I'm fighting with Tesla right now and already talked to some people who know a lot about the tech inside Teslas but I don't think it hurts asking more people if there are any knowledgeable ones here on POA.
I have an older, 2013 Model S P85. I bought it used last year. It has about 85,000 miles on it right now. The battery was tested and showed it still has better than 85% capacity. When fully charged I easily get better than 225 miles out of it (less when it's really cold of course). I rarely charge it fully though, usually only to 80% and mostly use that car as my run-around and airport transfer vehicle so typically my trips are no more than 50 to 100 miles. Anyway, the car was working great when I bought it. Everything was working as it should so I figured, I'll keep it for a few years as a secondary run-around. The only negative was that it had the old, MCU1 in it. It was slow. Tesla had an offer to upgrade to MCU2 for only $1,500 and since I decided to keep the car for a while, I thought this is a great upgrade, so I went for it. The week leading up to the service appointment, we had cold days, and warm days so I used heating and cooling in the car. Both worked just fine. I had no alerts or faults showing in the logs. Everything was fine. The day I dropped off the car for service, I used the A/C with no issues. A Tesla employee checked me in, took the car, gave me a loaner and said they'll call when my car is ready to go. Three days later, they called asking me to pick it up, the upgrade was successful. When I arrived, I was told that everything went well, but I was informed that some things (without saying what "things") may not work immediately as I will have to install a software upgrade when I get home. As I drove off, I immediately noticed the cabin heat isn't working. I thought okay, maybe that's one of the things that'll get fixed with an update at home. I updated it, next day another update downloaded, and throughout the week, I think it prompted me to make several (not sure how many) updates. I always performed them but the heating or cooling function never returned. The fans were just blowing ambient outside air. I was really cold on cold days and really hot on hot days.
I contacted Tesla stating the problem and they asked me to bring the car back and immediately quoted me $500+ just to troubleshoot the issue. I told them I would not pay since the A/C was working fine the day I dropped it off and hasn't worked since the day I picked it up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a service induced issue and I expect them to troubleshoot it for free. The denied and recommended to do a factory reset as that sometimes fixes software issues. That evening, I did the software update and then the car become completely immobile. It wouldn't go in drive, it threw up a bunch of error and warning codes, including HV battery related codes. There was nothing I could do to get the car to drive. Called Tesla again and they said I'll have to get it towed in, so I did. When the car arrived, I immediately get a quote for $1,300+ just to look at it again. I yelled at them long enough that they agreed to look at it free of charge. After about a week, they came back saying that the PTC and A/C compressor fuses were blown and quoted me $600+ to replace them. I told them they need to replace them free of charge as they clearly blew while they performed the MCU upgrade. I reiterated that everything was working fine, with no error codes showing prior to me dropping off the vehicle. They refused. They did say that they cleared the HV contactor blocked state and reset the BMS so the car is drivable again, but A/C won't work until the fuses are changed.
At that point, I was like f*** it, I'll pay the $600 and get the car back in good condition, IF they can give me a loaner since I needed a second car the next week. Just to be sure, I called again asking for the loaner and if the $600 will FIX the problem or just troubleshoot the problem. They said they don't have a loaner until two weeks (so I knew I had to pick up and use the car without heater anyways) and the $600 is to replace the fuses but the technician said since the fuses blew, most likely the PTC and/or compressor are probably bad so those will have to be changed as well, to the tune $1,000+ each.
By now, I have exchanged 10+ emails with the service center and they are contradicting everything they write. After I towed the car to them, they told me most likely my HV battery is shot and I will need a new one. Clearly not the case. Then they said that the issue was pre-existing but not "caught" by the MCU1 and now the MCU2 is catching issues (without saying what the issues are) the MCU1 couldn't catch, making the car undriveable. Then they restored drivability but said the A/C had pre-existing issues but those were never caught by the MCU1 but the MCU2 caught them and blew the fuses. You could tell, they were just making sh** up, throwing it on the wall to see what sticks. Then they said all I need a two new fuses and I'm good to go. Then they say, oh wait, you will most likely also need a new compressor and/or PTC. At one point they even claimed that they knew about the pre-existing issues before they did the upgrade because something was stored in the logs only they could see. I downloaded my data through the privacy page which included the intake notes from the technician and nothing was noted regarding pre-existing conditions.
My theory is (and I had people who know Teslas well) that during the MCU upgrade, they had to perform power cyclings, firmware flashing, module re-registration, and gateway synchronization across multiple vehicle systems. I think at some point during that whole process, they did something wrong and the fuses blew. They probably knew about it so they came up with the "you have to install a software update before everything works again" excuse to buy them time and make sure the car is in my possession at least for a while so they can deny any service related f*** ups.
