Run and Drive Copart Roadster?

[chris22104]

I had my son go look at it today, as he lives very near co springs. The body is totally shot; don s is correct that every body panel needs new, except maybe one front fender that the crack can be repaired. With the key, it shows 0 miles of range (what did it show when your buddy looked at it don? and how long ago was that?) has a red "fault" light on the dash and will not move forward or reverse. There is no shrink wrap on it any longer, so it is being snowed and rain in! Ridiculous they don't care about it! The only other thing that would concert me is scraping and some waviness to the underside flat aluminum floor as my son described it (a bit of deformation/tweak there?) and a small puncture hole thru the same underside panel. A good parts car perhaps. What a shame.

 

[DonS]

I hired a guy to look at it today. Copart couldn't find the keys so he gave up. I'll go with your assessment. It had 14% (probably 14 miles) on December 5th. That's 12 days to lose 14 miles in cold weather with people fiddling with it - very plausible to now be dead.

So, a bricked battery, bad body, and possible floor tweak. Is it worth the $20,000 ($19,400 plus fees) already bid as a parts car??

Thanks Chris!

 

[chris22104]

Your call Don, but I don't think it is worth even that. Not in that condition. As snaffah said, there are problem-free roadsters with known good batteries in the 40's now. Check out this one that is currently up on ebay, with the hard and soft tops for $45k or best offer...Hell, if you could get him to $40....you'd be waaaaay ahead...
2008 Tesla Roadster Convertible (removable carbon fiber top/rag top) | eBay

 

[chris22104]

Sorry Don, I should have asked you if that was your bid before expressing my opinion on the price...(eeks!) Sorry!

 

[snaffah]

Sold for 29k

 

[ML Auto]

Someone got taken big time. Near impossible to get it fixed for less than $10K. I'm not sure with it's history it would even be worth $40K. At least it had a clean title, but now with the ability to buy parts for salvage vehicles, that is less important.

 

[DonS]

I missed winning by $500. The winning bid was $29000 out of Illinois. Oh well. If the winner is here on the forum, PM me. I have a guy willing to drive the Roadster to his shop to get it charging ASAP. He is a stones throw from the site. The battery is at 33 miles as per my inspector at 10AM this morning (see photo). He covered the car as best as he could as the last guy left it open to the elements.

Don't listen to chris22104 above about a dead battery and undercarriage damage. The battery is good and no damage was found in today's inspection. He must have been fibbing to dissuade me from bidding - not cool! Lucky I had the inside track - almost cool!

Sad I can't save this one and mold up all the panels for CF replacements. Would have been a fun project and beneficial to the forum.

 

[DonS]

I have a bunch of photos and a video walk around if the buyer wants them.

 

[ZENOFF]

Hello to all from Kyiv, Ukraine! This roadster has arrived to us today I work as an electrician in a company “Electrocars” and we will restore it. I will share with you the stages of recovery.
The battery is completely discharged. Tell me how to run it correctly? just put on a charge? Thanks for the help. Sincerely, Alexander

 

[X.l.r.8]

That’s a shame, if you had taken someone up on the offer of charging it, it would be salvageable, try plugging it in you may get super lucky. Also check the service disconnect, again, you may be super lucky and someone pulled it prior to shipping.
Failing that you have 3 options,
1, pull the bmb’s and manually bring the sheets up watching the numbers closely.
2, pull the pack and see if you only need sheets to replace and try to order them from Gruber or someone else who may have something to use.
3, wish you had read the comments on here before you had bid.

 

[TEG]

Be very careful if you attempt to resurrect the pack. Many "nearly dead" Roadster packs have started fires because force feeding them current can cause the cells to overheat and burst.

When the on-board charger (in the PEM) refuses to charge the pack, I think Tesla would call it "bricked". Some brave experts have managed to resuscitate nearly dead packs, but they follow some very careful protocol to minimize the fire risks. I don't know any of the specifics of how they do it.

 

[X.l.r.8]

Sorry, that was a crappy welcome, I should have mentioned I admire your bravery in trying to restore this car, I really hope you are about to embark on a fun adventure and that the battery is recoverable. There is a lot of information available here on recovering battery packs and if anywhere can help its here. Welcome to the forum
I still have the some of Nicks BMB boards if you need them, you can read the voltage from each brick and charge from there, as mentioned its safer to do it with the pack removed but it was a working pack only a short while ago so hopefully it would not take a lot to bring the bricks up to the minimum voltage and then the charger and the BMS (with all its safety features) will be able to do its job.

 

[DonS]

Your enthusiasm makes me feel better about losing the auction. My broker and I weren't communicating well that day. Please start a thread of the entire purchase thru complete rebuild because I really want to see you save this car. A good build thread adds values to the finished car. How are you going to deal with the damaged body panels? Best of luck you lucky dude.

 

[DonS]

Argh, the silence is killing me! ZENOFF - are you making any progress? I wish I were closer to help!

 

[Brian Holm]

The story of number 150 is not over yet. The company in Ukraine which bought the car at the auction they restored it and gave it a new paint. They used the car for exhibition in the store and for a few shows in Ukraine. They never made the battery work and I saw it for sale this summer as defect. About a month ago I had it transported from Ukraine to me here in Denmark.