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The Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars (vice.com) 169

Posted by BeauHD from the elbow-grease-required dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: In a scrapyard in Massachusetts, the YouTuber known as Rich Rebuilds runs a pair of jumper cables from a broken down Tesla Model S to a deep cycle battery. "We may hear some clicks," he says, as he prepares to connect the second lead. "We may hear some buzzing. The car may explode. I don't know what's gonna happen." As a self-described "Doctor Frankenstein of Teslas," this is Rich Benoit's modus operandi. On YouTube, he's chronicled his journey to learn how the cars' internal systems work -- and how to repair them after floods, fires and wrecks. In a new Motherboard documentary, Benoit shows us the scrapyards where he scavenges Tesla parts, the basement where he categorizes them, and an auto body shop that lets him use its equipment. He shows us deep under the hood, where he wrestles with the motors, high-powered batteries and tangles of electronics and cables that make Teslas tick. Since his first Tesla restoration -- he's now working on a second -- Rich has become a point-person in the Tesla repair community. He runs a Facebook group for people who want to sell and trade parts and has helped other enthusiasts across the country and as far away as Norway, Germany and South Africa. Tesla told Motherboard that it will inspect salvaged vehicles to assess which repairs are needed, but there would be a fee. The company says customers are free to do whatever they want with their cars, including repair them. However, Massachusetts, because of their "Right to Repair" initiative, is the only state where Tesla owners can register to access repair manuals, service documents, wiring diagrams, and part information. According to Electrek, President Jon McNeil says the automaker is working on opening the program.
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The Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars More

The Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars

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  • Business opportunity... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Sunday July 29, 2018 @12:29PM (#57028810)
    for Mass. residents. Re-sell access to the manuals to people all over the world. Fuck Tesla's evil attitude towards DIY owners.

    • Watch Rich's videos. You can get some manuals and TSBs from Tesla, but you can't get the software that diagnoses error codes, which is pretty much critical if there are *any* problems with the motors, or steering system, or breaks, or batteries, or anything controlled by the cars computer which is, pretty much, everything.

      • I don't think you can get the software ICE makers dish out to their dealerships to diagnose faults accurately either, you can get off the shelf machines but they are generally not that clever

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I interviewed with Snap-On who make car diagnostic equipment once. They have to reverse engineer everything, they don't get any help from the manufacturers.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by awe_cz ( 818201 )
          Yes, you can. Ford, for example, offers (paid) access to all service docs and diagnostic software. It's not cheap, though (couple of $k per year).

  • January 30, 2017 article about manuals. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The last link about opening up the manuals is dated 1/13/2017.

    What's the deal?

    I don't buy new cars. I get used ones and fix them myself. And there are a few Tesla's (X, a couple S's but no 3s yet.) around me and I was hoping to one day pick up one used and repair it myself. I can't afford a new one anyway.

    But if I can't access the manuals, I'm SOL.

    I guess it's the Chevy Bolt for me.

  • Tesla is just following the tech industry model of SaaS. Essentially pay a monthly fee for their "services". Keep your car connected to the Mother corporation.

  • ...I'm not entirely happy with the attempt to force all parts & repairs through a system that requires a current supported Tesla serial number. I do understand it for when you are welding the front half of one car to the rear half of another... but just requesting a nut?

    Maybe they do have a point in that if the car fails catastrophically the Tesla brand will be tarnished; in this current environment it will (thanks "shorts", Auto-manufacturers, Big-oil & Unions). Possibly a solution is to debrand

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Aighearach ( 97333 )

      Manufacturers have significant liability.

      A lot of people don't understand that when they go to the parts counter at most auto dealers, the company that sold the car isn't who made those parts. And since they're not the manufacturer, they don't have the same sort of liability. Of course they're happy to sell you those parts. And many of the parts are not the stock part, but a qualified replacement part that was totally designed and built by a 3rd party with no involvement by the auto brand other than testing

      • That is BS. Do you think Ford makes all the parts for their cars? They have parts suppliers. Same as Tesla. They don't even make the batteries.

  • For the hard-core geeks both electrical and mechanical:

    Tesla Model 3 - Exploded [youtu.be]

    This guy has a brilliant series of videos detailing all aspects os Tesla anatomy.

