Thinking of buying a used model S. No battery warranty worries

[AMPd]

My M5 is going under the knife and will be out of commission for at least a year as we do a complete motor rebuild and upgrades

I was looking into buying a 2012-2013 Model s, somewhere in the 30k range.
However I realized after a year the 2012 will have no warranty at all. And if I keep the car longer even the 2013 will be out of warranty.
At that point what is the car worth? Battery replacement cost is unknown at this time and if it turns out to be 20+ thousand then who will want to buy my car knowing they might have a 20k+ bill due anytime.

I wish Tesla would release battery replacement prices.

 

[darxsys]

Just don't buy it. What's the point? Buy a CPO 3 series or an M3 if you have the money and avoid out of warranty Teslas like plague.

 

[David_Cary]

Just like any high $ item on older cars, you will generally buy used parts.
Have you checked salvage yards/sites? It maybe difficult of course to get Tesla to update the software to use a new/used battery. But I believe we are at the point where others have been able to do it.

But any 8 year old car has potential for catastrophic repairs that "total" a car. Tesla has more potential challenges without a track record.

I don't imagine a 2012 would be $30k either. I suspect my car is just over $30k. It is a 2015 70D with AP and 75k miles. I am not selling - just making a point.

As far as out of warranty - my car is 25k miles out of regular warranty. I have spent zero dollars in that time. I did get a 12V battery at about 55k miles but that wouldn't be a warranty item anyway.

Otherwise, you can choose to trust that Tesla would make it right. Sell you a refurb battery for a reasonable cost if something happened.

 

[Ostrichsak]

IMO the money you save now on used Teslas approaching end-of-warranty is why you want to buy a used Tesla. The whole idea with EV is how reliable they will be long-term and how few parts exist to fail. I think a lot of people are paranoid about high mileage Teslas right now as a carry over from high mileage ICE cars. Once people realize this cars go hundreds of thousands of miles w/o issue the used values will reflect this.

Don't believe me? Go price a 10-year-old Tacoma 4x4 and tell me what the used market thinks of vehicles it sees as reliable. By comparison a used Tesla should be more than 10x more reliable than even the most reliable ICE car so over time Teslas will hold their value much better than right now. I still firmly believe that our current market for used Tesla Model S cars is perfect. You're getting a massive deduction from depreciation because of people's paranoia and once these prove out we won't see "cheap" Model S anymore due to how many were/are made.

As with ANY car... don't overpay for what it's worth and you'll be fine. I've said numerous times: You can overpay for a super low mile car and you can get a killer deal on a higher mile car. Just do your homework so that when it comes time to resale you're not losing boat loads of money because you bought it right the first time.

Once these cars prove to go half a million miles consistently these "high mile" 80k, 90k or even 100k mile cars won't seem like high miles at all. Tesla will change what our concept of "high miles" is over time.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Just like any high $ item on older cars, you will generally buy used parts.
Have you checked salvage yards/sites? It maybe difficult of course to get Tesla to update the software to use a new/used battery. But I believe we are at the point where others have been able to do it.

But any 8 year old car has potential for catastrophic repairs that "total" a car. Tesla has more potential challenges without a track record.

I don't imagine a 2012 would be $30k either. I suspect my car is just over $30k. It is a 2015 70D with AP and 75k miles. I am not selling - just making a point.

As far as out of warranty - my car is 25k miles out of regular warranty. I have spent zero dollars in that time. I did get a 12V battery at about 55k miles but that wouldn't be a warranty item anyway.

Otherwise, you can choose to trust that Tesla would make it right. Sell you a refurb battery for a reasonable cost if something happened.

Quoting to expand on a couple of things....

If you buy a 2012 for say $20k or so and immediately after the 8-year warranty expires the battery pack poops the bed. The odds of this are very slim but let's just pretend for the purpose of this exercise. You can source a used battery pack for $10-$15k or so (these price will continue going down as supply increases over time) and then you're into the car for about $30-$35k. My guess is had you bought even a 2-year newer car with half the miles you would have paid much, much more. So you're already money ahead and there's really nothing major on these cars that can fail other than that so you're going to be money-ahead the longer you own the car.

People are down on Teslas with miles but look at the price gap to see why it makes sense to buy one of these with miles or nearing the end of warranty. I've seen the same used Model S cars with a price difference of $40k+ and the ONLY difference is miles. That's a substantial difference on the front-end & doesn't even factor in the rate of depreciation over period of ownership which will be much higher on the more expensive car. You can buy several battery packs for the savings and you're still money ahead and for every battery pack you don't have to buy you're even further ahead... if that makes sense the way I stated it.

