Tesla cripple model S stranding family

[princeofhouse]

I don't watch videos. If you want people to understand the facts, then type them out.

well given the topic is about the video.. if you don't watch it your views have no value as you lack the understanding of the content of the video.

may be best you watch the video if you are wanting to make full informed replies and join in the debate.

 

[princeofhouse]

this is a text forum. I reply to text. can't reply to quotes from a video. the proliferation of people trying to make points with a video is ineffective for a lot of people. I can skim a text in 10 seconds. not watching a 5 minute video. But apparently I will waste 15 second of my time explaining this point . . . oh well.

if you are unwilling to watch the material which happens to be a video then your view has questionable value.
if this forum was intended to be a pure written affair then they would not have enabled audio and visual features to allow users to share and discuss such items.
Something that happens regularly on this forum and many others.

If you are unwilling to invest 5 minutes of your time in watching the video then you are unable to form a fully formed viewpoint of the subject matter, thus while you are of course naturally entitled to have a opinion it could be easily compared in usefulness to that of a chocolate tea pot.

anyway, you do you..

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

He does say that he took it to Tesla to have Warranty work done (1:30 in the video). Tesla did the work and didn't charge him.

I was writing about the poster who wrote about taking a salvage Merc to a dealer. That poster wrote about having service done but didn't say anything about it being warranty work. At an independent dealer, if it's not warranty work, the manufacturer has no say in the matter.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Dealers get authorization from Corporate for warranty repairs. If corporate says don't do it the dealer won't because then they don't get paid.

He's giving you examples of other corporations that honor the warranty regardless of the title type.

Owner should do due diligence? Never had to when I buy a used or salvage ICE car. Heck, I can just return my salvaged Honda Civic and the dealer would just service it normally.

Oh. I can also buy a salvaged Mercedez AMG c63 and the dealer would still service it like they do with regular cars. What gives, tesla?

No mention of warranty. Just service.

Tesla may refuse to service a salvage vehicle (including Supercharging).
If a car is salvage, it's been written off. There is no particular reason why Tesla should provide any service at all.
The general rule is that you have to get it inspected to be certain that it will service it.

The bad move was the failure to communicate, which is no surprise since Tesla is so badly organized.

 

[mspohr]

this is a text forum. I reply to text. can't reply to quotes from a video. the proliferation of people trying to make points with a video is ineffective for a lot of people. I can skim a text in 10 seconds. not watching a 5 minute video. But apparently I will waste 15 second of my time explaining this point . . . oh well.

If you watch the video, you can read the text of the guy's letter... but you have to watch the video.

 

[mspohr]

If there was remotely anything wrong with the battery or any of it's components, you would instantly get an error on the screen. You also would not be able to user the supercharger or even a regular charger.

Not necessarily. Battery case could be damaged and battery will work just fine until it gets wet.
If there's nothing wrong with the battery then Tesla wouldn't have a problem "re-certifying" the car (unless there is something else... frame, pillar, drive train, etc.)

 

[Yaro]

Not necessarily. Battery case could be damaged and battery will work just fine until it gets wet.
If there's nothing wrong with the battery then Tesla wouldn't have a problem "re-certifying" the car (unless there is something else... frame, pillar, drive train, etc.)

It would be hard to miss damage to the battery case. Also, there are plenty of flooded cars on the auction and all seem fine.


Certifying it with Tesla is a waste of money. They charge way too much for simply saying "Hey the car is fine to drive". There are 0 benefits to certification besides being able to order parts.

 

[mspohr]

It would be hard to miss damage to the battery case. Also, there are plenty of flooded cars on the auction and all seem fine.


Certifying it with Tesla is a waste of money. They charge way too much for simply saying "Hey the car is fine to drive". There are 0 benefits to certification besides being able to order parts.

Certification is useful for finding problems that might not be obvious to a novice, giving peace of mind that the car is not going to kill you and making the car eligible for service, parts and Supercharging.
Unfortunately, the kind of people who buy a cheap salvage car and patch it up without certification will be the first to sue Tesla for "hidden damage" that causes an accident.

 

[kev1n]

if you buy a salvaged tesla, you should just assume the following:
1. no warranty
2. no supercharging
3. no software updates

 

[whitex]

Tesla should have shown some class & empathy and turned SuperCharging back on until they got home.

You mean after having him purchase insurance for any damage caused due to supercharging, including but not limited to hurting him, his family, the supercharger, any cars or people in the vicinity. Supercharging is a lot of power. Allowing a "do it yourself fixer upper" to connect to the supercharger is potentially unsafe.

 

[whitex]

One big misconception in the video and in the thread: supercharging is not a feature of a car, it's a service that a car uses and clearly states the car must be certified to use it. An accident voids said certification until the car is repaired and re-certified. This is done for safety reasons, not for some petty greed as some may suggest. It's a pretty simple concept really.

This is no different than FAA letting you fly a plane. If it's been in an accident, you're not allowed to fly anywhere in the United States until it's been fully re-certified. Most people don't think FAA is wrong for not letting backyard fixed aircraft fly without full inspection.

 

[Yaro]

Not necessarily. Battery case could be damaged and battery will work just fine until it gets wet.
If there's nothing wrong with the battery then Tesla wouldn't have a problem "re-certifying" the car (unless there is something else... frame, pillar, drive train, etc.)

