DIY Repaired 2013 Tesla - First Time Supercharging

I drive to the nearest Supercharger to try testing out my (new to me) 2013 Tesla Model S!
Please click SHOW MORE!
After buying this car in non-running condition, we fixed it up. It now drives fine and charges at home on 120 or 240V AC.
Unfortunately, the first attempt at the Supercharger did NOT work!
I confirmed a number of things: my billing and account info, that the previous owner could supercharge, that I had a clean title and the car was NOT crashed or an insurance buy-out, etc. I even cleaned the charge-port until it sparkled!
In Service Mode, the error presented was "CHG_f012_hwFastChargeDriver"
I found next to nothing about that error itself. However, it did lead me to some web forum entries. On those, I found out that it's actually a circuit in the AC charger which controls the contactors that connect the charge port directly to the battery for Supercharging. In a number of confirmed instances, there were cars which would charge fine on AC power, but NOT at the Supercharger. Replacing the AC charger solved the issue.
Web Forum Entries:
• teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threa...
• teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threa...
OpenInverter.org also had some useful information on the Tesla Gen 1 charger: www.openinverter.org/wiki/Tes...
and the High Voltage Junction Box: www.openinverter.org/wiki/Tes...
I ordered a used AC charger off eBay, and I'm hoping that solves the Supercharging issue. The ability to use Tesla's Supercharging system was one of the main reasons I bought the car!
Tools and materials used on this project:
Manometer air-pressure gauge: amzn.to/3xxljD3
10mm threaded rods: amzn.to/4ckNT9I
Replacement Front Passenger Window Regulator: amzn.to/3RTOGq5
Security Bit Set: amzn.to/4bqtj6x
Tesla Jack Pucks: amzn.to/4cOLMLj
Ethernet Diagnostic Cable: amzn.to/3XQTGj6
OBDLinkMX+ Bluetooth OBDII Scanner: amzn.to/45SUpC3
Electronics Cleaner: amzn.to/3VW0ER3
If you like what I do you can support me at:
/ 300mpg
By shopping at Amazon anyways: www.amazon.com/shop/benjaminnelson
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300mpg.org
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Music by:
"Shaving Mirror" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
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[@BenjaminNelsonX]

As always, please read the video description. There's additional information in there about the project, including links.

[@RobertBrownTUC]

It's unfortunate that you are having more issues but honestly thank you for taking us through this process with you. I find this content super interesting and am excited to see there is a new video from your channel. Keep up the great work.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

One thing I will say is that I learn SO MUCH MORE from when things go wrong than when they go right! Troubleshooting requires a much deeper understanding of how and why things work.

[@MikesTropicalTech]

Bummer! I hope the new unit works. Will be interesting to open up the bad one and have a look around.

[@calholli]

You can most likely open up the charger and start from the pins of the connector that go to the contacts.. and follow the traces on the board and you will most likely trace them back to a little rectangle relay that can easily be change out with a little soldering. This is very common on ECM's these days, because they are putting more and more relays internally and forcing people to buy a whole new ECM--- or putting them internally/ inside the fuse box. but again, I've seen many videos of poeple fixing these little relays and they all look the same. I bet it would be easy to find the part-- unless Tesla has gone crazy proprietary on something as simple as a standard relay. :).. If the new charger gets it going: I'd love to see you tear down the old charger; because I bet you could fix it easily with one internal relay swap.

[@notsecure]

Love the old Tesla repair videos.

[@FordGranada75]

I like the chrome delete on your car! Hopefully you can get it to supercharge again! My Model S is a 75D facelift from late 2016 and it has a different kind of charger, but still the charger activates the contactors for fast charging. One day it would not want to supercharge anymore (slow AC charging worked just fine) and Tesla service wanted to replace the charger. It turned out that the chargeport itself was the problem! New chargeport solved it.

[@bq5577x]

Awesome! Good to see people do these DIY videos! Great, usually at 'common workshops' these cars would be stripped down (at least here in Europe) since the tariffs charged are way too high

[@Derpy1969]

The FastChargeDriver is a solid state FET of some kind in the charger. If you can identify it and replace it; you may be able to fix it.

[@islabonita4193]

Loved your bike builds and guides🙂.. hope it work next video

[@mrj-charles6383]

I do not even own a Tesla but your videos are teaching me a lot . So if I ever buy one I will know some things to look for.

[@sirseriously]

Dang that stinks! The unlimited free supercharging is one of the main reasons I bought my '13; only used it a handful of times but it's such a nice perk. Hopefully you get it working!

[@rbe3908]

"The suspense is terrible, i hope it will last..." 😂

[@mrdsn189]

Pretty amazing sleuthing Ben!

[@jean-marcgruninger9019]

this series is better than ‘game of thrones’. enjoying it.

[@sveinarsandvin6418]

Good storytelling.

[@latitudeash]

Free supercharging….👍🏼🥳 🎉 life time, you hit the jackpot.

