Tesla recalls Roadsters

Each and every all-electric dreamcar-speedster Tesla Roadster built before April 22, 2009 needs to have its innards examined. In the finest bit of spinmeistering that The Reg has seen in many a moon, Telsa Motors issued a recall notice Thursday entitled "Tesla To Do House Calls." The house calls in question are visits by Tesla …

[Anonymous Coward]

"That'd be bolts in the cars, not the owners."

That joke only really works with nuts ...

Also, what's the difference between a Tesla Roadster and a hedgehog?

>" Unlike most such recalls, the service will begin with "house call" to he owner's home or office, where a Telsa tech will determine whether the Roadster needs to be taken into the shop for repairs that "will include a complimentary, full-vehicle inspection and software upgrade." "

Hey (tinfoil hat on), do you suppose that the real problem is a software bug so hideously awful and life-threatening that they'd rather pretend the wheels were about to fall off, just because it would be less embarrassing and give them an excuse to upgrade the faulty software...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Share Car

Hey, El Regios - money's a bit tight in the current economic climate and saving those pennies will take a long while. So, tell you what, I'll go halves with you on the Model S and we can have it on alternating weeks. If it helps, I promise I'll take Sarah out for a spin .... in the car, even.

[jake]

Currency

"looking forward to its Sport and saving 4,990,000 of our pennies for a Model S."

That would be "cents", not pennies.

Regarding the recall, just remember that the most dangerous part of any vehicle is the nut behind the wheel.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a weird story.

Seems like a pretty resonable recall. I guess making it nefariuos is required for a register headline.

[Pierre]

Oh, nuts!

Leccy cars, it's all about environmentalists torquing your ... bolts

[Pierre]

@ Share Car By Anonymous Coward

"If it helps, I promise I'll take Sarah out for a spin .... in the car, even."

You do realize that the mighty Moderatrix has access to your login name and e-mail adress, right? You should be afraid, very afraid!

[Pierre]

@ Share Car By Anonymous Coward (bis)

I've been told that the "don't tell Sarah who I am" option is available only to the Vulture Central Platinum members.

[CC]

HOUSE CALL?

Holly cow, you can't even get a doctor to do that!

I have to admit, that is what service is supposed to be, very impressive!

[Anonymous Coward]

@ HOUSE CALL

Ouch . quality comment :-)

Must have been a quality control issue. Testing bolt tension is done by re-torquing, slowly putting tension on the bolt until it starts turning (torque drops sharply when the bolt starts moving), but you do need to check this.

If that bolt has not been correctly torqued it can work its way loose, and especially a loosening bolt can cause a lot of damage (things move that weren't designed to move in that fashion). The question is why the wrong torque was applied in the first place.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Jake

In the United States and Canada, "penny" is normally used to refer to the coin; the quantity of money is a "cent."

check the US mint area for kids:

http://www.usmint.gov/kids/coinNews/circulating/01centCoin.cfm

"The man on our pennies today is Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president. "

"The British pound was not divided into 100 cents like our dollar, but its smallest part was called a penny, and that's why we call our cent a "penny" today. But for more than one, the British called them "pence" while ours are called "pennies.""

[Jim]

Re: Currency

I think if you ask a Merkin cousin they will inform you that the one cent coin is also referred to as a penny.

I would also like to know why Tesla was picked out? Surely the story is that Lotus screwed up and Tesla got caught up in it?

[Anonymous Coward]

If X is the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Thanks to all my single-serving friends!

[jon]

Arny

I thought he sent his back?

[Anonymous Coward]

Curious story

Firstly the idea that a car would need to be taken into the shop to have some fastenings re-torqued is a little curious. If they can be examined at your home then surely they can be re-torqued or even replaced at your home. Does this suggest that the problem may be a little more serious, or is it a case that Tesla are using this recall as a convenient cover for doing some other work on the cars? It's happened before with other manufacturers.

Secondly the idea that it's not Tesla's fault puzzles me. Tesla are ultimately responsible for QA on the products that they sell. They should still do QC on work carried out by subbies.

Oh and to those posters who think that Tesla are being somehow really generous and touchy feelly in sending a tech out to examine each car are missing a major financial point. It will be much cheaper to do it this way than it will be to haul all 345 cars into base. I find it a little worrying that they can't actually identify the affected cars by serial number.

[Emo]

Typical Lotus then..

Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious

Paris because she can tighten nuts just by looking...

[kain preacher]

house call

Firstly the idea that a car would need to be taken into the shop to have some fastenings re-torqued is a little curious. If they can be examined at your home then surely they can be re-torqued or even replaced at your home.

But there could be damage done do to the bottles being lose

[jake]

Show me. (was: Currency)

Show me the word "penny" on any unit of USA currency. You can't. It doesn't exist. The unit is "cents", regardless of what the great unwashed ignorant masses wish to call them.

Likewise, a crown isn't a dollar, Andy Capp notwithstanding.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do better than that

It's not their volt, surely?

[Anonymous Coward]

@ emo

you are showing your age my friend. Lotus hasn't been unreliable since cobol coders were in demand. anyway since when has a recall been news, specially on a handmade limited production car. Slow news day then...

[Webster Phreaky]

Bwah ha ha ha ha ....

Bwah ha ha ha ha .... THIS is Obummer's "future", "lectrics that are worse than the fuel cars.

[Dave The Cardboard Box]

I misread this

and got "According to Tesla, the problem was discovered after a routine urine analysis", which makes more sense from a manufacturing point of view.

[kain preacher]

@jake

Penny = Cent

Nickel = 5 Cents

Dime = 10 cents

Quarter = 25 cents.

Yes the refer to the coin but its universally except that in the US penny is - 1 cent . It's whats taught in school. American money American nomenclature. Because the word penny is not stamped om the coin does not make your point valid Jake. In the US penny and cent are interchangeable. No matter how much you don't want it to be, it is Jake. Like I said that is was is taught in schools.

Who let Webster back in ??

[Lionel Baden]

And the IT angle is

the robot was not programmed correctly to tourqe ??(<- sounds wrong) it to the right amount

I think they have done well with the recall considering what most manafactures do (peugeot bonnets etc etc ...)

but then again how many house calls are going to be made 12 /14 ????

[Anonymous Coward]

@kain preacher

"Firstly the idea that a car would need to be taken into the shop to have some fastenings re-torqued is a little curious. If they can be examined at your home then surely they can be re-torqued or even replaced at your home."

Not if there's a significant amount of disassembling required to get at them. Since all it would take is a laptop equipped with the right cable and software to flash the car's PCM, you can't blame them for taking care of that as well.

[jake]

@kain preacher

"Yes the refer to the coin but its universally except that in the US penny is - 1 cent ."

Again, regardless of what the ignorant[1], unwashed masses may think, the quantity of money "one US cent" is not a penny.

[1] I think I broke my parser on the quoted sentence ...

[Shades]

@AC, RE: If X is the cost of a recall...

The 9th rule of Fight Club is: If you're going to quote Fight Club at least get it right...

"If X is *less than* the cost of a recall, we don't do one"

[David]

Unsurprising....

So, business as usual for Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious, then...?

[davcefai]

It might have been the tool

They may have used this torque wrench

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tork-grip.html

[Arnold Layne]

@ emo and David

> Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious

Nice to see you supporting a British manufacturer (yes, I know their owners are foreign). Wonder if you've ever owned a Lotus or are just spouting, parrot-fashion, something you heard in a pub once on a special needs days out? I'm on my fourth one in ten very happy and fun-filled years of ownership. Have covered over 140,000 hard-driven miles including some very big trips across Europe and only had a Rover-made water pump fail.

I'll be driving my Exige 240 to work today and smiling all the way. Doubt if you dullards will have half as much fun for your money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Recalls and Reality

Who'd like to bet that the cars that go into the shop for their nuts tickling come back with some other changes too?

I've been on the receiving end of a few recalls and have often found that the car comes back with other changes. On one particular occasion I questioned the dealer on the changed parts that had nothing to do with the recall and was told "It's just a courtesy detail, we always check bikes that come in for warranty defects." Strangely enough speaking to other owners revealed that they'd had the same parts replaced. IOW the manufacturer was using one recall to mask at least one more. I've since been told this is fairly common practice.

[Maverick]

@kain preacher

> "Like I said that is was is taught in schools"

so money fully covered, but not the English language eh?

. . . notice I ignore the small outbreak of grocer's apostrophe ;)

(feeling generous in this lovely sunshine)

[philbo]

Damlier?

> But it has its friends, as well - notably California's unlikely governator Arnold Schwarzenegger

> and, most recently, Damlier AG, which just this month acquired 10 per cent of the company for a

>"double-digit million Euro sum."