Let's say you want to buy an iPhone X with a broken screen for $400 instead of buying a new one for 1200. You replace the screen yourself or have someone else replace it for you for $100. You're using your phone just fine but then Apple decides to disable the iPhone until they inspect it and make sure the screen has been properly replaced. Oh, they well also charge you $100 for looking at the iPhone. Do you think that's fair?

 

[Russell]

No mention of warranty. Just service.

...There is no particular reason why Tesla should provide any service at all....

To make money? Even that is up to debate.

 

[Lasttoy]

Ok, lets start over. Air bags did not deploy, right? Who turned into a salvaged car? Insurance firm?
He replaced 2 parts , right?
Nothing wrong with or damage to rest of car?
Tesla was in the wrong, period.
We buy the cars because we love them. Tesla should be happy for the man was willing to fix it.
Elon should change this mind set in management.
To turn him off was wrong, mean, and un called for. Period.
Really bad Karma.

 

[mspohr]

Ok, lets start over. Air bags did not deploy, right? Who turned into a salvaged car? Insurance firm?
He replaced 2 parts , right?
Nothing wrong with or damage to rest of car?
Tesla was in the wrong, period.
We buy the cars because we love them. Tesla should be happy for the man was willing to fix it.
Elon should change this mind set in management.
To turn him off was wrong, mean, and un called for. Period.
Really bad Karma.

Insurance company has no reason to scrap a car if it can be repaired for less than its value. The OP isn't very forthcoming with details but it looks like he patched up the cosmetic parts and let the rest slide. Damage to fender and door means there could well be damage to the A pillar, drive train, and battery. That is probably why insurance scrapped the car.
OP is also silent on whether or not he got a salvage title and whether or not he understood the meaning of a salvage title.
Whenever I see people here posting hyperbolic outrage with missing information, I am suspicious. This guy even went through the histrionics of "stranding" his family because he was too stupid to find a plug. Smells to me like a scam.
Suppose the battery case was damaged and took on water. The next time he Supercharged the thing could catch fire.
Suppose the drive train and suspension was damaged. The next time he took a hard corner, it could collapse.
Suppose the A pillar was damaged. The next accident could crumple the pillar and kill him.
Tesla has good reasons for wanting to carefully inspect salvage cars. If you don't want to have them inspect it, you take your chances... just don't expect Tesla to take the rap.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Let's say you want to buy an iPhone X with a broken screen for $400 instead of buying a new one for 1200. You replace the screen yourself or have someone else replace it for you for $100. You're using your phone just fine but then Apple decides to disable the iPhone until they inspect it and make sure the screen has been properly replaced. Oh, they well also charge you $100 for looking at the iPhone. Do you think that's fair?

No, they'd have no justification to do so.

What Apple actually did was to make it so that you can't use it with their high-speed chargers, even though you can otherwise use the phone as normal. Sorry you were depending on get a high-speed charge at the time. Also hope that nothing else goes wrong with it, unless you know somebody who can fix it. Of course, you can fix it or you know someone who can, because you bought it knowing that it was so broken that a previous owner's insurance paid for a replacement and you got it running.

 

[whitex]

Ok, lets start over. Air bags did not deploy, right? Who turned into a salvaged car? Insurance firm?
He replaced 2 parts , right?
Nothing wrong with or damage to rest of car?

Let me finish this train of thought for you. Insurance company declared it a total loss, which means the repair estimate was greater than the value of the car (minus salvage value). New owner replaced 2 easy things. There is much more wrong with the car left. Tesla appropriately refused to allow this broken car to connect to their energy delivery network, for safety reasons.

 

[Cram collision]

In my job constantly cars are totaled for various reasons that have nothing to do with the state of damage but more to do with rental fees and parts availability and does the customer want it back. 70 percent of the time the decision is made by a adjuster sitting in his car saying no way am I dealing with this customer ( Send It ). Prime example bad hail storm rolled through my area hundreds of cars totaled for cosmetic reasons Non structural dents. How is a tesla with dents non structural now considered total or non supported k now I’m getting of topic point is it’s most of the time a subjective decision is made on the fly by a person with little blue collar experience. Now with that said not all insurance adjuster are in experienced just 70 percent of them it’s all number and profit and insurance companies cutting the bottom line to be competitive in there market.

This may be from another thread but this is my view. A total is subjective decision not always made by trained professional but sometimes a pencil pusher looking at the numbers not the condition of the car.

 

[The Duke]

This may be from another thread but this is my view. A total is subjective decision not always made by trained professional but sometimes a pencil pusher looking at the numbers not the condition of the car.

To complete this thought consider the scrap value of a Tesla is very high. Insurance companies are aggressive with depreciation. These combine to total cars that "ordinary people" would not. Perhaps the cost of a loaner car, one door, one fender are enough to make this car a total. The only way for Tesla to know if that is the case or if the car has real damage is to inspect it very closely.

 

[dhanson865]

Let me finish this train of thought for you. Insurance company declared it a total loss, which means the repair estimate was greater than the value of the car (minus salvage value). New owner replaced 2 easy things. There is much more wrong with the car left. Tesla appropriately refused to allow this broken car to connect to their energy delivery network, for safety reasons.

So much more wrong with it that the family decided to use it as their only car and take it on a multistate trip?

I don't think that passes the sniff test. What's wrong with it that they could use it for several months and go on a multistate supercharging trip and not be bitten by the supposed issues left in the car?