Roadsters and Fires

[spiderguy]

I was quite disheartened to hear about the catastrophic fire at Gruber Motors that singlehandedly destroyed 30 Roadsters, along with a plethora of irreplaceable Roadster components. Immediately, I felt compassion for Gruber Motors and all of the Roadster Owners that had entrusted their precious vehicles to them. Gruber Motors has been at the forefront of anything Tesla and is the self-proclaimed leader in Roadster technology, offering "advanced engineering services". How then, could such a mishap occur not once, but twice? Furthermore, if something like this could befall an "expert", what does the future hold for just regular car folk? These and many other questions came to mind and I decided to encapsulate my thoughts in this thread to capture the sentiment of the community as a whole. In specific, I wondered.....

1) What happened?

Gruber Motors is responsible for the destruction of the most Tesla Roadsters in the world. When the first fire occurred in 2017, it could've been dismissed as an anomaly, with the thought that nobody is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes. Still, it was rather disconcerting to see this transpire at the home of a company that professes that their "Roadster expertise is particularly unparalleled". (Certainly, the number of Roadsters they've destroyed has been particularly unparalleled.).


2) Just how bad was this?

With the most recent fire, it seems that lightning has struck twice. Are you kidding me? The expert in the field just permanently obliterated 2% of the entire population of Roadsters in the country? To put that into perspective, a 2% destruction rate would equate to killing over 6.6 million people in the U.S. If you're an expert in the field, this can't happen, ever. For it to happen twice, it would really make me question just how much of an "expert" you are.

In one of the threads, someone opined, "think of all the Roadsters that he saved". Sure, so let's say that you're a medical doctor and you service many patients over the years. Then, in 2017, you make a mistake and 6 people die as a result of your actions. Four years later, you accidentally kill another 30 patients. Do the years of service tending to patients mitigate the damage caused by two separate major blunders? Would you want to use that doctor again?


3) How could this possibly happen?

We're talking about a company that is dedicated to a life of vehicles, specializing in electrical technology. We're talking about a company that has already experienced a tragic incident just a few years ago. Would you not expect precautions to be set in place to never let this happen again? As a business owner, I would've been extremely embarrassed to have suffered the first fire. To have a second, even more calamitous event? I'd probably start thinking about a significant life change. At the very least, you would expect that controls would be put in place to limit the damage under the worst circumstances. Instead, the result was 5x worse. If you're an expert, you've got to know the volatility of the materials that you're working with. If you don't have the proper protocol in place to prevent such occurrences, then that's simply irresponsible.


4) Gross negligence or Intentional misconduct?

Is it really possible for an electronics expert to suffer 2 separate fiascoes of this magnitude? It is certainly in the realm of possibility, although it seems unlikely. But, if not an accident, what would be the motivation behind any type of intentional misconduct? Is there a possibility that an outsider set the building on fire? Is it possible that there were gains to be had from insurance? It would certainly be premature to imply that Gruber had any premeditation in this, but many owners that I spoke to expressed suspicion at the nature of the fire. One thing is for sure: the totality of the fire completely annihilated any potential evidence within the compound.


5) Why do Gruber's subsequent actions strike me as odd?

I have never witnessed anyone so calm in the aftermath of a diasaster. It's simply "business as usual". As an outsider, it would be tough to differentiate between Gruber getting a parking ticket versus burning down over $4 million of property. Then, to top it off, the company posts a video of the destruction, for YouTube clicks. Is that really something that you want to publicize and post at this time? Does it feel like bad form to populate all the websites with a video showcasing the deaths of all the affected owners babies? Seems like, "Oopsie, my bad. Well, may as well post it up and get some views, No sweat; the insurance will take care of everything and I'll just use one of my other 6 buildings." Does that appear a little too nonchalant to anyone else?

 

[Medlock&Sons]

Well said.

I never really have thought about what they do at Gruber's before, but since this fire, I went back and watched many of their videos. It's not only what I see in the videos it's what I do not see as well. OSHA violations are abundant. The safety tools for HV repair are nowhere to be seen. I do not see HV gloves, I see Pete in this (attached) screenshot close to a 400V battery with all of the tie bars still in place, which means this pack is hot and there are no safety stanchions around the pack or a specified HV area. I have been sent a lot of hate mail in the past week saying I am picking on Pete bullying Pete etc. Give it a rest, I didn't burn up 36 cars in the past 4 years, as a matter of fact, I have saved more than 36 from salvage.