Another way to look at it is you can drop $70k or so for the exact same car with ultra low miles and after you get it to the same miles as a higher mile one that's currently selling for $20k you're now sitting on a vehicle that depreciated $50k to have a battery pack in warranty. That $50k will buy a LOT of battery packs.

IMO the math is skewed in a massive way right now to buying these things used and rolling the dice. I personally don't think it's a bad gamble at all but even if you have a massive failure you're still money ahead over buying a new one and losing $100k in depreciation over 5 years. $20k in annual depreciation is a large sum of money to pay for "peace of mind" on the worlds most reliable vehicle type IMHO.

This actually reminds me of my new/used car sales days in the late 90's when people would come in, buy a brand new Dodge truck and pay about $20k premium for the diesel option making the truck nearly $70k total (it's been a while so my recollection may be a bit off on those but the point remains so stick with me here....). The same customer would then come in with about 50k on the odometer two years later and trade it in for about half of what they paid losing $35k over two years. Not only did they lose their a$$ on depreciation but they invested a LOT of money for an option that would increase the overall life span dramatically. So why invest more money on the front end if you're not going to take advantage of the primary reason you invested the money in the first place? I feel like we're there right now with EVs where a lot of people who are used to driving $150k+ Mercedes have been buying new Teslas so that's what they base their "high mileage" opinion on which is the polar opposite of EVs.

Also, regarding your 12v battery statement, Tesla will cover the 12v battery under warranty in most cases that I've read about. I even experienced this first-hand in our 2013 CPO (that's currently for sale) a few months ago. I assumed I'd need to go to the store to buy a new battery and replace it myself since most manufacturers consider this a wear item like brake pads and don't cover them under warranty. I did a little research online and discovered that Tesla was different in this respect so I went ahead and scheduled service. I confirmed it was covered under warranty at no cost, they come and replaced it and my invoice confirmed the $0 charge. Now, this could be just a good faith type situation so YMMV but from what I've read this appears to be quite common. Still not worth paying $150k though IMO.

 

[Lloyd]

My M5 is going under the knife and will be out of commission for at least a year as we do a complete motor rebuild and upgrades

I was looking into buying a 2012-2013 Model s, somewhere in the 30k range.
However I realized after a year the 2012 will have no warranty at all. And if I keep the car longer even the 2013 will be out of warranty.
At that point what is the car worth? Battery replacement cost is unknown at this time and if it turns out to be 20+ thousand then who will want to buy my car knowing they might have a 20k+ bill due anytime.

I wish Tesla would release battery replacement prices.

I have a 2013 P-85 for sale. Black on Black, Just serviced 82K miles for $30K

 

[BPeter]

IMO the money you save now on used Teslas approaching end-of-warranty is why you want to buy a used Tesla. The whole idea with EV is how reliable they will be long-term and how few parts exist to fail. I think a lot of people are paranoid about high mileage Teslas right now as a carry over from high mileage ICE cars. Once people realize this cars go hundreds of thousands of miles w/o issue the used values will reflect this.

Don't believe me? Go price a 10-year-old Tacoma 4x4 and tell me what the used market thinks of vehicles it sees as reliable. By comparison a used Tesla should be more than 10x more reliable than even the most reliable ICE car so over time Teslas will hold their value much better than right now. I still firmly believe that our current market for used Tesla Model S cars is perfect. You're getting a massive deduction from depreciation because of people's paranoia and once these prove out we won't see "cheap" Model S anymore due to how many were/are made.

As with ANY car... don't overpay for what it's worth and you'll be fine. I've said numerous times: You can overpay for a super low mile car and you can get a killer deal on a higher mile car. Just do your homework so that when it comes time to resale you're not losing boat loads of money because you bought it right the first time.

Once these cars prove to go half a million miles consistently these "high mile" 80k, 90k or even 100k mile cars won't seem like high miles at all. Tesla will change what our concept of "high miles" is over time.

The difference with Tesla and other EVs is the battery is extremely expensive. The average risk may be lower but if you do happen to get unlucky and have your battery fail the cost is going to be massive to fix. With a traditional ICE car there doesn't exist a single part in the car that costs $15,000.

Your next post says that well if it were to happen you've now paid $35,000 for a car with a newer battery which increases its value. True, that may be the case, but it hasn't increased the value more than it cost to fix, plus how many people buying $20,000 cars have another $15,000 that they can just throw down without notice?

There is basically no way your $20,000 used ICE ends up costing $35,000 a year later.

 

[OrbiterTI4]

A tangential cost question - would auto insurance give you a non-negligible difference in quotes for the high mileage 2012 car vs the 2015 with fourish years battery warranty left, such that the older vehicles savings help build a cushion? Or do they rate the same, and the risk is unchanged.

