100K Club? Anyone?

[mgdurand]

Anyone else here reached 100,000 miles yet? I've heard of a few others around, here and there. We just turned over a couple weeks ago.

The car is a March 2014-delivered P85, we drive between PHX and LA a lot. Listen to a loooooot of audiobooks. The car basically took the place of our small plane, slower but more reliable more often.

I wrote to Tesla asking for something like a high-mileage badge, like the old Mercedes and Volvos used to sport, but no reply yet. Since long-term durability is really the only thing about the Model S that doesn't score a 100% in all the ratings, you'd think they would like to draw attention to the ones that keep on going with some kind of insignia. I'd like a colored/engraved 'T' for the back lid, but even a software easter-egg would be nice. I mean, I feel kind of proud...

Anyway at this rate our drivetrain warranty will last 450K although we are eyeing a Model X for when they put out the next-gen of autopilot hardware.

Here:

 

[wallet.dat]

They should have some sort of "achievement unlocked" badge once you hit a certain mileage or performance metric

 

[ElectroFroggy]

Gratz!

 

[Tree95]

Holy cow. My March 2015 has just 34,660 miles. I burn through a lot of Audiobooks, too.

 

[CHG-ON]

Contrats! I miss those old emblems on the Merc grilles. A true badge of honor, IMO.

 

[David99]

Congrats! That's amazing. I'm still far away with 72k miles (my car is the same age as yours). I'd love to hear your comments on reliability and issues you had so far.

I used to be a huge fan of my car, but I'm getting more and more annoyed with having little issues here and there. In two years my car has been at Tesla's service 10 times (or more). 5 drive units, several small issues. What bugs me a lot is the various rattles from different interior parts. I pointed them out during warranty and they were never able to really fix them. Now I'm out of warranty and I don't feel like paying them for something they already attempted to fix but could not.

 

[2virgule5]

S85 delivered March 2014 as well (VIN P32xxx) but 'only' 46600 miles, though I had absolutely Zero issues with the car so far. Software badges of honor would indeed be a good idea.

 

[FloridaGary]

Congrats! That's amazing. I'm still far away with 72k miles (my car is the same age as yours). I'd love to hear your comments on reliability and issues you had so far.

I used to be a huge fan of my car, but I'm getting more and more annoyed with having little issues here and there. In two years my car has been at Tesla's service 10 times (or more). 5 drive units, several small issues. What bugs me a lot is the various rattles from different interior parts. I pointed them out during warranty and they were never able to really fix them. Now I'm out of warranty and I don't feel like paying them for something they already attempted to fix but could not.

Although I could understand how you feel about the inconvenience of 10 service visits in 72k miles driven, but with an ICE vehicle, you would have the same number of visits with oil changes every 7k miles, not to mention the service requirements at 15k, 30k, 45k and 60k miles. I wonder what the cost of each of those visits would be compared to what you spent on your Tesla issues during your 10 service visits?

 

[int32_t]

I wonder if some of the hackers on this forum would have insights into what might be rattling and how it might be fixed. Some folks have gone all the way down to the metal and then put everything back in (flood damage or what have you), so they must know the car pretty well.

 

[David99]

Although I could understand how you feel about the inconvenience of 10 service visits in 72k miles driven, but with an ICE vehicle, you would have the same number of visits with oil changes every 7k miles, not to mention the service requirements at 15k, 30k, 45k and 60k miles. I wonder what the cost of each of those visits would be compared to what you spent on your Tesla issues during your 10 service visits?

I agree that an ICE car would have caused several planned service visits, but that doesn't mean a Model S can have issues that end up causing as many or more service visits. I did one annual service, but all other visits were because of quality issues. That's the part where I think Tesla still has a long way to go.

As for the rattling issues, that's just something that makes a car feel low quality and cheap. And I really should not have to take headliners or the dashboard apart to find parts that don't fit well and rattle.

 

[Mike K]

We've probably sat next to each other at Quartzite. My inlaws live in Goodyear and we do the LA to Phoenix trip at least once a month.

What's your 90% charge on that car?

They should have some sort of "achievement unlocked" badge once you hit a certain mileage or performance metric

Both awesome and a very Tesla thing to do.

 

[Lex]

Congrats mgdurand ! I have to ask... how many motor swaps, 12V battery replacements ? Yes, I am aware that changes since 2014 may have fixed much of these initial problems, but I am predicting you have had new Drive Units at each 25,000-30,000 interval, and a new 12V approximately replaced annually ?

As for the odomter, Tesla seems to have made a conscious decision to hide the mileage away, quite possibly so we keep on driving, driving, driving past the "achievement" of losing the warranty... so I'm not expecting to ever get any notes when passing milestones

 

[Piney999]

Can someone point me to the thread where we are tracking the highest miles achieved?, there has to be a thread out there somewhere.

