Anyone regretting their purchase

[SMAlset]

Honestly I’m not sure what I’m looking for from them. I just know that sorry doesn’t give me all the hours of my life back and reduce the resultant headaches.

I hear you and climbing over your center consule to get out of your car when your door handle wasn't working is not a comfortable feat. Experienced that when a car parked so closely to me that I couldn't open the driver's door. Hopefully your battery is now fine. Try to forget about the hours lost and don't give yourself a headache. Sometimes it just the bad luck of the draw in life.

As to regretting the purchase of our Model S, no way. We started off with a bad charging port that needed to be replaced before we even got the car home, and did end up with the yellow banding around our MCU screen, so not exactly problem free. All taken care of rather promptly though. SvCs have been fine to work with at our end. Waiting for my Model 3 now as our second car and if not wanting something smaller to park and drive around in town, I'd love to have a second MS in our driveway. I'll be fine with the 3 but really love being in our MS. I'll add that we feel it's the best car we ever owned.

 

[Dr. J]

@Hornedfrog1: Dude, trade in your crummy Model S for a brand new Model 3. Guilt Tesla into giving you a high trade-in value. Put this nonsense in the rear view mirror and enjoy the ride.

 

[pkarandi]

Sorry to hear about all your frustrations Hornedfrog. My wife took delivery of her new MS on Dec 23 2017. The night we got it home, it would not charge! (There are various threads on the Dec 2017 builds having bad charge ports). Long story short, Tesla Service had the car for over 2 weeks until my wife got it back. After we got it back, it still had the problem! Finally I told the service guy I thought our mobile charger was bad so he gave me a different one to take home. Since then we have had no problems. At week 4, Tesla had our car longer than we had it! My wife was mentally going down the same path as you - totally regretting her purchase. I think now that it has been running fine for a few weeks, she is gaining a positive attitude towards the car again.

I can't remember what your current status with the car is (is it in the shop, or do you have it and just lack confidence with it?) My advice would be: set a date goal, maybe a year - Jan 2019. Don't stress about it until then, and try to enjoy it (I know - easy to say, hard to do). If the car hasn't won you over by then, trade it in and don't look back. I know that would suck financially, but the stress will hurt you a lot more.

(I can personally attest to the stress factor. Back in 2000, I pursued a lemon law buyback and it was the worst decision I ever made. I lost money and was stressed out over 18 months, the motorcycle mfr lost money, and the lawyers on both sides made money).

 

[Hornedfrog1]

I hear you and climbing over your center consule to get out of your car when your door handle wasn't working is not a comfortable feat. Experienced that when a car parked so closely to me that I couldn't open the driver's door. Hopefully your battery is now fine. Try to forget about the hours lost and don't give yourself a headache. Sometimes it just the bad luck of the draw in life.

As to regretting the purchase of our Model S, no way. We started off with a bad charging port that needed to be replaced before we even got the car home, and did end up with the yellow banding around our MCU screen, so not exactly problem free. All taken care of rather promptly though. SvCs have been fine to work with at our end. Waiting for my Model 3 now as our second car and if not wanting something smaller to park and drive around in town, I'd love to have a second MS in our driveway. I'll be fine with the 3 but really love being in our MS. I'll add that we feel it's the best car we ever owned.

Thank you for your insight. I hope your are trouble free for years to come.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

@Hornedfrog1: Dude, trade in your crummy Model S for a brand new Model 3. Guilt Tesla into giving you a high trade-in value. Put this nonsense in the rear view mirror and enjoy the ride.

I would love to do something like that but the problem is that I need the room of the Model S when we travel for our taekwondo tournaments....we carry a lot of gear and it honestly fits much better in the Model S than the Model X. I just don’t think there would be enough room in the Model 3 for everything. That would be pretty sweet though.

 

[gdec]

Have to say threads like this are pretty intimidating as a soon to be owner. I take delivery of mine in a few weeks (theoretically).

My initial experience with the store/ordering process wasn't perfect. But overall most of the Tesla employees I've talked to have been very helpful.

It seems everything I see about this car either talks how reliable it is or how full of problems it is. Obviously the people on the extreme ends of the spectrum are always the most vocal.

Does anyone know of any solid data regarding Model S maintenance/reliability issues? I've seen a lot of press about Consumer Reports upgrading their rating as well as the relatively low cost of maintenance over hundreds of thousands of miles of driving. However, all of that seems to be counterbalanced by the plethora of negative stories in the forums.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

Sorry to hear about all your frustrations Hornedfrog. My wife took delivery of her new MS on Dec 23 2017. The night we got it home, it would not charge! (There are various threads on the Dec 2017 builds having bad charge ports). Long story short, Tesla Service had the car for over 2 weeks until my wife got it back. After we got it back, it still had the problem! Finally I told the service guy I thought our mobile charger was bad so he gave me a different one to take home. Since then we have had no problems. At week 4, Tesla had our car longer than we had it! My wife was mentally going down the same path as you - totally regretting her purchase. I think now that it has been running fine for a few weeks, she is gaining a positive attitude towards the car again.

