Is it odd for shop foreman to take my car home?

[whitex]

Personally I'd be furious to find my car in a place where I didn't know where it was, where I had no control or knowledge. Imagine the nightmare if there was a break-in, or a joy-ride. You'd have no idea and would have to pick up the pieces and sort it all out after.

Theft occurs at dealerships too. I know of a person who had their Tesla stolen from a service center. That's why dealers and service organizations have insurance. If you're a thief after a Porsche, what better place to find one than a dealership?

Sponsored

 

[rich_r]

Yep this is very normal...especially for difficult to diagnose issues. I'd be happy that you the have a foreman so committed to trying to fix whatever issue you have. As someone else pointed out, they see plenty of these cars each day so its not like they are bring it home to "joy ride" it or show off to their neighbors. If it really offends you, I'd suggest just bringing it to a different shop next time and starting off by stating that you don't want anyone bring your car home. Personally, I don't really understand all the consternation:
-if its totalled or stolen, there's insurance
-if its damaged, there's insurance
(and by the way, i'd say its more likely to be stolen or damanged while in a dealership lot vs someones driveway).
-Its not really possible "beat the piss" out of an EV...not like you can overrev it, etc....

Just seems like one of those "life is too short to get upset about this" kind of things

 

[GreenDay]

If he's doing a good job, he's allowed to take the Mrs out for a nice ride, no?

Agree with everyone above. If you're told about it in advance and why it's needed then it's ok. If it's just sitting in his driveway then what's the point? If they didn't tell you at all, then I think that's poor service.

Good for you for checking on it though. Most of us probably never knew this was happening, right or wrong.

 

[AV7]

In my case the car was randomly turning on in the middle of the night in my garage. Never happened at the shop.

My 2 cents,

no theoretical difference between your car sitting at the dealership locked between 7.30am to 6pm (if your car turns on more people likely to see it). The fact it is at night is of no relevance to the car. And I am assuming it was not reproducible when it was in the foreman's driveway. Too many variables from it being parked in your garage and it being in the foreman's driveway - totally unnecessary test.

 

[goofysurfer]

What was wrong with the car?

 

[AV7]

wrt to the insurance whilst at the dealer or elsewhere. I see this in the fine print when I needed to get my tire replaced.

Customer is hereby notified that the said property is not insured or protected to the amount of actual cash value thereof, or otherwise against loss occasioned by theft, fire or vandalism while the property remains at the dealer

Also it states:

You give permission to operate the vehicle heron described on streets, highways or elsewhere for the purpose of testing and/or inspection

Moral of the story being 'less time at the dealer the better'

 

[Climax_F82]

If you want to give me your VIN, i'll check why an extended test drive was necessary.

 

[Goldent]

If you want to give me your VIN, i'll check why an extended test drive was necessary.

WP0AA2Y19NSA11393
If you wouldn’t mind. I’ve just been kept in the dark and they’ve had my car for over a week

 

[whitex]

My 2 cents,

no theoretical difference between your car sitting at the dealership locked between 7.30am to 6pm (if your car turns on more people likely to see it). The fact it is at night is of no relevance to the car. And I am assuming it was not reproducible when it was in the foreman's driveway. Too many variables from it being parked in your garage and it being in the foreman's driveway - totally unnecessary test.

While you might think there is no difference, nowadays when cars are just giant computer, it matters. For example, in my current car, if I get in the car after 1am, the car takes a few seconds to boot up, while during the day it's on instantly. Tesla has some algorithm which shuts the car down during the night but keeps it on standby during he day. I reverse engineer electronics as a hobby, and will tell you that a lot of products, such as phones, tablets, PC's, and even cars behave differently at night, including perhaps running maintenance tasks which only run in the middle of the night after hours of inactivity. I suspect Taycan does this too, but I'm only beginning to learn about it. I do know that it does physical brake recalibration when parked and charging for example (the logic I presume is that when you park to charge, you will be there for few minutes at least). It probably does other things like NAND flash refresh when car is not being used.

