# Broken charge port pin left me dead in the water



## IamEmptySea

Now that it is over I realize the issue is more common but having it out here documented as another case is good since TOO actually came up with this info that helped me get it understood and got be back up and running (after the unfortunate midnight tow home).

On Friday my family and I were coming home from a wedding that was 75 miles away. I had planned in advance for a quick stop at a local supercharger about 10 miles from the wedding site and when I got there I was perplexed that the plug wasnt seating and the car would just show 25% and then try to close the charge port door on me. I switched supercharger stalls thinking it might be a bad stall but the next one did the same thing.

I took a look inside and while it was dark (and having never inspected the inside of the port closely) I only noticed that the left connector was silver and I swore that wasnt the case before.










My first call to the Roadside Assistance and the tech had me reset and retry, no dice. I explained about the port and while he didnt immediately say he knew anything about the issue he mentioned it was in warranty so no matter what we do, they'll get me taken care of. It was late and I had to travel 63 miles and the car was telling me I had 57 left so the tech suggested I give it a shot to get home, no unnecessary electric usage, go easy on the speed etc. I figured there was little chance we'd make it all the way home but if we could get within a more reasonable 'home' distance the tow likely wouldnt be so bad.

We got to about 9% battery (about 19 miles from home) and we were in a known area so we decided to get off the highway, get to a grocery store parking lot that was well lit and we parked at the back so plenty of room for tow truck to work. Called back Roadside, explained the issue again, they confirmed warranty and called the tow service. During the wait I started digging around the internet and found a post here on TSO which sounded exactly like what I had so I confirmed what I was seeing while we waited for the tow which came in 35 minutes later and I was very happy that they were a Tesla certified partner and the driver was well versed in tow mode and hooking up the Model 3. It WAS however sad to see this new girl on the truck (just got it on Feb 1)









Send the wife and son home on an Uber since seating in the truck was limited and we met there, tow driver slid her off the truck perfectly in the drive and I still had power so it was no issue to turn it around and get into the garage where I could go have a look for myself and see if I could clear this piece of plastic.









Tried tweezers but they just couldnt grip hard enough, I very carefully used needle nose pliers and had enough grip (clearly the supercharger tries pushed the piece harder into the port) and it came free. Once I had it out, I hooked up the home charger and was back in business.

I've made a service request but after reading I may just call and see if they can take care of it if I drive in vs coming out to me for what seems like a quick fix.

*Question for the TOO members though: *I am not sure if maybe I pulled on the home charger or maybe I turned the supercharger which broke the tip but I'll be more careful in the future in case it was just a sloppy owner use issue. Anyone have any tips and tricks for making sure you dont have this in the future?

GOOD: Tesla Roadside Emergency experience both for the support end and then for the towing. Good tow partner and I feel I learned more about the car, the port and confidence in how to use enable and how tow mode works. Lessons learned, confidence in roadside emergency use gained.

BAD: Seems that something so important as these little plastic nubs should be looked at by the engineering team to further prevent this potential. Given that it didnt taken much to find out this exact issue it would have been better if the original tech could have at least mentioned the potential in case I felt more inclined to find a way to get that out vs risk the drive home and the tow (devils advocate however is its likely not a good policy to tell the customer to go fishing into a high energy outlet).


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## shareef777

Hey neighbor (I'm right next door in Lockport ). Sorry to read about your troubles. I've had my 3 for a year and a half and plug in all the time without so much as a half a second of thought. Never was easy/gentle. Never really thought about it honestly, just plug in and go. And haven't had a single issue. Thanks for the post though, I'll be sure to make note of that IF I do run into an issue like this. I should note that I also use the J1772 adapter a lot as well. Free charging at the datacenter I work at and the malls I (used) to go to.

Question though, you say you had 9% and 19mi left. Wouldn't that be plenty to get you home? Even a SR would get about 20mi on 9%. As for your BAD comment, you're 100% right. When talking to support it feels like I just called into Dell for support. I would have hoped that Tesla would educated their personnel on the vehicles first hand.


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## iChris93

IamEmptySea said:


> Anyone have any tips and tricks for making sure you dont have this in the future?


This used to be more common, but then Tesla redesigned the tips and changed out any old tips when they had vehicles for service. I'm surprised a 2020 vehicle would have this issue.


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## jdcollins5

This is a known problem and there is a Service Bulletin concerning this problem. You can go to SC and have the pin guides replaced in 5 minutes or schedule a Mobile Tech visit.


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## iChris93

Also, what were you trying to say in your title? I don’t understand.


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## IamEmptySea

iChris93 said:


> Also, what were you trying to say in your title? I don't understand.


