Tesla infotainment system upgradeable from MCU1 to MCU2

[MP3Mike]

More details please. Was this a re-laminated MCU, or does it have a fresh eMMC as well? Reman from Tesla, or a third party?

He said right in his post that it was from Tesla. And Tesla doesn't disclose what their remanufacturing process entails...

But it does come with a 4-year, no mileage limit, warranty...

 

[viper2ko]

He said right in his post that it was from Tesla. And Tesla doesn't disclose what their remanufacturing process entails...

But it does come with a 4-year, no mileage limit, warranty...

If you have to replace the MCU out of warranty, its covered 4 years additional? That's my biggest concern. Pay to have it replaced and die again in a year

 

[MP3Mike]

If you have to replace the MCU out of warranty, its covered 4 years additional? That's my biggest concern. Pay to have it replaced and die again in a year

Yes, replacement a MCU that you pay for out of warranty is covered for 4 years: Vehicle Warranty

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

My MCU1 is actually running pretty well on V10. The shitty UI is the biggest problem.

 

[HankLloydRight]

My MCU1 is actually running pretty well on V10. The shitty UI is the biggest problem.

If only Tesla would recognize the crappy UI as a defect.

 

[sorka]

So without reading 61 pages, has anyone successfully gotten their MCU1 replaced with an MCU2?

 

[HankLloydRight]

No, not by Tesla. There are anecdotal reports of a few people doing themselves, but nobody's talking.

Tesla has done it as an internal project, but they're also not talking about it either.

 

[TheFro]

More details please. Was this a re-laminated MCU, or does it have a fresh eMMC as well? Reman from Tesla, or a third party?

Everything was done by Tesla; the part number (and price) is what alluded me to the fact that it was not a new part. I can't say what was actually refurbished on this but it comes with a 4 year/unlimited mileage warranty so if it was just an old MCU with a new screen, I'll be covered when this thing fails.

Using the replacement unit, I actually find it to be less responsive than my old one and some text has briefly glitched on me once already.

 

[brkaus]

1098010 matches 2014-2017 MCU on eBay. I’m thinking it’s mcu1. Glad for the 4 year warranty. If it was replaced through the extended warranty it’s duration of the warranty.

 

[MikeBur]

Everything was done by Tesla; the part number (and price) is what alluded me to the fact that it was not a new part. I can't say what was actually refurbished on this but it comes with a 4 year/unlimited mileage warranty so if it was just an old MCU with a new screen, I'll be covered when this thing fails.

Using the replacement unit, I actually find it to be less responsive than my old one and some text has briefly glitched on me once already.

View attachment 468156

Are you sure this was MCU2, looking up part numbers it looks like mcu1.

https://epc.tesla.com/#/systemGroups/53890?partNumber=1098010-00-F&partId=9010999

Whereas MCU2 is

 

[HankLloydRight]

Are you sure this was MCU2, looking up part numbers it looks like mcu1.

I don't think he ever claimed it was MCU2, just that he had his MCU replaced for ~$2k.

I just replaced my MCU1 for $2100 with a remanufactured part from Tesla. They wouldn't give me the old part back unless I paid a $500 core charge. The screen was failing and I figured the extra $700 was worth it to change the whole unit.

 

[MikeBur]

I don't think he ever claimed it was MCU2, just that he had his MCU replaced for ~$2k.

My bad then, read it as someone giving detail of Tesla during mcu1 to 2 upgrade.

 

[dark cloud]

Everything was done by Tesla; the part number (and price) is what alluded me to the fact that it was not a new part. I can't say what was actually refurbished on this but it comes with a 4 year/unlimited mileage warranty so if it was just an old MCU with a new screen, I'll be covered when this thing fails.

Using the replacement unit, I actually find it to be less responsive than my old one and some text has briefly glitched on me once already.

View attachment 468156

Thanks for posting this. I understood you purchased it from Tesla, what I was getting at was whether actual Tesla employees did the refurbish, or do they outsource them to a different company to refurbish on their behalf; perhaps the same place that made them for Tesla? I believe they are making the new ones in house with their own chips. No expert here, but I believe the MCU1's were outsourced?

