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

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

#431

Post by nwallin »

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…

Is Tesla demanding that they actually fix it their way?

From the article it reads as if he took it to the dealer to get it repaired, they quoted him $16k, so he took it somewhere else. I could be wrong though.

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

#432

Post by bserge »

kube-system wrote: post #248
coupdejarnac wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you on about with the galvanic corrosion? The brass part is joining two plastic parts!

My mistake, I meant the opposite: electrolytic corrosion. There are potential (non-electrical) chemical variables too. The chemistry involved is complicated and I can’t claim to fully understand it. Even big automakers sometimes get it wrong from the factory.

It's more likely they used plastic simply because they could mould the whole thing.

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

#433

Post by KirillPanov »

ademup wrote: post #247
xtracto wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah Insurance strikes again. Insurance is a scam that somehow as a society we have allowed to normalize in our society. The Insurance system just doesn't make sense, that's why we see so many problems with car, health, death and other types of insurance. The problem lies in that both parties have misaligned and often oposite objectives: The Insurer's main goal is to maximize their profit , and the levers it has is t…

I couldn't agree more. Anecdote: I have been waiting for 2 weeks for insurance to "approve" an angiogram + interventiin that two cardiologists agree that I need immediately. I am a single 43yo male on a $1,000\mo insurance plan.("reduced" to "only" $550\mo by coverer california). If I ever manage to get powerful and\or wealthy, I will task myself with fighting the scourge that is the insurance cabals tooth and nail.

The sad part is that when you become wealthy, you realize that you can just ignore the whole insurance scam [*] and not buy it. Insurance has negative expected value. It only makes sense to insure against events that would materially change your lifestyle. At a certain degree of wealth, your house burning down no longer has that effect, nor does just about anything other than lawsuits or medical problems. Even health insurance typically has lifetime maximums in the single-digit millions.

So don't look to the wealthy to fix this one. They don't have this problem.

[*] except health insurance [**] and vehicular liability insurance where required by law in places that do not allow posting a cash bond instead (almost every state in the US does).

[**] unless you're wealthy enough to make large donations to hospitals, which is much better than having health insurance.

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

#434

Post by greggman3 »

I had this type of issue with a Macbook Pro. The rubber/plastic foot came off the bottom. Asked at the Genius Bar how much to replace it. It looks like a part that should cost $0.02 and expected an "Apple" markup of say $5. They wanted $350. Said they had to replace the entire bottom of the computer to put on a new rubber foot.

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

#435

Post by dragonwriter »

KirillPanov wrote: post #433
ademup wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. Anecdote: I have been waiting for 2 weeks for insurance to "approve" an angiogram + interventiin that two cardiologists agree that I need immediately. I am a single 43yo male on a $1,000\mo insurance plan.("reduced" to "only" $550\mo by coverer california). If I ever manage to get powerful and\or wealthy, I will task myself with fighting the scourge that is the insurance cabals tooth and nail.

The sad part is that when you become wealthy, you realize that you can just ignore the whole insurance scam [*] and not buy it. Insurance has negative expected value. It only makes sense to insure against events that would materially change your lifestyle. At a certain degree of wealth, your house burning down no longer has that effect, nor does just about anything other than lawsuits or medical problems. Even health…

> Even health insurance typically has lifetime maximums

The ACA, in the US, prohibited lifetime and annual maximums except those that apply only to services not defined as essential health benefits, with the exception of pre-existing grandfathered-in individual (not group) plans.

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

#436

Post by asdff »

ineedasername wrote: post #376
kumarvvr wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the pearl clutching part. Unless Tesla can state exactly how this fix is inferior to it's original design. Putting a brass nipple in a plastic pipe is a tried and tested process. The stated pressure is 2 psi, or max 5 psi during testing. 5 psi is about 3.5 meters of water column. So the pressure is equivalent to what you get in your home. The piping is essentially house plumbing level stuff.

They should also have to state how much the repair would cost if done at the factory where they can actually service the battery pack. Imagine if other cars were like that: "Sorry, we're not able to service engines so instead of replacing your timing belt for $400 you have to buy a new engine for $6000"

Ahh the apple model. I'm not sure they even have a screwdriver in the back of an apple store any more.

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

#437

Post by a1369209993 »

londons_explore wrote: post #422
kumarvvr wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could use a booster pump + accumulator system to get constant pressure. Pretty cheap and easy to install. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Water-Booster-Pump/s?k=Water+Booste...

Got one. It's super noisy, the sound vibrates through all the pipes in the house, and sometimes the water can't even get as high as the inlet to the pump. It would just be better if the utility company supplied a decent pressure. But they don't want to do that because their pipes have thousands of leaks in, and the higher the pressure the more water leaks out. This is the problem of living in a place where most of th…

> It's super noisy, the sound vibrates through all the pipes in the house, and sometimes the water can't even get as high as the inlet to the pump.

FWIW, the first bit means the pump is defective/badly designed and you need to get a better one (don't have any actionable advice on where, unfortunately), and the second should be fixable by putting the accumulator tank in the basement/hole in the ground, although YMMV on practicality.

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

#438

Post by asdff »

mekal wrote: post #213
mulmen wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The asset isn’t always worth more. If you don’t believe me ask GM and Chrysler. Further, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if the manufacturer makes or loses money. I only care about maximizing utility per dollar.

Do you only drive like once a month or something? If you drive every other day or so then buying is the way to go...otherwise I agree, renting is probably going to be a better deal than owning a depreciating asset that you rarely use.

Not all cars are set to depreciate. If you buy something more rare or in demand you will probably see it worth about the same when you sell, sometimes decades down the line. If you bought an aircooled 911 or some old land cruiser today, it would probably be worth even more in 15 years even with your mileage.

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

#439

Post by asdff »

quickthrowman wrote: post #193
throwawayboise wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying 10 year old cars that are nearly fully depreciated is where you save big money. You can get a dependable car for a few thousand dollars, and even if it needs more repairs than a new car you still come out money ahead especially if you can do small repairs yourself.

> Buying 10 year old cars that are nearly fully depreciated is where you save big money. Not in my experience. You either pay in depreciation or in maintenance, there is no escaping car expenses. A 10 year depreciated car may need a timing belt/water pump, possible head gasket issues, possible transmission issues, etc.

I've seen plenty of freak issues with new cars that turn them into a similar pit, and not all of it under warranty or recall. The trick is to find a used car that just had some of this work done and from models that aren't plagued with these issues typically, and if the cars are 10 years old or so people start learning which of these models are the lemons and which will happily go 300k miles with not much drama.

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

#440

Post by mijamo »

codeddesign wrote: post #319
crmrc114 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate, your talking about a brass nipple being threaded into a broken plastic part to replace a plastic reducer that was [probably] poorly ultrasonic welded in place. What I see in the article is a common sense repair. Anyone who turns a wrench is laughing at the Tesla fanboy pearl clutching over this. Not an attack on your post btw, just a general statement that every Tesla owner comes out of the cracks in these post…

This is a leased vehicle, meaning that “right to repair” is not associated at all unless you wish to break the lease agreement and owe BIG $$$. All leases are essentially like initial warranties. The dealer has to fix or your warranty goes invalid. This is a mute argument.

That is your opinion. Another way to see things is that if you have to pay for repairs you should be able to choose whatever method suits you. If Tesla wants to restrict repairs they can include all repairs in the leasing price.

I would add that leasing is actually considered a temporary transfer of property in many legal systems.

Just like if you rent a flat the owner cannot tell you to use only a certain company to paint it or do some repairs (expect of course the ones that are paid by the owner)

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