Yellow screen? Force Tesla to Replace it!

[MP3Mike]

would have accepted this if I felt I could trust Tesla at this point. Before all this bullshit started, i would not have cared what they wanted to classify the fix because I knew they had my back.

Would you refuse to pickup your repaired car if the only invoice they would provide you said goodwill?

 

[MP3Mike]

It might not matter to customers but I am starting to wonder if it matters to Investors. Tesla marks an awful lot of service as “goodwill”. By doing so are they defrauding investors? They report their warranty expenses in their quarterly reports. If they aren’t including the cost of the goodwill repairs or are purposely misclassifying them to make their accounting better that is a serious issue.

That is an issue that some investors/shorts have brought up.

 

[DJP31]

Would you refuse to pickup your repaired car if the only invoice they would provide you said goodwill?

Isn’t the issue with the screen that if the ‘goodwill’ UV fix doesn’t work, you have to pay for a replacement? Given the fix is known not to be 100% successful nor permanent why would you accept the invoice as ‘goodwill’?

 

[St Charles]

Would you refuse to pickup your repaired car if the only invoice they would provide you said goodwill?

You are responding to an argument I didn't make.

 

[PhilDavid]

Would you refuse to pickup your repaired car if the only invoice they would provide you said goodwill?

You seem to be quite invested in this discussion and what customers should put up with for a defective display that keeps getting worse as the yellowing darkens and eventually turns opaque brown.

Do you have a car with a defective display or do you just have strong opinions on what other people should put up with?

The problem with accepting the UV cure as goodwill is that if the yellowing returns, they can deny any warranty claim as you will then be arguing with Ryan about how you agreed that this was not a warranty claim when you accepted the UV cure as goodwill.

There was a time when everyone would have accepted the UV treatment as a goodwill repair as everyone assumed they would do the right thing and fix or replace the defective part. After all the BS and nonsense thrown at customers, this trust has been lost.

In fact accepting this unproven UV contraption as a goodwill repair almost seems like a trap to get you to disclaim this defect as a warranty repair and reminds me of this scene..

Imagine them telling you (Feel free to link to this post in the future if this scenario ever becomes true)

"Look, you are being so unreasonable and costing us all this money.

We spent so much time and effort coming up with an unproven UV fix that may or may not permanently fix the defective displays because we care so much about you. Then we had engineers risking their lives placing displays treated by our UV contraption all over our roofs. What if someone fell off the roof and died trying to help you? Are you that ungrateful?! We did all this for you.

When we presented the UV contraption to you and you clearly accepted this as a goodwill repair because you, being such a reasonable and nice person, understood that the displays are not to be used in areas with sunlight, oxygen, or humidity. And now you suddenly decide the defective displays should be covered by warranty after we did all this for you?

Do you know how much I bill every minute I even think about how upset I am by how unreasonable you are being by wanting us to fix your defective display? How can you live with yourself causing us so much harm?!

Look, we gave it a good try. Luckily none of our engineers fell off the roof and died trying to help. You accepted our goodwill repair and in doing so agreed this is not a warranty issue.

Now can we interest you in a new car with a clear display?"​

If anyone accepts the UV treatment, you should be clear that you are accepting it as a warranty remedy and you are not disclaiming a warranty repair if the defective display continues to yellow.

I wish they would hire someone to manage these things better. They are taking manageable issues and making them miserable for themselves and their customers. They should just think of the long term and do the right thing and agree to fix or replace the defective displays without BS. Partly because what they do and how they act now sets their corporate culture for the future.

 

[MSVroomVroom]

The problem with accepting the UV cure as goodwill is that if the yellowing returns, they can deny any warranty claim as you will then be arguing with Ryan about how you agreed that this was not a warranty claim when you accepted the UV cure as goodwill.

Tesla is pushing back hard that this work should be marked down as "goodwill". Maybe that is simply for internal accounting reasons but I suspect that what you said is the real reason. They want to build a paper trail that shows that the Tesla yellow screen issue is not a warranty issue. If you had past service to fix the screen and it was classified as "goodwill" you bet they will drag that out to use against you to try and deny any future work. Tesla's tactics are shady and deceitful.

 

[Ken7]

Here's my beauty. Ask me how proud I am when someone sits in my car for the first time. I'll answer that, I'm embarrassed.

 

[re04586]

Here's my beauty. Ask me how proud I am when someone sits in my car for the first time. I'll answer that, I'm embarrassed.

Tesla should be embarrassed too.

 

[whitex]

In response to requests for an agreement with penalties or damages as an incentive for dropping the arbitration, the Tesla lawyer responds "I will not authorize anything more than what you will receive if you win the arbitration".

What are the consequences to Tesla if arbitration determines they have to fix within 30 days and they don't?

 

[Zaxxon]

I'm curious whether anyone has attempted to trade a car with this issue in on a new vehicle purchase. And if so, what Tesla's position on the cosmetic nature of this wear item is in that case.

 

[whitex]

Here's my beauty. Ask me how proud I am when someone sits in my car for the first time. I'll answer that, I'm embarrassed.

Just explain to them that Tesla considers the screens are a wear item, therefore require changing like any other wear item such as tires, wipers, etc.

 

[whitex]

In response to requests for an agreement with penalties or damages as an incentive for dropping the arbitration, the Tesla lawyer responds "I will not authorize anything more than what you will receive if you win the arbitration".