I found out the little plastic things are called deadfronts so I was being clever. Guess a little too clever.


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## IamEmptySea

jdcollins5 said:


> This is a known problem and there is a Service Bulletin concerning this problem. You can go to SC and have the pin guides replaced in 5 minutes or schedule a Mobile Tech visit.


Thanks. I found it and will likely call up to the local SC to see if they can do it if I come in. I already scheduled the maintenance bit better to take it in if I have time and not wait for the appointment


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## IamEmptySea

shareef777 said:


> Hey neighbor (I'm right next door in Lockport ). Sorry to read about your troubles. I've had my 3 for a year and a half and plug in all the time without so much as a half a second of thought. Never was easy/gentle. Never really thought about it honestly, just plug in and go. And haven't had a single issue. Thanks for the post though, I'll be sure to make note of that IF I do run into an issue like this. I should note that I also use the J1772 adapter a lot as well. Free charging at the datacenter I work at and the malls I (used) to go to.
> 
> Question though, you say you had 9% and 19mi left. Wouldn't that be plenty to get you home? Even a SR would get about 20mi on 9%. As for your BAD comment, you're 100% right. When talking to support it feels like I just called into Dell for support. I would have hoped that Tesla would educated their personnel on the vehicles first hand.
> View attachment 34707


It wasnt feeling confident and we figured at least this way we controlled where the trip was going to stop if it wasnt at home. Still new to the car, got it Feb 1 and this is the lowest it has ever been so still learning how far you get driving on E


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## shareef777

IamEmptySea said:


> It wasnt feeling confident and we figured at least this way we controlled where the trip was going to stop if it wasnt at home. Still new to the car, got it Feb 1 and this is the lowest it has ever been so still learning how far you get driving on E





IamEmptySea said:


> It wasnt feeling confident and we figured at least this way we controlled where the trip was going to stop if it wasnt at home. Still new to the car, got it Feb 1 and this is the lowest it has ever been so still learning how far you get driving on E


Understandable. I'd probably of done the same if I had others with me when new to the car. Now I wouldn't bat an eye to get the extra 30mi when at 10% if I drove conservatively. It should also be noted that you'd have a few extra miles when down to 0% (similar to an ICE vehicle when the low fuel indicator turns on).


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## garsh

IamEmptySea said:


> I found out the little plastic things are called deadfronts so I was being clever. Guess a little too clever.


Would you mind if we update the title? I'd just like to make this thread easy to search for when others try to find someone with this issue in the future.


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## FRC

shareef777 said:


> It should also be noted that you'd have a few extra miles when down to 0% (similar to an ICE vehicle when the low fuel indicator turns on).


I've heard this stated as rumor before, but I don't recall anything definitive about this. Nor would I expect it to be wise to rely on this as the downside could be catastophic.


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## IamEmptySea

garsh said:


> Would you mind if we update the title? I'd just like to make this thread easy to search for when others try to find someone with this issue in the future.


Feel free to update the title


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## jsmay311

I guess this is another good reason to keep a pair of pliers in a Tesla. (I already carry around a folding multi-tool that includes a pair of needle nose pliers for tire repair purposes as part of an emergency kit.)


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## shareef777

FRC said:


> I've heard this stated as rumor before, but I don't recall anything definitive about this. Nor would I expect it to be wise to rely on this as the downside could be catastophic.


Bjorn has a video of his X going down to zero. At the end of the day 10% is like the low fuel light equivalent in an ICE vehicle. Should you drive confidently when the light is on (Below 10%)? Of course not, but you don't tow your ICE vehicle either when that light goes on. I'd pull over if I got down to 1 or 2%.


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## FRC

shareef777 said:


> Bjorn has a video of his X going down to zero. At the end of the day 10% is like the low fuel light equivalent in an ICE vehicle. Should you drive confidently when the light is on (Below 10%)? Of course not, but you don't tow your ICE vehicle either when that light goes on. I'd pull over if I got down to 1 or 2%.


I've driven mine to as low as 1% on a rare occasion, but I read your post as saying there is still range below 0%. This may be true, but is dangerous to assume and may vary significantly from car to car.


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## jdcollins5

From what I understand, originally there was no margin below 0. So many people pushed the limit and had to be towed to SC. Tesla created a 4-5% reserve, or 10-15 miles. This was done by creating the reserve kWH at the bottom end of the battery. This reserve capacity is not usable between 100 to 0%. You go below 0 to use the reserve.


