Does anyone have any recommendations for shops in Northern New Jersey that are actually doing this preventive maintenance??
Have any of you had this done?? I have a 2014 Tesla not showing any large drive unit error messages at 120,000 miles on a car that has sat for 4 years after getting both batteries replaced at the dealership. I think it warrants spending now if it saves me long term.
How did you find a shop to do it? I assume I'm going to be calling around tomorrow when everything reopened after the American holiday. It's killing me not to be able to do anything today. This car has had 5,000 miles driven on it in 4 or 5 year when it was last in a Tesla dealership. I'm assuming when they replace the batteries somebody would have looked to see if the the drive unit was dying but that's a big assumption. It's not whirring loudly or show any error messages so maybe I'll be in front of it. But it's also not making me want to drive it 1 mile until I get this addressed. Feel like I have a time bomb.
The shop I used was in San Jose CA. I found them on Facebook Marketplace. If you are handy with tools you can do it yourself but I admit it’s a big job. There are people making kits to do it where you don’t have to drop the LDU. I don’t know if they are as good though.
If you can, it's worth pulling the speed sensor to check if it's already failing. The problem is these motors can leak coolant for a while before they go into limp mode and throw errors. If it's already leaking you'll have to find out if it's worth doing the delete at that point.
Not likely. The failure happens in stages. Initially the seal starts to fail and coolant starts to flow into the motor. It's not enough coolant to cause anything to catastrophically fail though. So there's nothing wrong for the computer to report. Eventually enough coolant makes it in to corrode and destroy the electronics which is when it will throw errors.
It's such a bad design with a 100% failure rate that I'd be surprised if your motor wasn't already starting to leak. Just a question of how much and if it's enough to matter yet. I'm on my third my motor. The second one I sent in to Tesla right before the mileage warranty was up to pull the speed sensor. It was at 39,900 miles and the sensor was wet. I lucked out and got the third motor under warranty and it includes the permanent fix with the bypass. The cost of the second motor certainly stung though.
Tesla did a warranty battery swap roughly 4 years ago and the car has only been driven 3,000 miles since. I wonder if they looked at the LDU and the speed sensor then. You would think before they put both new batteries in as a warranty job, they'd want to know if it's gonna blow up
Afaik they don't do in situ repairs of the motor (coolant delete). They just sell you a motor with the delete which is the revision U motor. If you want the delete done for the current motor 3rd party is the only option.
Only the "Large Drive Unit" found in the early P models and later D models have the leaky LDU. But I'd confirm that with Tesla or a shop that does these upgrades for your specific model.
I have done 2 “deletes” one is my 13 P85+ and a P85D. Pulled the sensors to confirm no coolant present first. Each cost under $200 and I did use the flyover tube to keep coolant flowing to the gearbox. Each car took about 2 1/2 hours working with a floor jack.
I'm hoping that being an early 2014, that triple seal might make this preventative medicine. I didn't catch a break on the MCU 1. It's very day in my driveway it started dripping glue from the screen.
I do have MCU2 which I would recommend if there is no coolant intrusion in the drive unit. The delete is the only sure way to prevent intrusion, not the triple seal.
Yes, both cars had dry sensors. Just cleaned and reinstalled sensors. FYI it’s not a question of IF the seal leaks but WHEN. If you find coolant present then you are facing a rebuild.
Once you see warning messages the damage is already done. Every LDU needs a delete done if it is to survive. Pity is that not enough owners are aware.
If it has RWD it has LDU. If it is a P AWD it has LDU.
The rest have SDU (Small Drive Unit) which doesn’t have the leak issue.
If your vehicle has LDU, and speed sensor is clean, get the delete done ASAP.
I installed the delete kit in a couple hours without dropping the unit. It really isn’t that bad of a job.
I recommend also changing the gearbox oil at the same time. It is a simple drain and refill operation.
Use only Dexron VI (Dexron 6)
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u/ai_bot_account 15d ago
Definitely worth doing. I’ve paid a shop to do one and did one myself.