Edinburgh couple fume as they are handed £17K bill by Tesla as they ‘drove in rain’
By Paul Homewood
From Edinburgh Live:
An Edinburgh couple say they are “in shock” after claiming Tesla gave them a £17,000 bill to fix their battery that was ‘damaged by the rain’.
Johnny Bacigalupo and Rob Hussey told how they have been faced with the massive bill when their £60,000 electric car stopped working when the capital was faced with extreme weather last week.
Following “frustrating” correspondence with the company, which boasts Elon Musk as its largest shareholder, the pair say they are still being asked to fork out £17,374 despite claiming no fault on their part.
Johnny and Rob left their home near Baberton to head to a popular city centre restaurant last Saturday. Although they arrived with no issues, they say their car wouldn’t start as they attempted to leave after enjoying their meal
They say they waited nearly five hours from roadside assistance from Tesla support, and still have not seen their luxury car since it was wheeled away from the side of the road that evening.
Johnny said: “I honestly can’t believe that this has happened. When I first got the call I thought we would get bill for £500 or £1000. When they said over 17 grand – it’s absolutely obscene. My heart missed a beat, honestly.
“We went out for dinner and drove our car to Frederick Street. Obviously, it was wet with the weather last week, but I honestly can’t remember any huge puddles or anything like that. It’s not like I was driving my car through the Cairngorms.
“After dinner the car just wouldn’t move. Eventually we had to contact the Tesla Roadside Assistance – around 10pm.
“After a few annoyingly difficult further calls, and one failed collection attempt, our car was collected by a firm suitable for Tesla collection and delivered to Tesla Edinburgh about 1am.
After complaints from me, we received a call at 5.30pm on the Wednesday saying the battery was damaged due to water ingress and it was unfortunately not covered by the battery’s 8-year warranty and so the repair would be around £17,500
“Did I wish to proceed?? I was flabbergasted and couldn’t really find my words”
John and Rob are still reeling from the huge bill.
John says he pressed representatives of Tesla on whether he or Rob were at fault for the damage, to which he claims he was told that it was a weather issue.
He continued: “They said that the battery is effectively submerged in water. How can that be our fault?
“After finally getting to speak to a manager, he told me it had water in it due to the fact the weather in Scotland has been so bad. That was the issue. They said it’s not necessarily my fault but it’s not Tesla’s to pay under warranty. He reminded me there was a yellow weather warning in some parts of Scotland.
“I pushed him on this and said I’ve never heard or something like this happening. He said it can happen with Range Rovers and Mercs but I’m just not buying it.
“To date, it’s been a disaster of a service and the stress and worry of this is excruciating. I said to the manager, ‘so, my understanding is, Teslas are unfit for purpose in Scotland?.”
I’ve been driving for 30 years and this is my most premium car to date and this is what it does when Edinburgh’s roads get puddles or a little wet!”
Edinburgh Live has seen correspondence between the couple and Tesla which confirms the £17,374 bill.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Paying sixty thousand pounds for a LESS practical vehicle is the first problem here. Why didn’t they buy a proper car with diesel or petrol engine in the first place?
As for water and electricity, is anybody really surprised at the damage that causes?
Why *buy* an EV at all? Leasing is a lot less financially risky when dealing with sensitive and moving lithium batteries, plus second-hand EV prices are on a downward trend at present.
Why spend _any_ money on the less practical EVs at all whether it is a purchase or a lease aka rental?
>>Why *buy* an EV at all? Leasing is a lot less financially risky
Indeed, but some folk just want one for whatever reason or motive. One day other options won’t exist, if present policies persist.
EV was just a fashion, beloved by those like academics. It doesn’t stand the test of the real world and real needs.
‘Er indoors’s first reaction which — purely coincidentally — was what she was thinking when we were driving through rain this morning and I remarked that over the years my experience was that ICEs seemed to run smoother under damp conditions.
Just one more example of why a switch to EVs is not the brightest of ideas!
In the late 1960s and early 1970s I had several old BMC Minis (a glutton for punishment”, they all had a propensity to stop when it rained. I think that the position of the HT Coil made them vulnerable.
Yes, positioning the coil facing forward just behind the grill wasn’t the best idea Issigonis ever had. There was a roaring aftermaket in plastic shields that could be inserted between the grill & coil. It worked wonders!
The distributer on old Minis was behind the grille.
Cure was a rubber glove with the tips of the fingers cut off and put over the HT leads and cap.
In the late 1950s you could buy a water injector for your engine which squirted a small amount of water into the inlet manifold. I think it was based upon the principle that engines develop more power in cool damp air.
