Out of Warranty Drive Unit Replacement and Cost

[alloverx]

At least its a discount. Depending on financials I would take it and likely sell the car within 2 years (if you are not in it for the long haul/$).
Might check with Vroom/etc on value over the coming months.

Q. What would you replace it with?

When I had a few large car bills I assign an amount each month for car ownership.
e.g. $400 a month for a car payment (might be low these days). so $7500 = 18 months. Maybe with tires and other small items you need 2 years of the vehicle to get close to value. This assumes you otherwise enjoy the vehicle and its safe.

As cars get older things do happen, so you take a risk driving older cars.

 

[pepsundar]

At least its a discount. Depending on financials I would take it and likely sell the car within 2 years (if you are not in it for the long haul/$).
Might check with Vroom/etc on value over the coming months.

Q. What would you replace it with?

When I had a few large car bills I assign an amount each month for car ownership.
e.g. $400 a month for a car payment (might be low these days). so $7500 = 18 months. Maybe with tires and other small items you need 2 years of the vehicle to get close to value. This assumes you otherwise enjoy the vehicle and its safe.

As cars get older things do happen, so you take a risk driving older cars.

Yes, I would take it. At least it's a $1500 discount from the original $9k. I see that they kept the cost of the parts intact and discounted the labor costs to bring it down to $7500 all inclusive (taxes included). I will arrange for the funds and get the car before thanksgiving. Waiting for my auto loan refinance to be completed by Mon or Tue. RDU comes with a 4year/50k warranty. I'm worrying about battery pack as if it fails we're talking about $10k-$15k which will take at least 2 years for me to save up. Like the RDU, it may fail anytime which is what I'm worried about. I can't risk driving it knowing it can fail abruptly. So I'm going to sell it. The KBB value is $38k, without considering the brand new RDU with warranty, not sure if this adds up a little more value. But I would be happy to sell it for $38k. With 56k low miles, I"m sure someone might be interested as even with the battery replacement cost, if it ever happens, the total cost would be $50k for a Model S P85, I guess it's not too bad for a buyer. When I do this math, I feel I should keep it as it's still a lot cheaper than getting a new or CPO Model S and hey I forgot, I have free SC for life.

 

[pepsundar]

It's been 10 days since they did the work without my authorization and agreed to discount it to $7500. The last call I had with the Service Advisor was on 17th. I've been asking them to confirm if I can come and get the car and also agreed to pay $7500. They have not revised the estimates yet and have not confirmed if I could come and get the car till date. I spoke to SC just an hour ago and the lady said that 'the Manager who agreed to provide the discount is waiting for his manager's approval on the revised estimates'. And it's been a week! I was hoping to get the car before thanksgiving and as I write this, the App shows a new status that the ETA for 'completion' is 30th November. This is just ridiculous. The car was ready on 15th itself. Tesla is holding my car for their internal bureaucratic paperwork. How is this normal? How is this fair any on account?

 

[Flyguy]

"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. This is all really helpful to know. I have an August 30 build 2017 model S 75 rear wheel drive with a large motor. One of the first to get the factory uncorked 4.2 seconds zero to 60 time. Even though it’s not performance, I assume this is basically the same large motor as a performance version? In your experience, would this have about the same chance of a coolant leak as a performance version?

 

[ajbessinger]

Thanks. This is all really helpful to know. I have an August 30 build 2017 model S 75 rear wheel drive with a large motor. One of the first to get the factory uncorked 4.2 seconds zero to 60 time. Even though it’s not performance, I assume this is basically the same large motor as a performance version? In your experience, would this have about the same chance of a coolant leak as a performance version?

The drive units for the performance and base LDUs are mechanically identical, the only difference is the inverter electronics, which has IGBTs that can deliver more power on the performance versions.
The biggest determining factor in "how likely to leak" an LDU is is based on what the build date is, as they changed the seal design (I find that the oldest pre-2015 drive units are not as prone to leakage, but more prone to bearing noise). Based on some of the ones that I've taken apart, I also think that how much the car is driven could also be a factor. I've seen some pretty low mileage failures in cars that were not driven often, which I think caused the seal to harden up.

