Good to see that you behave nicely in the video, your skills and understanding of stuff are just top notch. I bet i would like your presence in real life if i even lived on the same continent as you. Looks like you're a pleasant human to be around :)
Great Video ! Very informing and pictured very well great to see the problems on all those motors I used to warranty out. Keep up the good work thanks again.
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge. Here in europe we also have issue with bearings / seals for EV motors for the Renault Zoe (2017 R90 motor). I just had them changed at 65k miles at an indpendent shop like yours. Renault dealer only wanted to change the whole motor...
I think I've heard about those issues on the Zoe before. We don't get those car's here in the U.S., but I have heard of other similar bearing wear issues on the Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro, though I have yet to actually encounter one myself. I've also heard that the Audi legacy e-Tron drive units are prone to internal coolant leakage issues (though again, I haven't seen one myself).
It'll be pretty much exactly the same process as the RAV4 EV motor rebuild video series I just did (minus the siezed rotor part), so not much point in making a second video about the same thing...
It's a pretty similar process to the video where I did the drive unit rebuild for the RAV4 EV. Some of the bracketry is different (particularly the brackets associated with the "bottom mount" on the HV stack), and the drive unit has to be tilted quite a bit do get it out, but overall, it's mostly the same steps. Lots of Torx and E-Torx fasteners!
Deleting the rotor cooling will cause the rotor to run a bit hotter, but won't cause any real damage to it. Even in stock form, the amount of coolant that runs through it is pretty miniscule (coolant flow for the large, 60lb rotor is limited by a hole that is ~1/8" or ~3mm in dia). As I stated in the video, even Tesla has started deleting the rotor cooling on these drive units from the factory with the latest revision (rev-U). The only downside to deleting rotor cooling might be decreased lifespan for the rotor bearings in the long term, but given that the bearings get destroyed by coolant intrusion anyways (not to mention the rest of the motor) when they do have rotor cooling, I'd say that's a more than worthwhile tradeoff. The hybrid ceramic bearings I use are rated for much higher operating temperatures than the motor will ever see (the grease in them alone is rated for continuous duty at 300 °C).
Is it possible to get on a list for a coolant delete part from you? I get the impression they are tough to get from QC Charge - San Diego. Happy to pay in advance if needed. I live more than 85 miles from your shop, so I"d have to trailer my B250E over if I could schedule a time for you to do the delete. I'm willing to try it myself (old mechanic and engineer) and then trailer it over if it exceeds my skills. Great car and good to know it isn't doomed! Thanks.
I'm just about out of my current batch of coolant delete manifolds, but should have more in stock relatively soon hopefully. Installing the delete manifold as a standalone procedure on the B-Class doesn't quite require removing the whole drive unit, but does require quite a bit of disassembly and removal of one motor mount so that that side of the motor can be lowered down enough to provide clearance around the "frame" rail. If you've got the "extended charge" feature on your B-Class, you should be able to make an 85mi drive without too much of an issue! The customer that brought this B-Class actually drove it here all the way from Seattle (which took a long time).
Alex thank you for doing this series for the EV community. I have commented before because my Performance S has a high pitched sound but much different than the recored sound in this TH-cam. Mine is much higher pitch. I look forward to your next video where you show how to check the Model S for the coolant issue. I am hoping mine is just drive bearings because like you said, that would seldom lead to a near term catastrophic failure. I'm not driving the car until I can check or get it checked for coolant intrusion. If I don't have coolant, I will drive it from San Diego to you for rebuild, coolant manifold (delete), and ceramic bearings in all spots. I will just fly home and then fly back to get the car when finished. If coolant, I could use your help with safe transport from San Diego to you for the same work and I just fly up and pick up when done and drive it back to San Diego. Do you know if Tesla would do it if I paid them to inspect for the coolant on the speed sensor? That way I could get it done right away. Thanks again!
Tesla won't do a speed sensor check for you, that's something you'd either have to do yourself, or take it to some other 3rd party shop. FYI, I'm actually going to be heading to San Diego later this week to pick up some shop equipment, so maybe I could arrange to try and meet you to do a speed sensor check during the short time I'll be there...
@@AlexEVRepair That would be fantastic! I would be happy to pay you. I'm in Fallbrook, retired, so I can have the care where ever you need it be when you need it there. Let me know how to contact you. John
Best way to get in touch while I'm on the road will be via email: alex@qccharge.com or you can try to call me at the shop this morning before I hit the road at: 971-444-5064
Very good explanation of the issue! In case I had a Tesla that is still under warranty, and found that there is coolant on the speed sensor, do you know if that is a failure covered by the warranty?
