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There are a number of areas on vehicles where failure can lead to injury or death. The reality, though, is that these systems are designed to fail gracefully, a

There are a number of areas on vehicles where failure can lead to injury or death. The reality, though, is that these systems are designed to fail gracefully, and most people that work on cars know how to respect them. Take brakes for example. If you fuck it up on one wheel, the remaining wheels have more than enough stopping power to get you home. If you have a leak, there's two separate circuits, so you should have at least two wheels that will stop you. In addition, the brake pedal being squishy should alert you to a problem. And the parking brake is normally a steel cable that should always work. And most repair manuals, tutorials, and YouTube videos will tell you about common pitfalls and what to watch out for. And if you think a certified mechanic never makes a mistake, you are sorely mistaken.

janoc 8y ago
Absolutely. On the other hand, when you have a guy that welds two halves out of two wrecks together and builds a "new" car out of them or does who knows what with the battery (which is essentially a giant firebomb under the car waiting to go off), I am not surprised Tesla doesn't want to have anything with him. It is mainly a legal liability issue. Those are safety critical parts and the manufacturer doesn't want to be the one getting sued if someone dies in such a vehicle. If the chassis of the car breaks or deforms in an accident because it has been "repaired" after a previous crash and someone gets hurt because of it, that's not the same thing as someone screwing up the brakes. Most people will sue the manufacturer claiming a manufacturing fault, not the mechanic as most mechanics don't repair things like that (car is considered totaled in such case). E.g. in most of Europe a "franken-car" like that wouldn't be even able to pass the mandatory inspection and get registered in the first place. Once the car is considered totaled and bought out by the insurance, they must destroy it so that potentially compromised parts can't find out their way back on the street again (they still do but that's another issue). The consequence is that these "chop shops" resort to buying the registration from an owner of one wreck on a black market (e.g. because they caused the accident and didn't want to get their premiums increased, so they didn't claim it from their insurance - in that case they are left with an useless registration and no car) and "build" a new car to match the registration, which is then sold. It is of course illegal and selling a car like that is fraud (the client would never buy it if they knew the history or not for the asking price). That is also often where most of the stolen cars end up - a stolen car cut up into parts is worth more than selling it whole (and way less risky too). So while I admire the guy's technical skills, here I perfectly understand why Tesla is steering waaay clear of him. This is definitely not the same thing as Apple's laptops - a laptop is not 1-2 tons of metal barreling down a motorway at 100 km/h with a firebomb under the seat.
- tsomctl 8y ago
  Yeah, what this guy is doing is a bit on the reckless side. But even if you do make a Frankenstein vehicle (which I have done, although it was my own), the liability is not going to be on the vehicle manufacturer. If you sue the manufacturer claiming a manufacturing fault, they're going to look at it and see that it's been (poorly) repaired. It's easy (if you're trained) to identify body damage repair work. The welds will be mig welded instead of spot welds, there will be little dings from the body hammer or marks from a grinding wheel, cuts from a plasma cutter or angle grinder look completely different from die cut, the paint and overspray is going to be slightly different. It's possible to make body work look like it just rolled off the assembly line, but it's only economical on million dollar classics. I genuinely don't want to live in a world where I can't get replacement parts to fix my vehicles, and this is one more example of why I don't like Tesla.

janoc 8y ago

Absolutely. On the other hand, when you have a guy that welds two halves out of two wrecks together and builds a "new" car out of them or does who knows what with the battery (which is essentially a giant firebomb under the car waiting to go off), I am not surprised Tesla doesn't want to have anything with him. It is mainly a legal liability issue. Those are safety critical parts and the manufacturer doesn't want to be the one getting sued if someone dies in such a vehicle. If the chassis of the car breaks or deforms in an accident because it has been "repaired" after a previous crash and someone gets hurt because of it, that's not the same thing as someone screwing up the brakes. Most people will sue the manufacturer claiming a manufacturing fault, not the mechanic as most mechanics don't repair things like that (car is considered totaled in such case). E.g. in most of Europe a "franken-car" like that wouldn't be even able to pass the mandatory inspection and get registered in the first place. Once the car is considered totaled and bought out by the insurance, they must destroy it so that potentially compromised parts can't find out their way back on the street again (they still do but that's another issue). The consequence is that these "chop shops" resort to buying the registration from an owner of one wreck on a black market (e.g. because they caused the accident and didn't want to get their premiums increased, so they didn't claim it from their insurance - in that case they are left with an useless registration and no car) and "build" a new car to match the registration, which is then sold. It is of course illegal and selling a car like that is fraud (the client would never buy it if they knew the history or not for the asking price). That is also often where most of the stolen cars end up - a stolen car cut up into parts is worth more than selling it whole (and way less risky too). So while I admire the guy's technical skills, here I perfectly understand why Tesla is steering waaay clear of him. This is definitely not the same thing as Apple's laptops - a laptop is not 1-2 tons of metal barreling down a motorway at 100 km/h with a firebomb under the seat.

tsomctl 8y ago
Yeah, what this guy is doing is a bit on the reckless side. But even if you do make a Frankenstein vehicle (which I have done, although it was my own), the liability is not going to be on the vehicle manufacturer. If you sue the manufacturer claiming a manufacturing fault, they're going to look at it and see that it's been (poorly) repaired. It's easy (if you're trained) to identify body damage repair work. The welds will be mig welded instead of spot welds, there will be little dings from the body hammer or marks from a grinding wheel, cuts from a plasma cutter or angle grinder look completely different from die cut, the paint and overspray is going to be slightly different. It's possible to make body work look like it just rolled off the assembly line, but it's only economical on million dollar classics. I genuinely don't want to live in a world where I can't get replacement parts to fix my vehicles, and this is one more example of why I don't like Tesla.