Simple lesson here, don’t buy an EV . .
Simple lesson: don’t for ANY political party of ANY colour that is in favour of ANY green policies (unless it is getting rid of Bird Mincers etc.)
Just one of the consequences of swallowing the kool-aid. There are of course many other ones lying in wait. Still he can be comforted that it didn’t catch fire!
Electric submarines is old Tech. ( just saying) and so’s my window wipers and my old tractor is out in all weather and gets a good pressure wash from time to time. But Heh! it’s now a DIESEL ( used to be TVO )
Mexican car wash…
https://www.yourdictionary.com/mexican-car-wash
Aye, … and after a’ that an’ a’ that, it still works. Never gave it a second thought. Like the other comments – too much virtue signalling and after dinner discussions without real thought or “know-How”. Some people do the strangest things.
” used to be TVO” Strewth saighdear how far are you going back? Surely TVO went out over 50 years ago.
Sure! but it was cheaper than Petrol, Well they were really Petrol/Paraffins ( but I just wanted to tease – did anyone here know about TVO). We’ve been Diesel since the early 50’s. No electrics needed: Start from the face of the Brae and don’t stall it. ( If you’re good). Lights optional but convenient. We believe in Diesels as Just add Fuel and keep lubricated. Deutzies are best, but we watch the water in our Perkins & Deeres ( we just WATCH the water – ‘snot going anywhere). no daft electronics and DEF.
Electric subs are viable because they use Lead Acid and an ocean vessel works very well when carrying heavy loads. None of that applies to EV vehicles which are stupid.
One of the many fears of submariners was salt water getting into the battery compartment and producing Chlorine gas.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer couple.
My sympathy is for the dog.
🤣🤣
No sympathy at all with this virtue signalling individual , thats the cost of dinnerparty conversation that involves proving your green credentials
A couple of hours research would have informed him of the issues with EVs range , software issues , fire hazard , weight , cold weather issues with battery ,the list grows longer every month
A jaguar I pace packed up last week and blocked the narrow lane I live on along with a few other houses , a resident was trying to help by charging the 12 volt battery that is necessary to power the main battery start up , and powers the ancilliaries
The cars brakes were locked on , its a big vehicle , for 2 hours it sat there dead as a dodo while a diesel van used jumper cables to get enough charge into its 12v to run the rest , these vehicles are a joke
You would think that if the battery was flat, it would RELEASE the brakes and drive system so it could be moved. Mind you, I once made the mistake of putting my automatic diesel in ‘park’ after it stopped. Turned out to be a failed alternator so flat battery, so was then not able to get it out of ‘park’, so couldn’t move it. The AA man had to put a charged battery in to get it restarted and out of ‘park’ to move it.
” The cars brakes were locked on , its a big vehicle , ”
No farmer locally with a big tractor suitable for towing duties?
“my understanding is, Teslas are unfit for purpose in Scotland?”
Nope.
The last two words are not required.
EVs are unfit for purpose. It’s not only Tesla, it is ALL of them.
If the car failed in weather conditions likely to be experienced by the car in normal use then it would appear to be unfit for purpose. Are we being told the full story here ?
a few points
Just Stop Oil are protesting at the Bibby migrant ship and displaying a banner that says “no prison ships”. anyone understand this scope creep? .
Also noted that Greta is protesting outside a bank again. Surely she must be breaking some bail condition following her arrest earlier in the week?.
Also this storm Babette and its red warning turning into a bit of a not very damp squib.
For at least the last 6 months, Greta’s seemingly been obsessed with finding ways to get locked up. (I’m guessing that her advisors have pointed out to her that simply continuing to be a gobby teenager doesn’t work once you reach adulthood, and she needs to do something more tangible to attract the attention of the World’s media and keep her financial backers in place.) Predictably, given the shortage of suitable prison accommodation, getting locked up is proving more difficult than she might have thought.
Comedian Lee Hurst cracked this joke online “As soon as Greta discovers cock, she’ll stop complaining about the single use plastic it’s wrapped in.” And was almost instantaneously cancelled from just about everywhere.
Greta needs a good ……… and the same brave (very brave) soul to post the video online. She really would be a martyr and, of course, a very wealthy one then.
After a report that the town of Brechin was being evacuated and no trains would be running north of Edinburgh for the next two days I contacted my daughter, currently holidaying on Skye, to find out what the weather was like there.
