Advice on 2nd hand purchase appreciated

[Asterix187]

Depending on the registered date you may need to pay up to £310 per year in road tax as well.

 

[WannabeOwner]

none of this was factored in at the purchase point

Don't you need some Boy Racer puddle lights?

although you might be better off with a less impressive, but perhaps better quality, product ... e,g, abstractocean.com

Replacement (brighter) LEDs for boot too perhaps ..

 

[DJP31]

Don't you need some Boy Racer puddle lights?

although you might be better off with a less impressive, but perhaps better quality, product ... e,g, abstractocean.com

Replacement (brighter) LEDs for boot too perhaps ..

I drew the line on the puddle lights, but Simon from Holbon sorted out the boot lights when he did the dashcams for me. Have we mentioned dashcams yet, or snow foam and the two bucket method?

 

[.jg.]

Do people recommend buying the warranty then... has anyone else done it, 50k miles does feel incredibly low given the price tag of the car new.

You get it included if you buy direct from Tesla.

The thing is, Tesla repairs (parts and labour) are very expensive and as the car gets older, these costs are more likely to arise and would be a more significant cost w.r.t the value of the car. I will need to re-visit the cost/benefit calculations when the time comes but I will likely buy the warranty as the original 4 year warranty runs out.

I clearly haven't done enough research on this side of the purchase... i've just assumed whatever i need to buy will plug into the house.

It depends on your daily mileage and how/where you will charge your car. If you charge using the UMC from a 13A socket, the charge rate is limited to 10A or 6 mph. This may be adequate if you only do about 25 - 30 miles per day. Most people want faster charging and with a single phase supply that is normal in British homes, the maximum you can get for a Tesla is 32A/22 mph (with either the UMC or a wall charger). You will almost certainly need an electrician to install a new cable and breaker, adequately specified and dedicated to charging the car.
If you will be charging outside, a waterproof wall mounted charger is the best option. There is a government subsidy for some chargers that can be used with Teslas but the subsidy is not available for Tesla's own wall mounted charger.
If you are charging in a dry garage, you may have more options. As the UMC with some useful adaptors is about the same price as a wall mounted charger, I will probably get a second UMC, leaving one installed in the garage and one in the car (although, I have never used my UMC away from home).

There are lots of discussions on these forums about optimising battery life, charging times, Supercharger etiquette, etc. It is seen as a good idea to keep the car plugged in when at home, with a charge limit of maybe 80% (depending on your daily mileage). It isn't good to keep the battery at a high state of charge (e.g. >90%) for long periods or to let it drain too low (e.g. <10%). Use Superchargers when you are on longer trips.

I’m going to Darts Farm Supercharger next month on the way to Torquay for a wedding (I’m not invited, but the car has been to chauffeur the bridesmaids ) and apparently there’s a farm type shop there that is adept at open wallet surgery

We went to Darts Farm a couple of weeks ago - it is a nice place to stop, with the farm shop, cafe and restaurant, places for chidren to play and for dogs to run around - and other shops nearby. We did spend over £100 on meat & groceries though.

 

[WannabeOwner]

There is a government subsidy for some chargers

Seems to me (but subjective) that getting a subsidised charger ups the cost in some magical way that means the price works out the same ...

... but I'm sure that's not the case in all instances

There has also been some chatter that the charger I have (forgotten the name, it pre-dates the Tesla one, and was subsidised) has had problems. Certainly I've had Sparky out to both mine at home, and the identical one at work, about once-per-year. It has also tripped (some rain ingress maybe?) on occasion, meaning the overnight charge did not complete.

All very subjective though ...

 

[culverwood]

The Tesla [branded] Wall Charger has a button on the plug that opens the charge port - so you can grab the plug/cable, point at car, push button, and plug in. Otherwise you have to remember to press "Open Charge Port" on dashboard, before you get out, or press-and-hold the BOOT button on the fob for several seconds (which is fine of course ... just the wall charger is a better solution).

Tesla Wall Charger [compared to 3rd party] is a good choice for other reasons too e.g. load-balancing when you have two cars on the drive to charge .

I have found that my charge port opens when pressed. I assume it logs where I have charged before, so no need for the Tesla Wall Charger for this.

I do have to press and hold the key to release the cable if this is what you mean.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I have found that my charge port opens when pressed

Never tried that, thanks. I'll report back

I know that newer ones have a motorised charge flap - so you can (for example) leave it open and it will auto-close as you drive away ... another 1st world problem no doubt

I do have to press and hold the key to release the cable if this is what you mean.

Yes, i did mean that, but also that I have been doing press-and-hold [fob] to get it to open (which i may now find can be done with "press to open" on my 2 year old ]

I parked near a charger once. Came back to find my charge port open, so the people using the "plug button wand-style" had obviously opened my charge port too ... and I expect it could have easily been broken off by someone passing by.

 

[culverwood]

I know that newer ones have a motorised charge flap - so you can (for example) leave it open and it will auto-close as you drive away ... another 1st world problem no doubt

Mine does have the auto-close. I had an older loaner and was surprised to have to close it - definitely a 1st world problem.

 

[zap fizzle]

I had read somewhere you can get an extended warranty to 100k miles as long as its purchased whilst still in warranty... does anyone know if this is true or the relevant cost?
Thanks all

You can buy another 4 years / 50k miles from Allianz, so long as you do this before you reach 4 years / 50k miles and so long as your vehicle has FSH. It's £3200.

The Allianz warranty has exclusions, whereas for all their (many) faults, Tesla are pretty good at fixing warranty issues (slowly) without lots of arguing about whether or not they're covered.

There are no reports yet about the how the claims experience with Allianz goes. It's likely to be pretty rocky the first few times it's done, as it requires the Tesla service centre to interact with the Allianz warranty people (in Germany). IME trying to get stuff clarified with Allianz it takes them days-to-weeks to answer emails and the responses are of the "polite-brush-off-without-reading-the-question" variety.

So it's not the same as just having the manufacturer warranty last longer. I'm not sure I'd buy it if I did lots of miles, but if I was going to get 3 or 4 years out of it then I probably would. A single MCU replacement would put you ahead.

If you buy used from Tesla ("CPO") then they will write you a new, proper, manufacturer 4 year / 50k mile warranty on it at the time of sale. This is a big advantage of buying from Tesla. Unfortunately they seldom offer attractive cars, or any cars at all, as CPO - tending to charge very high prices and offer unattractive specs.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Unfortunately they seldom offer attractive cars,

Might see if the differential between the trade-in for my car, and the buy-back price, is less than the Allianz warranty price

Glad I asked the question, thanks for the feedback. I don't have a FSH (at manufacturer intervals) so that may kick it into touch (for me) anyway ...

 

[WannabeOwner]

I have found that my charge port opens when pressed. I assume it logs where I have charged before, so no need for the Tesla Wall Charger for this.

Looks like that is a "newer than my car" thing.

Car locked, fob nowhere nearby, parked in normal charging location, pressed charge-flap, no joy.

Fob held next to flap (car had not presented door handles), still no joy.

Can unlocked ... Nope, can't do it then either.