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My model S has been in the shop after a collision since a June 10. The repair shop has been waiting for parts. The last thing we're waiting for is some kind of

My model S has been in the shop after a collision since a June 10. The repair shop has been waiting for parts. The last thing we're waiting for is some kind of spring related to the airbag assemblY. Originally tesla said they would pull one off the production line since I waited so long, but now they are backing off that. It's going to be at least another 3 weeks. Be aware if you are buying a car from tesla, that you are at their mercy in terms of parts. There are no third party parts available, and tesla is using all the parts for new cars.

nitrogen 10y ago
Do they provide a loaner in that case, even if not a Tesla? Or maybe your insurance company?
- chrisper 10y ago
  My car insurance policy has rental car coverage, but I think it has a limit.
- stevep98 10y ago
  Car insurance would give me a rental, but I didn't bother because I already have my old SUV.
brianbreslin 10y ago
That's not tesla exclusive. My dad's been waiting 3 months for a replacement airbag for his 2008 lexus. They were one of the ones takata (sp?) recalled but can't make enough replacements.
- chrisper 10y ago
  This seems to be a circumstantial issue that is probably not the norm. Kind of like a special case!
- davidf18 10y ago
  Sorry to hear about the 3 month delay and provides some insight in the construction of luxury cars at least Lexus. Auto manufacturers were warned that the propellant for the airbags was dangerous and were warned by other airbag vendors who refused to use it to save a few dollars per airbag and lost the contract to the Japanese airbag vendor. I wonder if other luxury brands such as BMW, Mercedes, Audi, used these types of airbags. I'm guessing not.
  - davidf18 10y ago
    Well, I was wrong. Here is a list of cars effected with recalls for using the "save a few dollars" airbag using a propellant that was known ahead of time to be problematic. http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/takata-airbag-recall-list-cars-article-1.2602999 http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/takata-airbag-recall-l... Brands include: BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Lexus,.... These companies sell themselves as luxury brands and their cars are very expensive, but it seems clear that the MBAs and bean counters are running these companies and not engineers and car designers. This is my HN submission of a NY Times story on the topic of the airbag recall. One can read how the auto manufacturers deliberately put their customers at risk to save a few dollars per automobile. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12367031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12367031 The question I have is since it seems clear that engineers don't get to decide the safety of the car design and proper engineering in these luxury brands, how do we trust these luxury car manufacturers to even allow the engineers to design the car that they think is best and not the bean counters?
  - el_benhameen 10y ago
    I think this is a Takata (or perhaps Toyota, which owns Lexus) thing, not a luxury car thing. I waited the same three months for a new airbag for my Corolla.
- Cookingboy 10y ago
  The Takata global airbag recall is a big exception. It affects many (most?) major automakers. Lexus had no control over the availability of spare parts in this case.
  - ploxiln 10y ago
    Of course they "had control". They could have evaluated airbags and suppliers better, they could have made sure they had two different suppliers they could use for any particular model, or alternatively that they have plenty of spares. This is commonly done for many kinds of components. I happen to be more familiar with computers of course, and it's commonly done for SSDs, batteries, screens, and more.
    - cstejerean 10y ago
      Having plenty of spares doesn't help when the entire product line gets recalled. That's not a thing you plan for when buying spares.
      - ploxiln 10y ago
        I don't mean a couple of spares, I mean a warehouse good for a year (thus "plenty"). Or, multiple suppliers. There are multiple options that can work, but you have to do one correctly. I'm particularly bothered by throwing hands up and saying "it's not our fault, it's because of a problem at X, it can't be helped", where X is Microsoft, or Oracle, or Fujitsu, or Samsung, or whatever. It can be helped. Yes, it's more expensive, and yes, consumers probably won't pay for it. Just be honest, it's to control costs, things were not set up to keep working if conditions weren't perfect.
        alblue 10y ago
        Lexus' production line, along with Toyota, is based on a "just in time" production line schedule. They don't have warehouses of stock lying around the place. They probably don't even have a day's worth of excess stock on the line, let alone a week's. To expect that they would stockpile one particular component for a year in advance is laughable.
davidf18 10y ago
Well, that's clearly wrong. I would ask for my money back. You spend $100,000 on a car, and the manufacturer can't be bothered to care enough for customers to ensure that there are enough spare parts available. Someone like Henry Ford, actually used to be a mechanic/engineer that built cars himself. I wonder if Model T owners had problems getting parts! Visionaries are interesting and get media attention, but I prefer leadership that have personally "gotten their hands dirty." instead of a "business type."
- qaq 10y ago
  You do realise Musk is very competent engineer among other things? He is fairly far removed from "business type"
  - davidf18 10y ago
    Please cite your sources. I have BS EE with CS concentration from U Illinois/Urbana and was mentored as a computer chip design engineer for four years in a major computer firm. For Musk, I see no engineering degrees nor work experience being mentored in engineering which is absolutely necessary. Compare Musk with GM CEO Mary Barra who as a BS EE and work experience as an engineer and engineering manager, mentored into those positions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra I am betting that if Mary Barra were running a startup auto company that it would have spare parts.
    - qaq 10y ago
      Being competent and having a degree are often very orthogonal to each other. My friend works as engineers at Space X and describes Musk as very hands on and competent which can not obviously serve as proof. But neither can a statement like "if Mary Barra were running a startup auto company that it would have spare parts". Scaling supply chain and building up manufacturing facilities from ground up for a new car type vs managing an existing entrenched player are very different tasks. I guess we will soon see how things will work out with GM electric vehicle sales to compare the two.
RomanAlexander 10y ago
They didn't give you a loaner? My Model S brakes were slightly squeaky and Tesla gave me a loaner vehicle to use for the duration of the service.
- cstejerean 10y ago
  Was the duration of your service almost 3 months? I can't imagine then having enough loaners to hand out for weeks at a time.

