Tesla: The real cost of being out of warranty

everyone its car guru here and today we're gonna talk about out of warranty costs for a Tesla Model S I have some footage of me my buddy Sean here making some cuts in the test so that we were trying to use for scrap I figured you guys didn't want to see my ugly mug all day so I have this video playing in the background now I want to bring this topic up because it's a topic of discussion that comes up very frequently it's something that's really factored into the overall cost of owning the Tesla because the cars that have been sold so far still have the eight year battery and motor warranty so eight years have not passed yet since the first Model S in 2012 have been built however those cars will be coming out of warranty soon and this is specially important for two reasons one tests are getting cheaper and in a short order of time the older Model S's can be had for the you know the mid to upper-20s which makes it easily accessible for the masses and what I wanted to do was I want to let everyone know how much they could expect to pay for repairs when the cars are out of warranty and number two the base of this video this channel I should say so far is I have an out of warranty Tesla and Tesla will not service it so this channel is loosely based on how to work on and service your own Tesla as well as other various shenanigans and tasteless humor deena a subscriber from Louisiana is the one that prompted me to make this video she purchased the CP o to us about a year and a half ago and she said it's been pretty good so far she's had three door handles replaced a computer screen the drive unit were all replaced and covered in the warranty however she was wondering how much these seemingly minor things would cost out of warranty what are the other failure points in these cars she was sold on this car because it has fewer moving parts in a gas powered car and therefore less to brake also the fact that she never had to an oil change or brake pads those are the things that helped her buy the car in the first place however she feels that if these small things could add up very quickly and she one know what my thoughts were on that now before I get into the answer this discussion will primarily focus on the Model S and not the Model X because quite frankly the model axes issues warrant it's very own video Deana that's a great question and that's actually something I want to repeat a lot of people say that the cars are virtually maintenance-free which they are because they don't require you to the oil or the brakes however you do need to keep in mind that they're very very expensive cars and they have very very expensive parts people ask him you have accordingly a mouseka a tussle what's gone wrong so far he said the cars been holding up great and he spent approximately $7,000 on the car in maintenance for 230,000 miles and people like wow that's great well it's because the car was covered under the eight year unlimited mileage warranty but the real question is what has he brought the car back to Tesla for and his rig gets interesting here's what people aren't discussing in two hundred thirty thousand miles he went through three Drive units or three of the actual motors that drive the car in the first place two battery packs one media control unit the cars main computer one charge port door and one charger not bad those things are under warranty here's what wasn't under warranty there is nine door handles he replaced which makes sense as people are constantly getting in out of the car for shocks to replace both rear axles windshield wiper linkage rear taillights due to condensation and four rotors now the saddest part about this whole thing is that the third drive unit started making a grinding noise and even though these issues can be fixed by a good transmission shop Tesla isn't willing to crack open these drive units at your local tests a service center and the whole unit was replaced and it was not covered under warranty because Tesla found out his car is being used for commercial purposes so his total cost of replacement out-of-pocket was $6,000 yes that adds up to a grand total of $24,000 this car has had twenty four thousand dollars in motors replaced on this single vehicle now here's the thing that frustrates him it's not that he was denied any further service or warranty from Tesla because it says in the fine print it says hey if you want the warranty you can't use the car for commercial purposes however what does frustrate him is that there's another Tesla taxi company that Tesla so services maintains and is covered under tussles warranty his thought is since that other Tesla is better known Tesla rolls out the red carpet for it because it's good PR for the company Tesla doesn't want his car in the mainstream because it had four motors replaced and they don't want that car the public I necessarily let's see a few more well-known examples in the public eye Edmonds first test drive a Tesla Model S 2013 model yes it's an older car but let's not forget that there are tens of thousands of these cars on the road they'll be coming off a warranty very soon now here's some of the issues that they've occurred in the 2013 car if you look at these columns here you'll see the drive unit was replaced three times and the laundry list of other miscellaneous issues now a lot of these things you could see were covered either under warranty or replace under goodwill but just think after this cars out of warranty these line items will go from warranty and goodwill to actual out-of-pocket expenses this next article is a great height machine here actually loved it he talks about his Tesla after a hundred thousand miles the annual service twenty three hundred not bad a thousand dollar door handle repair okay no problem that's three thousand eight hundred dollars in a hundred thousand miles which is fantastic now in the article he states I'd love to hear about any other hundred thousand dollar car that can go this far and cost less than a four thousand dollars all in oh and I probably spent less than a thousand dollars in electricity as well let's get to the good part here oh yeah I did have to have my entire motor replace and yes I did have to have my battery pack replace as well but other than having to replace the two components that make the car move it's been pretty reliable remember if a door handle is 800 to a thousand how much do you think replacing a battery is and will he still be singing the same song if he had to foot the bill for the motor replacement now there are many examples of our prices that you could expect to pay when your cars out of warranty now this sheet comes from a 2013 s60 owner with 38,000 miles last year he was hearing a clunk which the service sector said it would require 1/2 shaft replacement to the tune of $3500 and even though he's been to the service center every year for check-ups they didn't catch this issue it's a hundred and seventy-five dollars per hour and the half shafts go for nine hundred dollars each and guess what Tesla has a monopoly on parts you can't go anywhere else so you're looking at getting the parts used or going right to Tesla assuming that they let you buy the parts in the first place now this is one of the reasons why wrecked houses for so much money because the parts are worth a lot of money and secondly this have been far cheaper from an independent shop however most other places are not willing to do these kind of repairs especially not knowing much about electric vehicles now this last example comes from an owner last year he started hearing a rattling noise in the right rear it turned out to be a loose parking brake pad that got fixed this year and the other side started rattling as well as a brake seemed to be a little bit soft but nowhere concerning after three weeks of waiting for the appointment he dropped the car off and got a call saying that all four brake Pistons had seized and it would cost eight thousand five hundred dollars to repair now here are some breakdowns for cost the brake caliper assembly with piston seven hundred and forty five dollars each the rear rotors each or 331 front rotors each at 290 parking brake caliper with pads is one thousand two hundred and thirty five dollars they also replace the upper control arm of the driver side for two hundred and sixty one dollars tested managed to salvage one of the Pistons but they had to change out three of them and good on tough so they felt so bad for him they agreed not to charge him labor on the job so his final bill was about six thousand dollars which I bet he was not expecting that when he dropped the car off that's another good point now let's pretend that you bought a certified pre-owned Tesla for thirty five thousand dollars and a year later you're greeted with a repair bill that's twenty five percent of the price that you paid for the car sounds kind of crazy huh now just a couple of common things that can go wrong again there's a $1200 media control unit screen which starts bubbling or an entire media control unit which is about three thousand eight hundred dollars which only Tesla can replace the DC to DC converter which converts high voltage to low voltage which can blow a fuse cost you four hundred fifty dollars in labor and of course you need 20 100 for a new DC to DC converter that's twenty six hundred dollars plus tax no I know it seems like I'm picking on a Tesla again but I was thinking about this the other day and all the Tesla youtubers out there there's only two maybe three that don't have videos of their cars being loaded onto flatbeds think about it even Marcus Brownlee has a video of his Tesla carry on a flatbed now my friend Phil expressed these same concerns about Teslas practices to John McNeil the Tesla head of sales and service I support Tesla but I don't approve of some of their policies I'm glad to see John McNeil and Tesla stepped up and do the right thing here if we can only get them to allow us to perform our own maintenance which involves releasing service information as well as software and sell us parts also if you purchase a salvage vehicle they will not sell you parts at all this will have to change if Tesla hopes to become mass market I completely agree with Phil John McNeil said it's in the works this was in January of 2017 so we're all still waiting on that and just the experiment one of Phil's points Tesla does not give people service history on cars and here's why that's bad if issues are not performed while the cars on the warranty then it could cost you a bundle post warranty now these little things called tsps technical service bulletins and here's my blurb on this so stay with me their information bulletins to fix specific issues and problems someone's having with the car either by replacing a part of a better one or doing some form of service now they always fall under a specific warranty like powertrain for example so the cartridge will be for that warranty unless it's a situation where a warranty is extended on a component and in that case it may be covered for a longer period of time now a certain issue will usually be covered by a warranty even without a TSB but the TSV offers a specific repair procedure for a certain issue also keep in mind TSP is for safety campaigns are for the life of the vehicle now how many tsps are available for a brand new auto manufacturer in its infancy stages you ask a lot now let's just say you get a used car now out of warranty right there's a wind buffering or a squeak or a rattle if the previous owner didn't care about now you have to deal with it Tesla doesn't give you the service history on cars so for something like this you're on the hook let's just say hey Tesla I want to buy this car that you have for sale was the leaking sunroof TSB performed they would look at you and say every car is fully tested with a multi-point inspection by Tesla and you'd say okay then you'd buy the car and then return it back to Tesla month later to fix that leaking sunroof whose TSB timer has expired and they will happily charge you $600 this could have been easily avoided by the ability to ask the dealer that car's history so you have them either perform the service before purchasing the car or you purchase a different car with that in my if you're planning on buying a Tesla buy the newest one you could afford preferably a 2015 plus cars because a lot of the issues that I mentioned earlier have been fixed however not all of them but the cars have been through a few revisions now and they're slowly getting better okay guys I've rambled on enough in upcoming episodes I'll discuss what specifically goes wrong with a Tesla drive unit as well as battery pack failures thanks for listening tell me what you think in the comments and don't forget to Like share and subscribe