I can't remember what your current status with the car is (is it in the shop, or do you have it and just lack confidence with it?) My advice would be: set a date goal, maybe a year - Jan 2019. Don't stress about it until then, and try to enjoy it (I know - easy to say, hard to do). If the car hasn't won you over by then, trade it in and don't look back. I know that would suck financially, but the stress will hurt you a lot more.

(I can personally attest to the stress factor. Back in 2000, I pursued a lemon law buyback and it was the worst decision I ever made. I lost money and was stressed out over 18 months, the motorcycle mfr lost money, and the lawyers on both sides made money).

Thank you for your thoughtful insight. I am currently out of the shoot but now something New has crept up...again. I forgot that about theee weeks ago I looked down and my odometer was a big fat zero. After about a mile the true mileage came back. A week ago with the electrical system failure stuff and they updated firmware. When I got it back last Wednesday I reset all the trip meters, erased all the nav data, reset the internet to google.com, and did a hard reset of my MCU and my instrument cluster. Last night my odometer switched over to zero again and after a mile or so it popped back to true mileage. That really scares me since everything was updated, reset, and rebooted and it still happened again. That suggests we are dealing with a connection, communication, or electrical issue. I called my SVC and they are having the engineers look into it. I do have it back but it’s just a total lack of confidence because every time I think things are going well something else creeps up and the previous owner had no trouble at all. Lucky me. Good idea about setting a date. I’ll think about that. Thank you again. Safe travels.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

Have to say threads like this are pretty intimidating as a soon to be owner. I take delivery of mine in a few weeks (theoretically).

My initial experience with the store/ordering process wasn't perfect. But overall most of the Tesla employees I've talked to have been very helpful.

It seems everything I see about this car either talks how reliable it is or how full of problems it is. Obviously the people on the extreme ends of the spectrum are always the most vocal.

Does anyone know of any solid data regarding Model S maintenance/reliability issues? I've seen a lot of press about Consumer Reports upgrading their rating as well as the relatively low cost of maintenance over hundreds of thousands of miles of driving. However, all of that seems to be counterbalanced by the plethora of negative stories in the forums.

I have nothing but good things to say about the people I have dealt with at the service centers. They have all been very professional, friendly, helpful, and good with communication, and answering questions. My problem is with my car itself. You will find people with lots of problems that are willing to overlook them and buy again. You’ll also find people who have had no problems and are willing to buy again. And then there are the people like me that are so frustrated they are reAdy to put it on the next SpaceX rocket and blast it to Mars. I have seen a lot of early models with really good reports minus a few small bugs but it seems as they’ve become more advanced there have been more issues. I did see recently that consumer reports did indeed rate the dependability for the 2018 Model S as better than average but since tesla won’t let JDPower review anything I don’t know how you’d really find accurate data. I really think it’s just the luck of the draw.

 

[William13]

TrueDelta is where one can find real data on repairs. I report to them religiously.

 

[smilepak]

I am regretting my purchase every day.

I regret it each time I drive by the gas station noticing the price, like today $3.80 per gallon and thinking to myself, why didn't I get it sooner

I regret it each time I drive the HOV lane down the 91 freeway passing by people who sit there for hours enjoying the happy fume, why didn't I get the Tesla sooner

I regret it each time I go on long distance road with one hand holding my starbucks and the other hand holding my wife while watching the car around me swirl left and right from falling asleep, why didn't I get the Tesla sooner

I regret it each time I drive into a parking space marked for energy efficient vehicle only and seeing people around me circling the parking lot like hawks for a rabbit, why didn't I get the Tesla sooner

I regret it each time I had to stand to summon my Tesla from a compact parking space while the guy next to me stand there scratching his head and tries to climb in through the back of his car, why didn't i get the Tesla sooner

I painfully regret it each day...but I'll get use to it.

 

[Solartech]

Nope. This a stance, resistance against oil money and the military industry. True democracy of energy.

I regret the damage oil and war has caused our planet.

Hows your boy trump doing?

 

[verygreen]

Does anyone know of any solid data regarding Model S maintenance/reliability issues

I think the rule of thumb is: if you see things at delivery that indicate a shoddy build on the outside (use a checklist!) - chances are insides are equally shoddy or worse so it's prudent to refuse delivery and try again. Accept delivery at your own risk if too many things are out of place.

 

[JonG]

Nope. This a stance, resistance against oil money and the military industry. True democracy of energy.

I regret the damage oil and war has caused our planet.

Hows your boy trump doing?

You should read this as you’re trading one issue for another and amnesty international are not some unrespected body with an agenda, they hate oil companies too.

The Dark Side of Electric Cars: Exploitative Labor Practices

 

[Solartech]

You should read this as you’re trading one issue for another and amnesty international are not some unrespected body with an agenda, they hate oil companies too.

The Dark Side of Electric Cars: Exploitative Labor Practices

Yes I have read this. No doubt EV’s are not 100% clean. Although I cant fill my silverado with kwh generated from the sun or wind.

I can recycle my tesla cells though.

Original post - tesla needs more quality engineers. Agreed.

 

[JonG]

You should read this as you’re trading one issue for another and amnesty international are not some unrespected body with an agenda, they hate oil companies too.

The Dark Side of Electric Cars: Exploitative Labor Practices

Jeffro found child exploitation funny - I am lost for words