nitrogen 10y ago

Do they provide a loaner in that case, even if not a Tesla? Or maybe your insurance company?

chrisper 10y ago
My car insurance policy has rental car coverage, but I think it has a limit.
stevep98 10y ago
Car insurance would give me a rental, but I didn't bother because I already have my old SUV.

brianbreslin 10y ago

That's not tesla exclusive. My dad's been waiting 3 months for a replacement airbag for his 2008 lexus. They were one of the ones takata (sp?) recalled but can't make enough replacements.

chrisper 10y ago
This seems to be a circumstantial issue that is probably not the norm. Kind of like a special case!
davidf18 10y ago
Sorry to hear about the 3 month delay and provides some insight in the construction of luxury cars at least Lexus. Auto manufacturers were warned that the propellant for the airbags was dangerous and were warned by other airbag vendors who refused to use it to save a few dollars per airbag and lost the contract to the Japanese airbag vendor. I wonder if other luxury brands such as BMW, Mercedes, Audi, used these types of airbags. I'm guessing not.
- davidf18 10y ago
  Well, I was wrong. Here is a list of cars effected with recalls for using the "save a few dollars" airbag using a propellant that was known ahead of time to be problematic. http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/takata-airbag-recall-list-cars-article-1.2602999 http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/takata-airbag-recall-l... Brands include: BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Lexus,.... These companies sell themselves as luxury brands and their cars are very expensive, but it seems clear that the MBAs and bean counters are running these companies and not engineers and car designers. This is my HN submission of a NY Times story on the topic of the airbag recall. One can read how the auto manufacturers deliberately put their customers at risk to save a few dollars per automobile. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12367031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12367031 The question I have is since it seems clear that engineers don't get to decide the safety of the car design and proper engineering in these luxury brands, how do we trust these luxury car manufacturers to even allow the engineers to design the car that they think is best and not the bean counters?
- el_benhameen 10y ago
  I think this is a Takata (or perhaps Toyota, which owns Lexus) thing, not a luxury car thing. I waited the same three months for a new airbag for my Corolla.
Cookingboy 10y ago
The Takata global airbag recall is a big exception. It affects many (most?) major automakers. Lexus had no control over the availability of spare parts in this case.
- ploxiln 10y ago
  Of course they "had control". They could have evaluated airbags and suppliers better, they could have made sure they had two different suppliers they could use for any particular model, or alternatively that they have plenty of spares. This is commonly done for many kinds of components. I happen to be more familiar with computers of course, and it's commonly done for SSDs, batteries, screens, and more.
  - cstejerean 10y ago
    Having plenty of spares doesn't help when the entire product line gets recalled. That's not a thing you plan for when buying spares.
    - ploxiln 10y ago
      I don't mean a couple of spares, I mean a warehouse good for a year (thus "plenty"). Or, multiple suppliers. There are multiple options that can work, but you have to do one correctly. I'm particularly bothered by throwing hands up and saying "it's not our fault, it's because of a problem at X, it can't be helped", where X is Microsoft, or Oracle, or Fujitsu, or Samsung, or whatever. It can be helped. Yes, it's more expensive, and yes, consumers probably won't pay for it. Just be honest, it's to control costs, things were not set up to keep working if conditions weren't perfect.
      - alblue 10y ago
        Lexus' production line, along with Toyota, is based on a "just in time" production line schedule. They don't have warehouses of stock lying around the place. They probably don't even have a day's worth of excess stock on the line, let alone a week's. To expect that they would stockpile one particular component for a year in advance is laughable.

davidf18 10y ago

Well, that's clearly wrong. I would ask for my money back. You spend $100,000 on a car, and the manufacturer can't be bothered to care enough for customers to ensure that there are enough spare parts available. Someone like Henry Ford, actually used to be a mechanic/engineer that built cars himself. I wonder if Model T owners had problems getting parts! Visionaries are interesting and get media attention, but I prefer leadership that have personally "gotten their hands dirty." instead of a "business type."

qaq 10y ago
You do realise Musk is very competent engineer among other things? He is fairly far removed from "business type"
- davidf18 10y ago
  Please cite your sources. I have BS EE with CS concentration from U Illinois/Urbana and was mentored as a computer chip design engineer for four years in a major computer firm. For Musk, I see no engineering degrees nor work experience being mentored in engineering which is absolutely necessary. Compare Musk with GM CEO Mary Barra who as a BS EE and work experience as an engineer and engineering manager, mentored into those positions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra I am betting that if Mary Barra were running a startup auto company that it would have spare parts.
  - qaq 10y ago
    Being competent and having a degree are often very orthogonal to each other. My friend works as engineers at Space X and describes Musk as very hands on and competent which can not obviously serve as proof. But neither can a statement like "if Mary Barra were running a startup auto company that it would have spare parts". Scaling supply chain and building up manufacturing facilities from ground up for a new car type vs managing an existing entrenched player are very different tasks. I guess we will soon see how things will work out with GM electric vehicle sales to compare the two.

RomanAlexander 10y ago

They didn't give you a loaner? My Model S brakes were slightly squeaky and Tesla gave me a loaner vehicle to use for the duration of the service.

cstejerean 10y ago
Was the duration of your service almost 3 months? I can't imagine then having enough loaners to hand out for weeks at a time.