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Tesla starts giving back Supercharger access to salvaged vehicles
- Thread starter Akikiki
- Start date
I bet you more than half the non-salvage cars with SC have those scrapes and dings on their under carriage.
henderrj
Active Member
It does indeed sound like Tesla is looking for any excuse it can to not re-establish supercharging. I've been a fan for a lot of years, but they're convincing me not to be! (I'm fighting my own battle with him right now so, perhaps I'm not the most unbiased observer.)
Doubtful. That pack has major inward crush.
I have two missing rear jack pads left on a car that passed inspection, dragged straight through from bottoming the car out upon high speed compression.
Okay, so a somewhat weird, but better outcome to this story.
When Tesla finally closed this out they only charged me the $601.85 for the HV Inspection. When I went in to pick up the vehicle I asked for the full story and was told that they had never actually replaced the Battery Heater and HV Harness so I was not charged for those repairs. I am not sure what they were doing with my vehicle for the 2 days after I approved those repairs and told me they were working on the vehicle, but at this point I don't really care about that little fib as it saved me $1300.
I did talk to the technician when I picked up the vehicle. My Battery Heater and Charge Inlet HV Harness were both working fine, they had just thrown maintenance faults way back in the history but were not active when I brought the vehicle in for the inspection. This caused the Tech to check them for resistance to ground. He found that both parts were not meeting the expected resistance so he failed them on the inspection. The battery heater was 5/1000ths (I am guessing ohms) out of spec, but as he said since these are Salvage vehicles, they are not giving any leeway. I have no real issues with this.
He also stated that some scratches on the battery pack and cover can pass the visual inspection, but dents of any flavor are ground for failure. Once again, this makes sense to me so so no real issues I just wanted everyone to be aware. I am not real sure why I didn't think to take a better look at my pack before taking it in. If you have access to a lift, you might want go under and take a look before you roll the dice like I did.
So I traveled back on the 5 hour drive using my European CCS Retrofit at Electrify America, getting 140 kW peak. Its not a sexy as Supercharging, but it gets the job done!
Assuming that your battery appears to be good, I wonder how much someone like @wk057 or @Recell would charge to move all of your battery internals into a new battery case. (They surely have extra cases that are in good shape available from battery packs they had to breakdown because of module failures.)
It's doable, but really time consuming to do properly. We have to do this as part of our refurbishment process if the chassis is damaged or is otherwise not usable for some reason.
I think Tesla's policy on this is a little too strict, since unless the dent is large enough to protrude inward enough to be an issue (a massive dent) or if it's actually cracked the casing so it doesn't pass a pressure test, then it's just cosmetic and Tesla should leave it alone.
Almost all non-drivable salvage cars (and even some operable ones) are going to be handled by salvage yard forklifts, and as a result there are going to be scrapes and gouges in the bottom of the battery pack casing. Again, these are purely cosmetic and don't impact the usability or safety of the pack.
If Tesla is using these cosmetic issues on the bottom of the battery casing as an excuse to fail the salvage inspection, then we're nearly as bad off as we were before they did the inspection at all, since the only way to pass many cars would be to buy a battery pack from them.
I think Tesla's policy on this is a little too strict, since unless the dent is large enough to protrude inward enough to be an issue (a massive dent) or if it's actually cracked the casing so it doesn't pass a pressure test, then it's just cosmetic and Tesla should leave it alone.
Almost all non-drivable salvage cars (and even some operable ones) are going to be handled by salvage yard forklifts, and as a result there are going to be scrapes and gouges in the bottom of the battery pack casing. Again, these are purely cosmetic and don't impact the usability or safety of the pack.
If Tesla is using these cosmetic issues on the bottom of the battery casing as an excuse to fail the salvage inspection, then we're nearly as bad off as we were before they did the inspection at all, since the only way to pass many cars would be to buy a battery pack from them.
henderrj
Active Member
I just got mine back from service today. It's pretty scratched up under there and I was concerned that they might give me issues about it. Nothing at all.
Interestingly, they told me that they in fact pulled the HV battery out entirely to examine it, and I suppose some of the components, and then put it back in. They must have inspected the charge port as well, as they forgot to put the little carpet plug back in. They actually left two rags in the back of my car too. Uncommonly messy for this service department. (Although that was it, overall it was pretty clean.) They've been pretty good over the time I've used them.
Nice part is I had a Model X 100d with FSD on loan for the 5 days it took from start to finish. Weekend was in there though. Over all, I'm happy. I'm just mad because when I bought this car they told me it wasn't a salvage title. I may still try to fight that one in court. But, for the moment, I have a car that I can road trip once again! Will be headed to North Carolina to pick up a few parts from wk057 tech.
Interestingly, they told me that they in fact pulled the HV battery out entirely to examine it, and I suppose some of the components, and then put it back in. They must have inspected the charge port as well, as they forgot to put the little carpet plug back in. They actually left two rags in the back of my car too. Uncommonly messy for this service department. (Although that was it, overall it was pretty clean.) They've been pretty good over the time I've used them.
Nice part is I had a Model X 100d with FSD on loan for the 5 days it took from start to finish. Weekend was in there though. Over all, I'm happy. I'm just mad because when I bought this car they told me it wasn't a salvage title. I may still try to fight that one in court. But, for the moment, I have a car that I can road trip once again! Will be headed to North Carolina to pick up a few parts from wk057 tech.
Yah, unfortunately porting your existing pack over to another (used/refurb) case really doesn't pencil out, especially when you throw in any shipping and handling costs.
Worth underlining as well that alongside our direct-to-consumer business, @Recell is singularly focused on battery remanufacturing at scale - packs come in, packs go out - we don't repair or break down packs as a regular course of business. Sure, we have extra cases on hand, but we use them primarily for internal R&D and test builds.
Hope that helps frame the issue.
Kudos to Tesla for re-enabling a pathway to supercharger access - with the Magic Dock roll out now officially underway, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
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brainhouston
Active Member
henderrj
Active Member
Mine is a December 2014 '85. I asked Michael, the check-in guy there, and a very good guy, and he told us that they can do x, s, 3 or y now. I don't know if they've actually done any Xs or not yet, but it's definitely within the Tesla allowed work.
henderrj
Active Member
Sorry, no. All I have is the paperwork for my inspection. It may be a training thing. The Tulsa service center will do the inspection, hopefully one near you will . Maybe schedule at a different one?
Is it possible you could send me the receipt for the inspection. You and black out your personal information. I just want to show them that they can do this for a Model X.
henderrj
Active Member
I'm sorry, I think there's a misunderstanding here. My car is a model s. I asked the service rep there, whom I've known for a while and he's very good, and he said they can do all four models now. So I don't have any paperwork that shows that a model X can be done.
Well just got back from the Tesla service center. Already previously had a high voltage safety inspection. Went in for the Fast charge inspection. They had my car for two days for them to tell me they can only enable S and 3 right now. Waste of time. Not sure what to do at this point.