Is "Damlier" pronounced "damn liar", by any chance?

[Anonymous Coward]

...Ah Webster

...you missed a golden chance...

Surely some of the design was done on a Mac. You could of blamed that...

better luck next time..

[David Edwards]

Id guess

That after torquing during production they would apply a paint splat over the torqued bolts. Hence a roadside inspection could see no paint splat hence non torqued. They would apply a SW patch as a courtesy so that the owners would feel less put out about being deprived of thier car, they may even give it a wash.

[Ed Blackshaw]

@Kain

You appear to be somewhat confused as to the difference between the coin and the unit of currency it represents.

For example, I have, in my pocket, a ten-pound note. If I were to refer to it as a 'tenner', others would understand that I am referring to a ten pound note. This is despite the fact that nowhere upon the money is the word 'tenner' printed.

I do not live in, and have never travelled to our former colonies but even I know that in the US, a one cent coin is referred to as a penny. I'm not sure what the point is that you are trying to prove but I suggest that you give it up...

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Arnold Layne

You're obviously one of the lucky ones! Most Lotus build quality is absolutely shocking on their new cars, even in the showrooms! They look like they've been finished by an ape. I know enough people with Elise/Exige to know never to buy one - they've always got something wrong... so the old manta - Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious is apt yet again in this Tesla case. Get your coat and buy a proper road car rather than a glorified, fraglie go-kart with no interior, no bootspace and is crap in the wet.

ttfn

[D@v3]

@Arnold Layne

4 cars in 10 years?

They cant be that great if you have to replace them every 2(ish) years

[Ed Blackshaw]

@@Kain

Sorry Kain - that should have been directed at the numpty you were arguing with...

[David Edwards]

Carp in wet?

As someone who has set numerours faste times in the wet at sprint/hillclimb events my Elise id bed to differ. Mind you I know how to drive unlike so many "I bought my elise and crashed it..they must be crap" types.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Philbo

"Is "Damlier" pronounced "damn liar", by any chance?"

Only if you're misspelling "Daimler" as "Damlier", like a moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Jake the no nothing moron

http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/circulatingCoins/index.cfm?action=CircPenny

The us mint website calls it a penny. They must be ignorant of their own creation, just like the rest of the 'mericans.

"The bust of Abraham Lincoln, designed by Victor D. Brenner, has been on the penny since 1909 which was the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth."

[Pete James]

Why?

Lexus issued a recall last year for faulty welding causing the fuel line to leak. In the engine bay.

Renault also issued one for bonnets flying up due to poor locking and BMW have historically had a problem with 3 Series firing airbags for no reason. Why do I mention this? All motor manufacturers issue product recalls, and it's irritating to see Tesla seemingly singled out for this news story without showing some balance.

The childish comments about Lotus being an acronym are similarly irritating - obviously the fat bloke in the pub gobbing off has far too many friends. I will point out to Arnold Layne however that his failed water pump during 10 years of Lotus motoring was not made by Rover, but a component supplier so do try to be a bit more accurate please. A pity they went backwards from the K to the heavier Toyota and Vauxhall lumps incidentally, but then again Lotus were never an engine company.

[Anonymous Coward]

Recalls

I've been involved in the automotive replacement parts industry for a number of years. Here's my take on this:

The part in question was supplied by several different manufacturers, or was made with several different lot numbers, one of which has the problem. A technician can look at the lot number on the part by simply walking next to the car and using a mirror and/or a flashlight. That will tell him whether the part is one of the bad ones. He cannot, however, pull off the wheel assembly and replace it outside of the shop, where he has his tools and equipment.

As for as dealer replacing anything else while they work on the recall-related problem:

Some things are determined to be a warranty replacement, but are not worth having a recall. (eg cup holder falls off) Most dealers will check to see if they can find any other items to replace under warranty while the car is there, because a) It's more labor/profit for them, the factory pays for the work, not the dealer, and b) It's better to fix it now and have a more satisfied customer, isn't it? Who in the world would complain that the dealer fixed TOO MUCH stuff for free?

Re: American money. Is anybody out there going to contend that if I save 50 pennies, I don't have 50 cents? Really? I could also choose to save ten dimes, two quarters, or ten nickles, or any other combination of coins. Quit arguing about this. It's like running in the Special Olympics.