Rebuilt Title Model S 2013

[Rafael C]

I'm new here and I'm just seeking some feedback. Recently I found a Tesla S P85 for sale with a rebuildable title. The price is within my range but the only issue is that its over 1,000 miles away. So I wanted to get some insight from any of you that may have taken on a Tesla S rebuildable title as a project.

The damage appears cosmetic such as fenders and bumpers but the delaership says the car has no charge and they have no way of charging it. They do say the 12v system works fine...whatever that means.

I've been a corvette driver for over 15 yrs and i'm excited to transition to this new technology especially if I can sell my vette and get one of these high performance model s.

From the research i've gathered a lot of the tesla s is designed so that the owner cannot do repairs themselves. How can I confirm that the drive train on this car is properly working before purchasing? I can handle body repairs paint suspension and alot of the other things that got damaged. But I read that the computer and drive train is serviceable only by Tesla.

I dont want to make a mistake by taking on this project.

Thanks,
Rafael

 

[patrick40363]

Stay away. Nothing but trouble.

 

[Rafael C]

wow seriously thanks, I read something on here now about Tesla deactivating the cars or something along those lines when its damaged.

 

[Spiderz]

Tesla does not deactivate any car. It is the faults inside the car and its own MCU which stops it from driving. Ppl have fixed salvage Teslas and they are driving normally. Do not buy a frame damage car, very expensive to fix. Not every salvage car is trouble...

 

[Rafael C]

Thanks, this one has no frame damage. I thought the whole 3g connectivity and the insurance giving it a rebuilt title might get it shut down. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Spiderz]

Tesla is not against rebuilds now, they use to initially but not now. All they want is a safe car on road so their name don't come in news once a person gets into an accident. But they do need to change policy towards not giving parts to salvage tesla owners. People are doing all kinds of crazy things to get their cars on road because of no parts policy and Tesla will be in news again. They don't have proactive approach rather reactive...

Getting holds of parts is a little concerning but lots of ppl are now selling parts so you should be ok there. They might turn off 3g if they found out your VIN so don't discuss with them your car issues..

 

[Rafael C]

Tesla is not against rebuilds now, they use to initially but not now. All they want is a safe car on road so their name don't come in news once a person gets into an accident. But they do need to change policy towards not giving parts to salvage tesla owners. People are doing all kinds of crazy things to get their cars on road because of no parts policy and Tesla will be in news again. They don't have proactive approach rather reactive...

Getting holds of parts is a little concerning but lots of ppl are now selling parts so you should be ok there. They might turn off 3g if they found out your VIN so don't discuss with them your car issues..

Ok, that's good news, I've always been a good scavenger of used parts. So what's the deal with the 3g? Don't some people purposefully disable it. At my Tesla test drive I learned that this car monitors everything at all times and logs it and is capable of transmitting it.

 

[Rafael C]

This is the bulk of the damage. There is an error message on the dash regarding coolant low.

 

[Spiderz]

easily fixable but check under carriage, battery should not be damaged at all..

Are you sure there is no other damage?

 

[Rafael C]

easily fixable but check under carriage, battery should not be damaged at all..

Are you sure there is no other damage?

Well it has cosmetic damage to the rear hatch no big deal. The company selling it mentioned the radiator was damaged and I'm assuming the air condenser got messed up too. I didn't ask about the under carriage. What's up with the suspension on these cars, this one is slammed to the ground I imagine the shocks on these cars can be really expensive. It has no charge and without a cooling system and A/C I assume I can't charge it even if I bought a the chrager. They mentioned on here the car needs the cooling while charging.

Yesterday a cashed one showed up on ebay but it's worse than this and they are asking 28k wtf????

 

[Spiderz]

Which radiator was it? This car has 3 radiators, middle one is for battery and side ones are for AC. I think its the AC one, you can find it online, its available at many places.

Looking at the pic, doesn't look like suspension was hit but you can change the control arms, suspension and other items if you think its bent. Do you have coil or air suspension? Coil is cheaper. These cars go for around that price if the damage is less so be ready to pay more for less damage

 

[jaguar36]

Has the dealer already fixed the damage?
You should be very wary of any car with a salvage title, all sorts of shady things can happen with them. The car having no charge is bad. That means that A. You can't test it to see if anything else is broken, and B. if the battery sits at 0 charge for to long it can be permanently damaged.

Keep in mind that there was at some point enough damage to the car to warrant scrapping it. A new bumper and front fender wouldn't do it. Typically rear quarter panel damage or battery/drivetrain damage are what scraps a Tesla. Once it is reported to Tesla that the car has been given a salvage title, they will blacklist it. This means they won't service it, and they will disable supercharging and network access.

The legit way to repair a Tesla is to have a Tesla Authorized body shop do it, and have it recertified by Tesla. Then you will still be able to have it serviced by Tesla (at your expense) and retain network connectivity, get OTA updates and all that good stuff. This will also be very expensive.

