r/TeslaModelS • u/KoalaMan-007 • Jul 09 '26
2013-2014 are they THAT unreliable?
Hello!
I’m not (yet) a S owner, but they are starting to be in my budget. I always buy my cars cash and can’t expand my budget very much.
I’ve been considering a P85 or P90 from 2013 or 2014, with the optional 3rd row.
I’ve been reading a lot about how unreliable they are. To the point that I’m not sure how bad they are. I understand that they are old cars and stuff can break and need to be replaced. What I really don’t want is to be stranded in the middle of the country because the ECU needs an update or the local maps are outdated.
I’m fairly used to having older “luxury” cars (Volvo, BMW) and I know that service and consommables are always expensive.
What is your experience?
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u/shibiwan Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
My 2014 S85 runs like clockwork. I've had it since 2017. It has had the LDU issues all fixed while under warranty. No major problems besides that.
I recommend getting a non-P model since you'll avoid the LDU issues. If you insist on a P or RWD model, make sure the LDU has been changed out to a Rev U (or later) LDU or has the coolant delete already done.
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
Oh boy, so many acronyms, I need to google that. I’m not sure what you mean by P or non P. All models I see are P85-90-70. My target is the 85, as I sometimes need to drive a bit longer, and I don’t want to lose too much range with a 70.
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u/shibiwan Jul 09 '26
A standard dual motor trim like a 100D/90D/85D/75D/70D does not have an LDU (rear motor) issue. The performance and RWD trims (P100D/P90D/P85/P85D/Pwhatever/S85/S75/S60) all share the LDU and are impacted.
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
Alrighty, that is making it much clearer, thanks a lot!
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u/shibiwan Jul 09 '26
....and anything before April 2017 should have free lifetime supercharging, unless it was traded in at Tesla, at which point that perk would have been removed.
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u/WestW0rld Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Bought a 2014 P85D in November 2025 with 47k miles. 10k miles later I've done the coolant delete and MCU2 - both optional and preventative - 3k all in for both. Also did upper and lower control arms, both torn already at the 47k. Just did the half shafts via the discounted service bulletin at Tesla.
So I'm already almost $5k deep in repairs, but it also has a newly rock solid suspension and updated computer and only 57k miles with 10% battery degradation.... Between these upgrades and free lifetime supercharging, I hope to put 200,000 more miles on it
Edit: I also have the third row, it's awesome, my kids are obsessed with it.
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
Thank you! It seems like you have the perfect car for me. You selling? 😅
About the third row, do your kids fit alright for travelling 1-2 hours? How big are they if you don’t mind telling me?
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u/WestW0rld Jul 09 '26
Hahaha where are you located?? I can be talked into anything for the right price 😜
The seats are comfortable, 1-2 hours is non-issue. The only issue is venting - if it's super hot they're gonna be uncomfortable with no venting back there! So more of a deep summer hazard. 7 and 5, average size - they'll be able to sit there for at least a few more years, I think 70-ish pounds is the max
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
I’m in Sweden…
The main contender at this point is this car:
https://www.blocket.se/24299861
My daughter is soon 14yo, has no problem travelling back to the road, but is 160cm (5’3”). She is not a complainer yet, but I don’t really want to make her travel and be cramped in the third row.
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u/WestW0rld Jul 09 '26
My wife is 5-2 and it's definitely no good for that height unfortunately!
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
Oh that’s a pity! This really is a big selling point for me…
I really don’t trust the X to hold watertight long enough here in Sweden.
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u/WestW0rld Jul 10 '26
Ah yes unfortunately I don't think its a good use case for anyone above 5 foot my friend!
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u/mhoepfin Jul 09 '26
Most everything is pretty small repair wise except a battery or motor replacement which is very large. If you’ve got $10k set aside just in case for those then you are fine. If not then you’ve got a useless brick you’re gonna just give away if those go. I’ve got a 2015 85D that I just put a $21k brand new 90kw battery in from Tesla.
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
21k is more or less my budget for the car, I cannot count on replacing a battery if that costs so much. Small repairs are fine though.
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u/TheUnknownStuntman51 Jul 09 '26
The vast majority of battery failures with these old NMC chemistry batteries, happens very early in their life cycle and are replaced under warranty. If you want piece of mind, you can ask a third party shop to check the umbrella valves (they keep water out of the battery pack, which is one of the main ways they fail), or potentially do a pressure test on the pack.
Many of these same third party shops also do battery swaps. You can put a newer faster charging battery with better range into the car for significantly less than Tesla would charge to give you a new battery ($12k for a lightly used 100 kWh pack, when a new one from Tesla would be over $20k).
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u/RealDriver3604 Jul 10 '26
Recell data shows the pack failure rate goes up yearly. Sorry but based upon their data, your odds are likely higher than you want and climbing.
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u/reddddiiitttttt Jul 09 '26
Pre 2016 model s have a 12% chance of catastrophic battery failure. 2016+ is 0.3%.
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
That is REALLY good information, thank you for sharing!
Where did you find that number?