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## FRC

jdcollins5 said:


> From what I understand, originally there was no margin below 0. So many people pushed the limit and had to be towed to SC. Tesla created a 4-5% reserve, or 10-15 miles. This was done by creating the reserve kWH at the bottom end of the battery. This reserve capacity is not usable between 100 to 0%. You go below 0 to use the reserve.


You go first!!


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## jdcollins5

FRC said:


> You go first!!


Not me😀. I ran in to some really bad, unexpected weather this winter and arrived at SC at 5%. That is as close as I want to press my luck.


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## Long Ranger

IamEmptySea said:


> Tried tweezers but they just couldnt grip hard enough, I very carefully used needle nose pliers and had enough grip (clearly the supercharger tries pushed the piece harder into the port) and it came free. Once I had it out, I hooked up the home charger and was back in business.


Great that you got it out without a problem, but I'd caution against sticking pliers or any other metal object in there. If you look at the official service bulletin for this repair, they instruct the technicians to wear high voltage insulating gloves in case the HV battery fast charge contactors are stuck closed. 
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10154509-9999.pdf


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## garsh

shareef777 said:


> I'd pull over if I got down to 1 or 2%.


I've kept driving past 0%. It's fun!


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## JasonF

Long Ranger said:


> Great that you got it out without a problem, but I'd caution against sticking pliers or any other metal object in there. If you look at the official service bulletin for this repair, they instruct the technicians to wear high voltage insulating gloves in case the HV battery fast charge contactors are stuck closed.
> https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10154509-9999.pdf


The vast majority of the time, the pins in the charge port will be safe. But when they're not, it's _really_ going to hurt.

I wouldn't use metal pliers in there for two other reasons:

- If you manage to short the terminals briefly, just the 12 volts from the accessory battery is enough to _weld those pliers to your charge connector permanently. _Additionally, that would probably blow the pyro fuse, which means you wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. Try explaining that to Roadside Assistance.

- You could easily scratch the metal terminals (they're very soft metal), causing arcing next time you supercharge. If the arcing is bad enough, that could partially weld your charge connector to the supercharger. And try explaining _that _to Roadside Assistance.

Conclusion: Use a plastic spudger.


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## littlD

I've encountered some supercharger stalls that would no longer charge because of one of these deadfronts remained in the stall's plug.


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## shareef777

garsh said:


> I've kept driving past 0%. It's fun!


What was the remaining distance when you were at zero? Anything peculiar happen at the last few %, or anything else at 0?


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## garsh

shareef777 said:


> What was the remaining distance when you were at zero? Anything peculiar happen at the last few %, or anything else at 0?


My butt cheeks were quite sore from all the puckering. That's about it.

Full disclosure: for that particular trip, I slowed down to 50-55 mph, and I actually ended up arriving with 1%. There were five of us in the car, so I didn't want to push it quite that much.

But I remember that @Mad Hungarian and I arrived at some superchargers at 0% when we were driving back north from Florida back in Feb 2019. I don't recall anything really happening other than the dotted portion of the power line growing quite large, and a severe lack of power to accelerate. I think he took all the pictures of those events - I'm not sure if he can pull any of those up to share here.

Double full disclosure: the pic below was me arriving at work the following morning. I tried charging just enough at home to barely make it to work. Because I'm insane.


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## JasonF

garsh said:


> Double full discloser: the pic below was me arriving at work the following morning. I tried charging just enough at home to barely make it to work. Because I'm insane.


In order to do that, you would have to either drive to work on less than an hour of sleep the day after a long road trip (if you charge at home on 220 volts) or you regularly charge at 110 volts, and you slept plenty, but you _normally_ go through the work week with single digit battery remaining.

I'm assuming of course an average commute of about 30 minutes...if you drive 4 hours to work each way, that could explain it too.


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## garsh

It was the unstated option #3: I charged on 240v when I got home. But I unplugged the car when it reached 15%, because that's plenty. When I woke up the next morning to drive to work, the dreaded "blue battery" made only about 11% of the battery accessible, but I just drove to work anyhow.

Because I'm insane. 



JasonF said:


> In order to do that, you would have to either drive to work on less than an hour of sleep the day after a long road trip (if you charge at home on 220 volts) or you regularly charge at 110 volts, and you slept plenty, but you _normally_ go through the work week with single digit battery remaining.
> 
> I'm assuming of course an average commute of about 30 minutes...if you drive 4 hours to work each way, that could explain it too.


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## JasonF

garsh said:


> It was the unstated option #3: I charged on 240v when I got home. But I unplugged the car when it reached 15%, because that's plenty. When I woke up the next morning to drive to work, the dreaded "blue battery" made only about 11% of the battery accessible, but I just drove to work anyhow.