I am factory HV trained by Tesla and we follow all of the safety requirements here, state-federal, and more. As a matter of fact, we go overboard. Although there is a fire hydrant right in front of the building in my planting strip, I have a separate 1175 gallon tank of water behind my building and a 4500GPH pump with a fire hose attached that comes into the building. I am not waiting for the fire department to show up. We have an enclosure I built that we can roll the sheets and pack into during recovery. A person's ego can make them complacent and careless. Watching the videos after this shows me their day-to-day practices are reckless careless and unsafe.

I have 5 smoke detectors in my shop and two separate camera systems here. One goes immediately to the cloud just in case we have trouble here I can see it on my phone. The other records 24/7 with a total of 25 cameras in 4000SF. Google HV repair and the requirements needed, then go back and watch his videos. Maybe he learned from the last fire maybe not. Maybe this was a mistake maybe not. I have nothing but his past videos to come to a conclusion. But if anything happened here the footage would be available. I would assume they have cameras in the shop, we all know they have a plethora of them to make videos where the mock me call me low tech auto shop, etc. Where is Gruber's camera footage?

Running a successful auto repair shop is not as simple as some might think, I have 35 years in this industry, we only needed to add the EV component to this. Over the years I have seen the good and bad, the shops on fire, etc the aftermath. I never wanted any of those catastrophes so I have always gone overboard on safety and training. Common sense is not that common, especially when dealing with a know-it who neglected his duties to protect his shop, contents, and clients' cars.

We have serviced around 300 Roadsters here in the past year or so and our clients are 100% satisfied.

 

[chadconway]

Well said Harry. I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for posting!

How then, could such a mishap occur not once, but twice? Furthermore, if something like this could befall an "expert", what does the future hold for just regular car folk? These and many other questions came to mind and I decided to encapsulate my thoughts in this thread to capture the sentiment of the community as a whole. In specific, I wondered.....

 

[spiderguy]

After reading Carl's post, it got me thinking a little more. If you owned a facility that:

1) Contained unstable, highly volatile and combustible material,
2) Stored over $4 million of valuable, historic vehicles and
3) Replaced a previously burned out building

Wouldn't it be incumbent upon you to:

1) Design a building that would limit damage in the event of a flareup (concrete bays, fireproof dividers, designated charging areas, etc)
2) Isolate, to the extent possible, the components that are most hazardous
3) Invest in the most sophisticated fire suppression system available
4) Install the finest camera system that can be viewed 24/7

All of the items above are of great importance and it seems like a no brainer for any novice. If none of the above actions were taken, I'd consider it high incompetence, bordering on gross negligence. Oddly enough, the point that mystifies me the most is the lack of a camera system. Considering the amount of camera equipment invested for their YouTube videos, you would think that, at the very least, there would be a camera system set up in the building. The mere fact that they are housing over $4M worth of vehicles is reason enough to install a camera system.

 

[CAR3NUT]

@CM-007 in your post above you indicated you noticed several OSHA violations. Curious (part of being a retired Architect) what they might be so I can learn more about the dangers that a repair shop must adhere to be OSHA approved. You also indicated you did not see any HV gloves. I have been to Pete's shop and watched his tech's do repairs on a Roadster sheets where they remove the rivets which hold the outer metal panel in place (in time I guess these rivets fail) and install a screw and lock nut in its place. These screws are so small you can barely pick them up with your fingers much less a HV glove.

 

[ML Auto]

@CM-007 in your post above you indicated you noticed several OSHA violations. Curious (part of being a retired Architect) what they might be so I can learn more about the dangers that a repair shop must adhere to be OSHA approved. You also indicated you did not see any HV gloves. I have been to Pete's shop and watched his tech's do repairs on a Roadster sheets where they remove the rivets which hold the outer metal panel in place (in time I guess these rivets fail) and install a screw and lock nut in its place. These screws are so small you can barely pick them up with your fingers much less a HV glove.

Once the sheets are out they are only 36V each. Its when they are connected that you have to be really careful.

 

[CAR3NUT]

Once the sheets are out they are only 36V each. Its when they are connected that you have to be really careful.

Thanks Carl, I never was an electrical person, I always wondering why I own two electric cars.