 

[Flyguy]

The drive units for the performance and base LDUs are mechanically identical, the only difference is the inverter electronics, which has IGBTs that can deliver more power on the performance versions.
The biggest determining factor in "how likely to leak" an LDU is is based on what the build date is, as they changed the seal design (I find that the oldest pre-2015 drive units are not as prone to leakage, but more prone to bearing noise). Based on some of the ones that I've taken apart, I also think that how much the car is driven could also be a factor. I've seen some pretty low mileage failures in cars that were not driven often, which I think caused the seal to harden up.

Good to know, thanks. Fortunately it gets driven almost daily, and currently has 40k miles, so sounds like that will help. I also figure since it’s mechanically built for more torque and kilowatt output That it will never see, would only help with longevity.

 

[ajbessinger]

Good to know, thanks. Fortunately it gets driven almost daily, and currently has 40k miles, so sounds like that will help. I also figure since it’s mechanically built for more torque and kilowatt output That it will never see, would only help with longevity.

The mechanical parts that deal with the torque (e.g., gears, and gearbox bearings) rarely have major issues, they are way overbuilt for the task. In fact, I've only seen a handful of gearbox problems, which were due to manufacturing defects that caused misalignment issues, and in turn excessive noise/wear.

It's the rotor bearings and rotor coolant seal that fail, and in the case of the coolant seal, it doesn't care what torque/power the motor puts out, all that it does is ride on a shaft, though motor speed could be a factor that might lead to premature wear (at max RPM, the sealing surface is moving at nearly 5,800 SFM!). The rotor bearings might be impacted by an increase in power, but likely only on early motors that have steel bearings instead of ceramic (pre-2014), which suffer from arcing problems due to the nature of it being an induction motor.

 

[Flyguy]

The mechanical parts that deal with the torque (e.g., gears, and gearbox bearings) rarely have major issues, they are way overbuilt for the task. In fact, I've only seen a handful of gearbox problems, which were due to manufacturing defects that caused misalignment issues, and in turn excessive noise/wear.

It's the rotor bearings and rotor coolant seal that fail, and in the case of the coolant seal, it doesn't care what torque/power the motor puts out, all that it does is ride on a shaft, though motor speed could be a factor that might lead to premature wear (at max RPM, the sealing surface is moving at nearly 5,800 SFM!). The rotor bearings might be impacted by an increase in power, but likely only on early motors that have steel bearings instead of ceramic (pre-2014), which suffer from arcing problems due to the nature of it being an induction motor.

This information is so interesting and helpful, if anything just to break the old paradigm thinking related to an ice engine. Who would’ve thought that the worst thing you can do for these motors is to leave them dormant for excessive periods of time, And that regular hard acceleration may have little or no bearing on premature motor failure.
I wish there was a shop like yours in the San Francisco/Bay area

 

[ajbessinger]

This information is so interesting and helpful, if anything just to break the old paradigm thinking related to an ice engine. Who would’ve thought that the worst thing you can do for these motors is to leave them dormant for excessive periods of time, And that regular hard acceleration may have little or no bearing on premature motor failure.
I wish there was a shop like yours in the San Francisco/Bay area

We're only a truck ride away! I would say close to 1/4 of our customers send their cars from the Bay Area. It is pretty interesting to see the failure modes of different motors built at different times, as there are small incremental changes that have happened over time.

One some of the really early motors, they actually can wear out the drive splines, which could lead to a premature failure under acceleration. In fact, I just took apart one of those motors yesterday, and there were almost no splines left on the rotor shaft (see attached pic)! If the splines let go completely, you'd have a situation where the motor spins, but the car doesn't move.

I don't think I've ever seen this type of damage occur an any motor that uses the newer rotor design (mid-2014 and up), so I'm not sure if if's something to do with the actual rotor (like a hardened shaft), or if it's because Tesla started using ceramic bearings and maybe the rotor doesn't get as hot? In any case, it's a fairly rare occurrence, but I have taken apart at least half a dozen that looked like this, and even one or two where the splines had totally let go.

If you look at the pic here, you can see where the splines are still intact at the root, but the area where they mate with the gearbox is severely worn. Likewise, the primary drive gear in the gearbox is equally worn out. Bad splines like this render the Drive Unit pretty much junk as we can't currently repair this in a way that would make economic sense. This particular motor actually had the "trifecta" of major issues, which includes: worn out splines, rotor starting to seize, and flooded inverter. I think this may have been the first time I've actually seen one with all 3 of those problems at once.