Full disclosure, you are right that the night at the foreman's garage didn't reproduce the issue, but I still think it was worth the try. While the foreman had our car, they gave us a brand new car to drive produced within a couple of weeks of ours, and guess what, it happened in our garage with that car too. Long story short it turned out to be a bug in the software, not accounting for all ways customers can use it - if you put something heavy enough to trigger seat occupancy sensor (e.g. gym bag) on the front passenger seat through the front passenger door, drive the car, but then remove the item through another door (e.g. reach for the item from the driver's side), and then exit and lock the car, the car's state machine keeping track if anyone was in the vehicle or not got all screwed up, entered some invalid state, and the car would randomly power back up few hours into the night because it "thought" there is a passenger in the car (possibly triggered by whatever deeper sleep the car tried to go into only at night, but with this bug the car fully woke up instead). Good luck diagnosing this in the shop.

As cars get more and more complex, some problems require real life usage of the car to reproduce, not a test drive by service tech. My problem required a really specific usage, so even a foreman driving it home didn't do it, but I can imagine there being problems which will reproduce after a night in a garage during a commute for example.

As I said earlier, I do think customers should be advised of this ahead of time, even given the option to let the car be taken for overnight test drive or just take it back as "problem does not reproduce in the shop, come back when you have a way to reproduce it".

 

[AV7]

While you might think there is no difference, nowadays when cars are just giant computer, it matters. For example, in my current car, if I get in the car after 1am, the car takes a few seconds to boot up, while during the day it's on instantly. Tesla has some algorithm which shuts the car down during the night but keeps it on standby during he day. I reverse engineer electronics as a hobby, and will tell you that a lot of products, such as phones, tablets, PC's, and even cars behave differently at night, including perhaps running maintenance tasks which only run in the middle of the night after hours of inactivity. I suspect Taycan does this too, but I'm only beginning to learn about it. I do know that it does physical brake recalibration when parked and charging for example. Ii probably does other things like NAND flash refresh when car is not being used for example.

Full disclosure, you are right that the night at the foreman's garage didn't reproduce the issue, but I still think it was worth the try. While the foreman had our car, they gave us a brand new car to drive produced within a couple of weeks of ours, and guess what, it happened in our garage with that car too. Long story short it turned out to be a bug in the software, not accounting for all ways customers can use it - if you put something heavy enough to trigger seat occupancy sensor (e.g. gym bag) on the front passenger seat through the front passenger door, drive the car, but then remove the item through another door (e.g. reach for the item from the driver's side), and then exit and lock the car, the car's state machine keeping track if anyone was in the vehicle or not got all screwed up, entered some invalid state, and the car would randomly power back up few hours into the night because it "thought" there is a passenger in the car (possibly triggered by whatever deeper sleep the car tried to go into only at night, but with this bug the car fully woke up instead). Good luck diagnosing this in the shop.

As cars get more and more complex, some problems require real life usage of the car to reproduce, not a test drive by service tech. My problem required a really specific usage, so even a foreman driving it home didn't do it, but I can imagine there being problems which will reproduce after a night in a garage during a commute for example.

As I said earlier, I do think customers should be advised of this ahead of time, even given the option to let the car be taken for overnight test drive or just take it back as "problem does not reproduce in the shop, come back when you have a way to reproduce it".

Thanks for the explanation, I can understand that there are different methods/angles needed to reproduce issues. Hopefully this resolves your issue. But if these cars are indeed more complex then surely there must be a log somewhere to state why the car did something. The dealership told me the car does not have a black box, but if there was an error message that occurred but then cleared (after turning the car off and then back on) there should be a log somewhere that the dealer can trace. (Probably does not apply in your case as there is no error message, but a car coming on with no key present should trigger a log somewhere)

Agreed that the dealership should be transparent about exactly what they will.be doing for testing.

 

[Climax_F82]

WP0AA2Y19NSA11393
If you wouldn’t mind. I’ve just been kept in the dark and they’ve had my car for over a week

So not much information on there. But as I understand it, the shop foreman is taking it home for an extended test drive to diagnose, verify, reproduce customer concern. The electric motor warning is a huge deal. PCNA will need the dealer to do everything they can to verify customer concern before they will even approve a new electric motor or high voltage battery replacement.

Trust me, dealer employees do not want to drive customer cars home for no reason. We can always borrow new/used/loaner cars on the lot if we need to.

 

[whitex]

Hopefully this resolves your issue.