 

[Ostrichsak]

The difference with Tesla and other EVs is the battery is extremely expensive. The average risk may be lower but if you do happen to get unlucky and have your battery fail the cost is going to be massive to fix. With a traditional ICE car there doesn't exist a single part in the car that costs $15,000.

No, there exist dozens of parts that are thousands of dollars each and if any one of them fail you're stranded.

Your next post says that well if it were to happen you've now paid $35,000 for a car with a newer battery which increases its value. True, that may be the case, but it hasn't increased the value more than it cost to fix, plus how many people buying $20,000 cars have another $15,000 that they can just throw down without notice?

There is basically no way your $20,000 used ICE ends up costing $35,000 a year later.

I guess you also missed the part where I said that scenario was incredibly unlikely which is probably the most important aspect to someone who is considering an older out-of-warranty Model S.

That's one of the first questions I get from people because there's this narrative that these things just crap battery packs out at 100k miles since that's when most ICE owners are used to their car's major drive components starting to fail. Not to mention ICE cars start to show signs of lost performance well before this number since they don't age as well as EVs. EVs will have noticeable range decreases hundreds of thousands of miles down the line and likely won't suffer noticeable differences in performance over that span. Often times people tend to bury the lead when this topic comes up. In this same time span you likely would have had several major component failures in an ICE vehicle.

You're comparing a worst case scenario EV ownership to a best case scenario ICE ownership. Not really apples to apples, is it? You're also not factoring maintenance or component failure which is much more likely in a higher mile used ICE car than a higher mile EV. To make an accurate comparison where you assume the worst case scenario in both higher mileage options you have to assume that the engine, transmission, alternator, water pump, timing belt, cooling system, exhaust/catalytic converter/muffler, fuel pump, fuel injectors, and ignition system all fail one by one.

Besides, I'm not sure the OP is even trying to compare directly in their hypothetical. Just more asking about battery pack cost which points back to my over-arching point that the odds of a catastrophic battery failure are incredibly unlikely. You also get a smoother, quieter, more reliable and enjoyable experience during this time frame so that has to account for any premium that exists between the two but most will find that it's actually closer than they think. The longer you own the more this skews in favor of the Tesla.

 

[AMPd]

Thank you all for the replies.
I’m not comparing an ice to the Tesla
I’d prefer the model S due to my commute being 80 miles per day 5x a week

I guess I was just voicing my frustration at the inability to find out how much a battery replacement will cost.
Not because I think it’ll fail during my time of ownership but because once the car is no longer needed and I try selling it who will buy it knowing a battery replacement is imminent.
I don’t want to be stuck with it or have to sell it for 50% of what I paid for it after only a year or so of ownership

 

[maximizese]

Thank you all for the replies.
I’m not comparing an ice to the Tesla
I’d prefer the model S due to my commute being 80 miles per day 5x a week

I guess I was just voicing my frustration at the inability to find out how much a battery replacement will cost.
Not because I think it’ll fail during my time of ownership but because once the car is no longer needed and I try selling it who will buy it knowing a battery replacement is imminent.
I don’t want to be stuck with it or have to sell it for 50% of what I paid for it after only a year or so of ownership

I share you concern, as a person who feels more comfortable assessing risk/probabilities/costs. I was hoping Tesla would have listed pricing for battery modules and replacement packs (backwards compatible upgrades were on my wish list). Nissan has listed replacements costs for their 1st gen Leaf, prices have dropped, Nissan has created creative financing programs for the replacement, and independent EV/hybrid mechanics are popping up throughout SoCal (8 in or around Huntington Beach). I expected independent Tesla garages to be more numerous but I suppose that was a miscalculation on my part.

Nissan LEAF batteries replacement program; remanufactured and new

Top 10 Best Hybrid Mechanic in Huntington Beach, CA - Last Updated June 2019 - Yelp

 

[BPeter]

No, there exist dozens of parts that are thousands of dollars each and if any one of them fail you're stranded.



I guess you also missed the part where I said that scenario was incredibly unlikely which is probably the most important aspect to someone who is considering an older out-of-warranty Model S.

That's one of the first questions I get from people because there's this narrative that these things just crap battery packs out at 100k miles since that's when most ICE owners are used to their car's major drive components starting to fail. Not to mention ICE cars start to show signs of lost performance well before this number since they don't age as well as EVs. EVs will have noticeable range decreases hundreds of thousands of miles down the line and likely won't suffer noticeable differences in performance over that span. Often times people tend to bury the lead when this topic comes up. In this same time span you likely would have had several major component failures in an ICE vehicle.

