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Should I avoid cars with 85kwh packs?

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I just got a call from Tesla that they charged it to 100% overnight, and the battery is at 248 miles of rated range. It’s a single owner P85 with every option including AP1, and seems to be in overall great shape. Selling for just under $44K from Tesla with 2 year bumper to bumper warranty, and drive unit/battery covered until the end of 2022.

My plan has been to pick it up and drive the P85 for a year or so, and then move up to a 100D. I doubt I’ll ever use supercharging. I’m in the process of selling my LR Model 3 (just prefer the size of the S).

Is your LR3 AWD? I have a 2013 P85 with a brand new HV battery and looking to pick up a LR3 AWD.
 
[Quote it is outrageous that Tesla does things to ones car to reduce charge speed, range and performance without informing an owner beforehand as to the reason for having to take such action, and then, when confronted with the evidence, deny that they did anything until their back is against the wall.

Yesterday, Tesla sent me a communication trying to persuade me to trade in the model S for a new model S that is not range capped. Sounded to be like they are trying to get the cars using the older style 18650 cells off the road. But I’m waiting to see how Tesla resolves the problems before I even think about buying another Tesla.[/QUOTE]

What a horrible experience. I can only hope the vast majority of prerefresh cars are like mine, problem free except for minor SuC speed reduction of 21%

Even so forced updates are very troubling...
 
I’ve been reading about Tesla’s OTA updates limiting the 85kwh cars, and reducing range overnight. I found a 2014 P85 I’m interested in, but am questioning if i should avoid all 85kwh cars given the current battery-gate/charge-gate/etc?

Is it as widespread as it appears on here, or limited to a minority of Model S cars?
You should avoid an 85 pack like the plague.

P85D owner here.
 
I’ve been reading about Tesla’s OTA updates limiting the 85kwh cars, and reducing range overnight. I found a 2014 P85 I’m interested in, but am questioning if i should avoid all 85kwh cars given the current battery-gate/charge-gate/etc?

Is it as widespread as it appears on here, or limited to a minority of Model S cars?
You should avoid an 85 pack like the plague.

P85D owner here.
Already have 85D..I avoid updates like the plague....works well so far...
 
I thought about this but remember this whole thing was in response to fires. I would not be very comforted not updating with my car parked in the garage underneath where my family and I sleep.
Good point. I mitigate this risk since I have multiple fire alarms/extingushers and escape routes. More of a concern is the house contents.

I wonder if you could summon a car out the the garage when it was on fire?
 
If you are on a budget I would still stay away from the old 85s. It looks like a good deal, but it isn't once you get hit by #batterygate. A low price isn't automatically a good deal.
Anyone on a budget likely hasn’t set aside $17-25k (costs quoted fall in this wide range, in the past six months) for an out-of-pocket repair expense for a non-warranty refurbished battery pack (cost is AFTER returning your old one as a core charge). It’s a very unfortunate reality that most folks don’t consider until after the fact.
 
Anyone on a budget likely hasn’t set aside $17-25k (costs quoted fall in this wide range, in the past six months) for an out-of-pocket repair expense for a non-warranty refurbished battery pack (cost is AFTER returning your old one as a core charge). It’s a very unfortunate reality that most folks don’t consider until after the fact.

Not a big deal I think for those buying a used MS85. You can still get a 2016 85D ~ 50K from Tesla with a 4 year unlimited batt/motor warranty, and 4 year 50k miles on everything else, excluding those items Tesla considers wear and tear.... Since we only hear the bad news on the boards, I suspect the average 85 pack will go 180k miles and 12 years, although you might see 20% degradation at that point. One could run a spreadsheet and see if the ~1500/year amortized batt replacement cost compares with maintenance and fuel on a ICE, my guess is you will be close....

For those that don't want regengate/battgate, and update surprises, one can emulate the update by SuC only to 80%, home charge to under 90%, storing at 50-60%, and charge or climate condition a little before driving. The ~0.005% of cars that have caught fire were probably outliers, plus, how many of those 7 folks were monitoring the BMS, or even had Teslafi? My guess, NONE.

If we look after and we take care of our packs, our risk should be minscule....
 
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I just got a call from Tesla that they charged it to 100% overnight, and the battery is at 248 miles of rated range. It’s a single owner P85 with every option including AP1, and seems to be in overall great shape. Selling for just under $44K from Tesla with 2 year bumper to bumper warranty, and drive unit/battery covered until the end of 2022.

With all that warranty, AP1 and the fact that it charges to 248 presumably with all the latest updates - I would run and grab it.
 
Not a big deal I think for those buying a used MS85. You can still get a 2016 85D ~ 50K from Tesla with a 4 year unlimited batt/motor warranty, and 4 year 50k miles on everything else, excluding those items Tesla considers wear and tear.... Since we only hear the bad news on the boards, ...
If we look after and we take care of our packs, our risk should be minscule....

The issue is just starting to show up. It is not due to a manufacturing error, it is affecting all old battery packs. Sooner or later you will get hit by the software capping. It's not just a little less range and a little slower charging. It is significant. There are many measures that are implemented via software the all add up and make the car far less valuable and usable. Most people don't notice the limitations because they don't keep close track of their cars. Most people are not even on forums like here. So saying it's just a very small number of people affected is missing the majority of cars out there.