[@like_alexandra]

Thanks a lot for doing this. I have bought a 2012 Model S that has battery pack issues 2. This is inspiring and helpfull💪🏽

[@TheIronHeadRat]

Good luck 🤞

[@rjung_ch]

Ben, sure hope it was the charger and the lifetime free charging is a reality, guess I'll see in the next one. Cheers 👍💪✌

[@georgepelton5645]

I had a similar problem in my 2015 Model S. I was on the way home on a road trip and the car failed to supercharge. Roadside assistance sent me to a nearby Nissan dealer to use their L2 AC charger. We had to camp out at a restaurant to get enough to carefully hypermile home. At home Tesla service replaced the on-vehicle charger under warranty. That fixed the problem.

[@GlynHudson]

Could you try opening up the onboard charger? Enjoying the series, nice work 👍

[@DaCoder]

After the new one shows up, could you show us inside the old one?

[@diyEVguy]

Interesting adventure!

[@Russwig]

Hope it works!!!

[@nc3826]

and the soap opera continues.... I will keep my fingers crossed for a happy ending....

[@TheWinstn60]

I would say when DC charging, it isn't generating the high voltage needed to to preload the contactors??

[@EwoutSchalkwijk]

Any change that the car ‘phoned home’ after it detected water in the battery? This could be a safety matter from Tesla That would explain the clean title and still having charging issues.

[@lancenutter1067]

This is interesting. I have a 2017 Chevy Bolt. I bought it about a year ago. It would level 2 charge but not level one. Luckily it was under warranty still. Turns out, prior owner had let an animal chew on the charge cord and, it shorted out various components in the vehicle. Anyway, it got fixed under warranty and I’m very pleased with the car. Now has 85,000 miles.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

Back when we had the 2004 Prius, a mouse got in and chewed a wire INSIDE the battery pack! Fortunately, I had a friend who recently took a Prius apart and he still had that wire harness, which I used as a replacement! It was plenty of work though. If mice chew on your car it's best to still be under warranty!

[@lancenutter1067]

@@BenjaminNelsonX oh yeah, i saw the bill and it was about 4500$ worth of parts. I think the high voltage 120/240 shorted across some computer signal wires and that was the end of that! Cool thing tho, is the car has new charge port, and a bunch of new stuff all the way down the line, plus the battery recall happened in 2021 so I’m very happy I didn’t have to pay all that! I’d love a broken Tesla. Will maybe start looking around…

[@davidbarr5783]

Knock the soap opera comments on the head...you are doing a stand-up job getting this car going again 👍

[@ericverlaet4447]

Nice job After replacement and a 👍result, can you open the defect one to show if we can see any problem in it. Thanks for the nice job🤞

[@999Bravo99]

I was thinking about your issue and wanted to know about the material that the mouse used to build its nest. It looks like the same color (8:33) as the insulation that's by the cables that lead to the charge port. If the mouse got in there and used its teeth to gather the material maybe it damaged some of the cable that leads to the charge port affecting the DC charging. I would check that area for damage and possibly an electrocuted mouse, since its last trip for more nest materiel could have been fatal..

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

I got a pretty good look in the side where the charge port cables come in. I didn't see any rodent damage. The trouble with mice is that they are SO SMALL and can just get ANYWHERE! That's the worst part of seeing a mouse nest - never knowing if there is some damage somewhere you just didn't find!

[@highvoltage1523]

Did you try a non-tesla fast charger or isn't that an option in the US?

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

Truthfully, I didn't even think of that, but I also don't have an adapter to go from some other fast charger type to the Tesla connector. I'm nearly positive that the issue is something internal to the car, NOT billing, my account, or some other issue related to Tesla.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

I'm amazed how many people are commenting that the car may be a wreck/salvage/insurance buy-out. It's just a used car with a clean title. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gmiph6R6fJ6UptUsi=PT1jU4uBk3icaU5j&t=136

[@nate1459]

It's been awhile but I'm pretty sure the charger has a couple of fuses in them that you can replace.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

Yes, there's a pair of fuses inside the charger. And if those fuses are bad, AC charging won't work.

[@israndy]

I was sure it was going to be the contractors as I have already been thru a set on my TM3. Why didn't you go with TWO chargers so you can AC charge at 80 amps as long as you are taking the charger out?

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

I thought about that. I don't really see any need to be able to charge at that rate. Either I'm on the road and want to charge as fast as possible (and can do that with a Supercharger, once I figure out how to fix this..) OR I'm at home and have plenty of time to charge overnight at something like 32A. I really don't know of any places around with 80A EVSEs that I could use, and it would be an expense to do the upgrade to install one at home. It just doesn't really seem to offer me any advantage.

[@israndy]

@@BenjaminNelsonX The problem with Teslas is there are not enough hackers fixing them for KZbin, so those of us who can follow a YT video don't have a lotta things we can do to our cars. If you figured out how to do it I bet the price of an 80 amp charger on EBay would skyrocket as others follow in your footsteps. Thanks for the wet fuse hack anyway.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

@@israndy I actually MAY end up installing a second charger. You'll find out why later. If I do, I'll make a video on it. There are plenty of used Gen 1 chargers available out there.

[@christopherbrand5360]

I had a contactor go out in my M3, it would AC charge, but not Supercharge. Going through the errors is good for clues. The error you are getting is one of the ones I got when my contactor failed.

