The issue is not one off damages but to get Tesla to make PcS a part of the main battery system. Anyway!
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Power Conversion System (PCS) failure
- Thread starter Concestor0
- Start date
Yes, it's right here in this thread but several pages back. Look for the posts from user @Yanquetino . He went through the whole process of filing an arbitration dispute, but it was ruled against him.
Power Conversion System (PCS) failure
I too am now experiencing this issue on my Nov'18 build Long Range. I can get up to about 8A on my Wall Connector, anything beyond that and amperage drops to 0. Just got a repair estimate of $1800 to replace the PCS. I'll find out next week if it will be covered under any kind of warranty, but...teslamotorsclub.com
There is also the separate thread that the member you quoted started on the specific topic of their arbitration ( and eventual loss of that arbitration). That one is here:
Arbitration decision of my PCS dispute
You've got to be kidding me! So NOW they've decided they WILL cover the components in the Battery Service Panel under the Battery Warranty…??? Well, hell… you can bet they're not going to reimburse me for paying for the repair myself after nearly a year of waiting for arbitration to settle the...
teslamotorsclub.com
goldengate
Member
Yes a few days ago I went to the NHTSA website to file a complaint and really this is not a safety issue. Although if a gas-powered car could not be filled with gas I guess maybe a safety issue since people would be stranded? Still it's a leap. It's not like a defective seatbelt or airbag.
That seems agressive. If that were true you could not have bought a Model 3 until, well, not yet in the USA at least. I think all you could buy today would be an S/X, or maybe a....??? What other EV maker is on the 2nd Gen of a specific full EV model?
Maybe you mean first Model year? (Although the Model 3 came out in 2017).
What's the number of miles on your M3? I've got the same model and this is really making me nervous.Our 2018 Model 3 has the same issue nowThis is the last time I would buy any first-generation car.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Nope, there are no details. I doubt anyone knows besides from the initial engineers that have since redesigned it (it seems the failures are largely concentrated on the early 2017-2018 models).
One of the TSB referred to "reworked" PCS, which would indicate perhaps some of the early boards were reworked from factory (could have had some defects during assembly that failed QC and it went back to get reworked and now still failed), but hard to tell if that indicates the actual problem.
No one have really taken the broken boards and analyzed what component(s) failed.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
If the thought of possibly needing an $1800 repair on a 5 year old car makes you nervous, you probably shouldn’t own ANY 5 year old car.
Great point. Great wisdom. Now I don't feel nervous anymore. You are the car whisperer.
I would say it is related, as the more miles you drive the more time you need to spend charging...
The wear on the OBC is proportional to the amount of AC charging. Two cars with the same latent defect could last a significantly different time to failure depending on their proportion of DC and AC charging.
It's even more complex than that. Most people do not do the majority of charging at 48A, so when charging at 32A the individual 16A charge bricks are loaded less than at full 48A. So it depends exactly at what rates you charge. Voltage probably also matters. Lots of people get away with 120V/16A charging.
Hopefully we all know that solid state devices don't really "wear" with use. These types of failures are often more tied to peaks- voltage peaks, thermal peaks, inrush currents, etc. Or things like capacitors decreasing in capacity over time (which is a thermal and calendar wear).
davewill
Active Member
Not exactly. When charging at 16a or lower, the OBC uses only one module, and when charging at 32a or lower, it uses only 2 modules, so charging at 32a would load two modules at full capacity, leaving one idle. I suspect they do this to avoid running modules at low amperages where they might be less efficient. A side effect of this is that you can have a module go bad, keep charging at 32a without a clue that anything's wrong, and not find out until after the warranty is over because you happen to try 48a charging one day.
@davewill - While all of that is true, for all we know the module that failed was the one that never got used at 32A. There is zero proof here that this is due to "wear" due to being "porportional to the total amount of AC charging," and like you said, the load on the system and the bricks absolutely changes as different charge rates are chosen.
Now that we have a better service menu, does anyone have the failure currently that can go into service and see if it's listed in there? If it is, that seems like a strong case in court that Tesla purspoefully hides this error from you.
That's not a side effect, that's on purpose. Of course the system knows about a failed module, but Tesla doesn't throw an error message for so that you won't find out until warranty is over.
Now that we have a better service menu, does anyone have the failure currently that can go into service and see if it's listed in there? If it is, that seems like a strong case in court that Tesla purspoefully hides this error from you.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I don't think that proves anything, given there are a lot of non-critical errors that show up in service mode that don't in the normal screen, not even in the messages, much less an explicit one that pops up. A charger component you don't even use would not be a critical error (as mentioned above, for same reason the logic is this is not recall worthy, because it's not a safety issue). If someone can successfully argue this is a safety issue, then this could be covered under a recall and the warranty nuances wouldn't matter.
I never mentioned a recall. Only warranty, and the possible extension of this.
Tesla doesn't even warn you when you go to use it and it's failed. Plug it into a 48A charger and all you see is 32/48A on the display. No explanation. That very much seems like a purposeful exclusion given the other things Tesla will warn you about when charging, like the car being cold, or hot, or limited in voltage, all of which are transient things. But not warning about permanent hardware failures that would cost Tesla money to fix if noticed during warranty?
When you do have the issue, you have to call Tesla and take it in saying "seems like it will only charge at 32A" which of course the first thing they blame is the charger. With a code you wouldn't have to guess.
davewill
Active Member
We don't actually know that one "never gets used" in that scenario, in fact I find it unlikely.
You are right that the system should know about a failed module and report it. For that matter, taking it in for a maintenance service should also result in the service personnel detecting and reporting the problem, but they don't do that, either.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
The nature of most TSBs is that the manufacturer does not bring it up as an issue nor proactively fix it unless the customer complains of it as an issue. Of course in this case, the amount of cars that the TSBs covers is very small (likely much smaller than the actual affected population).
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