Out of Warranty Drive Unit Replacement and Cost

[pepsundar]

I wrote these two responses to questions in Quora during my first year of ownership that have over 400k views and I continue to get updates till date.

Why do Tesla cars generate so much interest while other electric vehicles are generally ignored?

Sundar Padmanaban's answer: When I bought my 2015 Nissan Leaf, I thought I was an idiot to spend over $30k to buy a car that runs ~60+ miles in one charge. But it’s been bugging my mind a long time that we, the humans, have messed up this planet big time in the name of industrialization and it’s ...

qr.ae

What is bad about Tesla cars?

Sundar Padmanaban's answer: Man, you got me started on this one! Oh my gosh! Here are few real bad things about Tesla cars: 1. I visit the my dentist more often than I used to. Tesla car makes me clench my teeth whenever I’m stopped at a traffic light behind an ICE car and that damn car doesn’t ...

qr.ae

Good old days!

 

[pepsundar]

Nice cars can get expensive. Just posting this to try and make you feel better, you (or anyone else) could have bought a used BMW (or Porsche etc.) and have the tranny blow up and been in the same situation. Amazing how closely this resembles your situation. This is from bimmerforum:

Hi I'm new here, and have a problem w/ my transmission. I have a 2008 BMW 535i w/ 100k miles, new twin turbo replaced at 80k through BMW/dealer warranty. My transmission goes into fail-safe mode in high gears (when trying to go fast on the highway, basically gunning it), otherwise it's been driveable if I don't overdo it. So, my mechanic discovered the problem in the diagnostic codes and warned me about this happening. Unfortunately, he doesn't do transmission work, and I made the mistake of taking it to my local AAMCO. They took it apart and showed me that those clutches were burnt out, scratched, burnt fluid, and also told me that the valve body is bad. They want $7,300 to rebuild my transmission with the new valve body. I told them that's ridiculous and to put my transmission back together. They wouldn't budge on the price, and acted like they were doing me a favor at that price. They also told me the VB Solenoids can't be replaced because they can't be purchased individually which is a lie (well my mechanic said you can buy them in a pack). I asked them how do they know my VB is bad, did they run any diagnostics on it, they beat around the bush and basically didn't. I asked them how much to just do the clutches, seals/rings, etc only w/out the VB, and they said $3,300 but will not provide any warranty. Again, I declined, and told them to put the transmission back together. The dianostic cost of taking transmission apart and re-assembling it is $695, so now i'm out that $$. All the places I've called, i can't find a rebuilt one to purchase, they will only rebuild mine. The lowest price I found is in Georgia (I'm in Florida) for $2,800, then my mechanic would charge $1200 to install it and program, plus $250 shipping for the transmission. They would give me a 12-month warranty, but i'm not gonna do that cause I don't want a warranty from some shop in Georgia. I called another local transmission place and they want $4,995 to rebuild mine which includes the valve body w/ a 18month warranty. I can't seem to find any locallly yet that can rebuild mine for $3000-4000 (including the valve body) and provide a decent warranty. I'm really dissapointed that AAMCO tried to rip me off, and hoping they put my transmission back together properly. I don't know what to do at this point which is why I'm seeking help/advice in this forum. I will make more calls around locally (calling the dealer on Monday too) and see what other shops can do for me. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks for the share. I had my own experiences with ICE cars before going all electric. My only gripe is - those experiences had warnings before a major failure occurred, I had close to 100k miles and 10 years of ownership and I knew very well that I was several years past the warranty period. I missed on this one, I was super excited to get myself behind the wheel and kept it as a BIG SURPRISE to my family as I took them for a 'Tesla factory tour' without telling them we were actually taking delivery of a Model S at the end of the tour. I wrote a lengthy post in the old Tesla forum about it.

Don't mistake me, I LOVE this car and the way it drives. It never gets old and I couldn't feel any difference in the way it drives between Day 1 and the last day I drove two weeks ago. Same performance, same smoothness, same power! Always loved to be the first car to move on a green light smoking... or should I say... electrifying every other cars around me even without having to press the accelerator hard. I only wish major parts like RDU/Battery packs are covered for at least 10 years instead of 8 years.

 

[pepsundar]

Don't apologise for your rant, perfectly understandable and this is also what this forum is for: share experience, rants, vent... and get support from fellow owners to the best they can.

From your story, it feels like you are doing the right thing to sell it once it's fixed. It is absolutely true that older S outside warranty have a risk of battery and DU failure, with costly repair. It's all a matter or doing the math & what you can afford to spend on a car.
Some have spent the money on new battery and all things considered, feel it is better than buying a new one. Also because of the "soft" value of the car (eg early adopters car...) it makes sens to keep maintaining it and repair when needed.