 

[AMPd]

Can someone point me to the thread where we are tracking the highest miles achieved?, there has to be a thread out there somewhere.

100,000+ Mile Club

 

[FloridaGary]

I agree that an ICE car would have caused several planned service visits, but that doesn't mean a Model S can have issues that end up causing as many or more service visits. I did one annual service, but all other visits were because of quality issues. That's the part where I think Tesla still has a long way to go.

As for the rattling issues, that's just something that makes a car feel low quality and cheap. And I really should not have to take headliners or the dashboard apart to find parts that don't fit well and rattle.

I couldn't agree more about the rattling issues. I'm surprised that a service center is unable to identify and correct the issues. When I purchased a brand new 2004 Infiniti G35, the car was mechanically sound for many years, but the rattles from the dash and other areas were disappointing. Many of the issues ended up being materials rubbing against each other. Thankfully, I play music when driving so I barely noticed it. I hope you eventually get your issues resolved. Tesla owes that to you for a premium car.

 

[sorka]

I had a few rattles show up and fixed in the first 10K miles. Unfortunately, now I have 20K miles and there are literally dozens of squeaks and rattles coming from all over the inside. It's by far the most I've ever had on any car. We sold our Lexus SC400 2 years ago with 334K miles on it and it had no interior noises from going over rough roads.

About to make another service appointment to have these fixed. I suspect they're going to have the car for a long time because I won't put up with getting back and having a $124K car have these kinds of issues. It's beyond unacceptable.

 

[mgdurand]

To answer a few questions, I've been pretty happy with the reliability and problem free-ness of my Model S over the past two years, though I did buy it with a total "early adopter" mentality. That is, I expected a lot more problems than I've had, so from that relative perspective I'm pretty happy with how it's gone. I didn't expect as much from a tech company in their second year of production. This is not to say that any of you who are frustrated by niggling problems are wrong; for $100,000 + you should have a car which is as refined as you would expect it to be. It's a matter of perspective and expectations. I may also be relatively lucky.

I'm on my third drive unit. The first two started making noise around 25K. The third ("P" unit) has 31K and is still quiet. I don't mind this issue as I have 6 more years on that warranty, though I would like to be able to tell everyone I have 50K on it and it's a solved problem.

The battery contactor was replaced and we narrowly missed getting stranded at the Buckeye supercharger on that one. I consider this an "incidental" problem, though I realize the contactor was not spec'd properly and they have fixed the problem.

Rattles... Several initially fixed under warranty. For me this was a non-issue since it was a new product and they took care of it and I lived near the service center then. I have one remaining rattle which only occurs on certain roads, but can definitely empathize with others who have out of warranty cars and persistent rattles. Noises like that drive me nuts and I'd be super annoyed. Yes, they do "cheapen" the car, and out of proportion to it's value otherwise. Hopefully Tesla will take the rattle, and fit-and-finish issues more seriously as they grow, or maybe they do already.

My one issue not covered by warranty: left rear door handle presents but does not open the door. Hopefully a simple problem, I've driven 20K without the time to take it into the service center. If I have to buy a new door handle I will be annoyed because they are $1200, in which case I'll try to fix it myself. Probably just a dirty contact.

We did not get the extended warranty, and in this case it was the right decision since we blew through the second block so quickly. The first "annual" was also not useful, but that's another thread.

My 90% charge is 225-6 miles and has been since maybe 30K. I've seen it as low as 221, and 100% has brought it up to 228, then a couple days later it settles back again to 225. This has been constant through days as hot as 120F (seriously), down to -4F, while supercharging. I've read a little on Li batteries, played around with them some (bicycles), and checked out Tesla's patents. I think they really got the battery and related systems right. Which IIRC, was the biggest question mark about them when they started producing.

For me, the biggest problem has honestly been the windshield. It's a chip magnet. I think it's the airstream and accept it, and my insurance pays for it, but here in rocky AZ - SoCal they don't last long.

I like the idea of having "achievement levels," that's kind of fun, like D&D... Although IMO just as a picture is worth 1,000 words, a good piece of hardware is worth a million lines of code ;-)

I still want that badge.

 

[Blue Millenium]

Congrats, on the mileage. Quick question regarding the audiobooks, how did you get the sub stick to recognize audiobooks? I keep trying and it only accepts music.

 

[Edmond]

For the door handle problem, the microswitch needs adjusted.

 

[mgdurand]

I use the Audible app, though I have used .mpx format. You can search for a file converter depending on what you are starting with.