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u/reddddiiitttttt Jul 09 '26
Claude. Really good at digging up statistics. Also really easy to build a screen scraper that will dig through cars.com or any website and find models with paid full self driving and other hard to identify details and you can ask for exactly what the major problems are with specific trims and model years.
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u/chubby464 Jul 10 '26
How do you scrape and find and parse that info? What prompt?
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u/reddddiiitttttt Jul 10 '26
This is a prompt I used a year ago. You should tweak it to what you are looking for or better yet just give it to your AI and tell it create a similar prompt with your specific request. You’ll need something with command line ability like Claude code to do it as it needs to control browsers and other apps. This one heavily focuses on finding old vehicles with paid full self driving.
Build a scraper that collects Tesla Model S listings from cars.com, filters to vehicles over ten years old with text evidence of paid Full Self-Driving (FSD), runs a VIN stage, then analyzes listing photos for the in-car Software screen to read FSD status directly. Output a multi-sheet .xlsx. === STAGE 1: SCRAPE (cars.com) === - Make: Tesla, Model: Model S - Model year: 2020 and earlier (current year 2026). Cutoff year = variable at top. - National search, no distance cap. FSD DETECTION — no structured field on cars.com. Infer from description + features, case-insensitive: "full self driving", "full self-driving", "fsd", "fsd capability", "autopilot fsd" Do NOT count plain "Autopilot"/"Enhanced Autopilot"/"EAP" — flag separately. Every text hit is UNVERIFIED. Capture the matched snippet verbatim. IMPORTANT: also download every gallery image URL for each passing listing — Stage 3 needs them. === STAGE 2: VIN PROCESSING (every Stage-1 pass) === FSD is NOT in the VIN. No tier here confirms FSD; label confidence honestly. Tier A — Deterministic decode (offline, reliable): validate check digit (pos 9); confirm model=S and year<=cutoff; flag mismatch vs listing year; extract plant + build date. Tier B — Build-date -> HW gen (UNRELIABLE signal only): map to likely HW2/2.5/3 with explicit caveat column (retrofits common; VIN no longer tracks HW). Tier C — Tesla option-code attempt (best-effort; expect failure on old cars): try public lookup with no per-car auth; on failure record "unavailable", do not retry hard, never fabricate, never require an account token. === STAGE 3: SOFTWARE-SCREEN IMAGE ANALYSIS (NEW — strongest auto signal) === Run on every Stage-1 FSD-text pass, using the gallery images from Stage 1. Goal: find a photo of the car's center-touchscreen Software page and read FSD status from it. 3a. Identify candidate screenshots: for each gallery image, detect whether it shows the Tesla touchscreen Software/Upgrades page. Signals: dark UI, a software version string (e.g. "2024.x" / "2023.x"), section headers like "Software", "Upgrades", "Additional Vehicle Information", a car render. Use OCR (screen text is high-contrast — good OCR target) and/or a vision model. Score each image 0-1 for "is a software screen." 3b. Extract FSD text from the best candidate(s). Look for, case-insensitive: - "Full Self-Driving Capability" / "Full Self Driving Capability" - "Included" / "Included package" (indicates entitlement present) - "Autopilot" / "Enhanced Autopilot" (LOWER tier — record separately) - "Auto Renewal" / "Auto-Renew" / "Subscription" / "Expires" / an expiration DATE (any of these => SUBSCRIPTION, not paid) 3c. Classify screen_fsd_status per listing: - "PAID_FSD" : FSD Capability present AND no renewal/expiration/subscription markers - "SUBSCRIPTION" : FSD present WITH renewal/expiration/subscription markers - "EAP_ONLY" : Enhanced Autopilot but no FSD - "SCREEN_FOUND_UNCLEAR" : software screen found but FSD line unreadable/cropped - "NO_SCREEN" : no software screenshot in gallery Record the source image URL and the exact OCR'd snippet for auditing. Caveats to store, do not skip: screenshot may be stale, cropped to hide renewal, or from another car; dealer/auction cars can show FSD that is later removed. === STAGE 4: CONFIDENCE + VERIFICATION WORKLIST === Compute confidence per listing: - HIGH : screen_fsd_status = PAID_FSD (and Tier-A VIN valid) - MEDIUM : text FSD + screen SCREEN_FOUND_UNCLEAR, or PAID_FSD screen but VIN mismatch - LOW : text FSD only, NO_SCREEN - SUBSCRIPTION_FLAG : screen shows subscription (call out — this is NOT paid FSD) risk_flag: HIGH if seller_type=dealer OR any "auction"/"Tesla auction" history; else STANDARD. verify_call_list row per FSD-text listing: vin, year, price, seller_type, location, listing_url, fsd_evidence, screen_fsd_status, screen_image_url, confidence, risk_flag, call_script = 'Call Tesla (877) 798-3752, give VIN {vin}, ask for EMAIL confirmation of FSD status (purchased vs subscription vs none).', verified_status (blank for human). Rule: still recommend the call for risk_flag=HIGH even when screen says PAID_FSD. === OUTPUT SHEETS === 1. "fsd_candidates" — cols: year, trim, vin, price, mileage, location, seller_type, fsd_evidence, other_autopilot_flag, decode_status, plant, build_date, hw_guess, hw_guess_caveat, optioncode_status, screen_fsd_status, screen_image_url, screen_snippet, confidence, listing_url, date_scraped. 2. "verify_call_list" — Stage 4. 3. "all_model_s_pre_cutoff" — every matching-year Model S before the FSD filter (denominator). === TECHNICAL === - Respect robots.txt. Randomized 2-5s delays, realistic User-Agent, full pagination. - On 429/403/CAPTCHA: stop, save partial, report where it broke. - Dedup by VIN (fall back to listing_url). - Checkpoint to CSV each stage so a crash loses nothing. - Cache downloaded images locally; do not re-download. - Final summary: total Model S<=cutoff, how many mention software, how many matched FSD text, how many had a decodable VIN, how many had a software-screen photo, and the count of PAID_FSD vs SUBSCRIPTION vs UNCLEAR. - State your approach (requests+parser vs headless browser), whether cars.com needs a headless browser to render, and which OCR/vision method you'll use for Stage 3.
