Yellow screen? Force Tesla to Replace it!

[whitex]

I received this email from Ryan today. Seems reasonable to negotiate terms around accepting the repair option prior to agreeing to end Arbitration ( which my case was accepted for ), such as ensuring work is performed under warranty and that failure to completely and permanently eliminate the screen discoloration shall result in the screen being replaced with a new screen. If the screen repair works and the discoloration is eliminated, I'm happy to accept that as a good outcome. If it doesn't work, then, I've done my part to fairly resolve this and now it is on Tesla to do their part, or have the Arbitration process continue.

"
Mr. XXXXX,


We received your arbitration request through NCDS regarding the yellowing you observe around the touchscreen in your vehicle. As you may know, we’ve recently (in the last month) dispatched a repair for this concern and we would like to coordinate that repair without requiring further involvement of the arbitrators. I would happily take lead in coordinating this repair for your vehicle and we can certainly get it completed in the next 30 days, which is what the arbitrator would most likely order even if we went through with that. A number of customers who have also filed for arbitration on this same issue have allowed the repair and been pleased, and for those who refused the repair and insisted on a hearing, some have been denied and some have prevailed, but those who prevailed were awarded a repair – which is what I’m offering now. So, I’m trying to shortcut the process for you and me and save us the time and save Tesla the expense of the arbitration. Would you please cancel the arbitration and permit me to have our service team work out an appointment for you to get this repair done?


If that’s ok with you, kindly let NCDS know and I’ll coordinate with your service manager to get it done.

Thank you!

<<Redacted>>

I would ask for a written guarantee with money assurance attached before I drop the arbitration, say $1000 per day for any day after 30 days that the screen is not fixed. Also $1,000 per day I don't get a Tesla loaner while the car is in the shop, in case they would just want to keep my car forever. If they really will fix it in 30 days and provide me with a Tesla loaner to drive while in the shop, it will cost them nothing. But if they lied, I have a contract to sue them for large enough money to hire a lawyer.

Distrustful of Tesla you say I am? Well, I've been a customer for a while.

 

[whitex]

I agree this situation is totally unacceptable, but what exactly is a class action lawsuit going to accomplish? It seems Tesla has a UV fix that sometimes works, and replaces the screen if that doesn’t work.

I would teach Elon to stop taking stupid risks, and force a uniform resolution probably declaring the yellowing a defect so everyone doesn't have to keep fighting it separately. And not, they don't have a fix that sometimes works. They don't replace if they can't fix it because they don't have the tool to fix it with. Tool availability is important. 3 machines will take a very long time to fix tens of thousands of affected cars, even if each machine is utilized 24hrs per day.

 

[wildag]

To help others in the future with responses to the Tesla lawyer...

In response to any quotes from service centers, the Tesla lawyer always responds "they don't know everything, and only we at headquarters know the real truth”.

In response to yellowing being a warranty issue, the Tesla lawyer responds "the screen is a wear item, and the wear is caused by sunlight. Sunlight damage is specifically excluded in the warranty".

In response to requests for a replacement, the Tesla lawyer responds "Tesla has the right to attempt a repair before replacement. Because this is not a warranty covered issue, there is no requirement that Tesla replace the screen".

In response to requests for arbitration, the Tesla lawyer responds "No matter the outcome of the arbitration, you will receive an offer to repair the screen from Tesla, so you might as well drop the arbitration to save Tesla money and yourself time".

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".

In response to claims of service denials, the Tesla lawyer responds "Tesla has not had an opportunity to attempt a repair." What he means is that Tesla previously denied your requests many times, but now that you've initiated arbitration, you should agree to allow Tesla to attempt a repair - because in his logic, this is a new phase of your request for repair.

In response to claims of the UV fix being temporary, the Tesla lawyer responds "Tesla has repaired screen units at headquarters sitting in the sun for months, and the issues have no returned". He sticks pretty hard to the idea that the UV repair is not temporary.

The Tesla lawyer does seem very concerned about the costs of the arbitration cases to Tesla. He claimed that even though he won my arbitration case, that in fact Tesla lost because he wasn't able to convince me to drop it. This is perhaps the only leverage I can find having gone through the whole process.

 

[Paladin732]

Google searches reveal that their arbitration cost is between 500-1000. It would be interesting if anyone could get how many cases he has on this, and how much they cost exactly out of him.

I also think we should initiate a tweatstorm/eecb against Elon on this. Based on the fact he claims he didn't know about them dropping loaners, it's possible he has no clue about this.

 

[jwlsh]

I just tweeted link to forum to Elon with hashtag #pleasefixmyyellowscreen

Twitter

If you all retweet and share that, might get some attention

 

[emmz0r]

I just tweeted link to forum to Elon with hashtag #pleasefixmyyellowscreen

Twitter

If you all retweet and share that, might get some attention

#yellowgate

 

[jwlsh]

Interesting that Ryan has already contacted me about my tweet. Hi Ryan!

