Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 564 posts

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#21

Post by gamache »

mindslight wrote: post #2

Oof, that's not even a $700 repair. What's pictured looks more like a $200 repair. The rest is straight profit for Electrified Garage, for having Tesla knowledge at this point in time. Personally, I would have used a plastic fitting so that if it were to get hit again, the fitting would take the damage instead of the part that has been threaded into. The driving force being this story seems to be that the owner didn'…

Electrified Garage were the ones who knew where to hit it with a hammer -- seems like a fair deal to me!

https://www.buzzmaven.com/old-engineer-hammer-2/

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#22

Post by namelessoracle »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #15
1123581321 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn’t have comprehensive at all. Comprehensive is cheap with a deductible of a few hundred. People don’t forgo it unless they’re driving a junker. Reading the comments on the article, it sounds like the lack of comprehensive might have been a mistake during transferring policies between cars. If so, that’s a brutal consequence of an easy misclick or misstatement without a double check.

if you finance a car, is comprehensive required?

Usually full coverage is required for buying a car with a loan. Under the idea that the bank wants their asset protected. Lease rules may be different and may be more exploitative.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#23

Post by spoonjim »

The article says that the vehicle is leased. That means that the lessor might be in for a rude surprise when he turns in the car at the end of the lease... Tesla will see the untested third-party repair and assess him for the cost of reversing this repair and for fixing the problem their way.

Right to repair makes sense, but only for products you own.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#25

Post by nickthegreek »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #15
1123581321 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn’t have comprehensive at all. Comprehensive is cheap with a deductible of a few hundred. People don’t forgo it unless they’re driving a junker. Reading the comments on the article, it sounds like the lack of comprehensive might have been a mistake during transferring policies between cars. If so, that’s a brutal consequence of an easy misclick or misstatement without a double check.

if you finance a car, is comprehensive required?

Yep.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#27

Post by turtlebits »

Considering that a 3rd party was able to repair it, I'm not sure why this is classified as "right to repair".

That said, while 16k is outrageous (and the part is not well designed), no dealer/manufacturer would repair a car by cutting off a broken part, adding threads both ends and joining them together.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#28

Post by cptskippy »

ademup wrote: post #5

I heartily agree with the premise, and there's this compounding problem: "To make matters worse, the owner's insurance policy didn't cover comprehensive claims from road debris..." So when you combine these two issues, you end up with an unwritten, mob-boss-esque command of something like "Buy the most expensive insurance for all of your expensive widgets so that you can (maybe) be covered in the event that something…

In this case, the guy leasing the car was required to have comprehensive coverage on the car and didn't. Tesla failed to verify this fact when they turned the car over to him. Ultimately it's the guy's responsibility to insure the car properly and he didn't so he was on the hook for the cost of the repair regardless of what it cost.

Re: Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters

#30

Post by brigade »

1123581321 wrote: post #10
ademup wrote: post #5

I heartily agree with the premise, and there's this compounding problem: "To make matters worse, the owner's insurance policy didn't cover comprehensive claims from road debris..." So when you combine these two issues, you end up with an unwritten, mob-boss-esque command of something like "Buy the most expensive insurance for all of your expensive widgets so that you can (maybe) be covered in the event that something…

He didn’t have comprehensive at all. Comprehensive is cheap with a deductible of a few hundred. People don’t forgo it unless they’re driving a junker. Reading the comments on the article, it sounds like the lack of comprehensive might have been a mistake during transferring policies between cars. If so, that’s a brutal consequence of an easy misclick or misstatement without a double check.

The first half is strictly true though - comprehensive doesn’t cover road debris; you have to file under collision and unlike comprehensive the premiums are more expensive and claims are solely your fault for the damage, increasing them further.

Leases still near universally require collision coverage though, because they want damage fixed.

Post reply on HN