If anyone here knows stuff about Teslas or about EV technology in general, I'd love to hear what you think happened here.
I have an older, 2013 Model S P85. I bought it used last year. It has about 85,000 miles on it right now. The battery was tested and showed it still has better than 85% capacity. When fully charged I easily get better than 225 miles out of it (less when it's really cold of course). I rarely charge it fully though, usually only to 80% and mostly use that car as my run-around and airport transfer vehicle so typically my trips are no more than 50 to 100 miles. Anyway, the car was working great when I bought it. Everything was working as it should so I figured, I'll keep it for a few years as a secondary run-around. The only negative was that it had the old, MCU1 in it. It was slow. Tesla had an offer to upgrade to MCU2 for only $1,500 and since I decided to keep the car for a while, I thought this is a great upgrade, so I went for it. The week leading up to the service appointment, we had cold days, and warm days so I used heating and cooling in the car. Both worked just fine. I had no alerts or faults showing in the logs. Everything was fine. The day I dropped off the car for service, I used the A/C with no issues. A Tesla employee checked me in, took the car, gave me a loaner and said they'll call when my car is ready to go. Three days later, they called asking me to pick it up, the upgrade was successful. When I arrived, I was told that everything went well, but I was informed that some things (without saying what "things") may not work immediately as I will have to install a software upgrade when I get home. As I drove off, I immediately noticed the cabin heat isn't working. I thought okay, maybe that's one of the things that'll get fixed with an update at home. I updated it, next day another update downloaded, and throughout the week, I think it prompted me to make several (not sure how many) updates. I always performed them but the heating or cooling function never returned. The fans were just blowing ambient outside air. I was really cold on cold days and really hot on hot days.
I contacted Tesla stating the problem and they asked me to bring the car back and immediately quoted me $500+ just to troubleshoot the issue. I told them I would not pay since the A/C was working fine the day I dropped it off and hasn't worked since the day I picked it up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a service induced issue and I expect them to troubleshoot it for free. The denied and recommended to do a factory reset as that sometimes fixes software issues. That evening, I did the software update and then the car become completely immobile. It wouldn't go in drive, it threw up a bunch of error and warning codes, including HV battery related codes. There was nothing I could do to get the car to drive. Called Tesla again and they said I'll have to get it towed in, so I did. When the car arrived, I immediately get a quote for $1,300+ just to look at it again. I yelled at them long enough that they agreed to look at it free of charge. After about a week, they came back saying that the PTC and A/C compressor fuses were blown and quoted me $600+ to replace them. I told them they need to replace them free of charge as they clearly blew while they performed the MCU upgrade. I reiterated that everything was working fine, with no error codes showing prior to me dropping off the vehicle. They refused. They did say that they cleared the HV contactor blocked state and reset the BMS so the car is drivable again, but A/C won't work until the fuses are changed.
At that point, I was like f*** it, I'll pay the $600 and get the car back in good condition, IF they can give me a loaner since I needed a second car the next week. Just to be sure, I called again asking for the loaner and if the $600 will FIX the problem or just troubleshoot the problem. They said they don't have a loaner until two weeks (so I knew I had to pick up and use the car without heater anyways) and the $600 is to replace the fuses but the technician said since the fuses blew, most likely the PTC and/or compressor are probably bad so those will have to be changed as well, to the tune $1,000+ each.
By now, I have exchanged 10+ emails with the service center and they are contradicting everything they write. After I towed the car to them, they told me most likely my HV battery is shot and I will need a new one. Clearly not the case. Then they said that the issue was pre-existing but not "caught" by the MCU1 and now the MCU2 is catching issues (without saying what the issues are) the MCU1 couldn't catch, making the car undriveable. Then they restored drivability but said the A/C had pre-existing issues but those were never caught by the MCU1 but the MCU2 caught them and blew the fuses. You could tell, they were just making sh** up, throwing it on the wall to see what sticks. Then they said all I need a two new fuses and I'm good to go. Then they say, oh wait, you will most likely also need a new compressor and/or PTC. At one point they even claimed that they knew about the pre-existing issues before they did the upgrade because something was stored in the logs only they could see. I downloaded my data through the privacy page which included the intake notes from the technician and nothing was noted regarding pre-existing conditions.
My theory is (and I had people who know Teslas well) that during the MCU upgrade, they had to perform power cyclings, firmware flashing, module re-registration, and gateway synchronization across multiple vehicle systems. I think at some point during that whole process, they did something wrong and the fuses blew. They probably knew about it so they came up with the "you have to install a software update before everything works again" excuse to buy them time and make sure the car is in my possession at least for a while so they can deny any service related f*** ups.
If anyone here knows stuff about Teslas or about EV technology in general, I'd love to hear what you think happened here.