    • Re:Dissected entrails of a still living Tesla M3.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Sunday July 29, 2018 @03:44PM (#57029632) Homepage

      both electrical and mechanical:

      Can't.... resist...

      I'm the very model of a modern Tesla technician,
      I've information technical, electrical, mechanical,
      I know the latest models, and I quote designs historical,
      From Model X to Model 3, in order categorical;
      I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
      I understand transmissions, both continuous and manual,
      I'm bullish on the stock reports and teeming with a lot o' news,
      With many cheerful facts about executive option issues.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Mod this up. Great stuff.

  • No supercharger for you! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday July 29, 2018 @01:55PM (#57029152)

    One thing to note about restored Telsa EVs is that they cannot use the supercharger stations. Apparently there is some sort of key held in RAM that indicates it's been tested and meets certification criteria. You can get it re-certified but I've heard it's a costly process because they have to inspect the cabling.

    You may think this is somehow unfair but remember how much power is flowing through the cables to recharge all those batteries. It's not a stretch to think that minor damage to a cable could go unnoticed and then set your car and the whole supercharger station on fire.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      Tesla turns off Supercharging on any Tesla that is totaled, if they know about it. I assume this means they invalidate the key. In some cases, salvaged cars never had the key disabled and will Supercharge just fine. That is a serious issue, though. Without Supercharging, a Tesla is just a local car.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It's quite understandable though. Supercharging with components which might be damaged, even if the damage is small enough to escape detection until you stress it with a supercharge, isn't something normal people would like to be near. At least not if they have any clue about what's actually happening.

        You might think it's serious to not be able to supercharge, but let me assure you that it's nothing compared to if things go wrong because of damaged battery cells or cabling.

    • Re:No supercharger for you! (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday July 29, 2018 @02:48PM (#57029414) Homepage Journal

      It's worse than that. Tesla's official policy is that uncertified cars can't use service centres and don't get over-the-air updates, as well as no supercharging. Re-certification is north of $10,000.

      In fact they recently got told by the NTSB that they have to do recalls for salvaged vehicles. Previously they didn't even give salvaged cars safety recalls.

    • Not sure i'd wanting to be standing next to a supercharger and plugging in a suspect vehicle to charge
    • I am the guy posting all the Model 3 videos on YT. I also help people all over the world work on their unsupported Teslas. For clarification; Supercharging authorization is simply a boolean option in the car's configuration that lives in the car's Gateway processor. The CAR controls the supercharger, which is essential a dumb device. Then they disable supercharging, Tesla literally reaches into your private car via the cellular connection and alters it's configuration, removing the supercharger option,

      • I definitely understand the reasoning, but I don't think this is an ethical way to do it.

        What would be the ethical way of doing it?

        If the recert fails their passing grade, you have signed a contract that allows them to "disable" your car, and you don't get any of the $ back.

        Disabling the car seems like a legal liability thing. It may seem cruel but when some idiot fails and his car goes up in flames later then that idiot could sue the inspector which is costly to defend against with the spectre of possibly being held liable. Anyway, I think the restrictions will be relaxed when they start making batteries that don't have a thermal runaway problem.

        Honestly though, if you want to take control of your car then you are going to need to w

        • I already have control of my own car, and have given other owners control of their cars to the tune of about 400 cars now. I did write software to enable this, and I can turn back on supercharging, as I did for Rich's car "Delores" as shown in his videos. (The person this article is about)

  • You are breaking the EULA.

  • This is good stuff, but let's be reasonable .... (Score:5, Informative)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Sunday July 29, 2018 @07:01PM (#57030170) Journal

    The people who are screaming about Tesla not opening up the repair info to the masses should also realize that almost none of their vehicles sold, to date, are old enough to be completely out of warranty. The Model S wasn't a thing you could buy until 2012, and they all got an 8 year, unlimited mileage warranty on their powertrains.

    When you couple that with the fact that Teslas were never mass produced in the quantities the big-name auto makers produce? You start to realize that the number of Teslas out there in scrap yards from getting totaled in accidents or written off from flood damage are FAR too few to support the business of local garages or other repair shops who might want to specialize in working on them.