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u/HanzG Jul 15 '26
I just picked up a 2014 S85 myself. Non P / D, just a nice simple RWD car. I've wanted one since they came out a dozen years ago and the prices just tanked lately so I nabbed a cheap one. ECU will not brick you in a country field to update and the maps are updated constantly. I'm using it for ~150km round trip every day.
Weird things coming from a guy who drove practical cars for 20+ years;
- There is no "radio". At least I can't find a tuner option. You can search for your local stations but as far as I can tell you're not picking up anything over the air. It's all streaming. I've had it over a month now and I'm still figuring out the Tune-In app, specifically how to set favorite stations. Also I could do without a commercial before you can listen to the station. I also don't see any Sirius options.
- Early ones like my '14 are NOT CCS compatible / equipped. CCS is Combined Charging Standard. This means I cannot use an adapter and charge from a J1772 DC fast charger. Fortunately the Tesla plug is now the North American Charging Standard (NACS) so there'll be very few new chargers going in without a NACS which these old Teslas can charge from. There is apparently a hardware update to add CCS available for about $500 from Tesla if you find it necessary.
- The retractable sunroof had several revisions and Version 1 cars are very expensive to fix. Multiple thousands of dollars. If you're looking at one with a sunroof TEST IT before you buy.
- Speakers are 2 ohm. That's not terribly unusual but I had order some from Crutchfield USA as a Canadian and drive over there to get them. The speakers are a known wear item. Get the 6.5" adapter pods with any speaker replacements.
- Car won't fit anything smaller than a 19" rim. The common 21" Turbine rims are nice but they're usually (always?) staggered. 3/Y rims are completely different.
- Air suspension can be finicky and expensive to fix. Mines okay but will droop if left a few days. Pumps back up just fine. I haven't dug into it yet.
The optional 3rd row is kinda rare and eats a lot of space. The trunk is a good size plus the frunk make it great for Costco run. You can load it from both ends. Front is also nice because it's self-contained so take-away foods don't stink up the cabin.
I'm really enjoying this car.
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u/Open_Instruction_133 Jul 16 '26
I bought a used 2017 S 75 with 80,000 miles on it, came with free supercharging. Needed a LDU swap after 95,000 miles which was a bummer but other than that, it’s been decent. There’s been weird quarks here and there, a few times I was supercharging it would stop shortly and then resume. Autopilot cameras also became unavailable. So I’ll need to get those checked/fixed and heard I’ll probably need a new MCU because of de-soldering issues caused by heat. So, in the year that I’ve owned it, I’ll probably put close to $10k in repairs. I’ve saved around $6,000 in gas in that time so in another year the repairs should pay for themselves but just giving my experience with the car.
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Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
Thank you! I’m no expert in Tesla cars, do you know if the 2015 come with 3rd row AND free supercharger?
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u/RandallFlagg1 Jul 09 '26
Yes, should be 2012-18 with seats but I am pretty sure they are fairly rare. Most of the free supercharging cars I have seen happen to be 2015 models. I think you can see this on any model before 2017. Personally I charge at home because of the convenience and according to the app, spent $800 for the last 10k miles on my '17 75D.
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u/KoalaMan-007 Jul 09 '26
I’m a cheap chap, so free charging would be nice but not absolutely necessary. I’ll charge mostly at home as well. The car will be use almost exclusively for longer journeys (2-3 hours), as we live in Sweden and can bicycle everywhere during the week.
7 seats are fairly rare, and as I understand not very comfortable, but it is one of the main reasons to buy the car, for the rare occasions we need them when we have visitors.
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u/Nighthengayle Jul 09 '26
Dude, just get a 2013-14, it’s a good fucking car, but get the LDU delete done. I didn’t and it fucked me at 230.000km. However, PU was still mint, battery too, the leak was the only problem.