Replacing my Model S

[jeffrey.miller]

My current blue Model S has survived more than 18,000 miles in my hands so far.  Together the blue car and I have ventured farther from home than I thought we would in my first year of EV driving.  When I bought it I was only putting about 5000 miles a year on my red Saabaru, it was fun to drive, but not for long distances, and certainly not with a pair of teenagers in the back seat.  I thought the Model S would take the same leisurely pace to consuming miles so I was fine buying a car with 73,000 miles on it when I picked it up.  Fast forward a year and 18,000 miles (bringing the ODO over 91,000) and the realization that it is now the preferred mode of transit for long trips has fully sunk in.  The blue car has full warranty only until July or 100k miles, so it is getting to the point to replace it or risk bearing the full cost of future broken stuff.  The blue car does have battery and drive unit coverage until 2020. 

With that in mind I am attempting to buy a Pearl White Model S.  It is a P85+ just like my blue car and has all the same features, but also adds the cold weather package.  It has dual chargers (that is a requirement for me!)  It is coming from Tesla themselves out of their used program with their CPO warranty.  I just placed the order online tonight, and there are many more details to sort through.  Some of the process is annoying, and I haven't even gotten the car yet.    I will be updating this thread a bit, and will probably do a presentation once I have completed the process. 

Unlike last time, I am buying a car that will support 25,000 miles per year without going out of warranty due to miles.  My plan is to replace this car in 2021 unless the ease and cost of supporting Tesla's beyond the Tesla shops has improved drastically. 

My blue car is going to be traded in.  I haven't tried to sell it but if someone is interested in a high mileage Tesla with a few months of CPO warranty left let me know. 


In other news I might also be replacing the Outlander PHEV with a Chevy Bolt, but we will see how that goes. 

[ted.lowe]

WOW! i'm no longer surprised that you never cease to amaze me Jeff! 

So... the warranty issue is especially important on Tesla's because they have so much unique technology and not many places to repair them?

[jeffrey.miller]

Advanced technology isn't cheap to fix.  I think it will get better over time, but we aren't there yet. 

[mike.padberg]

So over the course of the last year, how much maintenance did the Model S require? Did you ever have to take it to Tesla for repair?

[jeffrey.miller]

It required stuff.

From my notes:
My first annual service $475 July 17th 2018 2PM  78,000 miles
Also submitted for rear half shaft noise, front ball joint noise, frunk (hood) showing open while driving (this is quite annoying)

They greased the rear spline to hub interface on both sides. 
Replaced a control arm on one side and a ball joint on the other.
Under the CPO warranty in 2018 I was provided a rental car during this work, which took about a week. 

September 21st 2018
Tesla replaced frunk latch due to it thinking it is open the day after rain driving or power washing (wasn't resolved on first visit)
This and the B Pillar cover were done at my house (since I live in the sticks)

Also fixed under warranty the upper B pillar cover due to the Alcantara fabric bubbling up. 


Replaced before I received the car, 12V battery and a tail light unit for persistent water. 

If I were keeping it I would bring it in for maintenance about now and let them resolve anything that is wrong with it before the CPO goes out.  ( I don't know of anything wrong but they seem to find things normally)



Generally speaking the older Model S eats front end parts and the splines to the rear hubs require routine looking after so they don't wear each other out. 

The splines appear to be due to the nature of high power regen.  Only a few cars in the world can regen at these rates, and none of those can slam straight from 300kw to -60kw through the shafts.  Shaft manufactures have never had to design for that before, most splines only ever deliver significant torque in one direction so they don't usually wear at all.  The torque, and then counter torque seems to cause issues for them, so Tesla has taken to greasing them routinely, otherwise they will actually wear out and require replacement.  There are a few people on the forums who have had to pay that replacement cost out of pocket post warranty. 