 

[TEG]

Clearly in the Gjeeb's video you can see them doing a lot of sheet swapping between cars.
That is dangerous work and a risk for spontaneous fires.

I am still trying to understand that process. They had so many Roadsters in for "bricked battery" repairs it looks like some "shell game" of sheets between cars. You take the best sheet from one car in for service, and put it in another car with one bad sheet and one happy customer is back on the road.
But what about the other car? Maybe it still ran but with degraded range, but the "switcheroo" was considered OK because the car was in the queue to get a 3.0 pack upgrade? It seems they were pushing people to get in the 3.0 ESS upgrade waitlist and leave their cars with them in the meantime. Maybe to provide those impossible to obtain spare sheets they needed to keep their repair operation going?

I have heard tales of a car that went in for PEM repairs and left with one of the ESS sheets swapped with a much weaker one.
Was Gruber asking these owners if it is OK if they pull sheets out of their ESSes?
Or did the Roadster owners who had dropped their cars off for service basically just let them to do whatever they want at their own discretion?

 

[Onepointfive]

Well said.

I never really have thought about what they do at Gruber's before, but since this fire, I went back and watched many of their videos. It's not only what I see in the videos it's what I do not see as well. OSHA violations are abundant. The safety tools for HV repair are nowhere to be seen. I do not see HV gloves, I see Pete in this (attached) screenshot close to a 400V battery with all of the tie bars still in place, which means this pack is hot and there are no safety stanchions around the pack or a specified HV area. I have been sent a lot of hate mail in the past week saying I am picking on Pete bullying Pete etc. Give it a rest, I didn't burn up 36 cars in the past 4 years, as a matter of fact, I have saved more than 36 from salvage.

I am factory HV trained by Tesla and we follow all of the safety requirements here, state-federal, and more. As a matter of fact, we go overboard. Although there is a fire hydrant right in front of the building in my planting strip, I have a separate 1175 gallon tank of water behind my building and a 4500GPH pump with a fire hose attached that comes into the building. I am not waiting for the fire department to show up. We have an enclosure I built that we can roll the sheets and pack into during recovery. A person's ego can make them complacent and careless. Watching the videos after this shows me their day-to-day practices are reckless careless and unsafe.

I have 5 smoke detectors in my shop and two separate camera systems here. One goes immediately to the cloud just in case we have trouble here I can see it on my phone. The other records 24/7 with a total of 25 cameras in 4000SF. Google HV repair and the requirements needed, then go back and watch his videos. Maybe he learned from the last fire maybe not. Maybe this was a mistake maybe not. I have nothing but his past videos to come to a conclusion. But if anything happened here the footage would be available. I would assume they have cameras in the shop, we all know they have a plethora of them to make videos where the mock me call me low tech auto shop, etc. Where is Gruber's camera footage?

Running a successful auto repair shop is not as simple as some might think, I have 35 years in this industry, we only needed to add the EV component to this. Over the years I have seen the good and bad, the shops on fire, etc the aftermath. I never wanted any of those catastrophes so I have always gone overboard on safety and training. Common sense is not that common, especially when dealing with a know-it who neglected his duties to protect his shop, contents, and clients' cars.

We have serviced around 300 Roadsters here in the past year or so and our clients are 100% satisfied.

Thanks Carl! We should all be grateful to having an expert like yourself available for our community. Can’t imagine why anyone would send you an hate mail. Now more than ever we rely on you for expertise and information, so please do not hold back anything! The more you share with us the better equipped we are to deal with this situation. The last thing we need is for people to conclude that since a service center got completely burnt twice than the Roadster is not a safe car to own or to repair.

 

[carrotted]

I don’t want the following to sound like a guess at what was going on at Gruber - it isn’t. However, I’m a pessimist - and faced with a suspicious fire like this, I can’t help but imagine a worst-case scenario: a Ponzi Scheme.

Hypothetically, if an unscrupulous business were to set out to make money from desperate owners of bricked roadsters, while cutting corners with the sort of battery sheet shell game TEG described (rather than doing actual repairs), it would eventually lead to an unravelling: assuming the majority of swaps are in the direction of improved performance in a departing car and some sheets are unrecoverable, over time this would leave you with an overwhelming majority of bad sheets, leaving you no good sheets to do “repairs” with. You could keep things going for a while by buying up cars to pull sheets from and drumming up new business - but if at any point you can’t maintain a steady supply of incoming “victim” batteries, the whole scheme unravels, leaving you with a whole lot of piled up dead roadsters with bad sheets that came in working, and a whole lot of unhappy customers.

