Tesla vehicle problems I never knew existed,Did you?

[jstack6]

Recently we have had some real big problems with our 2012 Tesla S 85. I've learned problems I never knew existed.

-We had one of the 2 main contactors in the battery pack stop working. The car just said low 12 v battery. We jumped that and replaced it but had the same error. The car would no move or go into R or D. The 12 v did run low but only becuase the phantom loads killed it and with the 1 open contactor it would not DC-DC charge the 12v. We had to have the pack dropped, the relay was tested and found bad, got the new one. Had the pack put back in and then it's ok. We've since read those original relays are a known problem for many on the 2012's

-We have 1 battery cell out of the 7,100 go low. That caused the car to not charge. We had to get the the pack dropped, have them locate and by pass that one cell. Then equalize and put the pack back in. The error codes on the car gave no idea what was wrong. I have access to the maintenance screens and the BMW screen showed the one low modual #12. They that 1 cell turned out to be the cause. So now we only have 7,099 chances for another cell to go low.

- Another time Super Charging would only work on a few ports of each SC. Later none of the SC would work. It turns out we have to get the latest software update which we had been ignoring since things were working after the 1st 2 problems. After the update all SC started working again.

Has anyone else had these issues on an old 2012 or newer Tesla ? PS we have a 3 on order from day 1 at the store in Scottsdale AZ. We still have a DEC-FEB date but no email to config yet.

 

[steve841]

1. Early S's did ... Mine had the pack sent back to Freemont for updating contactors and something else.

2. Haven't heard that one ....

3. Ahhh .. the software game of Telsa Roulette ....

 

[bkp_duke]

2nd problem is likely a symptom of the first. And yes, I've had two 2013 P85s have failed contactors. It's a common problem with all packs in which they used TYCO contactors. Newer packs use Gigavac contactors, a much better contactor that holds up to voltage and heat better.

 

[apacheguy]

When did they drop the pack and replace the blown cell?

Which firmware caused the issue while supercharging? IIRC, the SWCAN protocol was changed in 8.0 but there was a fallback provision.

 

[maximizese]

I'm bringing this thread back up again because our used 2013 S85 (purchased in Jan 2019) is having service done at 90K miles. We were getting rotational noises at the rear wheels under load (more pronounced at lower speeds), and an intermittent "Car needs service: car may not restart." The latter would come on for 5 seconds then disappear for weeks on end.

Last week, the "Car needs service" message stayed on over 5 minutes. I called the Roadside Service number from the MCU and told them about the warning message. They told me to drive the car to the nearest Service Center before trying a reboot. That way if the car doesn't start they would not need to tow it. I did just that and before the car restarted, it did a systems check and I got two new warning messages:

"Acceleration and top speed reduced"
"Regenerative braking system disabled"

Fortunately, I was able to be expedited at my local Service Center and arrived 30 minutes before they closed for the day. It turns out they will be replacing the drive unit and the battery contactors under warranty. They should be finishing up with the car this afternoon and we can't wait to get our car back. We never had a known issue DC or Level 2 charging, but perhaps the contactor went bad before we tried recharging. Then again, perhaps a finicky contactor was the reason why we've had initial SuC rates between 8-129kW on a low SOC% warmed up battery. We'll see. I'm never clear if slow Supercharging is an issue with the SuC hardware, my car's hardware, a bad connection, or some software limitation.

 

[bkp_duke]

Drive unit sounds like the stator is failing. Good that they got it done under warranty, that cannot be repaired and the drive unit has to be replaced. Fortunately this problem is fix in later drive unit revisions.

Contactors were also a design failure, so getting them replaced is what you want. Bad contactors will definitely affect supercharging.