Front end wears out because the cornering loads on this heavy sedan with high performance tires stresses the suspension parts more than they can handle for long periods of time.  These issues have been addressed over the years with the newer revisions of the S, but my older car has parts bin parts off of other vehicles to make the timeline possible.  This isn't uncommon, most manufacturers will reuse a part from a supplier even though it fits a competitors car, but the older cars are all that for the piece parts. 


My cars seem to have hit a sweet spot for the screen of the center unit to not have issues, so I have avoided that so far. 

From what I have read wheel bearings aren't uncommon either, and the DC to DC converter is packaged with the AC control circuitry so if one goes you replace the whole expensive bit, which seems to happen often enough.  Cooling fans up front go out somewhat more often than you would expect too. 

[michael.willuweit]

This looks tempting.

https://www.tesla.com/used/5YJSA1E42FF111523

[jeffrey.miller]

I can see me buying something similar to that in a couple of years!  Except that one only has a single charger so 10kw limit.  Based on my experience quite a few of the Tesla destination chargers are 80 amps.  It makes a lunch/dinner AC charging stop worthwhile as I can replace over 25% of my capacity in an hour, especially if I am tooling around an area on vacation.  My car usage may be different than most people.  I don't have statistics, but my average trip must be pretty long compared to normal.  A typical Saturday has me driving over 200 miles and it isn't unusual for the car to not move Tuesday through Thursday. 

Since I want the high power charger and they don't list it on their site anymore I use the "Option Code Lookup" on https://ev-cpo.com  This allows you to figure out the details of the options on any car offered over the last four years (even if it isn't currently for sale). 



On that one we can see:
Accessories
FG02 Exterior Lighting Package
LP01 Premium Interior Lighting
ME02 Memory Seats
PA00 No Paint Armor
PI01 Premium Upgrades Package
PS01 Parcel Shelf
TP03 Power and Lighting Package
X001 Override: Power Liftgate
X007 Daytime running lights
X019 Carbon Fiber Spoiler
X037 Powerfolding Mirrors

Audio
AU01 Ultra High Fidelity Sound

Autopilot
DA02 Autopilot Convenience Features

Brakes
BC0R Tesla Red Brake Calipers

Charging
CDM0 No CHAdeMO Charging Adaptor
CH00 Single Charger
FUSC Free Unlimited Supercharging
HP00 No Wall Connector
SC01 Free Supercharging

Color
PMNG Mdnght Silv Mtlic

Decor
IDCF Carbon Fiber

Drive
DV4W All-Wheel Drive

Filter
AF00 Standard Filter

Firmware
BR01 Range Upgrade (90kWh)

Interior Options
DSH7 Black Alcantara Dashboard Accents
IX01 Extended Nappa Leather Trim
SR01 Standard 2nd row
TR00 No Third Row Seat
UTAB Black Alcantara Headliner
X027 Lighted Door Handles
YF00 No Yacht Floor

Interior+Seats
QNEG Grey NextGen

Model
BS00 NOBULL00
DCF0 DCF0
DRLH Left Hand Drive
MDLS Model S
MI00 Classic Nosecone

Performance
BP01 Ludicrous Speed Upgrade
PF01 Performance Legacy Package
PX00 No Performance Plus Package
PX4D 90 kWh Performance
X024 Performance Package

Region
RENA Region : North America

Roof
RFP2 All Glass Panoramic Roof v2

Suspension
SU00 Standard Suspension

Technology
PK00 LEGACY No Parking Sensors
SP00 No Security Package
X003 Maps & Navigation
X011 Override: Homelink
X013 Override: Satellite Radio
X031 Keyless Entry
X040 No DAB Radio

Trim
TM00 General Production Trim
X028 Battery Badge

Weather
CW02 Subzero+Heated Steering Wheel

Wheels+Tires
WTTB 19-Cyclone
WTX1 19-Michelin Primacy

Option codes supplied by
EV-CPO.com

[jeffrey.miller]

Long term strategy (assuming I continue buying used Model S) is to move to a car with a 100kwh battery delivered to the original customer before free super charging ended (early 2017). 

