August 16, 2019—Gruber Motor Company in Phoenix is said to be the only place in the world that know how to repair old Teslas that the company will no longer service, reports FOX 10.
Their warehouse is filled with Tesla Roadsters, which were the first model Tesla built. But Tesla no longer repairs specific parts for that model. They will only replace the entire item needed, which is very costly for owners.
"We actually go inside and repair and what is wrong with the pack, which then ends up being either $1,500 to $5,000, substantially less than what Tesla would charge," Gruber said.
People from all over the country ship their Roadsters to Phoenix to get it fixed. Their engineers are in a lab repairing the circuit boards instead of working directly on the car.
"This is almost like a hospital ward. We've got three Roadsters a couple of weeks ago. Two of them came back to life. They're like in a coma and when we charge them to a certain level, they start talking to us again and they come back to life," Gruber said.
Gruber says everything the repair shop does is reverse engineered, and he is always looking for engineers familiar with cars to help with this growing demand.