It should be, but folks often have a hard time getting Tesla to cover it without there being an "obvious" failure. They won't remove the speed sensor to inspect it themselves, so your best bet for proof is to take pictures or video. If they push back against replacing the drive unit, tell them you want the defective rotor seal to be addressed.
Awesome topic and well done as always! Do the normal drive units get the bearing issue very often? Would love to see the same top issues for the Model S/X battery packs.
By "normal drive units" I assuming your talking about the small drive unit? I have seen or heard of a few, but it's not anywhere near as common as the LDU. I've also heard of some folks having similar issues with some non-Tesla drive units as well, but again, seemingly less common than the LDU. The main thing that all the drive units that suffer from these bearing wear issues have in common is that they are almost always induction motors (as opposed to permanent magnet motors).
Thank you Alex for your very professional take on this specific issues with some Tesla drive units. If I understand you right in what you mentioned in the end of this video, this coolant leakage issue doesnt apply to Tesla mS dual motor versions? I have a 90D, built in September 2016. Does it mean that it doesn´t have this kind of rear motor? What about the front motor?
Yes, non-Performance dual motor versions of Model S and X do not use the Large Drive Unit, instead they use Small Drive Units both front and rear. Actually, the Model S you can see in the background of the video at the end is a pre-refresh 2016 90D, which has over 375k mi on both original drive units (battery original as well). My own personal car is a 2015 70D, with over 460k mi on the original rear drive unit, and the front drive unit was replaced at ~375k mi, and the battery at ~250k mi (both while under prior ownership).
@@AlexEVRepair Thank you for a quick answer. I am very relieved to learn that at least this should not be a problem. My Tesla is now close to 185 000 km (some 296 k mi) and I have had a lot of issues, not with the drive train but with several other components. My worst incident was when my rear right lower control arm broke, due to a weak design and low corrosion resistance (improper aluminum alloy). Apart from that, my overall experience is that compared to other vehicles in this price segment Tesla is showing a very low component quality. I have replaced so many components, like headlamps, battery heater, cabin heater, AC-compressor, parking brake servo motors, circulation pumps, door handles and more. I think Tesla has created a fantastic drive train in a very low quality vehicle. I shouldn't forget the build quality, it looks like it is put together by kids. Anyhow, in some crazy way I still love the car!
Sounds like you've had pretty much all of the "relatively common" known failures. Also, FYI, 185k km is only about 114k mi, I think you got your conversion backwards, haha.
I just finished it up on Monday, and was hoping to have the video out this week, but couldn't get it edited in time as I was out of town picking up some equipment. Should be uploading it next week!
Alex, this is awesome. Have you found that the coolant leak will cause issues with the motor or inverter on the LDU overheating? That is, will it affect the ability to properly cool the LDU, or is it just a leak that will introduce a tiny amount of coolant but enough to cause corrosion/damage in the LDU motor?
I ask this because I've got an LDU where the motor and inverter are getting hot under relatively simple street driving (e.g., motor getting to 70+ degrees C and inverter getting to 50 degrees C after 20 minutes of driving), and as I've been investigating I've discovered that I have the milling noise.
While a little bit high, those numbers don't seem to far off of what I would expect to see... If it's real hot out, that could be contributing to a higher operating temperature. It's possible that if a buildup of corrosion is occurring in the motor, that could cause excessive resistance to the rotor turning, and thus cause more power draw (which would also mean a noticeable drop in efficiency). If you take a look at my recent video series rebuilding the LDU from a RAV4 EV, it actually was suffering from this issue.
Hi Alex, not sure if you done a video on removing the LDU from a model S, I know is done by dropping the whole sub frame but are there any other gotcha points like isolating power and others?
Yes, there is indeed a HV disconnect/isolation procedure to remove it. I haven't done a video on here about that yet, but it's the same process as doing any other work on the HV systems in the car (I actually did do the HV disconnect procedure on my recent Model S CCS retrofit video). All of Tesla's service manuals that show those procedures are also available for free at service.tesla.com
Good to see that you behave nicely in the video, your skills and understanding of stuff are just top notch.
I bet i would like your presence in real life if i even lived on the same continent as you.
Looks like you're a pleasant human to be around :)
Great Video ! Very informing and pictured very well great to see the problems on all those motors I used to warranty out. Keep up the good work thanks again.
You are so helpful and to the point! Thanks!