So, you up your insurance, destroy the evidence , and maybe even end up with a financial profit from the destruction - at the expense of the insurance company and/or the victims.

Again, not saying this is anything like what happened: it’s a hyperbolic exaggeration of an imagined bad actor - and wearing a sunglasses indoors doesn’t automatically make someone a supervillan.

However, this is why trust is so important in a relationship with a mechanic - you have to trust that someone repairing something of yours will do so honestly and transparently, with adequate measures taken to ensure their own safety, that of their employees, and that of your property.

I hope for Pete’s sake that he’s able to repair and rebuild that trust where needed: we need more people working to keep these cars on the road.

Are there anything like best practices in the design of electric car repair facilities, along with standardized procedures and training? Most such facilities are fairly small, and so aren’t subject to regular OSHA inspections.

(Seems funny, but roadsters are still at the bleeding edge of the electric car revolution: only this time, it’s not about getting them on the road - it’s about keeping them there!)

 

[MP3Mike]

@CM-007 in your post above you indicated you noticed several OSHA violations. Curious (part of being a retired Architect) what they might be so I can learn more about the dangers that a repair shop must adhere to be OSHA approved.

I'm pretty sure he mentioned some of the issues:

I do not see HV gloves, I see Pete in this (attached) screenshot close to a 400V battery with all of the tie bars still in place, which means this pack is hot and there are no safety stanchions around the pack or a specified HV area.

These screws are so small you can barely pick them up with your fingers much less a HV glove.

True, that means you might need to use some HV insulated needle nose pliers to deal with them.

 

[X.l.r.8]

Again, not saying this is anything like what happened: it’s a hyperbolic exaggeration of an imagined bad actor - and wearing a sunglasses indoors doesn’t automatically make someone a supervillan.

Absolutely it does, its standard supervillain attire, except for Morpheus, Morpheus was a badass

"Fate, It Seems, Is Not Without A Sense Of Irony."​

 

[spiderguy]

I don’t want the following to sound like a guess at what was going on at Gruber - it isn’t. However, I’m a pessimist - and faced with a suspicious fire like this, I can’t help but imagine a worst-case scenario: a Ponzi Scheme.

Hypothetically, if an unscrupulous business were to set out to make money from desperate owners of bricked roadsters, while cutting corners with the sort of battery sheet shell game TEG described (rather than doing actual repairs), it would eventually lead to an unravelling: assuming the majority of swaps are in the direction of improved performance in a departing car and some sheets are unrecoverable, over time this would leave you with an overwhelming majority of bad sheets, leaving you no good sheets to do “repairs” with. You could keep things going for a while by buying up cars to pull sheets from and drumming up new business - but if at any point you can’t maintain a steady supply of incoming “victim” batteries, the whole scheme unravels, leaving you with a whole lot of piled up dead roadsters with bad sheets that came in working, and a whole lot of unhappy customers.

So, you up your insurance, destroy the evidence , and maybe even end up with a financial profit from the destruction - at the expense of the insurance company and/or the victims.

Again, not saying this is anything like what happened: it’s a hyperbolic exaggeration of an imagined bad actor - and wearing a sunglasses indoors doesn’t automatically make someone a supervillan.

However, this is why trust is so important in a relationship with a mechanic - you have to trust that someone repairing something of yours will do so honestly and transparently, with adequate measures taken to ensure their own safety, that of their employees, and that of your property.

I hope for Pete’s sake that he’s able to repair and rebuild that trust where needed: we need more people working to keep these cars on the road.

Are there anything like best practices in the design of electric car repair facilities, along with standardized procedures and training? Most such facilities are fairly small, and so aren’t subject to regular OSHA inspections.

(Seems funny, but roadsters are still at the bleeding edge of the electric car revolution: only this time, it’s not about getting them on the road - it’s about keeping them there!)

Wow, if the hypothetical that you outlined above actually transpired, it would certainly provide significant motivation to "burn up" evidence. I still find it difficult to believe that anyone would have the audacity to sacrifice millions of dollars worth of assets for self-serving purposes. Can you imagine the diabolical mind it would require to intentionally torch the valuable assets of others, all in an effort to conceal a brazen ponzi scheme? It would undoubtedly require someone with a cold blooded persona to pull off something like that. However, I suppose that if one were being investigated for such a scheme, there would be tremendous incentive to execute such a plan.

