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Thoughts on High Mileage Model S purchase

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I’m considering purchasing an older Model S as I’d like one with free supercharging. What are your thoughts on one with 100k + miles? As many have gone through more than one owner by now, it seems unlikely to be able to find out whether the battery or drive unit have been replaced. Is there a way to find out this information? I asked at our local Tesla dealer but they were less than helpful.

I’m particularly interested in the P85 although a bit concerned a PO might have had a heavy foot (with matching grin). I’d love AP1 but those seem to be unicorns with the P85.

Thanks!
 
As an owner of a 2016 Model S with more than 150,000 miles on it, I’d be less concerned about miles than I would be about production year.

The early production 2012-2014 cars you’re looking at have some serious issues that can be extremely expensive to fix. Go browse the battery/charging section of this forum, you’ll find numerous threads on the first page alone of people dealing with out of warranty battery replacements on these cars in the past several months. The drive unit also has a design flaw that makes it prone to fail from coolant intrusion into the inverter/electronics.

Many of the most egregious issues were fixed by 2015. If free supercharging is what you’re after I’d personally limit my search to 2015-2016 cars, even if that meant giving up the “P”. An uncorked 2016 75D is nearly as fast as an early P85, has nearly the same range, and is all around more reliable and better built. And it’s got at least a year of battery and drive unit warranty left.
 
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I have a 2014 P85+, with 150K miles on it. My car has been pretty much bullet proof, keep in mind the older/more cycles the battery has gone through the slower the car charges on a Supercharger. I would get the the lowest mileage car you can find with the specs you want. If I were to buy a car today, the only one I would look at is a 100D battery architecture (Aug 2016 + for P100D and Jan 2017 + for 100D) , which will charge faster, and give you optimal range. I also would only get a car with Pano, so that limits me to 2018 or older.. Also make sure you get a screen shot from the app to look at the inservice date of the car for warranty purposes. The other reason I wouldn't buy newer than 2018, is Tesla changed the warranty in 2019 and removed the unlimited mileage clause on the 8 year powertrain warranty. Happy hunting.

Optionally find a super high mileage car, that is still in good shape and cut an awesome deal, then keep $14K on hand for a new battery or make sure it still has warranty left in case the battery goes. Tesla battery predicted to have 80% capacity after 840,000 km (521,000 mi)

Here’s the basic form of the old and new warranties (old warranty scraped from archive.org, with differences in bold):

Old warranty:

  • Model S and Model X: Eight years (with the exception of the original 60kWh battery manufactured before 2015, which is covered for a period of eight years or 125,000 miles, whichever comes first).
  • Model 3: Eight years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of battery capacity over the warranty period.
  • Model 3 with Long-Range Battery: Eight years or 120,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of battery capacity over the warranty period.
New warranty:

  • Model S and Model X: Eight years or 150,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period (with the exception of the original 60kWh battery manufactured before 2015, which is covered for a period of eight years or 150,000 miles , whichever comes first).
  • Model 3 and Model Y Standard or Standard Range Plus: Eight years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period.
  • Model 3 and Model Y Long Range or Performance: Eight years or 120,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of battery capacity over the warranty period.
 
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You are me 2 months ago. Here's my sad story with happy, albeit expensive result. Time for a new HV Battery

For me, I purchased my 2012 P85 VIN #2446 for $27K from original owner in San Diego knowing I would have to put some future money into it. I budgeted an extra $30-40K for repairs/maintenance, just didn't think it would be 3 days after I got the car.

My main goal was to own and maintain an early VIN Model S to preserve it's heritage while still enjoying a ground breaking vehicle.

Please call me at 775.476.2912 if you wish to discuss. Pic is of original owner invoice. Redacted Original Invoice.jpg
 
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You can find out whether the HV battery has been replaced by looking at the battery sticker (you can take a photo by peering underneath the car, standing behind the front passenger wheel).

Once you have a photo of the sticker, look at the serial number. It will start with T[YY] where YY is the year of manufacture, e.g. T13 is a 2013 battery. The letter that follows gives the month of manufacture, e.g. T13B is February 2013.

For new versus refurbished, you look at the battery model number. If it ends in 00-(letter), it was a new battery when installed. If it ends in 01-(letter), it was refurbished. I believe if it was twice refurbished, it would read 02-(letter).

So if you find a 2013 car with battery model that ends with -00-(letter) and the serial number is T13xxxx, that's the original battery.
 
I have over 100K miles on mine now. Is my car something I’d feel like selling with good conscience ? Certainly. It’s in great shape, and I would not be unloading it on anyone. In fact I’ve thought of upgrading to a newer LR but have so far decided I don’t want to.

The total list of failures to date is one drivers side door handle, which Tesla repaired using the mobile service person. My car is uncorked and has the infotainment upgrade. With FUSC long trips are no problem. I get up to 130kW charging speed and so far have 11% range degradation - about 235 miles.

I get ~272Wh/mi at 72-75mph freeway during most of the year in CA, and managed Disneyland to Bay Area with a single stop in mid winter last year with 4 people, a dog and luggage.

The car doesn’t look or feel like it’s going to start needing any major work. I might keep it a few years more. My main consideration is being out of drivetrain warranty after 8 years, not any intrinsic issue with the car itself.

Anecdotally, the AP1 ‘16s are good builds, but there’s a lot of nuance here and I can’t speak for other variants.
 
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I recently picked up a 2014 P85 with well over 150K miles on it. It had door handles, mcu, drive unit (within last 50k) and battery (within last 100K) replaced. I figure if it got to the stage where all this stuff has been replaced, then it's probably a better buy than a low mileage one (lower cost and better/more reliable components).
 
This got really long quick, sorry. TL;DR do what you want

I'm at 158k miles and still going strong on my P85D. If the previous owner has a recurrent account you can see the data, below is mine from this month. I still have the original front and rear drive units and the stock battery. Perhaps i got a unicorn or perhaps typing this jinxed me and it'll all fail tomorrow. but my warranty expires on 21 Dec this year, but i got $23k set aside for whenever it does fail so i can just get a new pack and call it a day. Free supercharging + connectivity is totally worth it for me currently i sit around $300/month saved by free charging, and when i start roadtripping in a few months when i retire I'll be supercharging even more and that will further make it worth it. I cant make a decision for you that is something you have to weigh all the pros and cons yourself along with if you are a mechanically inclined person or if you will take it to tesla for everything that breaks. I fix everything that breaks and only have tesla work on things they wont sell me parts to repair (restricted parts list). If i was to of had tesla fix all the issues it would've cost me quite a good chunk of change compared to DIY in my driveway like replacing the oil seals on the front motor, or replacing all 3 louvers, or repairing 3 of the door handles, (still waiting on the 4th to break, i have the parts on standby in my garage for when it happens lol).

the 85 cars are quite fickle it seems, so i can only say that when i do buy a new battery, (because it will fail at some point, hopefully a long way into the future) i will be going to @wk057 and getting a 100 pack put in so i can get the charging speed i want. because right now 50% battery is 50kW and before a random update 3 years ago 50% was 72Kw that change to the curve increases the charge time by an average of 15 min every stop.

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Thanks all (I’m too new to give a thumbs up I guess) but I sincerely appreciate your responses. I'm still on the fence and haven't pulled the trigger... yet. I've been focusing on the pre-facelift RWD version as I really want the larger frunk that comes in these models. I've found a few cars that fit the bill but all of them are at dealers and therefore no PO to reference. Still looking and still appreciate the advice. Cheers