Tesla infotainment system upgradeable from MCU1 to MCU2

[NoMoGas]

With Tesla, they send a ranger to your house to do that, you get a refurb MCU guaranteed to work for 1 year warranty (or 4 years, it's not really clear as Tesla has been inconsistent on that, so for this comparison let's assume 1 year).

Tesla will not ranger an MCU. They offer a 1/4 year warranty (depending on the day) for the same bs chip that's in the car now.

As for what you get for UNDER $500, that depends on the service level but all services are turned around in 24 hours (some while you wait). You get a BETTER much larger chip that will outlast the car. It obviously costs a bit more for an R&R but a fraction of what Tesla is charging. The emmc is guaranteed for 10 years (9 years longer then Tesla's chip awarranty). Yes, the data is removed and placed on the new chip. Most people aren't local so they are provided detailed instructions tha they can use to remove the MCU and daughter board (or have any stereo shop do it). Most shops have charged 2-250 to remove and replace and send in the board. Point is you get a better product for a fraction of the cost... and you don't have to deal with Tesla Service

 

[croman]

FWIW, new MCU or refurb come with a separate 4 year unlimited mile warranty. It's still a rip to charge for a defectively designed part.

 

[NoMoGas]

FWIW, new MCU or refurb come with a separate 4 year unlimited mile warranty. It's still a rip to charge for a defectively designed part.

I've heard both but I agree. Im replacing the screen with a new one (bubbles) and upgrading to a 64gb emmc (overkill but why not?) for $1500. And I know it's good for the life of the car. Not the greatest deal vs $2300 refurb but still better.

 

[ucmndd]

This is correct. If they fix it under warranty for free they can keep it. If you pay for a replacement part on your car Tesla is required to return the broken part to you by federal law.

Please cite said law because I can’t find it. There are numerous state laws on this subject, but I see nothing obviously applicable at the federal level.

 

[whitex]

Tesla will not ranger an MCU. They offer a 1/4 year warranty (depending on the day) for the same bs chip that's in the car now.

As for what you get for UNDER $500, that depends on the service level but all services are turned around in 24 hours (some while you wait). You get a BETTER much larger chip that will outlast the car. It obviously costs a bit more for an R&R but a fraction of what Tesla is charging. The emmc is guaranteed for 10 years (9 years longer then Tesla's chip awarranty). Yes, the data is removed and placed on the new chip. Most people aren't local so they are provided detailed instructions tha they can use to remove the MCU and daughter board (or have any stereo shop do it). Most shops have charged 2-250 to remove and replace and send in the board. Point is you get a better product for a fraction of the cost... and you don't have to deal with Tesla Service

What does that mean "10 year emmc guarantee"? If your MCU goes dark within 10 years, the warranty pays to remove the daughterboard, ship it and fix it, or if you remove it yourself? Or do you have to remove the chip itself and ship it to the manufacturer to get a new one back, then clone your data again and put the new chip on?

 

[tmoz]

I argued with them to point where it became obvious I wasn't going to get very far.
Pretty much they would charge me $2500 for a new one or $2000 for a refurbished one where they keep the old one.
I didn't have much leverage, and I wasn't going to waste my time and emotions on arguing. Pay my money and hope future repairs don't add up to the extended warranty price, which I probably would have paid for, but forgot that I had to request it at the 4 yr or 40,000 (or was it 50,000) mile mark. I believe the extended warranty only goes out to 80,000 miles, so I may have opted not to get it seeing that I had somewhere around 60,000 miles at the 4 yr mark.

 

[chillaban]

FWIW, new MCU or refurb come with a separate 4 year unlimited mile warranty. It's still a rip to charge for a defectively designed part.

Sadly I've been in many legal meetings about these kinds of things with lawyers from multibillion dollar companies and the term you are looking for is "consumables " and the fact that storage media is consumable is supported by legal precedent and not considered a defect, more or less regardless of whether or not the consumption rate is changed by manufacturer mistake.

I'm just parroting what lawyers have told me. I don't really like it as a customer. Just I highly doubt there's actually any recourse for excessive logging or whatever resulting in Tesla legally having to do something for customers.

 

[whitex]

Sadly I've been in many legal meetings about these kinds of things with lawyers from multibillion dollar companies and the term you are looking for is "consumables " and the fact that storage media is consumable is supported by legal precedent and not considered a defect, more or less regardless of whether or not the consumption rate is changed by manufacturer mistake.

I'm just parroting what lawyers have told me. I don't really like it as a customer. Just I highly doubt there's actually any recourse for excessive logging or whatever resulting in Tesla legally having to do something for customers.

The issue here is not that the $10 chip is worn, it's that it requires a $2,500 part to be replaced. On the extreme side, what if Tesla said when your emmc dies, they can only swap an entire car (buy a new car or get a CPO car at a special price, and you don't get to keep your old car), would that argument fly with the lawyers? Where is the line of what Tesla can require to replace when the $10 consumable dies?

