Last Sunday I took R down to MA to catch his bus back to college. He had a very busy spring break, so it was nice to have some time to catch up with him before he left for school again. We had a good trip down, despite the on again, off again rain.
After dropping him off, I made a spur of the moment decision to zip over to Worcester to watch Lex march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. It was a total spontaneous trip and I loved it! The weather was perfect, the crowds were varied in all ways, and suitably drunk for noon on a Sunday. LOL. The WPI marching band was early in the parade, but I parked near the end, so I walked along with the band as they finished up the route. There was another band mom there too (probably more than one), and she was following the band the whole way. We joked that we are “with the band” and therefore must be cool. 
I met up with Lex at the end and we got bagels for lunch. He said several band members didn’t make it to the parade, the bus never came, and he had to play two drum parts, but otherwise he had fun. Alan had just brought him back to WPI on Saturday, so it hadn’t been that long, but it was still nice to see him. 
I also enjoyed the walk back along the parade route. The energy was high and it was fun to be part of it.
On the drive home, things took a turn for the worse. I was routing to a charging station, cruising along, then suddenly started getting an error message saying “Vehicle may not restart. Service is required.” Umm… ok. I kept on to the charging station. When I got there, I plugged in, the car said “charging” for a second, then “stopped charging.” Threw a few more random error codes. I unplugged/replugged a few times, but no change. So I decided to move to a different plug, but when I tried to put the car in drive, it didn’t work. Just threw a bunch of more errors. So now it won’t charge, won’t drive, and is spewing error messages across the screen. I then spent the next few hours researching error codes, calling Tesla, calling my insurance company, calling Eve, calling Alan, and calling a tow company. Not necessarily in that order. In this time the battery died completely, with the window down, and the wind whipped ahead of an impending storm.
Eventually, about four hours later, the tow truck came and towed the car to the nearest Tesla service station. Alan picked up Eve and they came down to pick me up. Alan thought maybe we could replace the 12V battery and get the car going again, so we went to the service station. He and Eve braved the winds to do some diagnostics, then we went to WalMart (the only place open at that hour) to buy a battery and some tools. Back at the dealership we got the old battery out, the new battery in, and the car started. Yay! Lights on, screen on, windows up… but still no drive. Each time we tried to put it in drive, we got all the same slew of error messages. So we gave up and Alan brought us home, after a quick stop to recharge our bellies and his car. We drove home in heavy wind and think fog. It was a late night for us, especially him!
The Tesla service center was able to diagnosis it today. I was hoping it was a big battery issue, because I have another year left on that warranty. But, alas, it was not. It’s a “PTC heater failure.” Apparently that’s an important thing and part of the “high voltage” circuit thing and no longer under warranty. 
Tomorrow, E and I are taking the day off from work/school and going back to MA to pick up the car. Maybe we’ll swing by and see Lex again. LOL.
