Tesla owners file class-action alleging repair, parts monopoly

https://driving.ca/auto-news/industry/tesla-class-action-lawsuite-parts-repairs-monopoly

by RickJWagner • 2 years ago

113 65 2 years ago

driving.ca

nashashmi• 2 years ago

Weren’t all the patents made available for free? Can’t anyone make parts now?

xwolfi• 2 years ago

Guess

dhc022• 2 years ago

Parents, full design specs, and repair documentation are three very different things.

peutetre• 2 years ago

Parents, full design specs, and repair documentation

My parents provided the full design specs for me. Repair documentation is available at the hospital.

EgregiousCube• 2 years ago

https://www.classaction.org/media/lambrix-v-tesla-inc.pdf The suit in question.

blindriver• 2 years ago

If you get into an accident, it takes months to get your parts to fix it. What makes it worse is that most car rental contracts via insurance will only cover up to 30 days, so you end up being on the hook for the car rental. This happened to me last year this time, I lost the car for the entire summer which was frustrating.

oplav• 2 years ago

I’m running into a similar situation with an electric Ego lawn mower. 1 year old mower stopped turning on, took it to the authorized repair center for warranty work, some PCB needs to be replaced but it’s back ordered for months. I ended up having to buy another lawn mower for the summer.

I’m grateful for the easy warranty process that Ego has, but it’s got me thinking if shifting to electrical means harder to come by parts for repair.

2OEH8eoCRo03• 2 years ago

My father's gas lawnmower is ~40 years old and never had an issue. Snowblower is 50+ years old but has had 1 engine replacement.

syedkarim• 2 years ago

What’s strange is that it’s just a PCB. It should not be an issue for them to stock or quick-build a circuit board. They can’t possibly still blame the chip-shortage bogeyman.

SkyPuncher3• 2 years ago

I’ve entirely stopped caring about warranty as it’s only ever left me in this situation. I’d rather just buy a new thing or pay for an out of warranty channel to fix it as quickly as possible (often possible with non-one parts).

eurleif• 2 years ago

I was quite worried about this when I crashed my car earlier this year from reading comments like this one; but it was in and out of the (Tesla-approved third party) repair shop in around three weeks. It wasn't the worst crash in the world, but some body panels and other parts had to be replaced. Obviously, this is just my own anecdote, but I think it's worth noting that not everyone has the same experience.

radpanda• 2 years ago

most car rental contracts via insurance will only cover up to 30 days, so you end up being on the hook for the car rental

That’s if your insurance is covering it right? My Volvo C30 got rear-ended a few years back and it took about 6 weeks to get all the parts in and get the repair done. The insurer of the at-fault driver covered my rental car the entire time.

Reubachi• 2 years ago

It's always a bit different.

I've both had to fight an at fault motorist's insurance on extended rental coverage, and I've also been hand delivered a rental and told to keep it until I'm comfortable with my repaired car by another at fault motorist's insurance.

Ultimately, insurance is in the game of saving money, avoiding court, and reputation damage mitigation. Sometimes you get an insurer that puts their reputation above saving money, but it falls on the claim and the agent to decide how to go about it.

cfeduke2• 2 years ago

My personal experience so far with Tesla specifically - and this is not to say they are doing the right thing in regards to parts or anything - was when my wife hit a deer and a bunch of the driver's front side of the car had to be replaced was that it took six days. Of course the bill insurance covered was around $12K which is just insane (headlight, hood, fender, panel, side mirror, camera). The timeline to repair was probably because the Tesla density for my area (around Richmond, VA) is not high like it is in places such as California.

Other than that, which was $0 out of pocket, I've had my Model 3 for six years in July and almost $0 in parts or service. I replaced the 12v battery which I had to buy for $75 and tires twice. This way more cost effective than my Lexus (around $4,000 in repair service over 5 years, not counting tires) and Mercedes (around $3,000 in repair service over 2 years, which - not counting tires and I had these AMG rims that were wider on the rear tires so tire replacement had to happen early). So its hard for me to complain about Tesla, but I can see where for other people who have had issues where there are a lot of Teslas on the road could be an issue.

SkyPuncher3• 2 years ago

Those repair costs are astronomical.

