Cheaper Model S.. Bad idea?

[BigShick]

Looking at the cheaper end of the market (<£30k) there are a few older Model S about, some with included free supercharging. Man maths tells me between free supercharging and free chargers in work (albeit for only 3 hours a week.. Not sure what capacity the chargers are) I could get away with not spending a lot on electric and therefore could consider one. Batteries seem to keep enough charge (it would be rare for me to do more than 100 miles in a day), but then some of the niggles with them (screens, door handles etc seem expensive ) might make owning an ageing one a painful experience.

Has anyone taken this route, and if so what has your experiences been?

[RobbyJ]

I have a 2016 Model S, a P90D(L).

It's a great all round car and I really like it and will stick with it for a while for sure. The free supercharging has been a real bonus as I've done around 30,000miles in 2 years in the car including some long euro trips. I'd say at least 60% of this has been for free.

The downside has been reliability, and this is on a 2016 car, not one of the first off the production line. I don't know if I've just been unlucky or if it's standard aging Model S but I've spent a fair bit on it. Then again having to have the engine out on my RS6 twice in 2 years was hardly cheap, about 11K.

I'm guessing at some of these prices from memory but here's the issues I've had in the last 2.5 years:

Door handle £450
Door handle paddle gear £10 (fixed myself, never again)
Headlight DRL stopped working so I had to replace the whole unit £1650
3 way coolant valve £350
Front active cooling flaps(?) £680
Rear large drive unit £4000 (covered under 8 year drive train warranty)
Boot cinch motor £104
12V battery, can't remember the cost, circa £150

Technically it's never broken down on me on a trip but there's still been a fair bit of inconvenience. Oh and the horn has just gone, now it's extremely quiet!

I still like it a lot but would I want to stick with it when it's out of the drive train and battery warranty, honestly I'm not so sure.

[gangzoom]

2017 Model X, out of warranty for about 14 months now, 58K miles. Drivetrain/battery warranty finishes in 2025.

Out of warranty repair costs so far:

12V battery - £145 fitted.
HPC heater failed - £820 fitted by local garage, Tesla supplied the parts.
Driver door handle latch - £120 fitted by Tesla

Third party warranties are about £1K per year for a 4 year 'package', but don't cover lights (£2k+ each), so I didn't bother. Paying £4K for a third party warranty, and than having to pay another £2K if one of the lights fail is a no deal for me.

Edited by gangzoom on Tuesday 22 November 08:00

[gangzoom]

RobbyJ said:

I still like it a lot but would I want to stick with it when it's out of the drive train and battery warranty, honestly I'm not so sure.

Pretty much ALL 2014/15 Ss need a new battery pack at some point, quite a lot of owners have had a new pack fitted under-warranty, but as far as I know there is no way to 'force' a battery pack to fail early under warranty.

Tesla now do a new '90kWh' pack (1014116-00-C). It has 87.5kWh usable (versus sub 80kWh in your 90 pack now). Out of warranty cost is roughly $20K fitted, though some US owners report this dropping to $15K but as always with Tesla no one knows for sure.

If the UK price ends up been £15K fitted for a new 87.5kWh usable pack, I can live with that. At 3.5 miles per kWh on a S, it'll give your car a new range of over 300 miles at M-way speeds. £15K isn't cheap, but its alot cheaper than £70K+ for a new S, or even £50K for a new 3.

[BigShick]

Thanks for the replies. I suspected as much.. having one without a warranty for the battery or drive train is probably a bit brave if I don't have a decent slush fund. Shame as it ticks a lot of boxes otherwise. I guess one that has free supercharging has likely been supercharged predominantly too, which might make the battery on an aging one even more of a gamble.