Personaly, I'm closing in on the end of the warranty and have an excel file, where I projected for new battery & DU within the 2 years after the warranty ends. Compared to the projection of reselling it and buying a Y, I come at the same TCO by 2026.
Some would say I'm crazy and should buy a new Y with all new tech, but I'm quite found of my S. It also represent that I was part of those believers. Not to mention my mother in law would kill me: she loves it even more than I do

(*) I don't want to buy a new S, Y would be more than enough.

Thank you for the understanding. I need to get used to 'abrupt failures' as opposed to 'wear and tear related failures' and 'progressive degradation of battery' with Tesla. So even if the battery pack has 90% juice, it can just abruptly fail and would need to be replaced. This is the part I'm unable to digest. I would love to keep the car, but I'm just worried that the TCO doesn't make sense. In the case of ICE cars, once the warranty expired, I never went back to dealership and always went to certified 3rd party service centers where I could get the repairs done in less than half of what dealers would have charged. In Tesla's case we don't have such options and a $220 / hr labor is just scary as we have no say on how long it would take to diagnose, detect, repair a car as they own the technology/know-how. The initial estimate given to me on Monday was $2300, that included $1900 labor ~$200 parts and taxes. I'm sure if a 3rd party option was available, it would've been estimated at 50% of what Tesla quoted.

I'll think about keeping the car and probably start saving some money foreseeing a battery replacement. I only pray that it doesn't fail next week and gives me some breathing space for a year or two.

 

[pepsundar]

Really a dumb question. When I take the car back with the new RDU, would it make sense to get the old RDU and is there any value to it at all? SC won't tell me what went wrong with it and won't touch it; won't dismantle it. Wondering if the problem was bearings, coolant, etc. can that be refurbished for any value at all?

 

[ajbessinger]

You're not being too cynical. It's hard for me to believe that the RDU just failed magically with no warnings/problems. The car was just running fine with no issues whatsoever. I only use it for my daily commute of 40 miles round trip to work and that's why I have put in only 52k in 6 years. Especially I have put only 3-4k since March 2020 as I have been working from home. Never abused it; never drove in any extreme conditions or terrain, always garaged, single driver, and all scheduled services are done in a timely manner. Parked on Friday evening. Went back to drive it on Sunday evening; saw the update notification, and then boom... car was not drivable with all electronics on. Unlike the Bimmer story above which had 100k plus miles, it's difficult to accept the fact that RDU could just fail just like that with only 3rd of mileage of what it was warranted by Tesla.

I owned ICE cars before and had spent money on a lot of mechanical failures; but in all those instances, cars had trouble, warnings, noises, etc. and had close to 100k miles. Never once I was in a situation where the car was just running fine and suddenly refused to start with a major breakdown like this.

I strongly believe that Tesla is covering up QC issues on the cars and is not standing by what they make and pushing the costs to customers.

Unfortunately that's a pretty typical failure mode. They run just fine, and then pretty much just come to a stop, or one day just won't start. If I were to put an estimate on it, I'd say that maybe 50% of the time there is some warning before they fail, but otherwise they just fail very suddenly.

As far as the mileage goes on it, I've seen some LDUs go bad in as little as 20k miles, and some last as much as 150k miles, but I'd say it's pretty typical for the coolant seals to fail between 60-80k, so yours is not that far off the norm... The newer iterations of drive units (small front and rear, and M3/Y) are leagues beyond the original LDUs in terms of reliability, which is exactly the reason why I drive a 70D.

 

[ajbessinger]

Really a dumb question. When I take the car back with the new RDU, would it make sense to get the old RDU and is there any value to it at all? SC won't tell me what went wrong with it and won't touch it; won't dismantle it. Wondering if the problem was bearings, coolant, etc. can that be refurbished for any value at all?

Based on your symptoms, it was most likely a failed rotor coolant seal, which ends up flooding the drive unit with coolant and creates a myriad of issues. If the coolant leak is bad enough (e.g., a "fast leak"), then coolant will get to the inverter before any other noticible symptoms occur. Here's what that looks like:

 

[ajbessinger]

Thank you for the understanding. I need to get used to 'abrupt failures' as opposed to 'wear and tear related failures' and 'progressive degradation of battery' with Tesla. So even if the battery pack has 90% juice, it can just abruptly fail and would need to be replaced. This is the part I'm unable to digest. I would love to keep the car, but I'm just worried that the TCO doesn't make sense. In the case of ICE cars, once the warranty expired, I never went back to dealership and always went to certified 3rd party service centers where I could get the repairs done in less than half of what dealers would have charged. In Tesla's case we don't have such options and a $220 / hr labor is just scary as we have no say on how long it would take to diagnose, detect, repair a car as they own the technology/know-how. The initial estimate given to me on Monday was $2300, that included $1900 labor ~$200 parts and taxes. I'm sure if a 3rd party option was available, it would've been estimated at 50% of what Tesla quoted.