Sure, the resolution being along the line of a patient going to a doctor saying "doctor, my arm hurts when I raise it above my head" and doctor replying "ok, don't raise your arm above your head". We simply stopped doing what caused the car to get confused and turn itself on at night. I honestly don't know whether or not it's ever been fixed. With Tesla, software changes so quickly, this may no longer be an issue on later generations of software and/or hardware.

 

[andix]

I guess (s)he wants to have some fun, too.
In other words: it's definitely not normal ;-(

 

[mdrobc1213]

So not much information on there. But as I understand it, the shop foreman is taking it home for an extended test drive to diagnose, verify, reproduce customer concern. The electric motor warning is a huge deal. PCNA will need the dealer to do everything they can to verify customer concern before they will even approve a new electric motor or high voltage battery replacement.

Trust me, dealer employees do not want to drive customer cars home for no reason. We can always borrow new/used/loaner cars on the lot if we need to.

Yes I've seen it happen before. With my son's BMW after a transmission fault and replacement and still with issues that the shop foreman/manager thought were not fully resolved he told me it would take a bit longer and that he was driving the car home and back to replicate normal driving and distance that he couldn't necessarily do during the rest of the hours remaining post repair. I was fine with that...was notified and have seen the practice work before. Appreciate the diligence in his work and my car repair.

Yep this is very normal...especially for difficult to diagnose issues. I'd be happy that you the have a foreman so committed to trying to fix whatever issue you have. As someone else pointed out, they see plenty of these cars each day so its not like they are bring it home to "joy ride" it or show off to their neighbors. If it really offends you, I'd suggest just bringing it to a different shop next time and starting off by stating that you don't want anyone bring your car home. Personally, I don't really understand all the consternation:
-if its totalled or stolen, there's insurance
-if its damaged, there's insurance
(and by the way, i'd say its more likely to be stolen or damaged while in a dealership lot vs someones driveway).
-Its not really possible "beat the piss" out of an EV...not like you can overrev it, etc....

Just seems like one of those "life is too short to get upset about this" kind of things

Not everything can be diagnosed in an 8 hr day or repair. If they've had the car for days or a period of time that is normal to offer or do when they want to figure out what is going on with the vehicle. As many have stated....not alway abuse or the need to just enjoy your ride.

Everything isn't Ferris Beuller's day off guys... LOL

While you might think there is no difference, nowadays when cars are just giant computer, it matters. For example, in my current car, if I get in the car after 1am, the car takes a few seconds to boot up, while during the day it's on instantly. Tesla has some algorithm which shuts the car down during the night but keeps it on standby during he day. I reverse engineer electronics as a hobby, and will tell you that a lot of products, such as phones, tablets, PC's, and even cars behave differently at night, including perhaps running maintenance tasks which only run in the middle of the night after hours of inactivity. I suspect Taycan does this too, but I'm only beginning to learn about it. I do know that it does physical brake recalibration when parked and charging for example (the logic I presume is that when you park to charge, you will be there for few minutes at least). It probably does other things like NAND flash refresh when car is not being used.

Full disclosure, you are right that the night at the foreman's garage didn't reproduce the issue, but I still think it was worth the try. While the foreman had our car, they gave us a brand new car to drive produced within a couple of weeks of ours, and guess what, it happened in our garage with that car too. Long story short it turned out to be a bug in the software, not accounting for all ways customers can use it - if you put something heavy enough to trigger seat occupancy sensor (e.g. gym bag) on the front passenger seat through the front passenger door, drive the car, but then remove the item through another door (e.g. reach for the item from the driver's side), and then exit and lock the car, the car's state machine keeping track if anyone was in the vehicle or not got all screwed up, entered some invalid state, and the car would randomly power back up few hours into the night because it "thought" there is a passenger in the car (possibly triggered by whatever deeper sleep the car tried to go into only at night, but with this bug the car fully woke up instead). Good luck diagnosing this in the shop.

As cars get more and more complex, some problems require real life usage of the car to reproduce, not a test drive by service tech. My problem required a really specific usage, so even a foreman driving it home didn't do it, but I can imagine there being problems which will reproduce after a night in a garage during a commute for example.

As I said earlier, I do think customers should be advised of this ahead of time, even given the option to let the car be taken for overnight test drive or just take it back as "problem does not reproduce in the shop, come back when you have a way to reproduce it".

Yep totally agree...