You're comparing a worst case scenario EV ownership to a best case scenario ICE ownership. Not really apples to apples, is it? You're also not factoring maintenance or component failure which is much more likely in a higher mile used ICE car than a higher mile EV. To make an accurate comparison where you assume the worst case scenario in both higher mileage options you have to assume that the engine, transmission, alternator, water pump, timing belt, cooling system, exhaust/catalytic converter/muffler, fuel pump, fuel injectors, and ignition system all fail one by one.

Besides, I'm not sure the OP is even trying to compare directly in their hypothetical. Just more asking about battery pack cost which points back to my over-arching point that the odds of a catastrophic battery failure are incredibly unlikely. You also get a smoother, quieter, more reliable and enjoyable experience during this time frame so that has to account for any premium that exists between the two but most will find that it's actually closer than they think. The longer you own the more this skews in favor of the Tesla.

It's supposedly incredibly unlikely for the battery to fail. But is it really? There's plenty of posts in this forum about people who had their batteries suddenly die but it's no big deal, no one is past warranty yet so it just gets swapped. Overall yeah, it does seem like they're not likely to fail, but they DO fail.

You are correct, there are way more parts in an ICE that could fail and the likelihood of the ICE car needing maintenance is probably way higher than the Tesla but the thing is when something does fail it won't cost $15,000 to fix. Maybe a $1000 thing fails. Maybe a $2000 thing fails. Maybe both, and you end up paying $3000. That's still far, far away from $15,000 and isn't all at once, things tend to fail over time. Not only that, it's way easier to find someone to work on the ICE car and to source ICE replacement parts.

We're looking at individual people and the impact it will have on them and $15,000 is a large impact. Overall the Tesla fleet will probably have less failures and lower cost to maintain across the whole fleet but when something does go wrong it's very expensive and you better hope you're not one of those few who has the failure because it's going to cost you big time.

 

[Ostrichsak]

It's supposedly incredibly unlikely for the battery to fail. But is it really? There's plenty of posts in this forum about people who had their batteries suddenly die but it's no big deal, no one is past warranty yet so it just gets swapped. Overall yeah, it does seem like they're not likely to fail, but they DO fail.

You are correct, there are way more parts in an ICE that could fail and the likelihood of the ICE car needing maintenance is probably way higher than the Tesla but the thing is when something does fail it won't cost $15,000 to fix. Maybe a $1000 thing fails. Maybe a $2000 thing fails. Maybe both, and you end up paying $3000. That's still far, far away from $15,000 and isn't all at once, things tend to fail over time. Not only that, it's way easier to find someone to work on the ICE car and to source ICE replacement parts.

We're looking at individual people and the impact it will have on them and $15,000 is a large impact. Overall the Tesla fleet will probably have less failures and lower cost to maintain across the whole fleet but when something does go wrong it's very expensive and you better hope you're not one of those few who has the failure because it's going to cost you big time.

It's death by a thousand cuts with an ICE car. That same $3k worth of parts (any many more) will fail multiple times over before the battery pack fails once. So why not put the money away you would likely be forced to spend on maintenance or replacement parts or repairs in the event of a battery pack failure out of warranty?

 

[greginfinity]

If only the battery pack was the only area of concern for an out of warranty Tesla. It should be a reliable platform but these things are currently keep me on the sidelines:

• Door handles
• Air suspension (probably just get coils)
• Screen (they currently don't even replace under warranty)
• MCU (it has been shown it is a ticking time bomb and that the eMMC WILL fail)
• Headlights (DRLs burning out)
• The above don't give me confidence that there won't be other horrible issues down the road

I am also not sure I can get over frameless windows and electronic latches but that is not really a warranty issue.

 

[David_Cary]

I suspect an M5 SMG tranny is getting close to $15k - new with dealer labor. Certainly the engine is close.

I guess on the 12V battery - the extended warranty wouldn't cover it is what I really meant. It was the same cost as the deductible.

 

[markb1]

If only the battery pack was the only area of concern for an out of warranty Tesla. It should be a reliable platform but these things are currently keep me on the sidelines:

• Door handles
• Air suspension (probably just get coils)
• Screen (they currently don't even replace under warranty)
• MCU (it has been shown it is a ticking time bomb and that the eMMC WILL fail)
• Headlights (DRLs burning out)
• The above don't give me confidence that there won't be other horrible issues down the road

I am also not sure I can get over frameless windows and electronic latches but that is not really a warranty issue.

The door handles, at least, are a cheap and relatively easy thing to fix DIY, from what I've seen.

