That very loud and painful "clunk"

[Jaff]

Doug: Sorry to hear about your car stranding you. I'd use this as an opportunity to convince your significant other that its time to replace the Sig P85 with a "very reliable" p85D.

All kidding aside its awesome it died after your roadtrip!

This^^^

Hey, very sorry to hear about this Doug...good thing it's Roadster season instead of an Ottawa winter!...hope you get good news!

 

[mknox]

When my battery failed last year, I was told by roadside assistance that nothing had been logged with Tesla and the car looked fine, but the service center later said that engineering found everything they needed when they looked further. I got the same 12V message, presumably because the DC-DC converter was now offline and I only had the 12V battery to power everything.

Presumably same here, because they were able to diagnose the contactor issue once they had the car. I just thought it was odd that the car displayed all those messages but didn't "log" them. One thing I learned with this experience is that the Service Center can "see" all this stuff as soon as you arrive and the car connects via WiFi. They showed me the screen that they had up even before I came in the door, and it had all kinds of diagnostics information.

 

[Doug_G]

Latest is "we are still working on your vehicle". They say it will be ready sometime tomorrow. Don't know what they are doing to it, nor when it is actually coming back. I suspect unscheduled service like this tends to mess up both their tech and valet scheduling.

 

[Doug_G]

I asked, and the response was that they are "replacing the motor".

AFAIK they always replace the entire drive unit, including motor and inverter, so I'm not sure if that's really telling me much about what happened.

 

[JRP3]

Yeah, unfortunately it's probably the easiest thing to do, but it doesn't give much insight in to what actually went wrong. It's also possible that the failed inverter causing the locked rotor condition damaged the motor and gearbox as well, or could have, so best to just replace everything.

 

[Doug_G]

Yes, I totally agree with that. I did have to limp the car off the road, after all, so I suppose there's some risk of additional damage from that. (Yes I did consider that at the time, but safety first wasn't a hard decision.)

 

[Doug_G]

Sounds like the techs stayed late and got my car fixed! They're getting ready to load it into the trailer.

 

[MsElectric]

For the D models in a situation like this I hope there is a way to completely disable the malfunctioning drive unit and continue on with the other drive unit. What I find concerning is that when it happened it actually locked up the malfunctioning drive unit to a point where it pretty much stopped the car so in this case even if you had a D model, it would not have helped as the rear wheels seem to have just about locked up.

Anyone know if the D units are setup differently to completely disengage a malfunctioning drive unit? I know Elon mentioned being able to do that as one of the benefits of having dual drive...

 

[JRP3]

If it was a locked rotor then cutting power to the inverter should allow the motor to freewheel. Obviously that doesn't allow a single motor car to move itself, but a D should be able to. I would think the inverter should be programmed to disconnect itself if it lost a phase, which may call into question my theory, or that fail safe could have failed as well.

 

[Doug_G]

It freewheeled once I put it in Tow Mode. I'm sure it would have done the same in neutral. It all happened in a matter of seconds so I didn't have time to think of that possibility.

 

[Jaff]

Glad to hear you'll be getting it back soon!

Looks like they went the extra yard (in terms of overtime) for you...

 

[ecarfan]

Sounds like the techs stayed late and got my car fixed! They're getting ready to load it into the trailer.

Wow, that is impressive service! Keep us posted.

 

[Doug_G]

Looks like they went the extra yard (in terms of overtime) for you...

Sure did - literally. They stayed late and fixed it last night.

Wow, that is impressive service! Keep us posted.

Tesla service is always great!

My car arrived a few minutes ago. So it appears it was in fact a mechanical failure. I'm told one wheel turned freely; the other did not. So I guess it was the transaxle gearbox. A rare failure mode, from all accounts. Explains why the car didn't show a lot of error messages.

