Owning a Model S out of warranty

Owning a Model S out of warranty

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Discussion

essayer

Original Poster:

9,011 posts

193 months

Sunday 21st April 2019
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Idle musing (...I drove a Model S today and it was immensely fun and now I need one)

How are things shaping up now the earlier cars are out of non-drivetrain warranty? Assuming anything massively scary is covered by the 8-year battery warranty, but what about everything else? Is there any semblance of independent repairers yet? Is much DIYable that usually goes wrong? Do they still get OTA software updates once warranty ends?

Any experiences? Even with man maths they don’t make any financial sense, but I still want one

gangzoom

6,254 posts

214 months

Sunday 21st April 2019
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Battery and motor will be covered till 2022 at the earliest (8 years from purchase date).

Door handle and Media Control Unit are the main costs to factory in, also occasional air-suspension repairs.

Overall though these cars seem to last well, the website has a link to the running/repair costs of S/Xs which have covered some crazy miles, 400K+. The main costs at 400K miles seem to be tyres.

I would be less worried about owning one compared to say a V10 M5/Triple turbo diesels, but clearly not going to be a Toyota Prius either.

We plan to keep our X till we no longer need it for family duties - given our daughter is 3 that's potentially a long time. I'm quite comfortable skipping on the rather pricey Allianz extended warranty.

https://www.tesloop.com/blog/2019/2/6/tesloops-hig...

Edited by gangzoom on Sunday 21st April 18:45

Witchfinder

6,250 posts

251 months

Monday 22nd April 2019
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/24/cars/consumer-repor...

"Below average" reliability. I expect you'll have to go to Tesla to get anything that does go wrong fixed.

Heres Johnny

7,177 posts

123 months

Monday 22nd April 2019
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They’re unreliable in the sense lots of stupid stuff, door handles (a competent diy fix is about £25, a good Indy might want £100 and I think even Tesla have a repair kit and no longer want £600 for a replacement unit). The screen can get a yellow border but still works and Tesla Di t yethave a solution. 12v battery might need replacing but no different to any car in terms of price. Suspension is only a worry because it’s a heavy car but I’ve not heard of any significant issues with the air suspension for some time (but air suspension can always be a costly issue). Door cards can pop off needing new cheap fixings, seats can squeak.. trivial stuff but when under warranty it counts towards unreliability

There are garages outside Tesla who can do most stuff and goods are well worth finding.

I think the only big one at the moment is the heaters are failing at an alarming rate. It seems to be the later cars more than early ones, and the MX more than the MS, but none are immune. I suspect it’s also linked to a software change causing them to maybe over heat but that speculation on the basis it just started happening this winter. If one goes I think it’s £1k territory.


essayer

Original Poster:

9,011 posts

193 months

Monday 22nd April 2019
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Thanks all. Food for thought.

It’s certainly a different approach to motoring, I loved all the little smart touches, like air con coming on as you unlock, the frunk, or the simplicity of the satnav, and the feeling of being smacked in the chest with a sledgehammer whenever I accelerated

A bit lacking in interior storage maybe my only criticism

Edited by essayer on Monday 22 April 18:07

essayer

Original Poster:

9,011 posts

193 months

Monday 22nd April 2019
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£50k for a 2016 P85D? Hmmmmmm

joropug

2,547 posts

188 months

Monday 22nd April 2019
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Whilst they were clearly fanboys, I hired one as an airport car for us. P90d. They spoke very highly of them.

Yes they have insane acceleration, didn't rate the interior personally.

They had an early one on 700k apparently - allegedly the highest mileage recorded. All that had gone wrong was some interior bits and suspension parts. Apparently the brakes last hundreds of thousands of motorway miles .

They had a number of Tesla's all on high mileage , seems like a safe bet .

A local company in Bournemouth is a specialist and I know the owner and staff are happy to give advice. R Symons Ltd

ntiz

2,328 posts

135 months

Tuesday 23rd April 2019
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As has been said chances of something major falling off is pretty small. It’s mostly small annoying stuff that goes wrong.

The only warning I would have is if something larger falls off the prices are pretty frightening. I know not a reliability issue but I had a small accident in mine needed a new headlight, bumper, small radiator and fan plus clips etc the bill was 9,500 most of that was the parts.

Fortunately stuff doesn’t seem to fail but both of mine are out of warranty now if reliability continues how it has I might be shifting on sooner rather than later.