The screen and MCU seem like big ones, though. Maybe Tesla will fix the eMMC bug, someday! But even if they don't, you can pay someone to disable the eMMC logging.

Could the air suspension be serviced by third party shops? I think it's off the shelf components. Still probably not cheap, though.

 

[darxsys]

Quoting to expand on a couple of things....

If you buy a 2012 for say $20k or so and immediately after the 8-year warranty expires the battery pack poops the bed. The odds of this are very slim but let's just pretend for the purpose of this exercise. You can source a used battery pack for $10-$15k or so (these price will continue going down as supply increases over time) and then you're into the car for about $30-$35k. My guess is had you bought even a 2-year newer car with half the miles you would have paid much, much more. So you're already money ahead and there's really nothing major on these cars that can fail other than that so you're going to be money-ahead the longer you own the car.

People are down on Teslas with miles but look at the price gap to see why it makes sense to buy one of these with miles or nearing the end of warranty. I've seen the same used Model S cars with a price difference of $40k+ and the ONLY difference is miles. That's a substantial difference on the front-end & doesn't even factor in the rate of depreciation over period of ownership which will be much higher on the more expensive car. You can buy several battery packs for the savings and you're still money ahead and for every battery pack you don't have to buy you're even further ahead... if that makes sense the way I stated it.

Another way to look at it is you can drop $70k or so for the exact same car with ultra low miles and after you get it to the same miles as a higher mile one that's currently selling for $20k you're now sitting on a vehicle that depreciated $50k to have a battery pack in warranty. That $50k will buy a LOT of battery packs.

IMO the math is skewed in a massive way right now to buying these things used and rolling the dice. I personally don't think it's a bad gamble at all but even if you have a massive failure you're still money ahead over buying a new one and losing $100k in depreciation over 5 years. $20k in annual depreciation is a large sum of money to pay for "peace of mind" on the worlds most reliable vehicle type IMHO.

This actually reminds me of my new/used car sales days in the late 90's when people would come in, buy a brand new Dodge truck and pay about $20k premium for the diesel option making the truck nearly $70k total (it's been a while so my recollection may be a bit off on those but the point remains so stick with me here....). The same customer would then come in with about 50k on the odometer two years later and trade it in for about half of what they paid losing $35k over two years. Not only did they lose their a$$ on depreciation but they invested a LOT of money for an option that would increase the overall life span dramatically. So why invest more money on the front end if you're not going to take advantage of the primary reason you invested the money in the first place? I feel like we're there right now with EVs where a lot of people who are used to driving $150k+ Mercedes have been buying new Teslas so that's what they base their "high mileage" opinion on which is the polar opposite of EVs.

Also, regarding your 12v battery statement, Tesla will cover the 12v battery under warranty in most cases that I've read about. I even experienced this first-hand in our 2013 CPO (that's currently for sale) a few months ago. I assumed I'd need to go to the store to buy a new battery and replace it myself since most manufacturers consider this a wear item like brake pads and don't cover them under warranty. I did a little research online and discovered that Tesla was different in this respect so I went ahead and scheduled service. I confirmed it was covered under warranty at no cost, they come and replaced it and my invoice confirmed the $0 charge. Now, this could be just a good faith type situation so YMMV but from what I've read this appears to be quite common. Still not worth paying $150k though IMO.

No, they will not cover the 12v under warranty. I just had it replaced last week and had to pay for it. You got lucky.

 

[RZRZ]

I would try to find a 2013 that was delivered in 2014. The warranty on the battery and motor will be good till 2022. You're going to have estimate some sort of depreciation for the year. After owning a 2013 P85+ I wouldn't buy another one unless it had parking sensors which started in Aug 2013.

Another option would be to try and take over a lease on a newer one that has full warranty. It's unknown what the Model S refresh will do to the value on the older Tesla's.

 

[markb1]

No, they will not cover the 12v under warranty. I just had it replaced last week and had to pay for it. You got lucky.

Well, I got lucky, too, then. They came out and replaced my 12V for free, with the extended warranty. But perhaps it's changed in the last few months. Tesla seems to be denying warranty claims recently. It's been reported they won't replace yellowing screens or fix power seat adjustment failures under warranty, now.

 

[Rockster]

Our 2015 S has 93k miles on it and it has had the following repairs:

• Motor replaced (for the milling/whine sound) at around 30k miles, in warranty
  
• Three of the four door handles, out of warranty
  
• Onboard charger, six months ago, out of warranty
• MCU, just out of warranty, replaced as a courtesy
• Battery, due to sudden battery failure just a few weeks ago, replaced under warranty

I'd be inclined to go for a CPO or a new 3 rather than a completely out of warranty S.