The rumor mill is that the 90kwh battery degrades more than the other batteries.  My understanding is that these cells packed more silicon in them, however since high Silicon ratio cells expand a fair bit more during charging that more traditional chemistry it might break the cell down faster.   I am not saying the 90kwh packs are bad, but if I have the chance to move to 100kwh pack I absolutely will. 

There is also the matter of real capacity, my 85 isn't really an 85, and the usable is about 77, real new capacity is about 81.  On the 100 and 75 models their labeled ratings much more closely align with actual capacity.  This is why the 75 is very close in range to the 85.  The 90 is really an 85 where the 100 is quite close to 100.  So even though you are going from a "90" to a "100" the real gain is more than 10kwh.  Beyond that the charging rates at Super Chargers with the 100 is very good, where the 90 has it's challenges.  I won't bore you with the details, but a 90 is faster than an 85, but not by much, a 100 though is noticeably faster.  The Model 3 is presently the king of SuperCharging though and will likely be that way for a while to come. 

In summary, way back in 2012 if they would have offered a 40, 60 and 80 it would have been much more realistic about the actual capacity in the packs.  The upgrade that was called 90 would then have been more accurately called an 85 and things would have made more sense in ratings versus actual. 

Data gathered from:
https://skie.net/skynet/projects/tesla/view_post/18_Tesla,+please+stop+making+up+specifications...
and others

[jeffrey.miller]

Chevy Bolt inbound!

As Jessica has spent over a year driving the Outlander PHEV she has grown rather tired of messing around with the gas station, especially since she has to do it just often enough to be annoying with the Outlander PHEV.  She likes the electric mode and dislikes the gas mode and it's sluggish response.  She doesn't like sedans, and doesn't like driving the Model S and doesn't even like the idea of driving a SEDAN like the Model 3. 

As I have been working on the Model S replacement plan it became obvious that Tesla wasn't going to give me what I wanted on the trade for my car.  They were so low that even with the sales tax break I would still easily come out ahead to go elsewhere.  I decided one of my first calls should be Current Automotive.  They offered me a fair price to buy my car from me so I went ahead with the transaction for procuring the white P85+.  At some point I was browsing their website and noticed they had a Red Bolt for a reasonable price listed.  So I started warming my wife up to the idea of a Bolt.  Saturday (as that snow storm was rolling in) we went and drove a new one.  She decided it was close enough to an SUV that it would work for her.  Chevy has some incentives on and the price on the internet looked intriguingly close to the used one that is a 2017 model, but the new car that was advertised on the internet wasn't actually available to purchase (shocking!) and Jessica didn't like the newer car anyway because it had a large plastic box on the windshield, where the old one does not.

I contacted Joe D at Current Automotive to see what the story was on their Bolt.  (He was also kind enough to give me a quote on buying my Outlander in case Tesla wants to try to take me to the cleaners on it too)  It has the J1772-CCS port which was my first concern.  It also didn't enter service until July 28th of 2018, even though it is a 2017 model.   So I am trading my Model S in on a Bolt at Current Automotive tomorrow.  I have put the stock 21" wheels back on my car and removed my various things from the massive Frunk.

The motivation of doing the Bolt now is that I need to unload the Tesla and they are utterly inflexible on Tesla values they take on trade but by trading a quite new Mitsubishi I should be able to get a fair offer from them.  The thing about selling my Tesla outright is that I would lose the sales tax advantage of trading it.  So doing this now makes it $1700 cheaper to transition Jessica to a Bolt.  If I would have done this all last month new vs. used might have gone differently as the EV tax credit for GM was still the full 7500, where now it is only 3750. 

Tomorrow I will be picking up the Bolt at Current Automotive!