 

[ML Auto]

The sheets placed into customer cars were from salvage vehicles that they purchased. I sure they read the logs and recorded the CAC to get the capacity close to any repaired pack. The pics shown have writing on the sheets stating the problem with the bad sheet along with the VIN it came from. There is no easier way to store the sheets than inside the ESS case, which is shown with other parts already stripped from it.

The thing I did not like was that the sheets are standing upright on the bench with no support. They are extremely top heavy and fall over like Dominoes-not only to the side but even more so to the rear toward the cooling ports. With open sides exposing the brick terminal plates, creating a short is extremely easy. A few minutes and a couple of 2X4s solves that problem.

I read here that it was reported the fire started in an electrical panel, so this talk about it being Grubers fault is not helpful. With the amount of power being used with a bunch of EVs plugged in, any single loose wire connection or defective breaker would be a big problem.

I have been self-employed in the auto repair industry for over 40 years, and there has always been competition between shops. Owners like to point out competitors mistakes, and customers like to promote the shops they do business with. Problems will always arise, its how you deal with them that determines your future.

 

[spiderguy]

The sheets placed into customer cars were from salvage vehicles that they purchased. I sure they read the logs and recorded the CAC to get the capacity close to any repaired pack. The pics shown have writing on the sheets stating the problem with the bad sheet along with the VIN it came from. There is no easier way to store the sheets than inside the ESS case, which is shown with other parts already stripped from it.

There is no doubt that there were sheets placed in customer cars that came from salvaged vehicles. I wholeheartedly concur with you and applaud the fact that creative methods are being utilized to preserve every last nut and bolt for our beloved treasures. The real question is whether ALL the sheets came from such vehicles. If the previous posts are accurate that sheets were swapped out from service cars, without the consent of the owners, would you consider that a breach of trust, as well as a form of theft?

If I directed you to an owner that brought their Roadster into their facility for a non-battery issue and the car returned with different battery sheets, would you agree that there is a significant issue?

The thing I did not like was that the sheets are standing upright on the bench with no support. They are extremely top heavy and fall over like Dominoes-not only to the side but even more so to the rear toward the cooling ports. With open sides exposing the brick terminal plates, creating a short is extremely easy. A few minutes and a couple of 2X4s solves that problem.

So, what you're saying is that they are not even taking simple measures to prevent potential hazards?

I read here that it was reported the fire started in an electrical panel, so this talk about it being Grubers fault is not helpful. With the amount of power being used with a bunch of EVs plugged in, any single loose wire connection or defective breaker would be a big problem.

If the fire emanated from an electrical panel, is it your belief that it was a matter of bad luck? Don't you think that the design of the structure should have taken that into account and created precautionary measures accordingly? I'm no expert, but I would think that firewalls, concrete barriers, isolation areas, fire suppression systems, cameras and safety protocol would have entered into the picture at some point. I believe it would be fair to compare the safety measures taken at Medlock's facility to those taken at Gruber's. It seems to me that if just a couple of those measures had been implemented, this entire fiasco could've been avoided or at the very least, drastically minimized.

I have been self-employed in the auto repair industry for over 40 years, and there has always been competition between shops. Owners like to point out competitors mistakes, and customers like to promote the shops they do business with. Problems will always arise, its how you deal with them that determines your future.

Well, a major problem arose in 2017 when Gruber experienced a serious fire and we are seeing how it was dealt with...it got 5X worse. The new facility lacked many safety features that would've prevented or minimized the damage. Are we expecting their future building to have every bell and whistle imagineable? I would hope so, for the sake of the Roadster community and the preservation of EV history. (More safety measures, less videos)

It is not my agenda to promote a shop that I do business with. It is about providing relevant information for everyone to make an informed decision. About 3 months ago, I very nearly sent one of my Roadsters to Gruber for a battery rebuild. However, after doing some research and consulting with those in the know, it became clear to me that Medlock was much more trustworthy. The lack of safety measures at Gruber's facilities was quite alarming and it is of paramount importance that we convey to him the necessity for safe and secure structures. The continued existence of Gruber Motors would be a positive for the Roadster community. It always benefits the owners when there are competitive services and this is no exception. Nonetheless, any future facility must contain all the safety measures and protocol necessary to avoid any future calamities. I like Roadsters that aren't burned.

