles worldwide from those respective manufacturers, they are also short range and offered in only compliance car quantities for sale/lease in CARB States. It shouldn't take a great effort from these automotive giants to become fully electric powerhouses, but there is one huge obstacle in their way... They don't want to do it. So they haven't. And they won't. At least, not before it is too late. Or if they are forced to do so.

Anyone with opposable thumbs and an IQ of at least an order of magnitude above their sneaker size should be able to repair a fully electric car with minimal instruction. And anyone with years of automotive repair experience should find the experience of working on a Model S, Model X, or Model 3 to be enjoyable and eye-opening.

Tesla is TURFING to protect their reputation as an nascent company right now, plain and simple, nothing more.
I get the impression that you meant to say 'ASTROTURFING' there. Rather than bothering the horses, it seems we have switched to a different pasture, this time full of [BOLSHEVIK]. Yes, Tesla is a young company. There have almost been more generations of the Honda Civic than there have been years they have been in business. Ford, GM, Toyota, and Volkswagen are well established companies that are each capable of building on the order of 10,000,000 vehicles per year -- Tesla is nowhere near that level. Honda (1948) and BMW (1916) have each been around several decades longer than Tesla (2003) and sell a lot more cars per year. BMW Group moved over 2,300,000 units in 2016, while Honda produced just shy of 5,000,000 vehicles worldwide in 2016. But if all goes well within the next 5-to-10 years, Tesla may have caught them both. As a company that has not been existence even a full two decades yet, but that is showing its potential for future grown, Tesla is indeed a nascent company, whether you admit it or not.

Fortunately, both my cars are disconnected from the "mothership". I'll mod them to my heart's content, and Tesla can kiss mine if they think they can tell me what I can, and cannot do with them.
You can kiss your own goodbye, and I'll be glad to watch you. Because Tesla will never touch your cars. Go ahead, mod them all you want, but please make sure your widow or significant other is able to point out that you wrapped your car around a pole or drove it off a cliff due to your own inherent terminal stupidity and that the car did not kill you. Oh, and be sure to let your insurance company and local DMV know that you chose to modify your vehicles beyond factory specification out of pure spite. I'm sure they would appreciate the notice.
 
You can kiss your own goodbye, and I'll be glad to watch you. Because Tesla will never touch your cars. Go ahead, mod them all you want, but please make sure your widow or significant other is able to point out that you wrapped your car around a pole or drove it off a cliff due to your own inherent terminal stupidity and that the car did not kill you. Oh, and be sure to let your insurance company and local DMV know that you chose to modify your vehicles beyond factory specification out of pure spite. I'm sure they would appreciate the notice.

Idiot you are.

1) I knew up front Tesla would not touch my cars, given their Salvage Title policy. Works for me, I got TWO fully functional, in minor collision, Model S's for the cost of less than a single new Model S.
2) My Insurance FULLY covers the cars. My insurance agent knew the history fully on them, and guess what his question was to me: "Can you let me know if you run across another deal like what you got these?". Side note: did you know if a salvage car gets totaled, the insurance cuts a check as if it were a perfectly normal car with no salvage history? As long as the cars have been restored and passed DMV checks, they do not CARE.
3) DMV doesn't care. Have you ever seen a DMV "road inspection"? They walk around the car, see if there are 4 wheels and it can move under it's own power. Insurance also doesn't care, as long as I keep receipts for upgrades (guess what, I'm going to be wedging a 100kWh pack in these P85s soon enough).
4) I will drive both cars into the ground, I could care less about resell value, etc. I already got a MAD STEAL on them.
 
Easy google search that the fellow above already did.
Tesla President of Sales and Service Says Program To Allow Owners To Perform Own Repairs Is "In The Works"

Someone from MA, nice enough to explain here on TMC that Tesla took away access from him. I'm not going to bother searching that post for you Red Sage as you are already a subject matter expert in your own little world.

You are going to say a statement is not a promise but hey, you can always have the last say but not sure if everyone think you are correct just because another member didn't bother responding back to you.
The problem with the guys at InsideEVs is that they seem to have a problem with providing actual, real world, direct quotes of Tesla representatives for some reason. I believe I have queried them about it in times past. Essentially, if someone says something, even if it is on video, they don't really trust it if they were not there, and if one of their own reporters was not conducting the interview. So, quite a bit of the time, they will offer their own interpretation of a paraphrased statement of what someone at Tesla has said, without offering the full context of a complete quote or the text of the question that they were asked.