Why wouldn't you just leave it plugged in, then? Is it parked in a place you don't want to leave the charging cable plugged in overnight, or is it in a shared circuit?


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## garsh

JasonF said:


> Why wouldn't you just leave it plugged in, then?


I get free charging at work.

Did you miss the part where I said I'm insane?


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## JasonF

garsh said:


> I get free charging at work.
> 
> Did you miss the part where I said I'm insane?


Even insane people have some kind of logic. It just doesn't make sense to most people.


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## Mad Hungarian

garsh said:


> I get free charging at work.
> 
> Did you miss the part where I said I'm insane?


This is EXACTLY the kind of idiot thing I'd do, and for the exact same reason. It's always comforting to know there are others with the same affliction.
Maybe we need a support group? ZPA... Zero Percenters Anonymous?

@garsh is alllmost correct, we hit 1% on that trip as we rolled into the SC in Wythevile WV.
It was indeed a bit of a nail-biter as there is a lot of climbing coming up I-77 from Charlotte, but the predictive graph in the Consumption menu is still pretty impressive at taking elevation changes into account.










Good time those were, here's our faithful forum mod with Magneto just minutes before we departed Titusville FL...


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## iChris93

littlD said:


> I've encountered some supercharger stalls that would no longer charge because of one of these deadfronts remained in the stall's plug.


Here is a possible solution


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## Mad Hungarian

AVISO: Before attempting a Zero Percenter, make sure your BMS (Battery Management System) is happy and well calibrated. Cars that have led a fairly "normal" life of running up and down between 80-90% and 10-20% rarely have issues being able to run down to or slightly below 0%. I did actually go more than 2 miles past 0% myself last year without issue. But...
With lots of frequent partial charges at the low end of the range or just staying parked at 40% to 70% will eventually cause the BMS to get confused and this can result in it getting rather optimistic about what's left at the bottom of the pack. I've experienced this a few times during the Lightning Run earlier this year, twice on the outbound leg to Vancouver where the car was near dying at 2%, then a much more serious event when we were on our way home from Halifax.

Trev and I were tootling along with around 11% or 12% left and only 18 km / 12 miles to go to the SC in Saint-Leonard NB when suddenly as we were cruising up a hill on Autopilot at around 120 km/h / 75 mph the speedo started to drop. This was to say the least alarming, because when the car starts to struggle going up a fairly normal highway incline you are usually just minutes away from it shutting down. And we still had a ways to go.
Thankfully I remembered the words of wisdom from @Out of Spec Motoring that when you sense the car seriously starting to pull back power it's absolutely critical not to stress it out, as any sudden drop in voltage below what the BMS considers critical in just a few of the cells will cause the whole pack to shut down. But if you cruise along very carefully at the minimum safe speed, using only the lightest possible pressure on the accelerator to keep the car moving, you can eek out quite a few more miles. Which we thankfully did, and made it. But juuuusssst barely. By the time we reached the SC the car's top speed was down 50 km/h / 32 mph and I don't think we would have gone much more than another mile, if even that.
Here's the frightening part: *The screen still showed 8% left*
Yes, you read that correctly.
As far as we or Kyle at Out of Spec know, that's the highest remaining percentage anyone's ever seen where the car was on the edge of shutting down.

So how is that even possible? Well, we think it's pretty much what happens when you've Supercharged the car more than 100 times over 20,000 kms / 12,000 miles all in a 5 week period (I had done Montreal-Florida-Montreal just a week before doing all of Canada twice on the Run), with most of those charges being in the lower 60% of the range so as to achieve the lowest total travel time. So by the time we had finished the Lightning Run the BMS really no longer had any sane idea of which way was up or down.
We were then careful to never let it drop below 20% and then always charged it above 80% for the remaining few stops and made it back to Montreal without issue. Once home I did two full pack cycles by bringing it down below 10%, letting it sit for a couple of hours, then bringing it back up to 100% and letting it sit for a couple of hours. Bingo, back to its old self... not what I'd call fast but still pulling with good authority like a normal car with just 5% remaining.

What's interesting is that this issue doesn't appear to show in any of the diagnostics that Tesla is able to perform, as after the first incidence of this happening at 2% I had had the pack fully scanned by the Tesla Service Center in Calgary and they said it was perfect. However the techs did confirm that the BMS issue is real and can definitely be caused by the types of frequent low-range partial charges I was doing.
Many owners have experienced it simply by charging daily to less than 80%, and Tesla has since stated that ideally you want to go to 80% (Elon himself actually says 90%) if you're driving it regularly. Like Tesla Kim did a great video on the whole thing a while back that is definitely worth watching.