Look, it's very simple. We don't like having to engage Arbitration to get attention and priority. We also don't enjoy having paid a lot of money for a car only to be treated as idiots and told that a car screen is a wear item and sunlight causes that wear. That's a ridiculous argument and completely unreasonable.

I'm willing to have the UV fix performed, I just want a guarantee that if that fails, Tesla will replace the screen at no cost to me. I also want it documented as a warranty item. Those are reasonable requests.

 

[MP3Mike]

I'm willing to have the UV fix performed, I just want a guarantee that if that fails, Tesla will replace the screen at no cost to me. I also want it documented as a warranty item. Those are reasonable requests.

Out of curiosity if they did the UV fix and it eliminated the yellow border but on your service invoice they classified it as "goodwill", which is mainly for accounting purposes if I understand correctly, you would continue with arbitration with your only demand be that they edit your service invoice? (For whatever reason Tesla has a long history of classifying actual warranty repairs as goodwill on the service invoices.)

 

[MSVroomVroom]

Interesting that Ryan has already contacted me about my tweet. Hi Ryan!

Let me guess, you were told that you are being unreasonable and that you don't need to go around tweeting because of course Tesla wants to help you. Why, if only you would have brought your car in for an appointment they would gladly have provided a UV fix as a goodwill gesture even though they are in no way obligated to because this is clearly a wear item with degradation caused by "the sun".

 

[jwlsh]

Out of curiosity if they did the UV fix and it eliminated the yellow border but on your service invoice they classified it as "goodwill", which is mainly for accounting purposes if I understand correctly, you would continue with arbitration with your only demand be that they edit your service invoice? (For whatever reason Tesla has a long history of classifying actual warranty repairs as goodwill on the service invoices.)

I don't understand your attempts to excuse their behavior. I fundamentally disagree with their attempt to exclude this from warranty. This goes beyond satisfying my own repairs needs, this is about accountability and principles.

 

[Matias]

It quite frankly is stunning to me that the service centers seem to have been left to fend for themselves. I would expect any competent company to come up with an internal set of talking points and a strict statement for the service people to stick to. Instead if you talk to a dozen different service people you get a dozen different answers. It just looks amateurish and makes you feel like no one at Tesla has any idea what is really going on with this problem (the lawyer included), not to mention how frustrating it is to customers. I feel bad for the front line service people. Tesla management has hung them out to dry and left them to fend off upset customers without so much as a consistent playbook on how to handle it.

 

[Matias]

I just tweeted link to forum to Elon with hashtag #pleasefixmyyellowscreen

Twitter

If you all retweet and share that, might get some attention

retweeted

 

[rjdoc74]

I just tweeted link to forum to Elon with hashtag #pleasefixmyyellowscreen

Twitter

If you all retweet and share that, might get some attention

I don't use twitter. But I just reactivated my ancient account and re-tweeted. Hope I did this correctly

P.S. Also posted a link on Facebook.

 

[jwlsh]

Let me guess, you were told that you are being unreasonable and that you don't need to go around tweeting because of course Tesla wants to help you. Why, if only you would have brought your car in for an appointment they would gladly have provided a UV fix as a goodwill gesture even though they are in no way obligated to because this is clearly a wear item with degradation caused by "the sun".

Not only that, but if I continue to seek reasonable assurances that if the repair is unsuccessful that my screen will be replaced, he will report to the Arbitrator that I ‘refuse to let them fix the screen unless they do it the way I want’. As if I want to be dealing with any of this silliness and wasting my time.

 

[MP3Mike]

I don't understand your attempts to excuse their behavior. I fundamentally disagree with their attempt to exclude this from warranty. This goes beyond satisfying my own repairs needs, this is about accountability and principles.

I didn't excuse their behavior at all, and I think the whole yellow border fiasco is ridiculous. But really what does it matter to a car owner how Tesla classifies a service expense internally?

 

[Paladin732]

If tweeting Elon doesn't work there are a few other Tesla execs on twitter who might not be too busy to ignore upset customers:

@samteller - Director, Office of the CEO
@KeelyScenario - Director global communications
@robinren - VP worldwide sales

 

[MSVroomVroom]

I didn't excuse their behavior at all, and I think the whole yellow border fiasco is ridiculous. But really what does it matter to a car owner how Tesla classifies a service expense internally?

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.

 

[St Charles]

Out of curiosity if they did the UV fix and it eliminated the yellow border but on your service invoice they classified it as "goodwill", which is mainly for accounting purposes if I understand correctly, you would continue with arbitration with your only demand be that they edit your service invoice? (For whatever reason Tesla has a long history of classifying actual warranty repairs as goodwill on the service invoices.)

I 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. NOW, I care. The fact that they continue to state that they will not cover this under warranty is the ENTIRE REASON people are going to arbitration!

 

[jwlsh]

Thanks for retweet’s. Would be great if you could also reply and attach pics of your screens

 

[MP3Mike]

The fact that they continue to state that they will not cover this under warranty is the ENTIRE REASON people are going to arbitration!

And here I thought people were going to arbitration because Tesla was refusing to fix the screens at no cost.