In this case, the article written a whole six months ago refers to a post somewhere on this site where an individual from Tesla apparently wrote that it was, "...in the works..." or something to that effect, supposedly about a future Tesla program in the vein of 'Right to Repair'. This time at least, they included a link to that post, which we find here:

Thanks! I support Tesla, but I do not approve of some of their policies. I'm glad to see @JonMc and Tesla stepped up and did the right thing here. Now if we can only get them to allow us to perform our own maintenance, which involves releasing service info and software as well as sell us parts. Also, If you purchase a salvage vehicle they will not sell you parts at all. This will have to change if Tesla hopes to become mass-market.

Just sent you a note on that -- in the works!
Just to give a bit of history... I believe it was at a TMC sponsored TesLive event in the first half of 2013 that someone in the audience asked Elon Musk if Tesla would be offering a Referral Program of any sort for Tesla owners who convinced others to buy their cars. If I remember correctly, there was no such plan in place at the time, but Elon noted it was worth considering, and that they would see what they could do to show their appreciation for such efforts. It was more than two years before the first Referral Program was unveiled in 2015.

With that in mind, a short post alluding vaguely to 'Right to Repair', without actually mentioning any specifics whatsoever does NOT in any way, shape, or form amount to a 'promise' at all. And, since those posts were made in January of this year, and Tesla is enormously busy battling the Great State of Michigan, its Regulators, & Elected Officials in Federal Court, while also attempting to expand their Tesla Store/Gallery and Service Center locations, and simultaneously expanding the Supercharger/Destination Charger network, and still establishing the roll out their first mass market vehicle in the form of the Model 3 -- they may well have been a bit busy over the course of the past SIX FRIGGIN' MONTHS and just haven't gotten to it yet. Be patient already, wouldja? If this happens before the end of 2019 you may consider yourself lucky. Damn.

Tesla has every right to 'fire' Customers. They've done it before. I don't blame them one bit. There comes a point where people make it clear by their own actions, and their own words, that they have no intention of being reasonable, professional, or in any way fair. They show that they have no interest in finding or accepting a solution. They just want to yell at people, waste their time, and if allowed to, cuss them out. Most often, it is by uttering the magic words, "I'll never shop with you again!" that they cut ties with a company. That makes it easy -- all you have to do is take them at their word. There is nothing you can do to retain their patronage. Cool. We will settle this issue as we see fit, then close your account. Goodbye. [Yes. I have fired Customers before. :D ]

It's not about having 'the last say'. It is about saying the right thing. You don't have to believe me, but it's true.
 
So... Perhaps you should point out to your State Legislature that access to vehicle manuals is not enough when advanced vehicles also require specific software to diagnose and remedy their repair needs...? Just find a concerned representative and have them move to expand and/or amend current laws to make it so that Tesla must do as you ask. Then, Tesla can decide to either comply with the law, or simply not do business in that State going forward. That said, don't be surprised if the software costs $25,000+ per license.

No need to contact my representative. MA already has passed this right to repair law:

Chapter 93K

Also, they could not sell the diagnostic tools for $25k, as they are required to offer them to consumers under fair and reasonable terms (and nobody in their right mind would think $25k is fair and reasonable).

Anyways, you're right, they could have choosen to not sell in MA. But they do sell here, and I bought my car here. So I have a legal right to access the diagnostic utilities. I bought my car expecting that I would have no trouble getting access to such tools. Every other car company that sells cars in MA complies with this law.

Anyways, while I can appreciate Tesla's desire to prevent idiots from making headlines with their cars, we should all be demanding access to these tools, service manuals, and parts globally. Not just for us, but for independent shops. That will ensure that we can get reasonably priced work done on our cars, and drive them for many many years. Tesla should be encouraging this too; especially with the 3 volumes spelling potential disaster on their already overtaxed 1st party authorized body shop and SC network.
 
bkp_duke -
You already fixed up two salvaged Model S, so you're complaining about what exactly?
We could wait for the warranty to expire and see how Tesla responds.
In the meantime, seems you could do well repairing and selling Teslas. Finding buyers should be easy enough.

Took over a year to completely get both cars to 100%, because of Tesla policies and nothing else at all. Having to go hunting for simple (non-structural) parts is complete BS when Tesla service should be able to sell you a plastic clip, homelink module, etc.

Like all others that have gone through the salvage car process with Tesla, I'm complaining about their POLICIES. Which, frankly, are nucking futs.
 
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