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Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by jws on Monday July 12, 2021 @07:04PM (#27816126)
> But why are you calling it a hack fix?

My first question would relate to "dezincification". A chemical process where the zinc leaves brass and leaves a copper sponge behind. Does the coolant cause dezincification? Is zinc tolerable in the coolant?

Learned this one in my home when my city water dezincified a kitchen faucet causing water to escape through to "solid" surfaces.

My second question would be about how that female threaded material holds up under vibration over time.

That said, I'd might accept this as a fix if I broke my own car and just peek at it once in a while to see if it was weeping. But if someone else broke my car, fixed it like this and told me it was good enough I would not be happy. That's the kind of confusion I get for thinking with meat.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by throwaway0a5e on Monday July 12, 2021 @08:18PM (#27816535)
I would have personally sought out a plastic barb for the chemical compatibility reasons you state (one less variable to worry about) but if it's glycol type coolant brass will be fine. Also there may very well be brass elsewhere in the system informing their decision.

Vibration is a non-issue. Pipe threads are is 200yr old tech. Pipe threads in all manner of materials have been in service in all manner of environments the world over. Some of them for a century or more.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by Arch-TK on Monday July 12, 2021 @07:11PM (#27816180)
Why the assumption that the independant tesla repair people don't know this? It might be unknown to you but I assume that people who work with metals and liquids all day long (including coolant) would have some idea of their interaction.
Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by Sebb767 on Monday July 12, 2021 @07:17PM (#27816221)
The point is not to call them incompetent - there absolutely are rigorous and good third party repair shops out there.

Unfortunately, there are just as much of them just trying to get your money and then fixing it the simplest and cheapest way possible, without the consideration for long term safety and secondary effects that Tesla has probably put in.

As an outsider, it's hard to tell the difference, but I agree with the grandparent that an order of magnitude cheaper does look too good to be true at first.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by bbarnett on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @03:05AM (#27818291)
While I agree (good and bad repair shops), this extends to dealers and even management at local, non-franchised shops.

EG, a specific Tesla shop can be stuck with bad management too.

A Canadian banks was caught because tellers were signing people up, unaware, with free credit cards, over draft protection, monthly plans, and even lines of credit. Why?

Management tying performance and promotion, and even job security, with overly aggressive conversion numbers.

So, even a Tesla shop may try an upsale, to get monthly profit numbers up.

In terms of the hack? It's not a hack. It is a simple, sensible fix. Bear in mind, the Tesla shop he went to? Seems to be little more than a component swapping repair site. They likely know little about car repair.

One other thing. You get good at car repair, when you work on 10, 20, 30 year old cars.

Fixing new, in lease cars is easy by comparison. Tesla has little experience with 20 year old wear and tear fixes...

Yet independent shops and experienced mechanics do.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by CRConrad on Saturday July 17, 2021 @07:25PM (#27869612)
> As an outsider, it's hard to tell the difference, but I agree with the grandparent that an order of magnitude cheaper does look too good to be true at first.

Whereas, looking at it the other way around, an order of magnitude more expensive on the part of the manufacturer unfortunately doesn't look too bad to be true at all.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by gopher_space on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @12:06AM (#27817542)
> without the consideration for long term safety and secondary effects that Tesla has probably put in.

This seems like an incredibly wild assumption. The German concept of 'keine ehrfurcht fur deine maschine' will keep you from seeing every problem as a chance for your box to shine.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by Sebb767 on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @09:11AM (#27820495)
Well, it depends a bit on the possible failure scenarios. If we would be talking about a 10$ toy, hacking something together would totally be fine with me.

But we're talking about a 40k$ car and a system which is critical for cooling a part that is very eager to start a fire. I can easily imagine that the higher pressure or temperature tolerance would be needed if you're using the car in extremely hot weather (which can be a bit unexpected [0]) or when the battery experiences a critical failure. When working with systems that can have very bad failures, a bit of Ehrfurcht might be appropriate.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2021/jul/08/weatherwatch...

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by lmm on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @04:43AM (#27818769)
Searching for that phrase mainly brings up this thread, so, uh, what are you talking about?
Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by gopher_space on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @05:13PM (#27826389)
It was a callback to KMFDM's point of view combined with a little "every problem looks like a nail" thinking that wildly missed its mark as a joke, unfortunately for me.
Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by kwhitefoot on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @05:57AM (#27819163)
Google Translate says: 'no respect for your machine'. Still not quite sure what the poster meant.
Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by Sebb767 on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @09:05AM (#27820439)
A possibly more accurate translation, depending on how "Erfurcht" is read, might be "don't deify the machine", as in "don't hesitate because you fear you can not understand it" (I'm German myself). This interpretation would somewhat make sense in the context.
Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by kwhitefoot on Wednesday July 14, 2021 @12:35PM (#27835011)
Thank you, that makes much more sense.
Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by zamalek on Monday July 12, 2021 @11:00PM (#27817256)
> Does the coolant cause dezincification? Is zinc tolerable in the coolant?

I watched the actual video. The mechanic, who previously worked at Tesla, indicated that brass would handle the coolant just fine; a friend of his had been driving the same fix for quite some time.

> My second question would be about how that female threaded material holds up under vibration over time.

Adhesive.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by toomanybeersies on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @08:54AM (#27820313)
I'm certain that the mechanic, who took 3 or 4 years to learn his trade, has thought of these things.

That repair will likely last longer than the car. Brass fittings have been standard for hydraulic and cooling systems for over 150 years. Tesla has been cheap and used plastic instead.

Re:Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair ... by rasz on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @02:10PM (#27824192)
Plastic is fine, every car has some part of cooling circuit made out of plastic.

At least its not glued in https://rennlist.com/forums/cayenne-958-2011-2018/1045931-20...