I'll think about keeping the car and probably start saving some money foreseeing a battery replacement. I only pray that it doesn't fail next week and gives me some breathing space for a year or two.

I work at a 3rd party Tesla repair shop, though one of few... To give you a point of reference, if a coolant leak had been caught early enough (before it damaged the inverter), we could have rebuilt the drive unit for $4,000,. That includes some modifications to add a "drain kit" that will prevent catastrophic damage if the new coolant seal wears out in the future.

 

[AustinP]

Are you still on the original DU?

No, it’s actually my third. So maybe it’ll hold longer indeed. Yet I prefer to « provision » for it. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

 

[Droschke]

Based on my experience, I would actually say that that the later versions are actually MORE prone to leakage than earlier ones, as they use a single lip seal instead of a triple lip seal.

Very informative. Thanks.

Any idea if 1002633-00-Q LDU is MORE prone to leakage than earlier ones?

 

[Droschke]

No, it’s actually my third. So maybe it’ll hold longer indeed. Yet I prefer to « provision » for it. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Do you mind to share what revision your current DU is? Mine was replaced with the Q revision (see above) @37k miles.

 

[dark cloud]

That's why it is imperative that anyone who owns an LDU equipped car should visually inspect the rotor speed sensor for the presence of liquid at least once a year, especially if you are out of warranty! If you catch a leak early enough, it can still be repaired at much less cost than a whole drive unit replacement.

Good stuff AJ, thanks for your input. Here is what he is referring to:

Service your EV

 

[ajbessinger]

Do you mind to share what revision your current DU is? Mine was replaced with the Q revision (see above) @37k miles.

"Q" motors are one of the latest revisions, but regardless of which version you have, we still recommend checking the rotor speed sensor regularly. In case you haven't seen it referenced before, we have a "how-to" video on our shop's YouTube page that shows how to do it. While we did the video with the car on a lift, it can pretty easily be done using basic hand tools and the car up on ramps.

 

[Droschke]

"Q" motors are one of the latest revisions, but regardless of which version you have, we still recommend checking the rotor speed sensor regularly. In case you haven't seen it referenced before, we have a "how-to" video on our shop's YouTube page that shows how to do it. While we did the video with the car on a lift, it can pretty easily be done using basic hand tools and the car up on ramps.

Thanks for the info since I earlier was going to ask how to check the sensor. Being on "Q" LDU for only 10k miles, how soon do you think a leakage might possibly start? Have you seen any "Q" revision with the leakage issue?

 

[AustinP]

Do you mind to share what revision your current DU is? Mine was replaced with the Q revision (see above) @37k miles.

This was on the invoice: 1002633-00-Q, like yours.
Done in July 2018 at 126.000 km. I’m 100.000km later and so far so good.

 

[Droschke]

This was on the invoice: 1002633-00-Q, like yours.
Done in July 2018 at 126.000 km. I’m 100.000km later and so far so good.

Thanks. 100K km on "Q" DU so far is comforting. I only have 10K miles on mine.

 

[AustinP]

Thanks. 100K on "Q" DU so far is comforting. I only have 10K on mine.

Just to be clear. 100k km, so about 62k miles

 

[Droschke]

Just to be clear. 100k km, so about 62k miles

Thanks for the reminder. I edited my post for accuracy.

 

[ucmndd]

Really a dumb question. When I take the car back with the new RDU, would it make sense to get the old RDU and is there any value to it at all? SC won't tell me what went wrong with it and won't touch it; won't dismantle it. Wondering if the problem was bearings, coolant, etc. can that be refurbished for any value at all?

It's highly likely they won't give it to you. If you ask, a "core charge" will magically appear on your invoice and they'll want to charge you like $5k more for it.

 

[dark cloud]

It's highly likely they won't give it to you. If you ask, a "core charge" will magically appear on your invoice and they'll want to charge you like $5k more for it.

That would be my guess also. And he's going to need a roof rack to get it home

 

[pepsundar]

Tesla SC's final offer is $7500 all inclusive.