Channel: Rich Rebuilds

Views: 520,690

Rating: 4.8163671 out of 5

Keywords: tesla, cars, teardown, mechanical, Model S, Dark Side, Ownership, Warranty, costs, Self, Diagnostic, Model 3, modelx, model x, tesla warranty, salvage

Id: nq5c4jGR2gM

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Skylake1987]

Interesting video. I wonder how Tesla will start to handle issues that are out of warranty once they run out in 2020. He also makes a good point about allowing people to repair their own cars or buy parts from them if they want to be really mass market. I hope any model 3 issues i have are few and far between.

[u/fuzzyaperture]

My S is at the service center since Monday.... They haven't even looked at it yet. Sucks that you have to go to Tesla and there's only one Tesla.

[u/snoozieboi]

I just rented one last week for the entire week. I was suprised to hear it was a 2013 model, I thought it was 2014 which would have been my requirement to buy used.

I needed this vid to reset my rosy mind. The 2013 model was in impressive condition at 140k km odometer. Put me in it blindfolded and tape the odometer and I'd guess 2014-2016.

I'd love for there to be an r/Teslalongtermowner or r/teslaDIY to discuss and share info like this for people planning to keep the car for 10+ years and doing minor repairs and check ups on their own.

[u/wwwz]

He just earned my subscription. I'm buying the model 3 so I won't have to worry about maintenance. If I have too many issues, even if they are covered under warranty, I'll be looking at zero's motorcycles. I am not rich and I don't want to have to be to have nice things.

Edit: spelling

[u/OompaOrangeFace]

What's the cost on an extended warranty on the Model 3? How many years is it?

[u/camthehombre]

around the 3:40 mark me mentions cars being used for commercial purposes not being covered by warranty. I thought that if used for commercial purposes an individual paid for supercharging. It also changes warranty? Anything else?

[u/2glamtogiveadamn]

Great video

[u/[deleted]]

So basically the CPO means nothing?