Going 4 years on our Hyundai and we’ve literally only had to replace tires. Both of our prior vehicles, Chevys, only required tires and brakes outside of a single, major repair - melted catalytic converter. That would have been a $2k repair tops over respective 8 and 18 year life span of both of those vehicles.

bufferoverflow• 2 years ago

Also Tesla is much cheaper to drive than a Lexus.

cbeach2• 2 years ago

I had one experience with Tesla parts and it was positive.

I had an issue with corroded bolts on my Model S liftgate.

Following advice from the Tesla Owners UK Facebook group, I emailed OrderPartsUK@tesla.com and surprisingly got a call back within minutes. They identified the parts and explained how to fit them. They charged my card over the phone: £2.30, with no charge made for delivery. I received the bolts the following morning and fitted them myself.

You can browse Tesla's parts catalogue at https://epc.tesla.com/ - which contains diagrams showing every single component in the cars. I found it fascinating.

toomuchtodo• 2 years ago

Same experience whenever I’ve ever needed parts from Tesla. Fasteners for various pieces of trim, suspension parts (model y suspension upgrade), a wiring harness, always a great experience when working with the parts counter at the nearest service center to where I was when needing the parts.

The disconnect between Tesla corporate policy and super helpful local employees is frustrating and disappointing.

gerdesj2• 2 years ago

Please forgive me if I'm way out but I think a liftgate is a plate that acts a bit like a fork lift on the back of a lorry. I usually know it as a tail lift.

Having browsed that catalogue thingie, it looks like the boot lid is formally called a liftgate by Tesla, presumably it is hydraulic. I might call that a tailgate instead of boot lid or simply the boot (trunk). I think we'll put that down to the US <<subst GB if required>> and the rest of the English speaking world ... << insert comment here >>

Corroded bolts that you can get at on a car sounds quite a serious fail. This is a Tesla S and not my first Ford Fiesta Mk 1. I'm old enough to remember when galvanization of car bodies became a thing. Nowadays, you rarely hear of anyone stepping into a car and being able to see the road through their knees. Stainless steel has also been a thing for rather a long time.

I'm (not) looking forward to finding out what fails my Chinese "MG" effort manages in the next few years. So far mechanically and electrically all good but its Android central console is rather flaky. I am happy that the driver's console (behind the steering wheel) is just a display and not "smart" in any way.

It is important that bollocks is called out and your anecdote seems to support that. You were able to DIY and clearly Tesla will supply some parts to civilians. However, are you absolutely sure that your warranty is still valid? Have you read it, all of it? Even so, we enjoy quite a few protections as consumers in the UK, as do wider Europeans and even in the US (int al)!

Your corroded bolts anecdote had a happy ending (sorry) but it should not have happened in the first place.

cbeach2• 2 years ago

Yes, I totally agree. Likewise the covers that sit in the middle of the wheels are known for corroding over time and have to be replaced.

Luckily the costs and effort are minimal, but it's still annoying, given the problems shouldn't be happening in the first place.

That said, Tesla do improve their car parts radically over time.

The retracting door handles used to fail after a few years due to microswitch wear, so they redesigned the handles to use Hall Effect sensors instead (solid state) and now they're flawless. The new design can be retrofitted.

Some daylight running lights would eventually fail due to overheating. They redesigned with heatsinks and the new design can be retrofitted. It's a costly repair (~£700) but I don't think it's strictly necessary to fix these on my car as it was a 2016 model, and it wasn't a legal requirement to have DRLs at that time.

The computer storage eMMC chip would eventually fail due to writing wear. They have replaced this system design with a new chip and will replace the affected part for free, even for cars out of warranty.

And the whole computer unit in older models is replacable by Tesla for a couple of thousand pounds. While expensive, I admire Tesla for going to the effort of producing a retrofit upgrade. Other manufacturers would have simply abandoned owners with old infotainment systems. It's not mandatory for manufacturers to produce computer upgrades for cars, but Tesla goes the extra mile in order that customers can enjoy the latest software features if they want them.

