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Tesla Claims Warranty is Void Due to Aftermarket Puddle Lights
- Thread starter ps134
- Start date
Odd. I have mostly LEDs, some CFLs in my house and I haven't replaced any LEDs yet. The kitchen spotlight ones run for hours every day and have so for years now.
Some of those are on a straight circuit and some on a dimmer circuit. Same bulbs. All are fine
Some of those are on a straight circuit and some on a dimmer circuit. Same bulbs. All are fine
Most of the case, the drivers/transformers in the LED bulbs went bad, not the LED themselves.
CapsEngineer
Member
Whatever…
is it bad electrical design to ground a critical component thru a light ? I’m not an EE but this just seems dumb. The whole door body structure is metal, why not ground to a threaded hole ? It seems like they saved 5 cents to cost $500 here…and then penalized the owner for replacing a simple light
is it bad electrical design to ground a critical component thru a light ? I’m not an EE but this just seems dumb. The whole door body structure is metal, why not ground to a threaded hole ? It seems like they saved 5 cents to cost $500 here…and then penalized the owner for replacing a simple light
73Bruin
Member
I have purchased over a hundred leds for the lamp posts in my HOA complex. I can safely say that their lifespan is not 20 plus years. Plus there are the odd bulbs with the much shorter lifespan. I put in warranty claims for some on Amazon until they reduced the warranty period from 3 or 4 years to a year while still claiming the longer life.
iI had a tesla service tech come out today to replace the silly glued on rear wing (for the 3rd time). I keep making them come out and do this in hopes they will get so tired of this they actually design a better way to attach the wing...meh same wing still lol. il see him again in a few weeks...
so i went over this discussion with him and he said yes absolutely 100% of door glass breaks or frame damage the 1st thing they do is inspect the puddle light. If its not OEM they immediately deny the warranty. He said every puddle lamp will fail but hopefully it wont damage the door. He reiterated either not touching OEM, or choosing a very good aftermarket brand. And also said definitely switch in the OEM lamps if there is a failure. He said the OEM lamps absolutely DO fail, its a VERY common issue. He actually said all the circuits in the door go thru the puddle lamp wiring. Very poor way to run wiring. youve been warned ..
so i went over this discussion with him and he said yes absolutely 100% of door glass breaks or frame damage the 1st thing they do is inspect the puddle light. If its not OEM they immediately deny the warranty. He said every puddle lamp will fail but hopefully it wont damage the door. He reiterated either not touching OEM, or choosing a very good aftermarket brand. And also said definitely switch in the OEM lamps if there is a failure. He said the OEM lamps absolutely DO fail, its a VERY common issue. He actually said all the circuits in the door go thru the puddle lamp wiring. Very poor way to run wiring. youve been warned ..
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I don't believe that for a second. I have seen zero reports of anyone having a failed OEM puddle light. And I haven't seen many reports of broken windows either.
im just repeating what the tech said. he was a young guy maybe mid 20s had worked as a mobile tech only a few months and said they see lots of cars come in with broken frames and sometimes broken windows ...
know what ? I will see another again in a few more weeks when this spoiler peels off so I will record it this time
know what ? I will see another again in a few more weeks when this spoiler peels off so I will record it this time
...Nor do I have any respect for a Tesla company rep recommending that you fraudulently re-install the OEM lamps after you've broken the window by installing an aftermarket part, REGARDLESS of how poor the design is. He should be fired.
if you did install some nice aftermarket puddle lights and your windows broke you would be pretty dumb to leave them in and then go visit tesla .. i think he said that since i already knew the trick .. maybe i led him to saying that but i cant see blaming a 20 something newbie tech for helping customers not let Telsa weasle out of fixing a serious design flaw
Holy crap, a2t2: Tesla's "design flaw" did NOT break any window. If it did, they would fix it under warranty.
MODIFYING the OEM setup is what is breaking the windows. Very simple cause and effect. Why can't you accept that?
