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2019 Model 3 Miles - Do they Matter?

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Im looking at a 2019 Tesla Model 3 with 40k miles on it. That seems steep for being a 2year old car, but how does a Tesla miles compare with ICE cars? I know Elon has said 1M miles but wanted to see if anyone has noticed severe battery deterioration at a certain mileage and how much I should take these high miles into consideration when negotiating price? Thanks.
 
I purchased a 2019 M3 last October that was 11 months old and had 45K miles on it. I too was weary about the miles but the car had every option available including full self driving. I paid 35K for the car which original sticker was over 50K. I had to weigh the options, I decided to go with it after having it inspected and full history report. I have had not one problem with it and I am a high commuter doing 120 miles per day. Everything has worked out great on mine. I do hate to look at that number on the dash but if you consider we are all conditioned with wear and tear on ICE and drivetrain, I think we have a much better chance for one of these to go 2-3 maybe even 4 hundred thousand miles if you take care of it. Have it inspected and go for it. For sure on mine, the price was heavily discounted because of the mileage in relation to the year. That being said these types of oppurtunties also allow some buyers who could not afford to get into one of these a chance. This was not the case for me but when I built a new on online without all the options i wanted, I was choking at the 50K price tag. And in turn when i did the math on what I was paying on a Honda payment, gas and oil change every month, this cost me $79.00 more a month. A wash basically. Good luck.
 
I purchased a 2019 M3 last October that was 11 months old and had 45K miles on it. I too was weary about the miles but the car had every option available including full self driving. I paid 35K for the car which original sticker was over 50K. I had to weigh the options, I decided to go with it after having it inspected and full history report. I have had not one problem with it and I am a high commuter doing 120 miles per day. Everything has worked out great on mine. I do hate to look at that number on the dash but if you consider we are all conditioned with wear and tear on ICE and drivetrain, I think we have a much better chance for one of these to go 2-3 maybe even 4 hundred thousand miles if you take care of it. Have it inspected and go for it. For sure on mine, the price was heavily discounted because of the mileage in relation to the year. That being said these types of oppurtunties also allow some buyers who could not afford to get into one of these a chance. This was not the case for me but when I built a new on online without all the options i wanted, I was choking at the 50K price tag. And in turn when i did the math on what I was paying on a Honda payment, gas and oil change every month, this cost me $79.00 more a month. A wash basically. Good luck.
Thank you for this! This is encouraging to hear. In this used car market, this model 3 is a LR AWD and is going for 43k. Seems steep given the miles, but new cars are 3 months and used cars are getting snatched up daily - raising prices. That is why im curious as to how much high miles depreciate the car. I cant tell if it is market or if it just speaks to how long EV's can truly last and the differentiator between them and ICE.
 
For comparison I bought my 2018 LR AWD with 40K miles on it for $36,100 back in January. Granted, the used car market has gone absolutely nuts since then.

No issues with mine, but I am paying close attention to all the normal failure points (upper control arms, 12V battery, etc) since I'm getting close to being out of warranty.
 
For comparison I bought my 2018 LR AWD with 40K miles on it for $36,100 back in January. Granted, the used car market has gone absolutely nuts since then.

No issues with mine, but I am paying close attention to all the normal failure points (upper control arms, 12V battery, etc) since I'm getting close to being out of warranty.
Do you have any insight (maybe from what you have seen on this thread) at what mileage those normal failure points seem to take place and what kind of service expense these incur?
 
I bought a 2019 M3P with 58k miles, FSD, suspension mods, aftermarket tires, lowering springs and general tint, ceramic and PPF. I overpaid at $48k but this market is crazy. I sold my truck and was in need of a vehicle soon.

I also comment that miles on a BEV (depending on which one) "look like" they mean less than same miles on ICE.

I cut my payment by $100/mo, and used to spend $100-$200 per week on fuel so I will be saving a good bit.
 
Miles matter almost the same as any car despite the million-mile claim.

There's no unique tech in the suspension, so that will wear like any other car with miles. The brake pads might last longer, but pads on normal cars are inexpensive to replace.

The interior will wear like any other car with pleather. The body will rust like any other car.

At 40K miles, you've eaten up 1/3 of the battery and motor warranties, and you're 4/5 of way there to the bumper to bumper expiring. If the battery lasted 1M miles, it would have a 1M warranty -- same with the rest of the car. So Tesla's words say 1M miles, but their actions say 4yr/50K for some parts and 8yr/120K for other parts.

Battery is $15-20K to replace, and each motor is probably $10K to replace. Compared to an ICE, you can spend a lot less on replacement engines and transmissions as long as it's not a high-end luxury brand.

With those replacement costs, the Tesla can be scary to own outside of warranty, and that's not even talking about the cost of replacing the extra tech that's not included in the battery/drivetrain warranty if it fails (the computer, the charging circuitry, sensors/cameras, etc).
 
Miles matter almost the same as any car despite the million-mile claim.

There's no unique tech in the suspension, so that will wear like any other car with miles. The brake pads might last longer, but pads on normal cars are inexpensive to replace.

The interior will wear like any other car with pleather. The body will rust like any other car.

At 40K miles, you've eaten up 1/3 of the battery and motor warranties, and you're 4/5 of way there to the bumper to bumper expiring. If the battery lasted 1M miles, it would have a 1M warranty -- same with the rest of the car. So Tesla's words say 1M miles, but their actions say 4yr/50K for some parts and 8yr/120K for other parts.