As regards the warranty - I'm not entirely sure if replacing my bolts would void a warranty, but for me the point was moot as my four year warranty had expired anyway. Annecdotally I think Tesla are quite liberal in this regard. I made a proactive repair to my car by using a third party to de-solder the eMMC chip and replace it with a larger and newer model. When Tesla did the eMMC "recall" in the following year, they actually paid the expense (£500) of my chip replacement, even though it was done by a third party and was performed before the "recall" was live. They simply put £500 in my bank account. I thought that was unusually impressive, and leads me to believe they're amenable to third party repair where it's viable.

bangaladore2• 2 years ago

One thing to note is that this suit is ~16 months old.

From skimming the filing, I'm not sure I completely understand what Tesla is doing wrong when they:

Provide over-the-counter part purchasing to anyone via their EPC website. Presumably, some parts cannot be purchased by just anyone, but most can.

Provide service manuals free of charge to everyone. You can go onto the website and view them. The service manuals include all the information you would need to completely dissasemble and reassemble the car. What other companies do this?

Provide in-car diagnostic via the service menu to allow for most common service activities. Its far more extensive then people believe, likely because its hidden unless you know how to get into it (hold down the trim and type service as the access code).

Provides the ability to subscribe to Tesla "Toolbox" which is the full paid diagnostic and repair suite.

Moreover, there are independent repair shops, and any shop can also be "Tesla" approved. Additionally, in my experience, part costs through Tesla are quite low. Almost at-cost low it seems.

FireBeyond6• 2 years ago

You realize that all of these things weren't always the case, and (as usual) Tesla had to be dragged to the table.

Massachussetts lead that charge. Until their AG got involved, the EPC website existed, but NOTHING was purchasable from the site. Literally every item said "Unavailable" or "Call Tesla", even things as simple as a 1/4 inch bolt.

Service manuals free of charge? No, Tesla had one location in MA where you could go to look at the service manual. And you had to pay a fee ($100, IIRC). And you had to make an appointment. And you got an hour. And you could take no electronic devices, just a pencil and legal pad.

FireBeyond6• 2 years ago

Ruffled feathers, apparently.

Question 1, as the measure was called on the ballot, will force car manufacturers to ensure independent repair stores have access to the same diagnostic tools as manufacturer run repair stores. That will change the automobile repair landscape in Massachusetts, especially for Tesla, a notoriously secretive company that has made it hard and expensive to service its electric vehicles.
Tesla has pushed back against these kinds of laws before. A similar law passed in 2012, one that said dealerships had to make service manuals and diagnostic information available to repair stores. Notably, Tesla also wasn't part of a memorandum of understanding signed by car manufacturers nationwide that effectively made the Massachusetts legislation a national law.
But Tesla did make some information available. “Out of the kindness of their heart, they made a portal so that you could log in and access their diagnostics,” Benoit said. “It’s available, but it’s only available to Tesla certified shops.”

Service manuals free of charge. I was wrong, though, 24 hours, not one:

The Tesla Service and Repair Information Portal allows body shops to sign up and get certified for “complimentary account access.” Anyone else looking to get repair and diagnostic information out of Tesla has to pay for a subscription. $100 buys you 24 hours of access. An annual subscription costs $3,000.
Tesla has also repeatedly, for example, used software to lock consumers out of certain aspects of their cars. Tesla has also fought against independent repair companies, and has at times refused to certify them.

Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93wy8v/newly-passed-right-to...

So while things may be better now (great!), it's revisionist to think they've always been that way.

Tesla was outspoken in opposing Massachusetts’ auto right to repair law last November. The story this week of Tesla’s $16,000 quote for a repair that an independent garage did for $700 suggests why.
The company sent a letter to its Massachusetts customers urging them to vote against Question 1, arguing - without evidence - that the measure would open vehicles to cyber attacks.

rconti2• 2 years ago

Unfortunately the article is short on details -- I've gotten my Tesla repaired both at independent shops (broken rear triangle glass, which is a tesla part, not a repro), and at Tesla service centers. I've (online) heard horror stories of long parts waits, but it's not clear how or if those waits are different at a Tesla service center vs an indie shop (eg, is Tesla prioritizing their own SCs?). I assume the suit is alleging that independent shops have a harder time sourcing parts than service centers do? If so, it seems like a reasonable case.