The warranty is useless as long as Tesla refuses to #1 acknowledge the issue even exists and #2 thus refuses to replace these batteries. That is their stance right now. Everyone that went to Tesla's service has been told, 'your battery is just fine'.
 
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Because I have refused to update, I still have full regen and 266 mile range. SuC charging is 21% slower, but I can live with that.

For a new buyer, I would at least want to see the range at 90%, and refuse delivery if it was not on the high side.

I suppose one could wait a year or two and get a 100 pack, but there is a risk there too. Just a few years back everyone was saying how good the 85's were compared to the 60's or 90's.

Or you could get a Bolt/Volt, that is the financially best choice, but you have to live with the bow tie...
 
I suppose one could wait a year or two and get a 100 pack, but there is a risk there too. Just a few years back everyone was saying how good the 85's were compared to the 60's or 90's.

Or you could get a Bolt/Volt, that is the financially best choice, but you have to live with the bow tie...

The 100 batteries see the same DC charge limit when you go over a certain amount of DC charge sessions/energy. The 100 packs were supposed to charge at 200 kW at V3 chargers, but that has been canceled pretty quickly. just a little over 100 is the charge rate you are getting after you have charged aprox 8000 mles on superchargers. That's it. 100 battery packs are just newer and haven't seen the use at the early 85s that have been on the road 3 years longer. Since all these limitations and crippling have been applied long after the 100 packs came out, I highly doubt Tesla knew about and has addressed/fixed the issues we are seeing. More likely than not will they suffer the same or very similar issues down the line. I would think the Model Y and every vehicle coming out after it will have either different cells or other means to prevent these issues in the future. If, and that's very much in the air right now, buy another Tesla it won't be anything older than the Model Y and even for that I would wait one year into producton for them to fix all the initial problems that they sure will have.
 
I purchased Tesla S P26351 in December, 2013 and have driven it 134,230 miles since. I am somewhat skeptical about the existence of a malevolent “plot” to cap battery performance given my experience over the years, and I’d buy the car again in a heartbeat.

Rather than the battery, there are other things you should ask about if you buy the older Tesla. Please skip to the last paragraph. Re the battery:

Initially my range was 265 mi. I rarely charge to 100%, though I’ve travelled from IN to TX, OK, KS, eastern PA, northern MI, and northeastern NY on many occasions. Sometime about 2017, I was returning from TX. In southern IL, my car informed me that if turned off it may not restart and to proceed to the nearest service center which was in Chicago. They sent me home in a new vehicle “loaner” and subsequently replaced my battery because of something they had “never seen before” and wanted to disassemble the battery for diagnosis. Sometime before that, my range had declined gradually to 244 at full charge, and the new battery exactly matched the range I was experiencing in the old. Service told me the decline in my old battery was in part due to changes in range calculation or programming.

Fast forward to 2.11.2020: travelling to Austin, TX, the car hesitated to start supercharging several times, responding to unplugging and replugging, wiggling the charger, or moving to different chargers. Except in Austin, where it simply refused to charge at about 6 stalls. Repair tech analyzed for 24 hours and concluded that Supercharger is detecting a high voltage short in the charge port, which they will replace. (probably coincidentally, the charge port was replaced under warranty once when < 1 year old, this one’s on me).

At the moment we are driving a nearly identical loaner, number about P16000 with 52,000 miles which makes it about a year older than mine. Max charge with 6Kw charger? 245 miles.

Over the years I’ve not seen a trend towards less efficiency; on my car and this loaner it is quite easy to keep efficiency at about 300 Wh/mi driving with autopilot set at 65-72 mph. I’m just seeing gradually degraded performance (or maybe not since the range Im seeing is about at what others have supposedly been “capped”).

WHAT SHOULD YOU WATCH FOR IN A USED Model S 85?

-Both mine and the loaner are single motor. More efficient but slower.
-Car about SN P16000 has no air suspension, which was optional on my car SN P26000. It doesn’t lower its height at speed and rides with more road noise and slightly less smoothly.
-It doesnt have traction control. when I stomped on it at a stop light to get the lane I preferred I got a wheelspin without the acceleration I have come to expect.
-The mirrors don’t retract, or tilt downward.
-The trim inside the rear trunk is slightly different.

But like my car at 134,000 miles, it handles and drives beautifully. And no, I don’t want to sell mine. I’m going for 250,000 miles of free supercharging (included in all the early cars—transferable to the new owners, at least when I last checked. )

Good luck. These cars last much better than the many ICE cars I’ve owned. And people still approach to complement my 6 year old high mileage car.
 
Good post. Ordinarily, I won't read long ones. Good post.
You might not know, but P16000 should not have retract or tilt down mirrors. I had P20800 that was the month (Sep '13) when Tesla started adding the wiring harness for retract and tilt mirrors, - but not the electric mirrors. The added the mirrors in Oct '13. On a gamble, I took mine back in and they swapped our my manual for electric when they found the wiring harness for electric. Tech's didn't know until they looked.

There's a well known owner on TMC that has reached 287,000 on his '12 S.
 
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