Tesla Quoted $16,000 For A Repair Job-(Battery Replacement Needed)

[Prange]

https://www.carscoops.com/2021/07/tesla-quoted-16000-for-a-repair-job-an-independent-did-for-700/

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

The Ford Mach E battery is $20k… and not nearly as nice.

 

[Smitty]

Another good reason to shop elsewhere 😏

 

[hc797]

"unfortunately for the owner, neither did his insurance, " must have bought cheap insurance?

 

[MikeD1]

Thing is, as these cars age, the battery packs will take less & less of a charge and become more & more of a PITA to own.
Eventually you will face the decision of replace it at 1/2 the cost of a new car or just trade it in (to be scrapped & sold for parts).

Of course, no one has yet devised a plan for what to do with millions of these spent, dangerous & highly toxic battery packs

 

[Paladin06]

 

[Piening2150]

The Ford Mach E battery is $20k… and not nearly as nice.

Did you read the article? Dude has a nearly new Model 3. Road debris broke an exposed coolant fitting that is molded into the battery case. So nothing wrong with the battery really, but bad design means that officially the only fix is to replace the whole thing. Independent shop fixed it for $700. But really all they did was tap threads into the battery case and broken fitting and join them back together with a pipe nipple (so probably only a couple bucks to do it yourself if you're mechanically inclined).

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

@Piening2150 - Tesla’s quote was to replace the battery, which is exactly what any manufacturer would have done. You think they’re going to put brass plumbing pieces from HD on their cars? Would you accept that as a repair?
There are a dozen threads on here where Dodge’s first action is to replace an entire motor instead of doing an R&R to repair one. This isn’t the same as stripping out the drain plug on your oil pan, this is like putting a hole in the block. Sure, you could have it patched, true’d in a machine shop, and reassembled… but then everyone would bitch that their block was repaired and not replaced.

My comment is that the Ford Mach E battery, is a POS by comparison, and more expensive. I haven’t seen any news articles on that posted here. You think Ford is going to tap new threads into their battery to save you $20k? OK…

His beef shouldn’t be with Tesla, it should be with his insurance company.

 

[Piening2150]

@Piening2150 - Tesla’s quote was to replace the battery, which is exactly what any manufacturer would have done. You think they’re going to put brass plumbing pieces from HD on their cars? Would you accept that as a repair?
There are a dozen threads on here where Dodge’s first action is to replace an entire motor instead of doing an R&R to repair one. This isn’t the same as stripping out the drain plug on your oil pan, this is like putting a hole in the block. Sure, you could have it patched, true’d in a machine shop, and reassembled… but then everyone would bitch that their block was repaired and not replaced.

My comment is that the Ford Mach E battery, is a POS by comparison, and more expensive. I haven’t seen any news articles on that posted here. You think Ford is going to tap new threads into their battery to save you $20k? OK…

His beef shouldn’t be with Tesla, it should be with his insurance company.

No I wouldn't expect Tesla to do that type of repair, and you're right, I would expect my insurance to handle that type of incident. I would, however, expect Tesla to design an exposed fluid coupling such as that to either be bolt on/replaceable or protect it better from common things like road debris. If we're comparing it to a HC engine, this situation would be more like replacing the engine because the water neck snapped off and was an integral part of the block for some reason.

Mach E batteries are at least modular so they don't have to replace the entire thing if one cell goes bad. On the other hand the modularity comes at a cost. The miles of interconnecting wires add weight and extra points of failure. Not a great design either.

 

[vortecd]

Thing is, as these cars age, the battery packs will take less & less of a charge and become more & more of a PITA to own.
Eventually you will face the decision of replace it at 1/2 the cost of a new car or just trade it in (to be scrapped & sold for parts).

Of course, no one has yet devised a plan for what to do with millions of these spent, dangerous & highly toxic battery packs

I thought they were good for the environment, no

 

[cole3986]

The whole topic is cometical, please remember, this is the future

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

No I wouldn't expect Tesla to do that type of repair, and you're right, I would expect my insurance to handle that type of incident. I would, however, expect Tesla to design an exposed fluid coupling such as that to either be bolt on/replaceable or protect it better from common things like road debris. If we're comparing it to a HC engine, this situation would be more like replacing the engine because the water neck snapped off and was an integral part of the block for some reason.

Mach E batteries are at least modular so they don't have to replace the entire thing if one cell goes bad. On the other hand the modularity comes at a cost. The miles of interconnecting wires add weight and extra points of failure. Not a great design either.

I guess at some point the coolant has to connect to the battery and that will be a point of failure that will ultimately lead to the battery needing replacement…
If it’s the water neck on the HC, imagine it’s attached to the timing cover and the timing cover is attached to the front of the block, and its all 1 piece… lol.

 

[Weather Man]

Surprised the shop accepted the liability risk fixing that battery. If the the repair fails and the battery goes up in flames along with the guys house, not good.

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

That’s all this guy does, so I assume he has some sort of waiver since he is doing these repairs against the wishes of the manufacturer.

 

[Magnified]

@Piening2150 - Tesla’s quote was to replace the battery, which is exactly what any manufacturer would have done. You think they’re going to put brass plumbing pieces from HD on their cars? Would you accept that as a repair?
There are a dozen threads on here where Dodge’s first action is to replace an entire motor instead of doing an R&R to repair one. This isn’t the same as stripping out the drain plug on your oil pan, this is like putting a hole in the block. Sure, you could have it patched, true’d in a machine shop, and reassembled… but then everyone would bitch that their block was repaired and not replaced.

My comment is that the Ford Mach E battery, is a POS by comparison, and more expensive. I haven’t seen any news articles on that posted here. You think Ford is going to tap new threads into their battery to save you $20k? OK…

His beef shouldn’t be with Tesla, it should be with his insurance company.

Instead of an oil change I swapped my motor every 3000 miles

 

[Magnified]

Surprised the shop accepted the liability risk fixing that battery. If the the repair fails and the battery goes up in flames along with the guys house, not good.

That shop specializes in EVs hence the name. Owner signed a waiver I'm sure. If they save him 16k what does he have to lose? They screw it up he can replace the whole battery. For a cost of 700 for a possible return of 16k, I'd consider it.

 

[Hickster]

That is ware your home owner's p0licy comes into contact with his auto insurance. I had a simiiar conflict of ware I had an accident in one of my vettes. Was it caused by the car or by an alliment I had that caused my blood sugar to drop. They went at each other and I stayed out of the way and paid my premuimus. They figured it out.

 

[Jack_Toepfer]

Instead of an oil change I swapped my motor every 3000 miles

That’s a bit much, I would have stretched that out to 5k, motors are synthetic these days.

 

[parttimer]

Instead of an oil change I swapped my motor every 3000 miles

Better than those that just trade the car in at oil change time!

 

[Magnified]

Better than those that just trade the car in at oil change time!

I'm not that wasteful....