The noise sounds like iX sound effects! 😂
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge. Here in europe we also have issue with bearings / seals for EV motors for the Renault Zoe (2017 R90 motor). I just had them changed at 65k miles at an indpendent shop like yours. Renault dealer only wanted to change the whole motor...
I think I've heard about those issues on the Zoe before. We don't get those car's here in the U.S., but I have heard of other similar bearing wear issues on the Hyundai Kona and Kia Niro, though I have yet to actually encounter one myself. I've also heard that the Audi legacy e-Tron drive units are prone to internal coolant leakage issues (though again, I haven't seen one myself).
Great content...Thanks..
Thanks so much
World Peace
Thumbs up Do a Video on the Mercedes . 👍👍👍👍👍🍻🍻
It'll be pretty much exactly the same process as the RAV4 EV motor rebuild video series I just did (minus the siezed rotor part), so not much point in making a second video about the same thing...
@@AlexEVRepairDo the video showing how to remove the drive unit on the Mercedes !!!
It's a pretty similar process to the video where I did the drive unit rebuild for the RAV4 EV. Some of the bracketry is different (particularly the brackets associated with the "bottom mount" on the HV stack), and the drive unit has to be tilted quite a bit do get it out, but overall, it's mostly the same steps. Lots of Torx and E-Torx fasteners!
Please explain how you can eliminate rotor coolant (delete manifold) without damaging the rotor.Thanks
Deleting the rotor cooling will cause the rotor to run a bit hotter, but won't cause any real damage to it. Even in stock form, the amount of coolant that runs through it is pretty miniscule (coolant flow for the large, 60lb rotor is limited by a hole that is ~1/8" or ~3mm in dia). As I stated in the video, even Tesla has started deleting the rotor cooling on these drive units from the factory with the latest revision (rev-U).
The only downside to deleting rotor cooling might be decreased lifespan for the rotor bearings in the long term, but given that the bearings get destroyed by coolant intrusion anyways (not to mention the rest of the motor) when they do have rotor cooling, I'd say that's a more than worthwhile tradeoff. The hybrid ceramic bearings I use are rated for much higher operating temperatures than the motor will ever see (the grease in them alone is rated for continuous duty at 300 °C).
Is it possible to get on a list for a coolant delete part from you? I get the impression they are tough to get from QC Charge - San Diego. Happy to pay in advance if needed. I live more than 85 miles from your shop, so I"d have to trailer my B250E over if I could schedule a time for you to do the delete. I'm willing to try it myself (old mechanic and engineer) and then trailer it over if it exceeds my skills. Great car and good to know it isn't doomed! Thanks.
I'm just about out of my current batch of coolant delete manifolds, but should have more in stock relatively soon hopefully. Installing the delete manifold as a standalone procedure on the B-Class doesn't quite require removing the whole drive unit, but does require quite a bit of disassembly and removal of one motor mount so that that side of the motor can be lowered down enough to provide clearance around the "frame" rail.
If you've got the "extended charge" feature on your B-Class, you should be able to make an 85mi drive without too much of an issue! The customer that brought this B-Class actually drove it here all the way from Seattle (which took a long time).
Alex thank you for doing this series for the EV community. I have commented before because my Performance S has a high pitched sound but much different than the recored sound in this TH-cam. Mine is much higher pitch. I look forward to your next video where you show how to check the Model S for the coolant issue. I am hoping mine is just drive bearings because like you said, that would seldom lead to a near term catastrophic failure. I'm not driving the car until I can check or get it checked for coolant intrusion. If I don't have coolant, I will drive it from San Diego to you for rebuild, coolant manifold (delete), and ceramic bearings in all spots. I will just fly home and then fly back to get the car when finished. If coolant, I could use your help with safe transport from San Diego to you for the same work and I just fly up and pick up when done and drive it back to San Diego. Do you know if Tesla would do it if I paid them to inspect for the coolant on the speed sensor? That way I could get it done right away. Thanks again!
Tesla won't do a speed sensor check for you, that's something you'd either have to do yourself, or take it to some other 3rd party shop.
FYI, I'm actually going to be heading to San Diego later this week to pick up some shop equipment, so maybe I could arrange to try and meet you to do a speed sensor check during the short time I'll be there...
@@AlexEVRepair That would be fantastic! I would be happy to pay you. I'm in Fallbrook, retired, so I can have the care where ever you need it be when you need it there. Let me know how to contact you. John
Best way to get in touch while I'm on the road will be via email: alex@qccharge.com
or you can try to call me at the shop this morning before I hit the road at: 971-444-5064
Thanks. Can you make a video on how not problematic electric vehicle sounds inside ?
nice!