[@toddsaunders6567]

Is the magnet on the charge port door stuck to the door or still glued to the car?

[@johumm455]

are you blind watching youtube ?

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

I think that you are suggesting that perhaps a sensor on the charge port may be causing the issue. No. There's nothing physically/mechanically wrong with the port.

[@toddsaunders6567]

@@BenjaminNelsonX just making sure. Very easy and free check. Just to be clear, make sure the metal disc is properly glued into place. Good luck.

[@Russwig]

So what's the story? You've had plenty of time to get and replace the charger. Did it fix it?

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

Hi Russ, I've been working 16 hr days for the last 3 weeks. I'm just finally getting time to work on videos again now.

[@Russwig]

@@BenjaminNelsonX Thanks for the response! And, I understand!!!

[@CubbyTech]

And another! (Thing to fix/replace)

[@sadlogic]

Wow a charger for 150$ is dirt cheap. Just a few years ago or even still nowadays but for different marks and models these are very expensive.

[@carlsmith2826]

If it’s free lifetime charging why do you need a credit card?.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

There are still other things - for example, some Superchargers have "Idle Fees". If you are charged up, but leave your car there taking up space and preventing other people from using the stations, you have to pay a fee.

[@timmy2310]

I thought unlimited free lifetime charging was only for the original owner.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

@@timmy2310 No, the original lifetime supercharging on the older cars IS transferable.

[@ericverlaet4447]

No, on the 100.000 first one the free supercharge follow the car.....🥳

[@israndy]

@@ericverlaet4447 It actually was until early 2017 that all cars had FUSC for the life of the car. Then they did life of the original purchase, and then Free Limited Supercharging of various forms and now it's rather rare, although earlier this year and end of last they did allow transferring your FUSC to a new car.

[@uwucaffeineaddiction4023]

Before going through the eBay order, you might want to consider getting a new one, since it would have CCS/NACS enabled

[@BarnardShow]

It has nothing to do with port. I think the software put that car on suspended list from unauthorized repairs.

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

How does the car know that a repair is unauthorized?

[@BarnardShow]

@@BenjaminNelsonX : Somebody told me that Tesla knew if the repair was unauthorized. That car was suspended from using supercharger.

[@sspoonless]

So many illogical SWAGs & noncausative presumptions. I really wish you luck.

[@pr5991]

Why billing address and card details are blurry, something wrong with your recording, reshoot the clip without blurring.

[@DocMasterm]

For ""security reasons""... totaled Teslas are disconnected from the supercharger network. I hope that in your car's history there are no unregulated repairs, or the car has been totaled. If that was the case, there is not much you can do. I really hope you can fix it!

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

@@DocMasterm Not totaled. Just a used car. Clean title.

[@calholli]

I know that Tesla likes to lock out any car that has been crashed or flooded, etc.. So if there was an insurance claim on this car, Tesla may have permanently locked it out.. I'm not sure exactly how they do it, or if it would even tell you in the codes or on the screen. Worst case scenario, you could manually run wires to those contactors and force them to switch over to the supercharge side. I'm assuming they have a sensor that feeds back to the charger to let it know the position of the contactor mechanism.. and if you manually activated them, maybe the charger would think the drivers are working correctly and work fine. but I'm making a lot of assumptions here and would have to research how it works exactly.. and how it actually knows the drivers are bad/ or that the contactors aren't activated. It might just be sensing the voltage or current of the driver circuit itself rather than having an external sensor on the on contacts mechanism. If it's monitoring the contactors themselves, then it wouldn't really know if you activated them manually or if the drivers were doing it.. It would just see the state that the contactors are in and report back.......... So when you tell it to go to supercharging.. and it never sees the contactors change, it just throws a code assuming the drivers are bad (hypothetical maybe). But knowing how most internal drivers/ relays are monitored on ECM's, it is just watching the voltage output on the lines of the driver (whether it's a pull up or pull down circuit? could be either one). On a regular car, you would be able to go into LIVE DATA and see the driver state in the charger.... So you would know either the driver is not sending at all-- or it says that it is sending, but just never gets there (like a bad connection or something). Anyway, this should be fun on the next video. You've definitely built up the suspense. lol You can most likely open up the charger and start from the pins of the connector that go to the contacts.. and follow the traces on the board and you will most likely trace them back to a little rectangle relay that can easily be change out with a little soldering. This is very common on ECM's these days, because they are putting more and more relays internally and forcing people to buy a whole new ECM--- or putting them internally/ inside the fuse box. but again, I've seen many videos of people fixing these little relays and they all look the same. I bet it would be easy to find the part-- unless Tesla has gone crazy proprietary on something as simple as a standard relay. :).. If the new charger gets it going: I'd love to see you tear down the old charger; because I be you could fix it easily with one internal relay swap.

[@ernestt8749]

If it has salvage title, it won't supercharge. Blocked deliberately by tesla.

[@b4804514]

I think Tesla will requalify a salvage vehicle for a price so you can super charge. It is all about liability

[@BenjaminNelsonX]

@@b4804514 Except that it’s NOT a salvage vehicle.