Tesla will not sell a significant number of parts to non-authorized body shops or owners, so if you don't go the 'legit' route, your only other source of parts is other salvage cars being parted out on ebay or the like. Assuming you can get the parts to do the body work which shouldn't be to hard, the other issue is getting any faults cleared on the computer, which is a whole other can of worms.

 

[Rafael C]

Which radiator was it? This car has 3 radiators, middle one is for battery and side ones are for AC. I think its the AC one, you can find it online, its available at many places.

Looking at the pic, doesn't look like suspension was hit but you can change the control arms, suspension and other items if you think its bent. Do you have coil or air suspension? Coil is cheaper. These cars go for around that price if the damage is less so be ready to pay more for less damage

It's the side one that messed up but there's a low coolant message so probably the center one has damage or a leak. I don't know about the suspension being air or coil I do have a Vin perhaps with that I can figure out the features. Man 30k for a car with parts that are not available from the manufacture and a battery that costs nearly as much as the car seems like a risky endeavour.

 

[Rafael C]

Has the dealer already fixed the damage?
You should be very wary of any car with a salvage title, all sorts of shady things can happen with them. The car having no charge is bad. That means that A. You can't test it to see if anything else is broken, and B. if the battery sits at 0 charge for to long it can be permanently damaged.

Keep in mind that there was at some point enough damage to the car to warrant scrapping it. A new bumper and front fender wouldn't do it. Typically rear quarter panel damage or battery/drivetrain damage are what scraps a Tesla. Once it is reported to Tesla that the car has been given a salvage title, they will blacklist it. This means they won't service it, and they will disable supercharging and network access.

The legit way to repair a Tesla is to have a Tesla Authorized body shop do it, and have it recertified by Tesla. Then you will still be able to have it serviced by Tesla (at your expense) and retain network connectivity, get OTA updates and all that good stuff. This will also be very expensive.

Tesla will not sell a significant number of parts to non-authorized body shops or owners, so if you don't go the 'legit' route, your only other source of parts is other salvage cars being parted out on ebay or the like. Assuming you can get the parts to do the body work which shouldn't be to hard, the other issue is getting any faults cleared on the computer, which is a whole other can of worms.

No repairs have been done. I appreciate the detailed response, any resources available to check if this is a black listed vehicle. With all the things you mentioned are lost with a black list this is a critical point to analyze. A dead battery pack or damaged battery pack runs approx. how much to replace?

I hate the fact there is no manual or resources to diagnose these cars all throughout high school I took auto shop and we always fixed cars using the service manuals and obd2 scanners. I take it these cars don't have odb2 interface for diagnosis?

 

[Spiderz]

If its salvaged on the title, it is blacklisted. That doesn't mean you can't run them or fix them. All I am going to tell you is, less impact cars can be fixed. Hard front impact that moved suspension back or cracked aluminum body parts are difficult to fix but can be fixed. Such cars will never get certified unless certified body shop do the welding, put new rivets etc so stay away from them.

The new normal is NOT to get certified because people don't get anything in return. They spend 3/4K to get their cars certified (after all the fixes which costs much more if you used certified body shop) and in return Tesla will stop 3G, charge you for updates, charge you for future fixes and yearly checkups, only give you subset of parts and OTA updates. No one will do certification to save Tesla from news and get nothing in return...

Battery from other donor vehicles are 8~10K I guess. It is not easy to damage a Tesla battery, they are held pretty good. Get a good pyrofuse and start the vehicle before buying it if possible. There might be alerts on CID, Folks have cleared those alerts without Tesla's help. Check other blogs and you ll know..

 

[Rafael C]

If its salvaged on the title, it is blacklisted. That doesn't mean you can't run them or fix them. All I am going to tell you is, less impact cars can be fixed. Hard front impact that moved suspension back or cracked aluminum body parts are difficult to fix but can be fixed. Such cars will never get certified unless certified body shop do the welding, put new rivets etc so stay away from them.

The new normal is NOT to get certified because people don't get anything in return. They spend 3/4K to get their cars certified (after all the fixes which costs much more if you used certified body shop) and in return Tesla will stop 3G, charge you for updates, charge you for future fixes and yearly checkups, only give you subset of parts and OTA updates. No one will do certification to save Tesla from news and get nothing in return...

Battery from other donor vehicles are 8~10K I guess. It is not easy to damage a Tesla battery, they are held pretty good. Get a good pyrofuse and start the vehicle before buying it if possible. There might be alerts on CID, Folks have cleared those alerts without Tesla's help. Check other blogs and you ll know..

Wow thanks, so a rebuilt is a good car to part out. Got it

It appears that for me to get something within my price range I might have to wait another year or so for prices to come down and miles to go up. You think the ones running for 45k now will get into 35k range by next year?

There doesn't seem to be many high mileage ones out there.

Thanks