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Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

roadandtrack.com

191–200 of 209 posts

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an "Apple" market for the first company that designs a simple microwave oven. The user interface on most of those things is atrocious. A beautiful oven with two dials would kill on the market. (maybe there is one, but I couldn't find one browsing on appliance stores)

>A beautiful oven with two dials would kill on the market. And it did, in the 1970s https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/1971rr4....

I bought something that looked like this (maybe not this exact model but certainly same family) in early 2000s: https://www.bedienungsanleitungonline.de/bildern/product_521...

Still running as my only microwave although I don't use it for much, other than warming the occasional cup of water for a tea.

Last Christmas I rented a cabin for vacation. The MW had more buttons than my TV remote control. Icons and button placement were completely not intuitive. I am convinced that this is done just because more buttons suggests more functions and more advanced product. Everyone else is doing it so they all slap them on to compete. You get 4 buttons and an LCD to do what a rotary dial did.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which....you absolutely can. Maybe not by yourself, but a phone shop down the road will swap any battery in any phone for like ~£30. It's really not an issue at all. Most people just don't want to and the end of battery life usually concides with people feeling like they want something new and fresh, so it's a very convenient excuse to justify getting a new phone - while replacing the battery wouldn't be an issue in…

Sure, but the quality of the battery that the shop down the road will install is questionable and often below the OEM originall since the manufacturer has no incentive to sell their OEM parts outside of their service network. YMMV but I replaced the battery on my Samsung Note with two off eBay and in both cases the life was similar to the original that already had 2 years worth of wear.

"YMMV but I replaced the battery on my Samsung Note with two off eBay and in both cases the life was similar to the original that already had 2 years worth of wear."

I see you forgot to clear the old battery information from your phone before installing the new one - the phone is still assuming you've got the old battery in and measuring as such. batterystats.bin (Android) needs to be cleared before installing a new battery, so that it is forced to get fresh information on the installed battery.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an "Apple" market for the first company that designs a simple microwave oven. The user interface on most of those things is atrocious. A beautiful oven with two dials would kill on the market. (maybe there is one, but I couldn't find one browsing on appliance stores)

ACK. happy with this one since 2013: https://ellis.fyi/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Samsung-Microwa...

Nice! That's the kind of thing I was looking for.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#194
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have a perception that third party parts are inferior. Maybe Toyota limits access to some OEM parts by others for whatever reason.

Here in the UK I have bought several OEM parts from Toyota service centres by walking in off the street. Some service centres (not my local one) even sell surplus inventory on ebay. My impression is that they do not limit distribution: if you have the part code they will sell it to you (for an exorbitant price).

Even though I brought up limiting distribution, whether or not they limit distribution has absolutely no bearing on people’s decisions if those people have the perception that distribution might be limited to dealers. Perception is all it takes.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is you can get almost anything on the Internet. I've found so many weird parts from shady eBay sellers that worked perfectly in the end. Other times I've had to order a similar part off of Mouser and hack it to make it fit, with varying levels of success.

This is less of an option when hardware makers fuse everything in to a single board so when one thing breaks you need a new main board which costs as much as the whole device. I have had a surprising amount of luck with some items though. Managed to replace the shoulder buttons on my 3ds by finding a replica of the button + ribbon cable + connector used.

Funny you should mention this. I just bought a microUSB connector off of eBay to attempt to fix my kids Kindle Fire. It's a $2.50 part but replacing it is a roll of the dice with my skill level.

On the other hand, it's a $60 tablet so it's not like I can bring it to someone to have it fixed professionally and not end up paying more than it would cost to just buy a new one. I figure I can't break it any worse than it already is (impossible to charge, impossible to use), so it's a gamble that I'll be able to fix it cheaply.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#196

My wife has a 2020 Toyota Corolla. Less than 3 months old and it’s got a bad crack in the windshield. Toyota says a replacement is 6 months out and there are 800 on backorder in North America right now. So, it’s not just Tesla. Can happen to any manufacturer.

Can’t you just go to one of the dozens of windshield replacement businesses in your area? You drive it there and they plop in a new windshield for very reasonable rates. They will often even come to you to fix it.

Not if you want it replaced under warranty for free.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#197

My wife has a 2020 Toyota Corolla. Less than 3 months old and it’s got a bad crack in the windshield. Toyota says a replacement is 6 months out and there are 800 on backorder in North America right now. So, it’s not just Tesla. Can happen to any manufacturer.

I'm surprised to see Toyota doing this again. I bought a 2010 Camry for my wife and the dashboard started melting into a shiny puddle of sticky mess within a year. It took 18 months to get the replacement because of the same sort of backorder. This was a few years after the whole "stuck accelerator pedal" hoopla relating to floormats. I resolved to never buy a Toyota vehicle again after that.

I wonder what happened to their whole Kaizen philosophy?

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of would-be buyers won't purchase until the supply lines and insane repair wait times are fixed. Source: I am one, as are many of my friends in Seattle.

Yup, me too. I was almost about to pull the trigger when a buddy of mine with a Model S told me that his car broke down and he had to wait for parts. He was just into his second month of waiting. After hearing that I took to the internet and read up on it and it seems legit. I can't have that so bought a traditional car with an infernal combustion engine. Last one I hope.

I hear Porsche has a pretty nice EV in the works.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#199

My wife has a 2020 Toyota Corolla. Less than 3 months old and it’s got a bad crack in the windshield. Toyota says a replacement is 6 months out and there are 800 on backorder in North America right now. So, it’s not just Tesla. Can happen to any manufacturer.

Can’t you just go to one of the dozens of windshield replacement businesses in your area? You drive it there and they plop in a new windshield for very reasonable rates. They will often even come to you to fix it.

Which sounds great until you realize the windshield you need requires automatic rain sensors, or has an antenna built in, and none of the cheap Chinese replacements are equitable drop-in swaps. Also, those "very reasonable rates" end up translating to shit-poor work in many cases. Anecdotally I've been through 3 windshields at one of these places. Each time it was improperly sealed, leading to water incursion damage. Eventually I did the right thing and went to a dealer who actually knows what they're doing. The cheap place ended up being the most expensive route I could have possibly taken. Maybe those trained monkeys can ham-fistedly install an older Ford F-series pickup truck's windshield and it's fine, but for modern cars I won't take chances anymore.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#200
post #169
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very similar looking car, even down to the T E S L A matching the L O T U S. I wouldn't be surprised if the 'new' parts had conspicuously similar mounting points.

It does look similar, but the article says every body panel is different.

Tesla had to fettle very similar modified components and panels to make it all work is my understanding
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