I know it doesn't say anything on the work order but it would be a question I would ask the service centre if they were replacing mine, so just wondered if you did (of course there is a 99% chance they don't know either, but a little probing doesn't hurt)

Curious if the eMMC has been replaced with a fresh one though. Are you? Would the sc have the answer to that one?

 

[CuriousG]

Are you sure this was MCU2, looking up part numbers it looks like mcu1.

It is also quite noticeable the difference between the screens so that's a dead giveaway.

 

[whitex]

I just replaced my MCU1 for $2100 with a remanufactured part from Tesla. They wouldn't give me the old part back unless I paid a $500 core charge. The screen was failing and I figured the extra $700 was worth it to change the whole unit.

$500 core charge? It seems they really want the old one to keep having remanufactured ones, which probably means that they don't have a supply of new ones and don't have a way to substitute with MCU2. Another unique experience of owning a Tesla vs. a traditional car manufacturer which supplies new parts for years and after that aftermarket parts are also available.

 

[Babaron]

So my SC in Sarasota is telling me the replacement unit will also be an MCU 1 and will be warranted for only 1year.
Does anyone have anything in writing stating a 4 yr warranty?

 

[viper2ko]

$500 core charge? It seems they really want the old one to keep having remanufactured ones, which probably means that they don't have a supply of new ones and don't have a way to substitute with MCU2. Another unique experience of owning a Tesla vs. a traditional car manufacturer which supplies new parts for years and after that aftermarket parts are also available.

Of course. How in the hell would that get 8 year old tegras.

 

[viper2ko]

So my SC in Sarasota is telling me the replacement unit will also be an MCU 1 and will be warranted for only 1year.
Does anyone have anything in writing stating a 4 yr warranty?

I also thought it was one year

 

[SucreTease]

So my SC in Sarasota is telling me the replacement unit will also be an MCU 1 and will be warranted for only 1year.
Does anyone have anything in writing stating a 4 yr warranty?

On this same page, just 13 posts before yours, this was posted.

 

[cduzz]

$500 core charge? It seems they really want the old one to keep having remanufactured ones, which probably means that they don't have a supply of new ones and don't have a way to substitute with MCU2. Another unique experience of owning a Tesla vs. a traditional car manufacturer which supplies new parts for years and after that aftermarket parts are also available.

With some types of ASICs such as commodity CPUs, it is very difficult to get a new batch made after the initial production has stopped. The chip fabs introduce new manufacturing processes that produce chips that are totally incompatible with the prior chips (voltages are different, timings are different, etc).

On the one hand, the NVIDIA chips were probably made in very large volumes and so there are probably lots of spares floating around, on the other hand there may be other support chips on the board that aren't as easy to get; if tesla wasn't planning on this board having a high failure rate they may simply not have banked enough parts to maintain a reasonable supply of parts. It would probably be completely impossible (IE absurdly expensive, not actually "eat-a-neutron-star-sandwich" impossible) to make a brand-new iphone 3gs using only parts manufactured in 2019, for example, because there are too many highly integrated parts for which there are no manufacturing capacity.

We will very soon know how diligently they've been refurbishing these MCU1s -- the continuum is anywhere from

1. ship untested returns to other customers, repair boards that come back two times
   
2. drop off a batch of dead MCUs and ebay bought eMMCs at a San Bruno phone repair place that will drop ship the fixed boards to service centers
3. send boards off to an aviation electronics specialty shop that re-certifies the part after putting it through extensive testing including vibration, wide temperature ranges, and finally x-raying the boards

If there is a large return rate on replaced MCUs, they're taking options 1 and 2...

As far as other car manufacturers goes -- they tend to farm out the actual manufacture of a part to other companies (delphi, delco, bosch, etc) and those companies tend to focus on producing a stable family of products used to integrate into a wide range of cars and so they have an incentive to have a small family of stable products to drop into different OEM requirements. This approach results in lower integration density and less optimization but a slightly more stable supply chain.

At some point Tesla will need to address legacy support. They will face a variety of issues that taint the brand, things like MCU failures, battery degradation, etc. They can either walk away Nissan style or $tep up like Lexus or Mercedes. Time will tell.