Battery is $15-20K to replace, and each motor is probably $10K to replace. Compared to an ICE, you can spend a lot less on replacement engines and transmissions as long as it's not a high-end luxury brand.

With those replacement costs, the Tesla can be scary to own outside of warranty, and that's not even talking about the cost of replacing the extra tech that's not included in the battery/drivetrain warranty if it fails (the computer, the charging circuitry, sensors/cameras, etc).

While I understand your general sentiment, no one, not even tesla, has said that the CURRENT batteries are "million mile batteries". The warranty is also different than on the model S. On the model S, it was 8 years, unlimited miles, for FAILURE (not degradation)

On a model 3, its 8 years, 100 or 120k miles (depending on model) with at least 70% capacity left. So tesla is guaranteeing. 70% capacity at 120k miles, not just that the "battery turns the car on".

Depending on what someones actual commute / usage is, if its 70% at 120k miles and even loses the exact same percentage over the next 120k miles, thats 40% at 240k miles. Given that most peoples average commute is somewhere under 50 miles a day, and 40% of 300 miles would be 120 miles, which would still be viable for many people.

I do get your general sentiment though, and happen to agree with it for the most part. I think the battery and motors will outlast much of the rest of the car, actually.
 
For comparison I bought my 2018 LR AWD with 40K miles on it for $36,100 back in January. Granted, the used car market has gone absolutely nuts since then.

No issues with mine, but I am paying close attention to all the normal failure points (upper control arms, 12V battery, etc) since I'm getting close to being out of warranty.
Right around the 45K range... LOL Actually I've heard of lots of people getting their control arms replaced as early as 15K miles. So far I'm not having any issue so I'm just enjoying the ride.
 
While I understand your general sentiment, no one, not even tesla, has said that the CURRENT batteries are "million mile batteries". The warranty is also different than on the model S. On the model S, it was 8 years, unlimited miles, for FAILURE (not degradation)

On a model 3, its 8 years, 100 or 120k miles (depending on model) with at least 70% capacity left. So tesla is guaranteeing. 70% capacity at 120k miles, not just that the "battery turns the car on".

Depending on what someones actual commute / usage is, if its 70% at 120k miles and even loses the exact same percentage over the next 120k miles, thats 40% at 240k miles. Given that most peoples average commute is somewhere under 50 miles a day, and 40% of 300 miles would be 120 miles, which would still be viable for many people.

I do get your general sentiment though, and happen to agree with it for the most part. I think the battery and motors will outlast much of the rest of the car, actually.

I didn't mean to say Tesla claims 1M miles on the battery. But Elon has thrown around that 1M mile number in relation to other parts, and of course people are going to mistakenly think it applies to the whole car (which could easily have been Elon's intention with those Tweets).

Degradation over miles is one thing to consider, but batteries and motors do fail regardless of miles and age, and the bottom line is that they are expensive to replace when they do fail - moreso than many ICE cars. And it's going to stay expensive because Tesla is boxing out competition with their parts and service in an Apple-style approach.

So when you put miles on the car, you run out of warranty, and you are exposed to those high costs of potential failures.

And I don't think there's much by way of extended warranties still for the Model 3/Y.

Add it all together and the savings on buying a used Tesla could easily come back to bite you with high repair bills, compared to buying new.
 
For everyone on this threaD - sorry for the naïve question but if this is available at a dealership - is there some test I can perform to get a general sense of how the previous 1 owner kept the car? (I.e. battery diagnostic to figure out degradation)
 
For everyone on this threaD - sorry for the naïve question but if this is available at a dealership - is there some test I can perform to get a general sense of how the previous 1 owner kept the car? (I.e. battery diagnostic to figure out degradation)

You can follow the information in the post in this thread to calculate how much energy the battery can store, and thus degradation the car believes it has.

 
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More likely some dope at the helm of a gigantic SUV or pickup yammering on their mobile phone will take the car out long before any serious mechanical failures occur. I’m not trying to sound pessimistic or dour, but that’s been exactly my experience. It’s also why I no longer stress over keeping cars pristine and perfect and low mileage - it’s a losing battle and no insurance settlement can ever give you back your lost time and effort or make you “whole” in terms of your emotional investment.

Cars continue to get better, drivers continue to get dumber and worse - and there are unfortunately more of them out there every day. Technology is great, but as the saying goes “ya can’t fix stupid”. Not even with high-tech.

Case in point, I’ve lost two cars I really liked in accidents over the years (one a classic Mustang, one a Mercedes) due to inattentive people with their brains checked out of what they’re doing. One was a rear-end and one was a head-on. I’d baby and pamper my cars and winge about mileage oil change intervals and book value and all that, then in one blink of an eye it was all for naught - bam. Rubble. Lost effort and all that stress and anxiety for zilch. Again, I don’t want to be Debbie Downer here but that’s just a (hopefully healthy) dose of reality.

Just drive it and enjoy the experience while you do. It’s a car. That’s what it’s meant to do. Teslas are pretty innovative and represent a turning point in the evolution of what we think of as an “automobile” so there’s something special about that, but does anyone really doubt that in 15-20 years there will be some far more amazing, newer thing out by then and Tesla Model 3s will have faded into relative obscurity?

The M3 is a blast and a heck of a lot of fun and enjoyable, but it’s still just a car. At the end of the day, it’s really nothin’ all that special. I enjoy mine but try to keep that perspective and just use it. It ain’t worth stressing over. Life’s too short.
Now go drive somewhere. :)
 
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