Update on the Tesla, they gave me a bad offer on my trade, a bad interest rate on the White car, and have been generally slow to respond.  I was joking today that buying a CPO Tesla is sort of like buying a car from Comcast, you will probably get your car, but it might be a long road and it may not be as good as they led you to believe. 

Update on long term strategy, in a couple of years my son will turn 16 and the plan is that he will drive the Bolt, and Jessica will get a replacement (Model Y / X / ?).  I will be ready to swap cars in two years time so I will likely be shopping for two cars again.  I can't say I planned that, but it looks like a good plan.   

[ben.schmid]

I really enjoy reading the links in the newsletter, Jeff.
I would like to share a winter electric vehicle adventure with forum readers.  We got a Groupon for the Wisconsin Northern Train adventure in Trego WI.  When I booked it I chose the last week of February, hoping that spring would be around the corner by then.  Also, it is a 430 mile trip from Munster, IN.  We found out that spring is not late February in northern Wisconsin.  I planned charging stops along the way in our 2017 Bolt.  The first stop was to be a new Electrify America site in Rockford;  it said it was open when I checked online before leaving.  When we got there at 6 AM in the bitter cold it would not work!!!  We were on the phone for an hour, unplugging the heavy cables and plugging them back in, to no  avail.  So we had to go to a level 2 site at a restaurant for breakfast, 2 hours.  That took us to Madison, where there was a nice level 3 Chargepoint for an adequate charge .  The next stop was in Tomah, where another nice level 3 station at a restaurant (Ground Round) gave us 180 miles of range.  It was 160 miles to the Train station in Trego, so I drafted behind trucks and we limped to our destination with the mileage indicator in the orange, with 20 miles left!!! (we had never gotten that low before).  Anyway, we made it, and plugged in to their level 1 outlet at the 8 amp rate (I had called them and they said they would allow plugging in there)  The train trip was overnight, and I expected that we would have lots of charge overnight.  We were met with a blizzard and arctic cold snap the next morning, and had only 60 miles of range!!!!, not enough to get to my next planned charging stop.  The roads were not too well plowed.  So we decided to stay overnight in Spooner at a Bes Western that had a dedicated level 1 outlet that we could pull 12 amps from overnight.  It was the weekend of the Birkebiner ski race, and we enjoyed talking to visitors to that event.  The next day at least the roads were slowly being cleared, but there was a frigid northwest wind, and the temp was nosediving to 15 degrees.  But we had 100 miles of range in the morning, enough to get us to Altoona at a Woodmans store that had a nice level 2 charger while we shopped for some Spotted Cow beer, among other things.  On the way home it was getting colder all the time, so at times we were hesitant to use our heating, wo we cracked the windows a little to prevent fogging up the windows!!  We used the same level 3 chagers on the way back.  In Madison we had an interesting meeting with a Tesla driver at the level 3 charging station.  We were aslmost done with our charge as he pulled up and he said he had 0 miles left.  He had been bucking the 50 MPH headwind from Milwaukee to Madison.  He said he knew there was a Tesla supercharger in the vicinity but he saw this charger and decided to try it.  He obviously was not prepared to use a non Tesla charger.  He asked how payment was handled;  I said I would use my Chargepoint card.  Then when he went to plug in he did not have the correct adapter  for the CCS-Combo plug!!  So then we looked around and saw the Tesla supercharger site just a couple blocks away!!!  So he was able to get to the Tesla site!!  Our last stop on the way home was at a Whole Foods level 3 charger in Shaumburg.  It was in the basement parking garage, which was a blessing to be shielded from the 50 MPH winds outside.  It was an EVGo unit, and I have their casrd too.  But I could not get it to work.  However, we called their help line and the assistant was able to get us charging so we had plenty to get us home with 45 miles of range left!!  All in all it was an exciting cold weather EV experience and we enjoyed it!

[jeffrey.miller]

Ben, thanks for the awesome telling of your adventure!  Honestly, it is barely spring now here.  I was wishing I had my snow tires still on the car Saturday when we were driving home from looking at the new Bolt in a snow storm.  