 

[FlatSix911]

I argued with them to point where it became obvious I wasn't going to get very far.
Pretty much they would charge me $2500 for a new one or $2000 for a refurbished one where they keep the old one.
I didn't have much leverage, and I wasn't going to waste my time and emotions on arguing. Pay my money and hope future repairs don't add up to the extended warranty price, which I probably would have paid for, but forgot that I had to request it at the 4 yr or 40,000 (or was it 50,000) mile mark. I believe the extended warranty only goes out to 80,000 miles, so I may have opted not to get it seeing that I had somewhere around 60,000 miles at the 4 yr mark.

The extended warranty starts at 4 years/50,000 miles and continues to 8 years/100,000 miles whichever comes first.

 

[chillaban]

The issue here is not that the $10 chip is worn, it's that it requires a $2,500 part to be replaced. On the extreme side, what if Tesla said when your emmc dies, they can only swap an entire car (buy a new car or get a CPO car at a special price, and you don't get to keep your old car), would that argument fly with the lawyers? Where is the line of what Tesla can require to replace when the $10 consumable dies?

It was pretty much exactly in a situation like this. A mistake made that results in a small and arguably inexpensive part prematurely dying compared to the originally intended lifespan.... There just wasn't an easy repair option other than wholesale replacement of the product and it was processed that way under warranty and a full device replacement outside. I'm just saying as scummy as this sounds it seems like the lawyers think this is fine. And so far I've not seen evidence to the contrary yet so maybe the lawyers were really good...


The key statement from the legal side was we could not design a compatible or revision of the existing device or device components with a longer life. That would be construed as an admission of guilt.

 

[MXWing]

So did I miss something or shouldn't have Tesla pushed out some firmware changing behavior on how the EMMC is utilized?

If logging things is wearing out the chip, stop logging (as much)?

 

[darxsys]

The issue here is not that the $10 chip is worn, it's that it requires a $2,500 part to be replaced. On the extreme side, what if Tesla said when your emmc dies, they can only swap an entire car (buy a new car or get a CPO car at a special price, and you don't get to keep your old car), would that argument fly with the lawyers? Where is the line of what Tesla can require to replace when the $10 consumable dies?

It was pretty much exactly in a situation like this. A mistake made that results in a small and arguably inexpensive part prematurely dying compared to the originally intended lifespan.... There just wasn't an easy repair option other than wholesale replacement of the product and it was processed that way under warranty and a full device replacement outside. I'm just saying as scummy as this sounds it seems like the lawyers think this is fine. And so far I've not seen evidence to the contrary yet so maybe the lawyers were really good...


The key statement from the legal side was we could not design a compatible or revision of the existing device or device components with a longer life. That would be construed as an admission of guilt.

Luckily, we live in a world where even if lawyers won’t support you and won’t stand with consumers, you can still vote with your wallet and not buy junk, as well as tell others not to. At some point, these companies will start listening. Tesla, despite claiming otherwise and portraying themselves as absolute good guys who are saving the world, obviously isn’t any better or worse than any other company out there, why give them any slack?

 

[whitex]

It was pretty much exactly in a situation like this. A mistake made that results in a small and arguably inexpensive part prematurely dying compared to the originally intended lifespan.... There just wasn't an easy repair option other than wholesale replacement of the product and it was processed that way under warranty and a full device replacement outside. I'm just saying as scummy as this sounds it seems like the lawyers think this is fine. And so far I've not seen evidence to the contrary yet so maybe the lawyers were really good...


The key statement from the legal side was we could not design a compatible or revision of the existing device or device components with a longer life. That would be construed as an admission of guilt.

So it's the manufacturer's lawyers who think this is fine - not surprising but doesn't necessarily mean it would hold up in court. In all cases there are lawyers arguing both sides of an argument, and sometimes use completely ridiculous arguments. I've seen lawyers argue some stupid things before, including in one case I was testifying in, where the defendant lawyer suggested that I received a $40K car in exchange for the testimony in the case, which was about $8,000 total. When the lawyer started asking for documentation proving that I paid for the car, I objected (yes I know, witnesses cannot object, so the judge said too and then agreed with me that it's a stupid line of questioning and shut it down). Tesla lawyers have testified that yellowing of the screen is the customer's fault for exposing it to oxygen and sunlight and therefore excluded from warranty - some arbitrators bought it too, but probably would not hold up against 12 jurors in a box.

 

[whitex]

Luckily, we live in a world where even if lawyers won’t support you and won’t stand with consumers, you can still vote with your wallet and not buy junk, as well as tell others not to.

Lawyers will always side with their clients. That is their job. Consumers can retain lawyers too, who will side with the consumer. You can always vote with your wallet. In Tesla case however Elon is basing his current business model on acquiring new customers, rather than repeat customers, so old customers wallet votes don't matter as much. He tweets how the car has a million mile drivetrain, how it will be robo-taxing making you money in 2020, etc, etc. and people believe him, well, people who don't have Teslas already, but those are the key people of his target audience.

