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Used 2016 90D, what to look for?

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Hi,

I have a deposit on a 2016 90D from Tesla (built 2016-02-12, no FSD, MCU 1.0 I believe). What should I look for when inspecting it?

It has 70k miles. What range degradation would be typical? What is the best way to check for effective range when inspecting it at Tesla?

I'm aware of the recalls for that model year (eMMC, air bags, steering, parking brake), but what else is there to consider?

Thanks!
 
Best way to assess effective range? Use ScanMyTesla with the required dongle.
Take the car to a supercharger at a low SOC, and check for supercharging rate - chargegate is a real issue on older batteries (note: 'batteries' not 'cars')
Plan on getting MCU2 on your own dime ($1500)
Look under the front passenger fenderwell and look towards the batter (center of car).. you'll see the battery label. You def do not want V1 of a 90 battery.
Something to know is that a 90 battery is essentially an 85 or worse after the first year of use.. if you can save money by getting a 85D, you'll actually be getting a better car for less
 
Thanks for the replies. Where can I learn more about the battery pack issues? Since it's a Feb 2016 build, is it likely to have V1 then?

Chargegate wasn't really resolved with more recent updates then? I thought it was mostly restored to something sensible. I don't hugely care about supercharging speeds, as long as it's decent. What range of charge rates are

> You def do not want V1 of a 90 battery.

How bad is it with V1 or V2? The price is competitive I think (US $34k), so I'm willing to compromise on battery performance a bit. But I don't want fire risk or terrible range either... 230 miles and I'd be happy enough I think?

Can I look at the estimated range in the car (assuming it's fully charged at the delivery center) and get a somewhat accurate estimate from that (within 10% of the truth would be good enough for me)? Or is that too inaccurate? I don't think I can get the required dongles in time.

Thanks again for the help.
 
I've got a pre-facelift 2016 90D with 66k miles.

It's been a good car; I got it in 2019 (with 45k miles) and when I got it the 90% was 251 miles (100% 281 miles). It's got the "bad" V1 battery.

It now has 273 miles at 100% or 246 at 90%. Just recently it charged at 111kW with the battery at 38%.

I'm of the opinion that the most important feature of the battery is not the maximum capacity (you'll rarely use it) -- it's the 90% and it is the maximum charge rate between 10% and 40%.

You'll either be filling it at home, or you'll be using it on a road trip. For a road trip you want it to charge quickly and to enough capacity to safely get to the next supercharger, meaning you want it to be able to get to the next supercharger when you're at 40-50% capacity (the charge rate past 50% tends to drop quickly, meaning if you need to get top 80% to get to the next supercharger you'll be sitting there for 45-80 minutes instead of 20 minutes).

I have the buggy MCU1 and it used to crash randomly until I turned off power saving; it hasn't crashed since. I'll eventually do the recall but it hasn't been a pressing issue since I turned off the power saving mode. I may get the MCU2 or just keep the MCU1, I haven't decided.

When I got mine it had the 4 year B2B warranty so it's still under warranty until 2023!

If you're buying from a commercial car sales entity of any kind, don't assume you'll keep the free connectivity or the free supercharging. If you're buying from another person, you may or may not get to keep these perks, though I believe you'd likely be entitled to them if the car's been under continuous ownership from 2017 to now. Tesla is not good at managing some of this and unsurprisingly they often "err" against you on ownership transfers.

A 2016 tesla will not have a seemless automotive experience like you'd get from a lexus. The older ones especially have "personality" (read -- flaws) and there are several things that can go wrong that would be expensive, regardless of the battery condition. The only batteries that look like they're well sorted are the 100 packs and newer, but even there the jury is still out because they're relatively young.

I love my car, but I'm also quite tolerant of certain types of automotive flaws.
 
Thanks for the replies. Where can I learn more about the battery pack issues? Since it's a Feb 2016 build, is it likely to have V1 then?

Chargegate wasn't really resolved with more recent updates then? I thought it was mostly restored to something sensible. I don't hugely care about supercharging speeds, as long as it's decent. What range of charge rates are

> You def do not want V1 of a 90 battery.

How bad is it with V1 or V2? The price is competitive I think (US $34k), so I'm willing to compromise on battery performance a bit. But I don't want fire risk or terrible range either... 230 miles and I'd be happy enough I think?

Can I look at the estimated range in the car (assuming it's fully charged at the delivery center) and get a somewhat accurate estimate from that (within 10% of the truth would be good enough for me)? Or is that too inaccurate? I don't think I can get the required dongles in time.

Thanks again for the help.

There are scan tools that will tell you precisely the capacity.

If the car's charged to 80-90% you can extrapolate the approximate capacity. The lower the state of charge the less reliable the extrapolation becomes.

I don't think the 90 chemistry was ever affected by chargegate, and I don't think there's any specific issue with the 90s catching fire (today anyhow). They just lose range faster than the prior 85 cell chemistry or the newer 100 cell chemistry.

Also expect to have quite a bit less real range if you're driving in really cold weather.

I looked at my expected uses, anticipated that the car would have 20% battery degradation after N years and have 20% battery degradation in the winter, and looked at if the resulting car would still satisfy my needs, and in my case, having a 170 mile range in the winter is still tolerable. At the moment, I've comfortably done driving distances of about 220 miles against the rated range of 270, to put "real" vs "rated" into perspective...

I hadn't thought about reduced supercharging, though for my car that hasn't been an issue. Where I live there are lots of superchargers and if I need them they're available and 20 minutes (at a low state of charge) is typically all that's necessary to get home.
 