Wind at ‘moderate breeze’ level on the Beaufort scale was the reply! So much for ‘red alerts’ (though I do understand that Skye is on the west side of Scotland, not the east!) Forecast for Edinburgh doesn’t suggest anything much out of the ordinary for October either.
Just Stop Oil are claiming the illegal migrants are victims of Climate Change.
Did you see them trying to stop the coach going to the barge?
I doubt that it was ‘wheeled away’ as proven by the arrival of a vehicle capable of collecting a Tesla after a failed attempt.
Hence the reason they cause so much damage in collisions. (the massive weight). Also, why they consume so much unnecessary energy (all that weight being carried around).
The towing of a battery car is not related to the weight. It is because the electric motors are always connected to the wheels and turning them may cause damage but it also possible that they turn into generators and act as brakes. Without expending time on research, I think quite a lot of battery cars are all wheel drive so you can lift up the driven wheels and tow. I have read that some cars may have a ‘neutral’ feature but I presume that would add complexity since it requires mechanically disconnecting the electric motors from the wheels.
Until there is an enormous improvement in the range batteries can provided, along with their safety, integrity, and robustness, I consider there’s no future in such costly (both to purchase and insure) vehicles.
If the battery containment under the vehicle let’s in enough water to ruin it, then it’s either a design or a manufacturing fault. Either way that’s Tesla’s responsibility I would think, unless there’s more to this story than we’re being told.
Very unlikely to be a design fault as this seems to be a one-off occurance. Possibly it’s a manufacturing fault but perhaps there was damage e.g. the absurd bumps that are now all over our roads?
Surely this is a case of car “not fit for purpose” so, under our laws, they should able to claim back either the whole cost of the car or the cost of the battery at least I would have thought. Once they have a new battery of course they would still have a car that is still not fit for purpose.
Perhaps the car had been driven over a sleeping policemen and the underside damaged (it’s happened on my diesel car with a particularly viscous SP, where the undertray was ripped and the lower sump damaged). As EVs are much heavier, they will likely drop lower when coming off such a hump in the road.
Why? It’s obviously not a common problem and there’s no evidence presented it’s a manufacturing fault. Maybe instead of getting the local media involved, they should have had a second opinion from another mechanic.
Paul, no doubt you are watching the scare around floods in Scotland. I did a little research myself…
I did notice a puddle on the way back from the shops yesterday. It was almost reaching as far as the part of the road where the cars go. It was a terrifying sight … I was expecting a group of students to descend any minute and glue themselves to the pavement with banners saying “save the puddle”.
Virtue signallers invest in second hand Tesla, then cry.
Well I’m shocked, didn’t see that coming 🙂
Is it not cold enough already in Scotland with -4ºC whistling up your kilt on a normal day?
“ second hand Tesla”
I missed that part of the story. Would the battery’s 8-year warranty still be worthy for a second hand unit?
Anyway, in the USA an ICE replacement engine or rebuild can be had for less than a third of the cost of that battery. Not that a rain storm and a few puddles would ruin an engine!
I think I read it wrong, don’t know where I got the second hand from.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Said with a Welsh accent.
To add to all the other negative points of EVs’, here is one more!
Apparently front wheel EV tyres are subject to 40% more wear than ICE cars. This is due to the excessive weight of their Lithium Ion Batteries, mounted at the front of the vehicle.
Presumably tyres for EVs’, should have tyres that are suitable for the vehicles’ use, this does not seem to be the case?
I think it is Hankook who advertise a special tyre for battery cars at UEFA matches. I presume it requires a stiffer carcase and maybe a harder compound.
I am pleased to say that I have not had any issues, my carcase is stiff enough as is my harder compound!
Ladies, please reply? 🤣😍
You should be careful saying that given the ‘couple’ in question.
I should feel for them, but I do not. The price of virtue signalling!
Best to avoid a Tesla where it rains, Scotland for example
Hey steady on now DBB or we will be discussing the famous Scots saga of Ben Doon and Phil McCaverty.
🤣🤣
Is that the clan MacBacigalupo
Following “frustrating” correspondence with the company, which boasts Elon Musk as its largest shareholder, the pair say they are still being asked to fork out £17,374 despite claiming no fault on their part.’
They teach that in journalism school, to insert irrelevant gibberish in the middle of your sentences.
Just for interest. What does Scottish Law say about it.? It has been separate from English Law at least back to Stuart Times when a Scottish Stuart King succeeded to the English Throne. hasn’t it?James Sixth and First . Maybe Tesla are not liable ?
https://scottishlaw.org.uk/lawscotland/abscotslaw.html Disentangle that if you are so inclined. 🙂
I’m not quite sure why they think they shouldn’t pay just because its not “their fault”? It’s weather, it’s their car. Who do they think should pay?