 

[eHorses]

The sheets placed into customer cars were from salvage vehicles that they purchased. I sure they read the logs and recorded the CAC to get the capacity close to any repaired pack. The pics shown have writing on the sheets stating the problem with the bad sheet along with the VIN it came from. There is no easier way to store the sheets than inside the ESS case, which is shown with other parts already stripped from it.

The thing I did not like was that the sheets are standing upright on the bench with no support. They are extremely top heavy and fall over like Dominoes-not only to the side but even more so to the rear toward the cooling ports. With open sides exposing the brick terminal plates, creating a short is extremely easy. A few minutes and a couple of 2X4s solves that problem.

I read here that it was reported the fire started in an electrical panel, so this talk about it being Grubers fault is not helpful. With the amount of power being used with a bunch of EVs plugged in, any single loose wire connection or defective breaker would be a big problem.

I have been self-employed in the auto repair industry for over 40 years, and there has always been competition between shops. Owners like to point out competitors mistakes, and customers like to promote the shops they do business with. Problems will always arise, its how you deal with them that determines your future.

@ML Auto, Thank you for being an adult in the room!
As a roadster and small business owner I like TMC roadster Group because we are here to help and support each other to keep these roadsters running. I’m not sure how speculating and taking everyone down a dark tunnel helps this situation. However, it may give insurance adjusters more ammo to deny FMV for owners caught up in this horrible situation. Please let the professionals(fire inspectors) do their job and hopefully we can all learn and improve from this tragedy. My 2cents.

 

[ThomasD]

Too many items plugged in at the same time

 

[IslandRoadster]

I read here that it was reported the fire started in an electrical panel, so this talk about it being Grubers fault is not helpful. With the amount of power being used with a bunch of EVs plugged in, any single loose wire connection or defective breaker would be a big problem.

My dad was a firefighter for about 30 years. It's remarkable how sophisticated fire investigation has become in that time. Fire marshals and fire investigators are frequently able to pinpoint the start of the fire. If it indeed was an electrical box, they should be able to conclusively show that. Additionally, if accellerants were used or the fire was somehow started intentionally in the box, they can usually tell that too. You can bet that the insurance company is sending its own investigator to the scene to draw its own conclusions, given the value of the loss and the fact that this is the second fire. So I agree with @ML Auto. Speculating about what could have started the fire is not helpful. Waiting for actual evidence, however, is.

There are people on this forum who love Gruber and hate Medlock, and there are people who hate Gruber and love Medlock. The haters are always going to look suspiciously at the person they don't like, and the lovers are going to explain away potentially incriminating evidence. Fact is, even if they were both doing shady stuff sometimes, they both have contributed to the Roadster community and keeping vehicles on the road. We should be thankful for both Medlock and Gruber. And if the evidence shows that one of them was doing nefarious things, crucify him at that time and not before.

 

[iwannam3]

In the near future as the original S and X age, there will have to be many shops specializing in older Teslas that can't be economically repaired by Tesla. Like Electrified Garage etc). They won't have the high $ value like a Roadster and the pressure to do cheap things with powerful batteries may cause accidents and fires in the future.

 

[Medlock&Sons]

My dad was a firefighter for about 30 years. It's remarkable how sophisticated fire investigation has become in that time. Fire marshals and fire investigators are frequently able to pinpoint the start of the fire. If it indeed was an electrical box, they should be able to conclusively show that. Additionally, if accellerants were used or the fire was somehow started intentionally in the box, they can usually tell that too. You can bet that the insurance company is sending its own investigator to the scene to draw its own conclusions, given the value of the loss and the fact that this is the second fire. So I agree with @ML Auto. Speculating about what could have started the fire is not helpful. Waiting for actual evidence, however, is.

There are people on this forum who love Gruber and hate Medlock, and there are people who hate Gruber and love Medlock. The haters are always going to look suspiciously at the person they don't like, and the lovers are going to explain away potentially incriminating evidence. Fact is, even if they were both doing shady stuff sometimes, they both have contributed to the Roadster community and keeping vehicles on the road. We should be thankful for both Medlock and Gruber. And if the evidence shows that one of them was doing nefarious things, crucify him at that time and not before.

Why add me to the nefarious component of your reply? I am not the one with credibility issues.