Tesla, despite claiming otherwise and portraying themselves as absolute good guys who are saving the world, obviously isn’t any better or worse than any other company out there, why give them any slack?

Tesla used to get a lot of slack from happy customers who attributed problems with Tesla being a startup. They are not a startup anymore, and they have not scaled the level of customer service they provided before to today's volumes of cars being shipped.

 

[whitex]

So did I miss something or shouldn't have Tesla pushed out some firmware changing behavior on how the EMMC is utilized?

If logging things is wearing out the chip, stop logging (as much)?

They should have, as they have been told by a number of people for a long while now, but they didn't do anything about it until very recently with the spike in number of cars which have emmc fail. Of course, nothing is going to reverse the wear damage already done, even if they killed all logging. For Elon, if it's not on fire or gets negative media attention, it's doesn't need fixing.

 

[beatle]

Sadly I've been in many legal meetings about these kinds of things with lawyers from multibillion dollar companies and the term you are looking for is "consumables " and the fact that storage media is consumable is supported by legal precedent and not considered a defect, more or less regardless of whether or not the consumption rate is changed by manufacturer mistake.

I'm just parroting what lawyers have told me. I don't really like it as a customer. Just I highly doubt there's actually any recourse for excessive logging or whatever resulting in Tesla legally having to do something for customers.

Consumables should also be discretely replaceable. Think of a normal IT system with processors, memory, hard drives, etc. Each of those components should be replaceable as they are known to have a finite life that is projected to be shorter than the overall system. Applied to car consumables such as tires, brake pads/rotors and the 12v battery, those are all discretely replaceable. They may not always be a piece of cake to do, or inexpensive, but they are serviceable by the owner with available tools. Replacing the eMMC is effectively a hack (note: this is not a slight to those who perform the service) and not an authorized replacement.

 

[MP3Mike]

Consumables should also be discretely replaceable. Think of a normal IT system with processors, memory, hard drives, etc. Each of those components should be replaceable as they are known to have a finite life that is projected to be shorter than the overall system. Applied to car consumables such as tires, brake pads/rotors and the 12v battery, those are all discretely replaceable. They may not always be a piece of cake to do, or inexpensive, but they are serviceable by the owner with available tools. Replacing the eMMC is effectively a hack (note: this is not a slight to those who perform the service) and not an authorized replacement.

You mean like Apple who solders their eMMC storage to the motherboard so if anything on the motherboard dies you have to replace the entire board, essentially costing more than a new device? And you lose all of your data even if the eMMC isn't what died since you can't backup your data and move it to the new device. (Unless of course you "hack" it just like with the MCU.)

 

[Cheburashka]

You mean like Apple who solders their eMMC storage to the motherboard so if anything on the motherboard dies you have to replace the entire board, essentially costing more than a new device? And you lose all of your data even if the eMMC isn't what died since you can't backup your data and move it to the new device. (Unless of course you "hack" it just like with the MCU.)

What does Apple have to do with this? Are you saying the lifespan of a $100K car should be equal to a phone?

 

[dark cloud]

You mean like Apple who solders their eMMC storage to the motherboard so if anything on the motherboard dies you have to replace the entire board, essentially costing more than a new device? And you lose all of your data even if the eMMC isn't what died since you can't backup your data and move it to the new device. (Unless of course you "hack" it just like with the MCU.)

I was thinking the same thing, not so much about "consumables" but keeping a laptop current and operational preventing the need to dispose it and upgrade/replace it. It is convenient that Apple allows one to upgrade the ram, battery and hard drive so easily, but the processor is a different story. I did however see one youtube video of someone desoldering the processor and upgrading it; didn't look too hard, a lot easier than the eMMC in the Tesla I am sure.

It is nice that there are enterprising "hacking" people who see a need and fill a market so we have options.

 

[thegruf]

I am curious (from outside the US) if this eMMC issue might actually constitute a plausible case for a class action.
I am no fan of such things as a rule; and consider eg the one doing the rounds re the change in battery range, however unfortunate) entirely without merit.

This though is different. Wear is a known parameter of eMMC as stated on datasheets of such devices; Tesla it can be argued could and indeed should have considered this in their design, and further Tesla have been publically (and I understand directly) warned by many astute IT literate customers about excessive logging likely to lead to premature failure, yet have failed to act effectively until too late.

If I were Tesla I would give very serious thought to the cost of offering an updated MCU (and screen for yellowing issues) at a highly competitive price, enough to cover their immediate costs and value enough to mitigate owner disatisfaction. This could be bundled into the same extension of the resource pool to update to HW3 for FSD owners (and can even mitigate that cost to Tesla too by more effective resource utilisation). The bon-homie that this would generate amongst an increasingly frustrated owner base, that I perceive is now spilling over into affecting new sales, has to be added value to Tesla.

The message to Elon + Tesla is ..
if you are smart here - you can make this a win-win

my 2c anyway.