Way off thread but I see that Greta Thunberg is protesting in London again. I’m reading Vol 5 of Jonathan Sumption’s astonishing Hundred Years War . Joan of Arc and her ‘voices from God’ certainly raised French army morale and military success but people gradually got hacked off by her pretentiousnes, extravagant statements, bad judgements, self-aggrandizement and extravagant dress. She got captured, done for heresy and burnt at the stake.
Today it is reported she has called for a Strike for Peace in the Mid East. Have a look at news sites
Edinburgh doesn’t get real rain. They are just Green moaners in Edinburgh.
Speaking of batteries, it might be advisable to avoid stop-start in your next car if possible, yet another planet-not-saving gimmick. My battery died a week ago, was expecting to a trip to Halfords to pick up and charge-up a new one for around £60. Nope, batteries in stop-start cars are special, cost around £160, have to have a special charger, and have to be installed by a technician, unless you are au-fait with accessing the computer in the car.
Got a new battery 2 days later, total cost £180, and I still can’t charge it myself.
Not only advisable. Stop start should be disabled as default. Even better if it is not there at all. Amazing that insane thing got past safety regulations.
>> it might be advisable to avoid stop-start
Problem is, aren’t all new cars required to have stop-start? You also cannot disable it, as that would be an MOT failure. They have us by the short and curlies. Only an older car would be without this darned ‘feature’.
I think the batteries in stop-start cars are a gel type rather than lead-acid. I switch off the stop-start in mine every time I’ve started the engine. The EU’s vindictiveness extended to not allowing car mfrs to ‘remember’ the stop-start setting, so you have to disable it every time. [I was also told that not remembering the auto-parking brake setting was a safety feature. Balderdash! I switch that on every time, so can’t be ‘unsafe’.]
In the previous century, I owned several “stop/start” cars, although the engine “stopping” could sometimes occur at inopportune moments, and “starting” was not always a certainty.
Same here, but in some makes it is somewhat *”hidden” as to how to do that.
Stopping the engine is dangerous. How did “stop -start” manage to avoid safety regulations?
>>I switch off the stop-start in mine every time I’ve started the engine.
Geoff’s latest video is noting that manufacturers are pausing battery car production and continuing to produce bottom of the range petrol cars. Renault have dumped the Zoe and will be continuing a 1.2 Clio. VW have put production on hold and it dropping the Up. Ford have cut the price of the battery Mustang to try to shift it. Problem is that taxpayers subsidies are being removed, in the UK private buyers are thin on the ground, and the used market is tanking as AutoTrader says prices are down 24% in the last month – much more and you will have to pay people to take them away.
And in line with the subject of this article, down my road work is being carried out at a sewage farm where there are usually no workers. They are parking their cars/vans outside but having seen the massive lake just inside the gate following nearly 3 inches of rain in the last 3 days, the guy in Tesla must be glad to be parked outside.
One of the benefits of EV?
A fool and his money!
Virtue signalling types are never blessed with much common sense and even less engineering competence – these are the people the nut zero shills love to target – keeerching, another one in the tin
So Tesla’s are not suitable for travel if it’s raining. Do Tesla allow their cars to be put through a car wash or does this invalidate the warranty?
3 minute VIDEO.
Stuffed OCTOPUS “screws” GRETA’s “virtue signalling”.
**
I LOVE WHEN A GRIFTERS VIRTUE SIGNAL BACKFIRES
https://www.bitchute.com/video/IDpfXgDWYFY/
1 Minute VIDEO
**
ELECTRIC BIKE BECOMES TICKING TIME BOMB AS BATTERY EXPLODES
SENDING PEOPLE FLEEING TO SAFETY
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Xn5jOpEiQYF6/
There you have proof that solar and alternative are adjectives meaning NO.
And in other battery car news – anyone recall the battery World Rally Cross cars catching fire at Lydden Hill circuit in the Summer? Well, having been there yesterday, I was surprised to see that the burnt out cars are still there. And so are the remains of the burnt out transporter truck and the whole awning area. I was told that as there is nothing to salvage, the foreign team just abandoned it all and went home.
And in other battery car news – anyone recall the battery World Rally Cross cars catching fire at Lydden Hill circuit in the Summer? Well, having been there yesterday, I was surprised to see that the burnt out cars are still there. And so are the remains of the burnt out transporter truck and the whole awning area. I was told that as there is nothing to salvage, the foreign team just abandoned it all and went home.