Current Automotive did a great job on the trade of the Tesla for the Bolt.  It was an easy transaction and the Bolt is exactly as advertised.  

Jessica has fallen in love with it and keeps a close eye on me any time I so much as look at it.  I don't think she wants me driving it!  She was contemplating tonight not even plugging it in because it has such a large battery.  I will write more in the newsletter about how I have configured it for charging here.  In summary though, it's feature set does actually work really well for Real Time Pricing applications, and in one major way better than the Tesla, with the exception of charging speed of course.  It is parked in the spot where the Tesla was parking for the time being and it was odd seeing that charger running at only 32 amps (7.2kw).  

The Tesla sales and delivery team continue to slowly move forward with the deal.  They got me an offer on the Outlander yesterday and it was about 750 below what Current Automotive offered me for it, so it makes sense to take it.  Tesla will consider matching quotes from Carmax but I didn't feel like dragging it all the way to the nearest Carmax.  (for future reference to any Tesla shoppers out there, get your Carmax quote while they are considering their offer so you can immediately counter if the Carmax offer is higher)  The good news is the offer is in, and the paperwork came to me this evening.  I was going through it and saw:

"Amounts Paid to Government Agencies*
A. Registration/Transfer/Titling Fees $ 196.00 (A)"

I might have said some bad words at that point because the only way you can pay $196 to the state of Illinois is if you are getting non-EV plates.  I tried to call the person and they weren't available so I responded via email that they needed to correct that and provided the link to the relevant CyberDrive page.  https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/vehicles/license_plate_guide/electric_vehicle.html

Reading that page I spotted something that I hadn't noticed before:
"There are two types of electric vehicles: originally manufactured electric vehicle and a converted electric vehicle."
True statement considering what I have seen.  


The fun continues, there is still a chance I pick this up this week, but only if they hurry.  


Earlier on I was drooling over this car
https://www.tesla.com/used/5YJSA1H12EFP33183
It is a 2014 P85+ with similar miles to the one I bought, but it disappeared off their site for a couple of weeks.  It is also more expensive so that would have discouraged me.  The red with black interior is very pretty (or at least that is what my wife tells me).  More pictures https://backwebs.homenetinc.com/tesla/details/@/5YJSA1H12EFP33183/  Digging through those it appears to be in very nice condition too.  Obviously I am not buying it, but if it comes down a bit further it will be a nice deal for someone out there.  

[bruce.jones]

Ben your story is great! thanks for sharing

Jeff I'm confused with all the buying trading selling activity...   Now you have a Bolt instead of the Saabaru? Trading the blue Tesla Model s for a new one with warranty.  RIght?

[jeffrey.miller]

I know it is quite a bit to keep track of, but I sold the Saabaru back in September to a friend in Indiana, so it wasn't part of this set of deals.

Effectively I am trading the blue Tesla for a white one with a fresh warranty (it isn't new in fact it is older than the blue one), and the Outlander PHEV for a Chevy Bolt, but the details are a bit more confusing as I have actually traded the Blue Tesla in on the Bolt, and the Outlander PHEV in on the White Tesla because the trade in values worked out better that way.  If I would have done it the other way I would have spent about $7000 more to accomplish the same end result.  
 

[jeffrey.miller]

Friday morning update, no response at all from Tesla on the corrected plates cost.  It is the beginning of the work day in California though and I am going to be REAL annoying to those people all day!

[jeffrey.miller]

They called me late yesterday and scheduled the delivery for late today.  The plate cost issue is unresolved so that will be interesting!

Saturday AM update, the local guy called and said they can't issue EL plates directly (which is why they always issued temps until the state mailed plates out before?) so they are going to transfer the plates from the Outlander to my new Tesla and then I will have to deal with the Standard to EL conversion when those plates expire.  Sounds annoying, but at least I am not paying for a full year of non EL plates.