Of course, they can't really allege a parts monopoly on its own, any more so than against any other manufacturer, since 99% of the time, repair parts for any car are sourced from the manufacturer via a dealer parts counter. Eventually OE and OEM parts are available through parts stores, but that's an opaque process to the end consumer.

It would also be interesting if the problem here is the lack of a franchise model- in theory I can get my Toyota repaired at one of several dealerships, so technically there's "competition" in the market, even though they all need to hold a franchise to use the name.

And, of course, there would presumably be an outcry if Toyota refused to play nice to indie shops as well.

kgc• 2 years ago

There are Tesla authorized repair centers, so I don’t think franchising is the issue either.

cannaceo• 2 years ago

Independent shops don't wory on Teslas. Any body damage leads to camera alignment stuff that shops don't want to touch.

cfeduke2• 2 years ago

Tesla uses independent body shops they certify, I know this because I've used one as a result of a deer accident. The service centers do not handle beyond some level of damage.

rconti2• 2 years ago

Well that's obviously not true, I know people who have had their body damage fixed elsewhere. In fact, I doubt Tesla service centers do _any_ of their own bodywork, so it's entirely possible your comment is the exact opposite of true.

kevin_b_er2• 2 years ago

The case is already dead.

If you bought a Tesla, you have no right to a court of law involving Tesla. It will go to arbitration, where the case will be secret, but Tesla will know the arguments and results of of all attempts against it, but not you. It will go to arbitration, where the arbiter may be blacklisted from future cases if it rules against Tesla. It will go to arbitration, where the arbiter's ruling is final and the law does not apply. Capricious? Does not matter.

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is superseded and voided by the American Arbitration Act. You, as a citizen owner of a Tesla, are barred from using that law against Tesla. The Sherman Act is superseded and voided by the American Arbitration Act. You, as a citizen owner of a Tesla, are barred from using that law against Tesla. No court of law will ever be permitted to apply those laws against Telsa by a Tesla owner.

This case was already dismissed once in Sept of last year when the motion to compel arbitration was granted. They're trying again with some sort of attempted resurrection, but its just a waste of money, because Tesla owners are barred from courts of law. They will go to a privatized pseudo-court where they will lose and where they can't do class action unless Telsa wants it.

fallingknife• 2 years ago

Do you have a source for this? Because it doesn't sound credible.

kevin_b_er2• 2 years ago

You can read their Motor Vehicle Order Agreement. Mandatory Binding Arbitration.

https://www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic/ https://centerjd.org/system/files/ArbitrationWhitePaper.pdf

You can even read Hall Street Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc, where even when the agreement said the courts could review. Where, no, courts of law may not review an arbiter's decision if you both agree it would be able to after arbitration.

You can read Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., where SCOTUS explicitly declared the American Arbitration Act overrides the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

You can read Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, where you find out you have no substantive rights where the AAA is involved.

There's still weak attempts to save it, but the The National Labor Relations Act is also likely superseded by the American Arbitration Act, basically voiding the NLRA from being ever applicable.

Courts of law are barred where arbitration is inserted, anywhere, whether you know it or not. You lose basic rights where arbitration is concerned.

Terr_• 2 years ago

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is superseded and voided by the American Arbitration Act.

Poking around, I found this [0] from 2015 that suggests the opposite, unless a certain malign President caused the FTC to switch policies.

the FTC has taken the position since 1975 that binding arbitration provisions are prohibited in warranties. [...] The FTC specifically rejected the argument that an arbitration proceeding is not an [informal dispute settlement mechanism] because it is binding and therefore outside the [Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act], which permits warrantors to establish [informal dispute settlement mechanism]s for breach of warranty claims and require consumers to use such [informal dispute settlement mechanism]s before bringing a civil suit.

[0] https://casetext.com/analysis/ftc-continues-to-ban-mandatory...

manquer5• 2 years ago

Courts have ruled in the past that arbitration clauses were illegal or unenforceable for various reasons so it not that cut and dry .

Contract law is not simple, just because I signed the contract doesn’t mean it is enforcement is guaranteed.

While I agree with the estimation that this is loosing and courts would either rule that is not a monopoly or enforce the arbitration clause and kick the case out , it is not a given .