An extra surprise - they replaced my brakes. I had thought they were getting a little soft. Tesla has apparently changed the brake pad compound for Ontario/Quebec cars to better cope with the calcium salt that is spread on our roads in winter. They replaced the front rotors (different alloy), front and rear pads (new pad compound), and added a dust shield. Apparently they're doing this upgrade on all the older Ontario and Quebec cars (all new cars for this region come this way). They figured they might as well do it now, instead of waiting for the annual. Also did a firmware update, and (re) fixed the water in the reversing lights problem.

Like I said - awesome service as always!

 

[Electricfan]

I know Elon mentioned being able to do that as one of the benefits of having dual drive...

Do you think its possible they won't do that? I mean - as you pointed out - Elon specifically stated that was a major advantage of having two drives. I happened to watch the video on youtube yesterday. How could they not do it when he is promoting it explicitly? Maybe I'm just naive...

 

[InTheShadows]

Sure did - literally. They stayed late and fixed it last night.



Tesla service is always great!

My car arrived a few minutes ago. So it appears it was in fact a mechanical failure. I'm told one wheel turned freely; the other did not. So I guess it was the transaxle gearbox. A rare failure mode, from all accounts. Explains why the car didn't show a lot of error messages.

An extra surprise - they replaced my brakes. I had thought they were getting a little soft. Tesla has apparently changed the brake pad compound for Ontario/Quebec cars to better cope with the calcium salt that is spread on our roads in winter. They replaced the front rotors (different alloy), front and rear pads (new pad compound), and added a dust shield. Apparently they're doing this upgrade on all the older Ontario and Quebec cars (all new cars for this region come this way). They figured they might as well do it now, instead of waiting for the annual. Also did a firmware update, and (re) fixed the water in the reversing lights problem.

Like I said - awesome service as always!

That brake repair is not just for your area. They fixed ours too when I complained about the panic stops from them not grabbing when leaving car washes and on wet roads.

 

[mknox]

An extra surprise - they replaced my brakes. I had thought they were getting a little soft. Tesla has apparently changed the brake pad compound for Ontario/Quebec cars to better cope with the calcium salt that is spread on our roads in winter. They replaced the front rotors (different alloy), front and rear pads (new pad compound), and added a dust shield. Apparently they're doing this upgrade on all the older Ontario and Quebec cars (all new cars for this region come this way). They figured they might as well do it now, instead of waiting for the annual.

Someone at our Southern Ontario Tesla Owners Club meeting last night mentioned the same thing... that it was done proactively while it was in dealing with a different problem. Mine were not done, even though I've had ongoing problems with all 4 wheels rusting tight whenever I park it wet. Maybe this is a new enough thing that I just missed it when my car was last in for service. Never did have the squeaking problems that others have reported.

 

[brianman]

Do you think its possible they won't do that? I mean - as you pointed out - Elon specifically stated that was a major advantage of having two drives. I happened to watch the video on youtube yesterday. How could they not do it when he is promoting it explicitly? Maybe I'm just naive...

I discussed this briefly with the service center yesterday. I didn't get any formal statements (and I wasn't fishing for them) but the impression I got was clear: the intent is that you can "limp" along even if one drive unit goes bad. BUT there are circumstances where of course that's not possible.

 

[mknox]

BUT there are circumstances where of course that's not possible.

Do the D cars have two sets of battery contactors (one for each motor) or do they maintain a single set. A single set, and hence a common battery design, seems more likely. That would be one failure scenario where two motors might not help you.

 

[Doug_G]

Another scenario is a mechanical problem... presumably my car wouldn't have been able to limp home if it were a D. Probably would have limped off the road better though.

 

[JRP3]

A bit confusing really, I would think a mechanical failure that locked a wheel would not be affected when putting the car into "neutral", or tow mode, since that doesn't physically shift the gearbox. I guess a gearbox failure that quickly locked up one wheel could be broken free by the force of the lock up, then with that side damaged and disconnected completely the car could no longer move with an open differential. In that scenario a D could potentially keep driving.

By the way, I seem to remember someone with an early D having a motor failure while still being able to continue for a while on one motor.