So yes, you can be a Zero Percenter, but before attempting make sure that you and your BMS are on the same page


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## IamEmptySea

Thanks @Mad Hungarian for that, I am by no means ready for beating up the BMS but all this information is great since I can now set for 90% and since my wife and I are planning a road trip from Chicago area to Yellowstone and back, might make sense to keep the lower end target at 15% to 20% to stay happy and healthy. Im glad joined and shared, lots of great info.


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## MachV

Long Ranger said:


> Great that you got it out without a problem, but I'd caution against sticking pliers or any other metal object in there. If you look at the official service bulletin for this repair, they instruct the technicians to wear high voltage insulating gloves in case the HV battery fast charge contactors are stuck closed.
> https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10154509-9999.pdf


under the back seat there is a disconnect switch for the charging port AND you need insulated gloves. I watched Tesla do this service recall. it took less than 2 minutes. You need very long needle nose plyers to do it easily.


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## Quicksilver

Had my pins replaced awhile ago and this is what they look like close up...new and old design.


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## IamEmptySea

Im not an engineer but maybe something around the outside to reduce the potential of sheer, Im still a new Telsa owner so I tend to take my time plugging in and still I managed to do it.


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## IamEmptySea

Hey everyone, an update on the story.

_When we last left our intrepid hero, he had an appointment for July 14 and at midnight on July 13 an email from service said that they didn't have the parts and ordered them (dead front pins, those black plastic things) and so the service call was pushed to July 28 and that's where our story begins...._​
So, the Service Technician gets to my house today and realizes that he has dead front pins for the older Model 3 and in fact to fix MY issue we need to replace the charging port itself which (say it with me everyone) *"We have to find or order so I'll need to reschedule your service appointment"*

Seriously?  *THE* smartest cars on the road today and yet the system for service is not smart enough to take the photos, the VIN and the situation and prevent someone from ordering a part that does not go on that vehicle. I am in IT, this is a FIXABLE situation since they have all the damn data! In my opinion some serious failures where someone is going too fast, sees broken pin and model 3 and knee jerk orders stuff vs reviewing AND a system that doesn't have the base intelligence to compare VIN info to the part being ordered at the very least to ask the watery meat bag banging his/her sausage fingers on the keyboard *"Are you REALLY sure you want this?"*

So, service tech wasted his time, my time and I am going on a road-trip on August 8 so he's going to see what he can do to get the port but it seems like this is not a house call fix and thus I might have to have them take the car for a day or two.

BUT... for my irritation (insert sarcasm here), the tech did hand me a 1/43rd scale die cast Model 3.


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## lance.bailey

heh heh.... "watery meat bag banging his/her sausage fingers on the keyboard" ... heh heh


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## iChris93

IamEmptySea said:


> it seems like this is not a house call fix


Whole charge-ports have been replaced by mobile service in the past.


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## IamEmptySea

iChris93 said:


> Whole charge-ports have been replaced by mobile service in the past.


Well I hope so but the tech said the newer models you have a wiring harness that goes down the side panel and to the rear seat area so it might have to come into the shop. We shall see, no word yet.


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## iChris93

IamEmptySea said:


> Well I hope so but the tech said the newer models you have a wiring harness that goes down the side panel and to the rear seat area so it might have to come into the shop. We shall see, no word yet.


That is how they were before, as well. You may be right that there are changes that require a trip to the shop though.


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## IamEmptySea

Well, we shall see. The tech ran it up the flagpole and another tech is coming out tomorrow between 2:30-4:30 and they are going to 'drill it out' and if that doesnt work they'll replace the charge port (so it seems they CAN indeed do it on site). Updates tomorrow when (sweet lord willing) they come and have everything they need and get it fixed up.


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## IamEmptySea

I guess I can button this one up. The service technician came late yesterday afternoon and used a series of picks to dig out the remaining plastic pin, from the plug, then inserted the new one. Checked the other one in case it was loose (it wasn't) and very nicely went around and topped up the air on all tires since in my records I was mentioning the road trip soon. He did have a full replacement port with him which I was fascinated to have a look at (kind of like watching a Sandy Monroe video) but he didn't need it and said IF he had, it wouldn't have been a big deal to get it installed here at the house, some panels out from inside the trunk and pulling up the rear seat a bit but nothing major.

While it is still annoying that the service system for parts cant look at vehicle info and help the teams efficiently avoid simpler mistakes in part ordering, at least this stuff happens with them coming to my house not feeling like I have had to commit to multiple trips to a dealership location.


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