When Do I Give up on my 90,000km 2013 Model S?

[AnitaToronto]

My Model S ran amazingly and needed minimal service for the first 8 years. It's low mileage but had been in 2 major accidents and still drove really well after these incidents.
Ironically, after my warranty completely expired last year, it's been nothing but trouble. I had the suspension repaired twice at $7000 and $2000 CAD, the CPU unit card changed which now causes the screen to freeze and put out weird displays most of the time (they wanted $2000 to fix this but I am still able to drive the car so I deferred). Now the 12V battery died without much warning and they said the logs show more to it than that. I towed it into service and they are quoting over $10,000 to fix the drive mechanism, which had shown no issues until the car just died yesterday.
At this point, I feel like I should not throw more money into it, but it only has 90,000km so how can the drivetrain be damaged?

Asking advice on what you would do in this case. I have kept the car this long as I have free supercharging for life and I'm not ready to buy another car, especially an electric one in this market!

 

[zoomer0056]

My Model S ran amazingly and needed minimal service for the first 8 years. It's low mileage but had been in 2 major accidents and still drove really well after these incidents.
Ironically, after my warranty completely expired last year, it's been nothing but trouble. I had the suspension repaired twice at $7000 and $2000 CAD, the CPU unit card changed which now causes the screen to freeze and put out weird displays most of the time (they wanted $2000 to fix this but I am still able to drive the car so I deferred). Now the 12V battery died without much warning and they said the logs show more to it than that. I towed it into service and they are quoting over $10,000 to fix the drive mechanism, which had shown no issues until the car just died yesterday.
At this point, I feel like I should not throw more money into it, but it only has 90,000km so how can the drivetrain be damaged?

Asking advice on what you would do in this case. I have kept the car this long as I have free supercharging for life and I'm not ready to buy another car, especially an electric one in this market!

Free Super Charging for life is worth some bucks. Worst case though is you'll be replacing the whole car one piece at a time. I'd say trade it in to Tesla and get a new one.

 

[Lukez]

What is the 10k, post some details from the estimate. You can look for an independent shop to wotk on it as well.

 

[backmarker]

Tesla model S with rear large drive unit (LDU) is a tough long term car. There are many articles and posts on people looking to (reliably) keep these drive units running. They all fail due to a leak around the seal between the different components of the unit. I believe this is why even a car in great shape with unlimited free supercharging and a solid battery still trades at sub $30K USD. That's less than a base model 3. Tesla will only replace the entire LDU assembly at $6-8k, and I challenge any independent shop to share data on longevity of their rebuilds with cobbled together parts and most importantly seals

I'm sympathetic to your plight, my under warranty P100DL has 45k miles and is already on its 2nd LDU. We have a 2020 Model X long range plus, a $100k+ car we bought new that has been in and out of service constantly. It's only a matter of time before the LDU in that car fails as well. Have seen that Audi LDU has some advances in reliability on this issue that we are tracking, but more money for a car with less range and paying for charging doesn't sound fun. Curious to see how the Plaid DUs hold up over time after all the noise Tesla made, while ignoring the historical high failure rate of the original LDU

 

[THURTME]

2013 Tesla S P85, single owner, fully garaged, in 2023 this car has 20,000 miles on it,
suffered sudden catastrophic failure of LDU, could not drive car at all, no whirring noises beforehand,
no notice, totally unexpected, with coolant leaking. Obviously, off warranty. No consideration from Tesla.
Charge was $7600. Note how dangerous to have sudden complete unexpected failure to drive--what if this occurred on a freeway?
My best knowledge is that Tesla is now up to variant T and there is no indication I can find that this recurrent engineering failure
will not happen again. No preventive maintenance procedure has been recommended. Most Teslas have an LDU. Maybe not all, but most.
The cause of the coolant leak, from the internet, is that a seal leaks coolant onto electric parts. My best info is that there is no solution for
this problem, beyond throwing away these $110,000 cars before their 8 year warranty is up.
Elon, if you are reading this, please help me.

 

[Konicom04]

I challenge any independent shop to share data on longevity of their rebuilds with cobbled together parts and most importantly seals

Don't know much about LSU, but if its mechanical, there are machine shops out there with extensive experience daily dealing with industrial equipment failures that should easily be able to identify and resolve this.
Maybe not improve it, but certainly bring it back to its original shape

 

[ucmndd]

Note how dangerous to have sudden complete unexpected failure to drive--what if this occurred on a freeway?

You would have hopefully pulled over to the side of the road safely, just like you would in the case of any of the other myriad reasons cars can lose motive power on the freeway.

You’re not wrong that the large S/X drive units have a design flaw that there seems to be no permanent fix for. Did you have any prior DU failures under warranty? If you didn’t that would make you a rare bird indeed - I was under the impression the early revs had a nearly 100% failure rate.

Most Teslas have an LDU. Maybe not all, but most.

If we’re taking “all Teslas”, including the 3/Y, then only a small fraction of them have the LDU. The 3/Y motors are completely different and seem to be quite reliable.

Even with the S/X, I’m not so sure I’d say the “majority” of them have an LDU. RWD-only cars and performance models have the LDU - non-performance AWD “D” cars do not - they have a smaller drive unit front and rear that has also proven to be quite reliable.

My best info is that there is no solution for this problem, beyond throwing away these $110,000 cars before their 8 year warranty is up.

There may be no fool-proof fix, but this is getting a little hyperbolic. For what it’s worth, my 2016 Model S has 170,000 miles on the original LDU and it’s still going strong, so later revisions are definitely improved.