MODIFYING the OEM setup is what is breaking the windows. Very simple cause and effect. Why can't you accept that?
because its a bad/dangerous design. i would argue the design itself is too fragile and depends on the condition of a consumable light bulb to safely ingress/egress the vehicle.
do you understand the concept of failure modes effect analysis ? Its when you study certain important components and decide what downstream effects happens when they fail. This is important because it could trap someone in the vehicle if they werent strong enough to push the door window/frame out in the event the window didnt retract from the roof channel.
if you design something such that a simple light bulb failure causes excessive damage at the best case, and traps someone inside the vehicle at its worst case, its a negligent design and you would be liable. Thats why i cant figure out why Tesla has done this, I must be missing something. They could very easily ground that window reg without going thru the puddle lamp. This is how expensive recalls happen, do some research. Simple dumb stuff like this...
this will surely either be changed, or recalled. maybe both
do you understand the concept of failure modes effect analysis ? Its when you study certain important components and decide what downstream effects happens when they fail. This is important because it could trap someone in the vehicle if they werent strong enough to push the door window/frame out in the event the window didnt retract from the roof channel.
if you design something such that a simple light bulb failure causes excessive damage at the best case, and traps someone inside the vehicle at its worst case, its a negligent design and you would be liable. Thats why i cant figure out why Tesla has done this, I must be missing something. They could very easily ground that window reg without going thru the puddle lamp. This is how expensive recalls happen, do some research. Simple dumb stuff like this...
this will surely either be changed, or recalled. maybe both
perhaps worth reading - a road and track take on Magnuson Moss
Not All Aftermarket Parts Will Void Your Warranty
Seems to me that if in fact the tesla bulbs burn out as well. OR short or whatever causes the issue, then they must honor the warranty
Also it would seem that would place it in the realm of a consumable also making it Tesla's burden to show a non oem fault.
Not All Aftermarket Parts Will Void Your Warranty
Seems to me that if in fact the tesla bulbs burn out as well. OR short or whatever causes the issue, then they must honor the warranty
Also it would seem that would place it in the realm of a consumable also making it Tesla's burden to show a non oem fault.
Cool article. I would LOVE to ping Steve Lheto on this. This would be an interesting case. If this design really is so prevalent with the window engaging a roof channel such that the door can only be safely opened via electronics, then this has surely come up before. I just dont know if this level of negligence is present in those other cars (grounding the window regular circuit via a consumable puddle lamp)
thesmokingman
Active Member
Yeap, that is the MMA in a nutshell. It doesn't look good for Tesla any which way one slices it. If they designed it so the windows could break if the puddle lights failed or were replaced which is a consumable, that's a MAJOR design flaw. I don't understand why some owners are willing to put up with this obvious BS. What next, change your brake light bulbs or led and the rear hatch stops working? It's not supposed to work like that.
73Bruin
Member
I guess the real question is what is the expected life of the puddle lamp. If the puddle lamps expected life/mean time to failure is longer than that of the car (say 15 years) than it really isn't a consumable item. There are two main aspects to the lifespan of an LED light: Hours of usage and the number of on and off cycles.,
- A simple google shows a lot of claims for a life of 50,000 hours. My HOA has leds that have been installed outdoors in lamp posts (semi-protected) that have easily lasted over 25,000 hours of actual use. During that time, we have had less than a dozen failures. I can't imagine a puddle lamp getting anywhere near that type of usage.
- There are also claims of 20,000 to 100,000 on and off cycles. I5 Cycles per day everyday for 15 years is 54,750 cycles. Well within the possible design specs of an LED Lamp.
Only 100,000 on and off cycles? How about the blinking LEDs on the networking devices? They probably go on and off multiple times a second, and I've never seen one burned out before the device itself went bad.
When we talk about the puddle light on a Tesla, the LED is probably just a Light Emission Diode itself fed by DC power from the car. On the other hand, the LED light bulbs include the diode and the driver circuit to convert 120V AC into DC for the diode. The LED light bulbs' lifespan and cycles are mostly bounded by the driver. For the LED diodes themselves, the biggest enemy for their lifespan is over driving them with high current to force them emit more lights.
So in my personal reasoning: For the OEM puddle lights, if they are fed by DC (i.e. without driver circuit in the lights), and are not over driven (probably not the case given they are dim), they should last at least as long as the car's lifetime by design.
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Srad600Volt
Member
Yep, of course the OEM bulbs fail, I'm sure I've seen reports of that on this very forum. I agree, it is a silly way to ground the windows and should change in the future (if Tesla have not already quietly done so). In regards to this failure though, honestly I can see why Tesla denied the claim. Even though their light probably will fail and possibly result in the same exact damage...it did not. Their part was removed and replaced with an aftermarket part that DID fail and DID cause the damage. They could (should?) replace it on good faith, knowing their design is poor, but obviously that's not their priority right now, making money (i.e. not losing money by paying warranty claims on aftermarket parts) is.
I feel for you, and my fingers are crossed mine never fail, but I don't think you should be mad at Tesla for this.
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