Tesla owner locked out of his car until he pays $26,000 for a new battery
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: TikTok / @supermariozelaya/Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor
The owner of a Tesla said that he ended up locked out of his car, unless he bought a new battery.
In a video posted to TikTok Mario Zelaya from Canada labelled his $140,000 Tesla a 'piece of trash'.
The video showed that the car had locked itself automatically after the battery had died. With no power for the doors, there was no getting in.
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On a car with old-fashioned manual doors the situation could be resolved by simply opening the door, or calling a locksmith if you lose your keys, but that was not possible here.
And Mario was fuming after finding out that a new battery would set him back a whopping $26,000.
He captioned the video: "$26K for a new battery. Locked out of car. Recalls are needed."
Things got so bad that he decided to sell the car, as he didn't think it was worth the high price tag for a replacement.
There was just one problem. The proof of ownership papers for the vehicle were, you guessed it, inside the car.
Luckily, he was able to pay $30 to get a second copy of the ownership papers.
He had purchased the Tesla in 2013, but the models from that year and 2014 have an issue where fluid leaks onto the battery, which can cause huge problems.
The motorist added: "I got Transport Canada involved, and they actually did an investigation on the car. Not only did they do an investigation on this car, they're gonna be doing one that Tesla doesn't realise is coming up."
He explained that he's now been in contact with another Tesla owner who has experienced exactly the same problem.
"Tesla's trying to sweep it under the rug," he said. "They won't give them any explanation of why their battery died."
He said the pre-existing problem in the models was being exacerbated by the fact that Tesla services do not include a check of the very expensive battery.
"I'll never buy another Tesla again," he said. "That's the long way of me saying stay the f**k away from Teslas. They're brutal cars, brutal manufacturing, and even worse, they're a 10-year-old company."
Thankfully for Zelaya, he was able to sell the unwanted car, and he revealed in another TikTok that the new owner plans to take the vehicle apart to charge it.
"That's going to be the end of my Tesla journey. It's out of my life. Keep it out of yours," he said.
As reported by Fox News, Zelaya is far from the first person to speak out against the cars, and in August, Norwegian owners desperately tried to get Elon Musk's attention about problems with their cars by going on hunger strike.
UNILAD has reached out to Tesla for comment.