And a response to that is "If you will not authorize, I will not drop." - end of discussion. He's not offering you anything in exchange for dropping the arbitration, then why would you?

 

[whitex]

I'm curious whether anyone has attempted to trade a car with this issue in on a new vehicle purchase. And if so, what Tesla's position on the cosmetic nature of this wear item is in that case.

I tried getting a trade-in estimate, but no to Tesla. I was told they simply did not want the car until the issue is resolved. Main reason (which makes sense to me) is that they said they won't be able to sell it, so it will cost them unknown amount of money while if sits on the lot waiting for Tesla to figure it out - costs include storage, interest on the money they paid for it, depreciation, insurance, etc.

 

[MSVroomVroom]

I tried getting a trade-in estimate, but no to Tesla. I was told they simply did not want the car until the issue is resolved. Main reason (which makes sense to me) is that they said they won't be able to sell it, so it will cost them unknown amount of money while if sits on the lot waiting for Tesla to figure it out - costs include storage, interest on the money they paid for it, depreciation, insurance, etc.

This is pretty important. I hope you got their reason in writing. This really undermines Tesla's claim that the yellow screen has no material impact on the value of the vehicle.

 

[Zaxxon]

That's kind of my point. If it's not just a minor, expected cosmetic wear issue to Tesla, then it's not reasonable to expect the vehicle owner to treat it that way.

 

[michidragon]

Call for an experiment
If you have a screen in a car manufactured before April 2019, and have not yet incurred the yellow border issue - you have a chance to run an experiment that might save a lot of fellow Tesla owners money and time. Take a piece of opaque black paper - and simply tape it to an area on the left or right of your screen. It should be about 3 inches wide, and at least three inches tall. It should aligned to touch either the left or right border of the screen. Leave that piece of paper in place until the yellowing occurs. Then remove the paper and report whether the yellowing occurred under the piece of paper. If the yellowing occurs under the paper, then the issue is very likely not caused by sunlight.

Any takers?

Wildag, I haven't gotten the outcome of my arbitration case yet, but -- I will say that Ryan said he "didn't mention anything about sunlight" during my case. He almost seemed offended that I would insinuate such a thing. Their tactics (his tactics) change depending on the person and the case. Not good.

My IC is also yellowing, (and YES it is the same nature as the MCU) and it is following the contour of the inner bezel, all the way around. Sunlight never gets here - especially at the top of the IC bezel. (The sun would have to shine from below the seat.) Sunlight is not causing this yellowing. Additionally my MCU yellowing started under the upper bezel of the MCU. This area does not get more sunlight than the rest of the display, it gets less.

But Tesla adapts their 'cause' depending on the case. Ryan is dishonest and will lie to win, and he knows that, and has no problem with it. (Perhaps he is behind his unyellowed computer screen right now acting faux-offended, or perhaps he's kicking back with a beer laughing to himself about how many customers he screwed over. Congrats, Ryan. You're a wonderful human being. I wonder what car you drive. Bet it's not a Tesla.)

I've been looking at this technically, and I've done some experiments -- I do not believe this is caused by sunlight either. I believe it is caused by uncured adhesive and oxidization. UV further cures the adhesive. Note that the Tesla's windows filter UV pretty effectively, so in a way, sunlight may help this situation, not cause it.

Many, many, (MOST) industrial adhesives are UV-cured.

If Tesla does apply the front glass, not Innolux, it may have been something as simple and stupid as Tesla not allowing the adhesives to UV-cure long enough before installing them, opening up uncured adhesive to the possibility of oxidization.

Note that even on the fixed screens, if you apply a UV light to them, the previous band will be visible under UV light. So the UV application does indeed seem to clear the yellowing somewhat in the visible spectrum, but viewing the display under UV again shows that after the 'fix' there's certainly still some damage/degradation/anomaly that's still there.

What this means for fix longevity, I don't know.

 

[buzescu]

My IC is also getting the yellow band and it is growing. We will blend those in here very soon. I did not have the time to go for arbitration yet but if I suggest to all that go from now on to mention both!
Anybody in the Seattle area with experience with arbitration?

 

[Didgie]

This is disgraceful behaviour from a prestige car manufacturer for what is obviously a manufacturing defect on a feature that is supposed to set their cars apart from the competition.

Tesla just need to replace the screens and be done with it, as opposed to heaping potentially irreparable repetitional damage on themselves.

I am a Tesla fan and sing their praises on a daily basis, however their behaviour on this issue is challenging my loyalty.

 

[re04586]

My IC is also getting the yellow band and it is growing

+1 - not as noticeable compared to my main screen, but its on mine's too.

 

[rjdoc74]

My IC is also yellowing. I did mention this during the arbitration, but it made no difference. Ryan absolutely uses different tactics with different people, depending on the situation. With me he kept pushing on the "fact" that I didn't present the car for repair and didn't give them a reasonable opportunity for repair (blatant lie). He calmly kept insisting that the fix is available at my local SC (another lie).

We will all have problems selling these cars if the screens keep progressively getting yellow. And I think this UV fix is an absolute BS.

So I will ask again for the attorneys out there: how do we go class action on this ?

This is the firm that handled dieselgate for my Audi: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.

Maybe I should reach out to them. What do you all think?