How bad is it with V1 or V2? The price is competitive I think (US $34k), so I'm willing to compromise on battery performance a bit. But I don't want fire risk or terrible range either... 230 miles and I'd be happy enough I think?
I got a facelift 2016 90D AP1 with a V3 battery in February. I didn't know which battery version it had until after I took delivery from Tesla, and would have been okay with V2 also, based on what I've read. You can check the version by a looking under the car at the sticker - looks like the post above has a link to how to do this.

Based the price though, even if you do have an earlier battery and some significant degradation, you won't be worse off in terms of range than a 75D that's a few years old.

One important thing also is AP1. Personally, I like it. Works really well on the highway, which is what I need. You won't be able to use it on back roads or get any auto lane change like AP2+ autopilot, and it won't get upgrades.

Overall I really like the car - already had some issues with the alignment and the AC leaking water, but I bought it expecting some issues and I'm getting those fixed under warranty.
 
Went to see the car. No test drives for used car is Tesla policy here apparently... Not a great feeling to be honest. Car looks good overall though.

MCU 1 is very responsive, even the browser works reasonably well. It has had the recalls done, so new eMMC is in. Will it keep this performance or is it just decently fast because the car was likely freshly rebooted?

Various other minor issues which I think they'll fix before delivery.

Range showed as 72%, 310km, which extrapolates to 430km (267mi) at 100%. That's 9% degradation from 294mi. Assuming the range estimate is accurate... Battery is V1: what is the biggest drawback, lower supercharger speeds?

I did notice some kind of corrosion on the metal beams behind the center console, between the driver and passenger knees. The plastic/cloth cover was unclipped on one side and as I was investigating if it would clip back on, I noticed the "rust" stains. They're visible on both sides. See picture. I didn't notice any water damage in that area, it looked clean to my eye. And the corrosion looks superficial. Just thought I would ask if this is a known issue.

Thanks for all the advice.
 

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Went to see the car. No test drives for used car is Tesla policy here apparently... Not a great feeling to be honest. Car looks good overall though.

MCU 1 is very responsive, even the browser works reasonably well. It has had the recalls done, so new eMMC is in. Will it keep this performance or is it just decently fast because the car was likely freshly rebooted?

Various other minor issues which I think they'll fix before delivery.

Range showed as 72%, 310km, which extrapolates to 430km (267mi) at 100%. That's 9% degradation from 294mi. Assuming the range estimate is accurate... Battery is V1: what is the biggest drawback, lower supercharger speeds?

I did notice some kind of corrosion on the metal beams behind the center console, between the driver and passenger knees. The plastic/cloth cover was unclipped on one side and as I was investigating if it would clip back on, I noticed the "rust" stains. They're visible on both sides. See picture. I didn't notice any water damage in that area, it looked clean to my eye. And the corrosion looks superficial. Just thought I would ask if this is a known issue.

Thanks for all the advice.

Tesla doesn't allow test drives for used inventory? That's bonkers. Is there a guaranteed 100% refunded return policy?
 
Range showed as 72%, 310km, which extrapolates to 430km (267mi) at 100%. That's 9% degradation from 294mi. Assuming the range estimate is accurate... Battery is V1: what is the biggest drawback, lower supercharger speeds?

72% is high enough to get a roughly correct view of your battery's capacity.

I've never been able to 100% verify the early 90D range; I believe it is 288 and the "294" range is from the later refresh. I'll stand by my opinion that absolute range isn't really an important feature -- assume you'll want to fill up by the time you're in the bottom 20% and that you'll probably start at 90%, meaning you'll have 240-260km of useful range before you want to charge. There are situations where you'll drive to the limits but don't bank on that range.

For example, there's a place I like to go to where there's a supercharger 200 miles from my house; no problem I've got 274 miles of range, right? Well, turns out it gets cold, I like to drive 80 miles an hour, I like heat or air conditioning, etc. If I charge to 100% or nearly, I'm usually able to land there with 5-12% range left. So I look at the supercharger just prior to that one, and if I'm uncomfortable with making it all the way to that one, (maybe I left with 85% range instead of 100%) I'll just go to the next earlier supercharger and start charging at 25% instead of 5-12%. The point is, where I live, there are enough superchargers that I can get by easily with a little less range, so long as the supercharger still charges quickly.

Supercharging in your "new to you" car is likely to be reasonable and not capped. It won't be as good as the model 3/Y or newer S, but still "40% of range in 20 minutes", which is usually enough to do another 2 hours of driving to the next supercharger stop. Charging at a supercharger to get to 100% of range, or even 90% of range, however, is a 60-80 minute ordeal, so unless you really need the range just top up at home.

If you're planning on doing a lot of driving in northern alberta, you're not going to be happy with the car; the trip from Edmonton to Saskatoon looks like you'd have to drive all the way south to Calgary first to pickup the trans-canada, as an example. I'm sure Medicine Hat is nice, but you'd be looking at a 14 hour drive in a Tesla instead of a 5 hour drive in a stink juicer. (Or a 400 mile range S)
 
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Hi there, sorry ressurect this thread, but I'm also in the market for a replacement 2016/2017 Model S 90D.
How can I tell if the 90kw battery is a v1, v2 or v3? What were the production dates, and can I extrapolate the month of production from the carfax report?

I apologize if this is already answered somewhere else. Tried to do a search but didn't see threads on how to tell which version of the 90kw battery a car has.

Thanks!
 
Hi there, sorry ressurect this thread, but I'm also in the market for a replacement 2016/2017 Model S 90D.
How can I tell if the 90kw battery is a v1, v2 or v3? What were the production dates, and can I extrapolate the month of production from the carfax report?

I apologize if this is already answered somewhere else. Tried to do a search but didn't see threads on how to tell which version of the 90kw battery a car has.

Thanks!