Every case is unique, a lot depends on the judge or jury and background of the specific case.

Also filing suit doesn’t mean that trial is always the goal. It could be just a strategic move in the process between plantiffs and defense .

Sometimes companies would settle not because it will loose, but because it is cheaper to settle. Sometimes they don’t want discovery process opening up internal documents that could be damaging. Fox forked over 780M because of this (and also plaintiffs had a slam dunk case ).

HillRat• 2 years ago

This is not necessarily true in matters involving injunctive relief, depending on the wording of the contract, whether arbitration itself may be arbitrated, and whether the judge considers arbitration appropriate for the relief prayed for.

steelframe3• 2 years ago

My fresh-off-the-lot 2024 Toyota GR Corolla got nearly its entire side mangled by a red light runner on day 8 of ownership. Mind you this is a brand-new model, first released in 2023. Once my insurance finished dragging their heels on doing their assessment -- as they didn't yet have any of the parts for it in their internal database -- it took another week to get on the schedule with one of the ~20 auto body shops in a 15-mile radius of where I live. An entire door and two windows needed replacing, along with a fender, trim, and so forth. The shop apologized that some of the parts were delayed by a whole week, and in the end it took 5 weeks to restore the vehicle to its original state.

And this sort of thing is precisely why I chose to go with an established automaker with a strong reputation for reliability and serviceability. This has become so much more important to me than almost any other feature in a motor vehicle.

FireBeyond6• 2 years ago

And this sort of thing is precisely why I chose to go with an established automaker with a strong reputation for reliability and serviceability. This has become so much more important to me than almost any other feature in a motor vehicle.

Jaguars are not known for reliability. Indeed, I got rid of my 2012 XJ L after its coolant system failed catastrophically one too many times (which was "two times" - first one, okay, so be it, happens again, no thank you).

However, at some point the dealer bricked the entertainment console (of course tied into everything else), and it was an all in one unit that they had to replace...

I am near Seattle. "Well crap, how long is that going to take?" (thinking the car is several years old at this point, and not a high volume of sales). "Oh, we should be able to have a new unit installed by the end of tomorrow, unless we have to get it sent from England, in which case, end of day after tomorrow".

steelframe3• 2 years ago

One of my other cars is a 2019 Jaguar I-PACE. It's generally been rather reliable over the past 5 years. The main problems have been how it tends to like to brick itself when something electronically doesn't go quite right.

For example when I had it turned on and running the A/C on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry it decided that the suspension was borked and refused to release the emergency brake once the ferry arrived at dock. You know what happens when you can't push your bricked car off the ferry? They put cones around your car and load everyone else on the ferry around you while you try to explain to the tow company on the phone how you have a luxury AWD EV bouncing back and forth across the Puget Sound that needs to be winched onto a flatbed.

Then when the auxiliary battery died it decided to roll into the middle of a parking lot and gradually glitch out and clamp down on the emergency brakes again as the main 12v battery then died, and you get to have it winched onto another flatbed as it's also impossible to release the emergency brakes once the 12v batteries have given up the ghost.

Hence why my most recent vehicle has a clutch pedal, a stick attached to a gearbox, and an emergency brake attached to a lever via a cable.

manquer5• 2 years ago

Absolutely, if you value more how the product and service responds to 1/1000 event , if you value how your daily driving experience is more then Tesla beats the Toyota hands down.

I am not trying to diss you, i kind of value the same things. I own a Toyota hydrogen fuel cell car , and I bought an expensive experimental car is because it was Toyota and the support that would come with .

However every buyer has different priorities, risk minimization while common , also why most big companies would buy from IBM or SAP instead of a startup or pay license for redhat linux or oracle Java. This also means you objectively have poorer experience and are a cycle or two behind in innovation, most are not okay with that

wilted-iris• 2 years ago

I don't think that's true. A GR Corolla is going to have a nicer interior than a Tesla, it'll handle (much) better, and I bet it's a lot more fun to drive too.

dmbche• 2 years ago

How's the hydrogen working for ya?

honeybadger1• 2 years ago

This will fail and it's a good thing.

Tesla owners file class-action alleging repair, parts monopoly

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