 

[Bwenz@&7]

I just had my drive unit replaced under warranty at 74000 miles. I have a 2014 Tesla model s and my vehicle was making a loud whining noise at all speeds. I don’t normally write reviews like this, but Tesla severely pissed me off in this instance. They told me it would take a week to replace and ended up taking a month. They were nice enough to give me a loner in the mean time. They wouldn’t budge on a new battery replacement and said it would be 25000 to replace.

 

[Bwenz@&7]

Keep pressing them for a drive unit replacement. I still haven’t given up on the battery replacement either. The cost for my drive unit to be replaced would have been 15000 dollars, but repaired it for free.

 

[Bwenz@&7]

Keep pressing them for a drive unit replacement. I still haven’t given up on the battery replacement either. The cost for my drive unit to be replaced would have been 15000 dollars, but replaced the entire drive unit for free. No shims, no bs, as they should. Vehicles should not burn out at 70000 miles. It’s a complete disgrace.

 

[ucmndd]

Keep pressing them for a drive unit replacement. I still haven’t given up on the battery replacement either. The cost for my drive unit to be replaced would have been 15000 dollars, but repaired it for free.

What on earth makes you think they owe you a free battery? Has yours failed?

 

[leoita]

What's the outcome of this interesting case?

 

[leapingwhale]

My out of warranty estimate for a 2013 Model S 85 drive unit replacement from Tesla is $5000 parts and $935 labor. (I rounded to $5 increments.) Here's the interesting part: the car had a really bad clunk when switching between accelerating and braking. They replaced a drive bushing and the clunking is gone. They said it is still there but I honestly can't tell anything is wrong. It's got to be at least 99% better than before. Before was REALLY bad. Because they said I need a drive unit replacement so I'm a little gun shy about the car.

I have the opportunity to buy this car about $10k-15k under retail. I'm pretty certain the free supercharging will transfer. It's been upgraded to LTE and has the old infotainment system. Obviously that discount makes it attractive but dropping $6000 on a drive unit takes the sheen off. $25k for a battery would be out of the question for me. The traction battery was replaced once on the car around 30k miles and it currently sits at 90k miles.

I cannot buy it and flip it because that would wreck a personal relationship. So let's say I need to hold this car two years. Anybody want to speculate on my chances of avoiding a major repair over the next couple of years. I drive like a grandpa.

 

[DetP85]

Does anyone know of 3rd party EV repair shops in the midwest? I'm located in Detroit, and I have a 2013 P85 that likely needs a drive unit rebuild.

 

[silverp85+]

My 2015 P90D drive unit fail a week ago. I heard metallic dragging sounds in the rear thinking my hub/wheel bearing had gone bad. I knew it was the DU because it did not get louder as I picked up speed.

The next day I heard moaning sounds and the car started vibrating in the rear. Finally the DU failed after 296k miles and took out my 12v and the car would not come back on.

Had it towed to Latham for DU replacement and they can't find a DU.

I am wonder if anyone knows, judging by the symptoms, can the DU be repaired.

 

[Flyguy]

My 2015 P90D drive unit fail a week ago. I heard metallic dragging sounds in the rear thinking my hub/wheel bearing had gone bad. I knew it was the DU because it did not get louder as I picked up speed.

The next day I heard moaning sounds and the car started vibrating in the rear. Finally the DU failed after 296k miles and took out my 12v and the car would not come back on.

Had it towed to Latham for DU replacement and they can't find a DU.

I am wonder if anyone knows, judging by the symptoms, can the DU be repaired.

I don’t know if it can be repared, but I am glad to hear you got 296K out of your DU!

 

[pepsundar]

My 2015 P90D drive unit fail a week ago. I heard metallic dragging sounds in the rear thinking my hub/wheel bearing had gone bad. I knew it was the DU because it did not get louder as I picked up speed.

The next day I heard moaning sounds and the car started vibrating in the rear. Finally the DU failed after 296k miles and took out my 12v and the car would not come back on.

Had it towed to Latham for DU replacement and they can't find a DU.

I am wonder if anyone knows, judging by the symptoms, can the DU be repaired.

296k miles! wow! I had to replace it after 55k and paid out of pocket as it was out of warranty. And I never had any warnings, noises, sounds, breakdowns. Parked the car on Friday evening after coming back from work, tried to head out on Sunday morning. The car refused to move and I had multiple warning messages on the screen. Car had to be towed to SC. I was told RDU needed replacement, no explanation as to why it failed suddenly.

 

[ThomasD]

Are you still on the original battery