What are your thoughts on the 2012 P85? Headache of a purchase? What to look for?

[Chaserr]

Chargegate is a non issue if you don't need to supercharge, but verify batterygate isn't applicable assuming you want the P85 for power. Battery gate makes your car slower, it's not just a range cap.

 

[electricfrank]

Chargegate is a non issue if you don't need to supercharge, but verify batterygate isn't applicable assuming you want the P85 for power. Battery gate makes your car slower, it's not just a range cap.

Thank you. How do I verify that the battery in the vehicle isn't associated with 'batterygate' ?

 

[LesGassie]

electricfrank,

I was in a very similar situation about 2 years ago and purchased a 2013 P85. Best car I've ever owned by far! Make sure vehicle wasn't flooded (ask owner & smell the carpet?). You can try to use CarFax to get vehicle history, but service garages are not required to report repairs, so report may not contain much (as was in my case). Tesla will not give past vehicle history, citing privacy concerns (I tried several times). If it helps at all, here are all the issues that I've have encountered with my 2013 P85:

1. Cracked rear sub-frame - My best guess is the previous (and original) owner fish-tailed the car into a curb, so this may not be a common problem. I'm told...not something that can break from normal use, or even aggressive driving (frequently launch hard, take corners very hard). The rear sub-frame is a large aluminum part (see green item in attached picture) that holds the motor/drive unit and secures to the car frame. The motor/drive assembly mounts to this sub-frame via 4 small tabs. Two of the tabs broke.
2. Corroded ground stud/lugs - I do think this will be a common problem for older Model S cars, especially in locations where roads are salted during times of snow/ice. Early symptoms included a few warnings on the 'instrument cluster' display, which grew to more warnings, and eventually included loss of power steering and power brakes. I scheduled a service appointment and the staff remotely investigated my car logs and said it could be a ground problem. I removed the front trunk shell, found the two ground studs, each with 4-6 ground wires/lugs. Removed ground lugs, wire brushed all lugs and studs, re-assembled with electrical grease (to greatly slow future corrosion) and bam! All errors and warnings disappeared and have not returned.
3. Windshield washer reservoir pump - May not be a common issue. One day the windshield sprayer stopped working. After ignoring it for a few days, I scheduled a mobile service appointment... but thought I'd investigate myself in the mean time. I took out the pump (found behind wheel well shell; see attached pic) and connected to 12V and it did not work, so verified it was the actual pump. I hit the pump on the pavement and it started working! Removed debris from tiny screen filter on pump input port, re-installed and has been working ever since. When cleaning my car, I commonly find leaves near the the reservoir cap in the fall season, so I suspect tree leaf debris made its way into the filler opening of the reservoir and got stuck in the pump.
4. Windows stubborn to roll up - I suspect this is a common issue. One of my rear windows is sometimes stubborn to roll all the way up. It starts to roll up, then rolls back down. After (sometimes) many attempts, it does roll up. I still have this problem. When warmer weather returns, I may take door apart and re-lubricate moving parts. If problem persists, then I may have it serviced by a professional.

Tesla is not immune to problems. Older model S is still an awesome car! I recommend getting it.

 

[Evoforce]

I got loads of non identifying information from Tesla SC. Your results may vary... I asked nicely more than once and suggested that they could blacken out the identifying information. Not everyone has success. If I had failed I would have gone and tried at successive Service Centers.

 

[electricfrank]

electricfrank,

I was in a very similar situation about 2 years ago and purchased a 2013 P85. Best car I've ever owned by far! Make sure vehicle wasn't flooded (ask owner & smell the carpet?). You can try to use CarFax to get vehicle history, but service garages are not required to report repairs, so report may not contain much (as was in my case). Tesla will not give past vehicle history, citing privacy concerns (I tried several times). If it helps at all, here are all the issues that I've have encountered with my 2013 P85:

1. Cracked rear sub-frame - My best guess is the previous (and original) owner fish-tailed the car into a curb, so this may not be a common problem. I'm told...not something that can break from normal use, or even aggressive driving (frequently launch hard, take corners very hard). The rear sub-frame is a large aluminum part (see green item in attached picture) that holds the motor/drive unit and secures to the car frame. The motor/drive assembly mounts to this sub-frame via 4 small tabs. Two of the tabs broke.
2. Corroded ground stud/lugs - I do think this will be a common problem for older Model S cars, especially in locations where roads are salted during times of snow/ice. Early symptoms included a few warnings on the 'instrument cluster' display, which grew to more warnings, and eventually included loss of power steering and power brakes. I scheduled a service appointment and the staff remotely investigated my car logs and said it could be a ground problem. I removed the front trunk shell, found the two ground studs, each with 4-6 ground wires/lugs. Removed ground lugs, wire brushed all lugs and studs, re-assembled with electrical grease (to greatly slow future corrosion) and bam! All errors and warnings disappeared and have not returned.
3. Windshield washer reservoir pump - May not be a common issue. One day the windshield sprayer stopped working. After ignoring it for a few days, I scheduled a mobile service appointment... but thought I'd investigate myself in the mean time. I took out the pump (found behind wheel well shell; see attached pic) and connected to 12V and it did not work, so verified it was the actual pump. I hit the pump on the pavement and it started working! Removed debris from tiny screen filter on pump input port, re-installed and has been working ever since. When cleaning my car, I commonly find leaves near the the reservoir cap in the fall season, so I suspect tree leaf debris made its way into the filler opening of the reservoir and got stuck in the pump.
4. Windows stubborn to roll up - I suspect this is a common issue. One of my rear windows is sometimes stubborn to roll all the way up. It starts to roll up, then rolls back down. After (sometimes) many attempts, it does roll up. I still have this problem. When warmer weather returns, I may take door apart and re-lubricate moving parts. If problem persists, then I may have it serviced by a professional.

Tesla is not immune to problems. Older model S is still an awesome car! I recommend getting it.

I really appreciate all of this information. Thank you. I'm leaning towards pulling the trigger vs my side reaction of going with a model 3. Just really concerned about having issues in relation to the price of the vehicle. If it was a steal of a price, it would only make sense. Maybe I should make another topic about that lol. I see prices all over the place. But seeing as I need to look out for MCU, Drive Unit, Window Regulators, Door Handles, and all of these other miscellaneous things, it's at least $6K that I probably need to put aside "just in case." We'll see what happens. Looking forward to updating the community and hopefully joining the club.

 

[amiral_sub]

I just bought one month ago a 2013 P85+. It has 206.000km
What a car! I dream all night and all day to drive it!
The previous owner had the following problems fixed under warranty:
- drive unit replaced
- reduced power, due to main battery fault. Replaced by a loan battery. I check, it is a type D battery. I don't know how many kilometers it has. It charges fast at superchargers: charge begin at 120kW+ , and then reduce but stays high
- HP contactors replaced
- charger replaced by a gen2 charger
- wiper motor
- 12v battery
- 1 door handle

last week the driver door handle failed to open the door. I replaced the wire by the kit sold by evtuning, it was a cut wire. The wire is too firm, all door handles will have the problem. The one I bought is a bit more expensive than the original one but it is in silicon, much better for long term!

I am very happy that the main battery, the HP contactors and the drive unit have been remplaced because these are common failures of pre 2016 models and the new parts (drive unit and main battery) are very reliable. Now I think that I have will have a very reliable car, a million miles car !

Sorry for my english, I don't live in an english speaken country

 

[Chaserr]

Thank you. How do I verify that the battery in the vehicle isn't associated with 'batterygate' ?

Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software Volt checking is the only way to be sure, but there are other ways shown on that first post to calculate range. That may not indicate capping but will give you an idea of battery health. Maybe also do a few 0-100 mph hard pulls to make sure the batterycan output full power - there have been a lot of threads about yellow lines and power limiting on P85s lately that are probably not batterygate problems.

Don't be afraid of cars with drive unit replacements - by now I would expect every 2012 P85 to have had at least one replaced.

 

[Knightowl]

The A pack HV battery had a problem with faulty contactors so you hope for that to be fixed already. The battery sticker can be seen below the front passenger side wheel well on the battery. The policy at the time was to put in a loaner pack and then repair the original and put it back in. So it is hard to tell without a record... Many cars have battery packs in them that are not the original in spite of said policy.

Not specific to A pack, my 2014 has a D pack and it had to have the contactors replaced on it in 2018 after a summer cross country road trip.