Very good explanation of the issue! In case I had a Tesla that is still under warranty, and found that there is coolant on the speed sensor, do you know if that is a failure covered by the warranty?
It should be, but folks often have a hard time getting Tesla to cover it without there being an "obvious" failure. They won't remove the speed sensor to inspect it themselves, so your best bet for proof is to take pictures or video. If they push back against replacing the drive unit, tell them you want the defective rotor seal to be addressed.
Awesome topic and well done as always!
Do the normal drive units get the bearing issue very often?
Would love to see the same top issues for the Model S/X battery packs.
By "normal drive units" I assuming your talking about the small drive unit? I have seen or heard of a few, but it's not anywhere near as common as the LDU.
I've also heard of some folks having similar issues with some non-Tesla drive units as well, but again, seemingly less common than the LDU.
The main thing that all the drive units that suffer from these bearing wear issues have in common is that they are almost always induction motors (as opposed to permanent magnet motors).
👍👍
Thank you Alex for your very professional take on this specific issues with some Tesla drive units. If I understand you right in what you mentioned in the end of this video, this coolant leakage issue doesnt apply to Tesla mS dual motor versions? I have a 90D, built in September 2016. Does it mean that it doesn´t have this kind of rear motor? What about the front motor?
Yes, non-Performance dual motor versions of Model S and X do not use the Large Drive Unit, instead they use Small Drive Units both front and rear. Actually, the Model S you can see in the background of the video at the end is a pre-refresh 2016 90D, which has over 375k mi on both original drive units (battery original as well).
My own personal car is a 2015 70D, with over 460k mi on the original rear drive unit, and the front drive unit was replaced at ~375k mi, and the battery at ~250k mi (both while under prior ownership).
@@AlexEVRepair Thank you for a quick answer. I am very relieved to learn that at least this should not be a problem. My Tesla is now close to 185 000 km (some 296 k mi) and I have had a lot of issues, not with the drive train but with several other components. My worst incident was when my rear right lower control arm broke, due to a weak design and low corrosion resistance (improper aluminum alloy). Apart from that, my overall experience is that compared to other vehicles in this price segment Tesla is showing a very low component quality. I have replaced so many components, like headlamps, battery heater, cabin heater, AC-compressor, parking brake servo motors, circulation pumps, door handles and more. I think Tesla has created a fantastic drive train in a very low quality vehicle. I shouldn't forget the build quality, it looks like it is put together by kids. Anyhow, in some crazy way I still love the car!
Sounds like you've had pretty much all of the "relatively common" known failures. Also, FYI, 185k km is only about 114k mi, I think you got your conversion backwards, haha.
Any update on smart car repair ?
I just finished it up on Monday, and was hoping to have the video out this week, but couldn't get it edited in time as I was out of town picking up some equipment. Should be uploading it next week!
Alex, this is awesome. Have you found that the coolant leak will cause issues with the motor or inverter on the LDU overheating? That is, will it affect the ability to properly cool the LDU, or is it just a leak that will introduce a tiny amount of coolant but enough to cause corrosion/damage in the LDU motor?
I ask this because I've got an LDU where the motor and inverter are getting hot under relatively simple street driving (e.g., motor getting to 70+ degrees C and inverter getting to 50 degrees C after 20 minutes of driving), and as I've been investigating I've discovered that I have the milling noise.
While a little bit high, those numbers don't seem to far off of what I would expect to see... If it's real hot out, that could be contributing to a higher operating temperature.
It's possible that if a buildup of corrosion is occurring in the motor, that could cause excessive resistance to the rotor turning, and thus cause more power draw (which would also mean a noticeable drop in efficiency). If you take a look at my recent video series rebuilding the LDU from a RAV4 EV, it actually was suffering from this issue.
Hi Alex, not sure if you done a video on removing the LDU from a model S, I know is done by dropping the whole sub frame but are there any other gotcha points like isolating power and others?
Yes, there is indeed a HV disconnect/isolation procedure to remove it. I haven't done a video on here about that yet, but it's the same process as doing any other work on the HV systems in the car (I actually did do the HV disconnect procedure on my recent Model S CCS retrofit video). All of Tesla's service manuals that show those procedures are also available for free at service.tesla.com
Where is his shop located ?
How much for a rebuild ?
Portland Oregon, a full overhaul typically runs ~$4,500-$5,000 (assuming no "catastrophic" damage).
Is it the metallic whirring?
Yes should not make that sound at all....
🔧🪛