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

41–50 of 564 posts

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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

samfisher83 wrote: post #9
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'…

Ultimately consumers will need to decide whether they want to put with this or go with a easier car to repair like a Toyota.

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by mindslight »

gamache wrote: post #21
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/

I'm not condemning it, just pointing out the current market value of Tesla repair knowledge!

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

#44

Post by belval »

mschild wrote: post #19
namdnay wrote: post #3

A bit of a stretch to classify this under right to repair.. if you rent a car from tesla, it’s going to be up to tesla to choose how it’s repaired. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they won’t accept a hack fix (however safe it may be) - that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk I would read this as a cautionary tale against renting your cars. If you can’t buy i…

Sure, except Tesla has a history of performing just as janky repairs on their cars themselves. Its even stated in the article.[0] Another question to consider is why the repair is 16k. Does is actually cost Tesla that much or do they just quote that much because they are realistically the only ones who can fix it so they can charge the price? Driving around with a shoddy fix on a combustion engine can be just as dang…

> Another question to consider is why the repair is 16k. Does is actually cost Tesla that much or do they just quote that much because they are realistically the only ones who can fix it so they can charge the price?

The quote is to replace the whole battery pack so I really doubt that they are making a profit on it since it's one of the actually expensive part of the car.

As GP pointed out this is hardly right to repair, if Tesla quoted a whole pack that means there aren't any official operating procedures to replace to fix that part without replacing it while you can 100% blame Tesla for that, right-to-repair is about making parts available to do official repair, it's not about letting you figure out clever fixes on your car.

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

#45

Post by throwaway0a5e »

turtlebits wrote: post #27

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.

Replacing a broken hose barb by threading the part and inserting a threaded hose barb is pretty standard in any trade where you repair stuff. Plastic is just so easy to form you'd be stupid not to.

There's really no downsides if you're competent enough to install a pipe threaded object without it leaking (a low bar). Worst case it was already in need of replacement. Best case if it breaks again the next guy only has to replace the hose barb fitting.

Special fittings, formed nylon hoses, etc. etc. change the calculation somewhat but not that much.

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

#48

Post by Johnny555 »

I don't think this is a right to repair issue, seems more like a liability issue.

If Tesla fixes the battery pack and the fix fails, making the battery pack fail (or worse, catch on fire), they are on the hook to repair or replace your car.

If the independent shop makes a bad repair and it fails, then Tesla will say "That part was unrepairable, you shouldn't have tried to fix it".

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

#49

Post by [deleted] »

mschild wrote: post #19
namdnay wrote: post #3

A bit of a stretch to classify this under right to repair.. if you rent a car from tesla, it’s going to be up to tesla to choose how it’s repaired. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable that they won’t accept a hack fix (however safe it may be) - that car is going to be sold to someone once the lease expires, they just can’t take the risk I would read this as a cautionary tale against renting your cars. If you can’t buy i…

Sure, except Tesla has a history of performing just as janky repairs on their cars themselves. Its even stated in the article.[0] Another question to consider is why the repair is 16k. Does is actually cost Tesla that much or do they just quote that much because they are realistically the only ones who can fix it so they can charge the price? Driving around with a shoddy fix on a combustion engine can be just as dang…

[deleted]

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

#50

Post by smnrchrds »

raz32dust wrote: post #20

When a company like Apple says that only their app store can run on iPhones, HN crowd usually sides with Apple, with the justification that "It is a free market. People can buy another phone if they don't like it." Why doesn't the same principle apply here? If your car company does not offer the right to repair, then buy another car. What is the difference? Both are instances of big companies gating access to their d…

In my view, the real reason is that many HNers work for Apple, but not that many HNers work for Tesla.
Post reply on HN