    As a used Model S owner myself, I've done a lot of reading and research on the cars, because I wanted to know what I might be up against in coming years. The biggest issue facing Tesla owners today is an overall shortage of parts. Even if you have an authorized Tesla body shop repairing your car from a fender-bender, it's quite common they can't obtain a body panel or other trim part you need for 2-3 months. That's one of the challenges the company is still trying to overcome. (Again, they're nowhere near the size of GM or Ford or Toyota ... and they didn't really have the money to stock large quantities of spare parts in warehouses. I'm sure they started out just making spare parts to order, as they had the need. And now they have enough cars on the roads so that's not workable, but their factories were doing all they could just to meet demand for the new Model 3 vehicle orders.)

    Personally? I think there's a great money-making opportunity for independent shops who can stock specific parts that are known to fail somewhat regularly, and can do those specific repairs. Great example? Model S auto-retracting/presenting door handles. These are pretty complex components and had a couple of design flaws. (Tesla used a cast metal gear part that tends to develop a stress fracture over time and break into pieces. They also used regular copper wire where flexible silicone wire should have been substituted, so over hundreds of door handle cycles, the wire flexing back and forth snaps it.) Both of these issues have been addressed, at least to a large extent, with a newer handle revision. But my understanding is, Tesla didn't do that until 2017 and there's kind of a run on these -- since service centers will only replace an older revision broken handle with the latest revision. Clearly, this is a place where independent shops could re-work a broken, old revision handle and make it "better than new", for cheaper than Tesla's repair cost. (Tesla wants around $700+ per door handle for an out of warranty repair.)

    Another example is the small 12 volt battery in a Model S. This is known to fail on a lot of people, and will leave you stranded if it does. (Luckily, you *usually* get some kind of warning on the dash that it's having issues for at least a little while before it conks out.) This one, again, was usually just a free warranty swap so far. But as these cars age out of factory coverage, it'll become a problem. There's a company on the net called BattMobile who sells an improved replacement battery with the necessary, proprietary battery connector points already on it. But it would be great if more shops knew how to swap one of these and could do it for people inexpensively. On a dual motor Model S, it's not THAT tough as job, but it's kind of a bear to get to it on the regular, single motor vehicles.

    • If only Tesla would do the right thing and let you get it repaired where you want like all other manufacturers [caranddriver.com]. But I guess vendor lock-in is a good thing?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      No, the battery is covered by a standard 8 year warranty but the rest of the car only has 4. A lot of people have been buying extended warranties because the cost of repairs is astronomical.

    • Personally? I think there's a great money-making opportunity for independent shops who can stock specific parts that are known to fail somewhat regularly, and can do those specific repairs.

      That only works if two preconditions have been met: 1) a sufficient density of vehicles to keep the shop occupied. And 2), a sufficient supply of spare parts (depth, breadth, and speed of replenishment). The latter in particular is a problem as Tesla is struggling to meet the existing market.

      Clearly, this is a

  • Sometimes I suspect the main reason more software isn't open to the public is the authors are too embarrassed to show it.

  • I think this situation could be handled by a compromise designed in from the start.
    For example, the charging, battery and software is offlimits...
      but the rest of the car is open and documented.

    The analogy being Open API's

  • I stumbled across his channel earlier this year. He raises a lot of good points - although he may not verbalize them in the videos, he stumbles across lots of issues that are bigger, he'll have a problem "man Tesla makes this difficult" that really needs to be thought through. It seems bigger than right-to-repair. Watching his experiences is terrific though, as it provides insights into how complicated this can be.

    Somebody wrote to him with a problem which raised an issue - the guy had purchased a used T

  • Jon McNeill (who was, at the time, president of North American sales/service at Tesla) told me in an email around early 2017 that Tesla was going to fix this stuff around mid-year 2017. This came and went, and he stopped responding to my emails, and then around the start of this year he left Tesla for good. Still no movement on "open" anything from Tesla.

    What is the problem? Tesla actively blocks the sale of any parts whatsoever to any salvage or grey market (unsupported) cars, and will not provide an

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