We get it, but it’s mean all the same.
So get this. You’re at an auction of damaged, salvageable cars. You spot a luxury car with some basic, minor aesthetic work needed. You reckon you can fix it in a jiffy so you buy the car, fix it up, and for a couple of months everything runs great.
You bring it back to the dealership, and it even has warranty! But due to some issues related to the ‘salvaged’ nature of the car, they give you a bit of a tongue lashing. You’re still not charged for the warranty work, and you drive away happy, for another period of happy motoring.
And then one day, it just stops working the way you expect it to. And you’re six-hours from home, with the family in tow. Talk about raining on your parade.
That’s exactly what happened to a man in the States who salvaged a Tesla luxury car, who discovered that the company had disabled features on his car following a service at an authorised centre. Halfway into a family roadtrip, it was discovered that the car would no longer be charged at Tesla superchargers, leaving the car dead some 6-hours away from home.
It began when the Tesla was bought at auction, and then had minor aesthetic work (they said they “bought a fender and a door” and that an inspection returned saying there was “no other damage”) outside of a Tesla centre. After repairs, the car continued to receive over-the-air updates and utilise the Supercharger network, despite Tesla’s official policy on salvaged motors that states they are unsupported (so no service, updates, or Supercharging).
The issues began when the car was brought to a Tesla service centre to get some work done to it ahead of a long road trip. The service centre was notified by Tesla headquarters that they were working on a salvaged car, and that the warranty no longer applied. Expecting the work to be free, the owner had a discussion with the service centre, who agreed not to charge the owner and chalk it up to a warranty claim.
All was well until the family headed to California on that roadtrip, and six-hours in the Tesla stopped showing the location of Superchargers. They rebooted the car to no avail, and then navigated through a mobile phone to the nearest location, where they discovered the car would no longer charge via the Supercharger network, despite having done so several times through the journey that day.
A phone call to the service manager at Tesla revealed that in order to restore the full features of his car, he would need to have the car recertified by Tesla themselves. The cost of that recertification was quoted as “north of US$10,000” ($13.25k thereabouts). With the kids upset, the owner opted to have the car towed about 160km to a friend’s place, before then renting a car to complete the trip.
Now, it’s pretty clear that anyone looking to salvage a car (particularly one as ‘connected’ as a Tesla) ought to have been a bit more knowledgeable insofar as the risks of doing so. Of course Tesla would want to distance themselves from the vehicle as it would be a risk to them and there brand.
But also, the fact that features in the car were disabled following a service without the owner being informed is not in any way OK either. If the owner was informed at the time his car was being serviced that features had to be disabled due to the salvaged nature of his vehicle, he bloody well wouldn’t have planned to cross the country with it, and probably left it to be used as a daily driver that could be charged up at home.
Do you guys think Tesla did the right thing, disabling features on this guys’ car? Or do you think they were mean spirited, doing so without informing him and leaving him without a car and stranded miles and miles from home?
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