Anyone regretting their purchase

[Bridor]

The Tesla Model S is the best car I have ever owned. I have had a few issues with it, but I still love driving it every day. Tesla has been above and beyond in getting the issues resolved quickly. I now have over 120K miles on it.

• I had the drive unit replaced under warranty - done in one business day.
• I had the charge port replaced ($500)
• The headlights needed to be replaced, but I opted for Evan's amazing black out upgrade and they are working much better than the originals

Brent

 

[Ebber]

I was super excited to get my CPO 16 Model S 70D and sang praises to Tesla. However, in my 15 months of ownership and only 47,000 miles on the car I have been to the service center 8 times for three broken door handles (replaced with previous model not the new stronger ones), needing to have the connectivity board replaced and upgraded for the phone and radio after chasing it for nine months, replacement of the exploding Takata airbags which Tesla and several other manufacturers continued to put in their cars even with the recall, New Tesla, McLaren, and Ferrari models added to Takata recall list - Autoblog New Tesla, McLaren, and Ferrari models added to Takata recall list. and last weekend I had to leave my car 260 miles away from home when I got the warning of “car may not restart.” The service center found my battery coolant heater was faulty and my 12 V battery was going south as well. Due to mediocre reliability at best I am very frustrated and don’t even want to take it on the highway now for fear of getting stranded, with my young family, in the middle of nowhere. Anyone else so fed up with the trips to the shop and breakdowns that you’re ready to give tesla the boot?

Homefrog1, you are playing my tune. Tesla's service is an absolute disgrace. They have now had my car at their Milton Keynes, UK Service Centre for a week with some strange software failure. They admit they have not even looked at it due to the backup of Tesla crap waiting to be fixed. Meanwhile I have to drive a diesel VW loan car - what a joke. My car has less extremely low mileage but I now have zero confidence in it. I shall be returning to ICE as soon as I can. This has been a foul experience and I shall NEVER touch anything by Tesla again ever! I get some small satisfaction by telling anyone who admires the car to stay well clear as it is not fit for purpose. I can't get anyone higher than a junior assistant on the front Service Desk to talk to me. I guess they are frightened. Well I hope one of the useless ******** reads this and has the guts to call me. Meanwhile I will keep trying to get something sensible out of Tesla. Be warned all those reading this, stay well clear of this company unless you're keen to pour money down the drain. All those benighted idiots waiting for Model 3, I wish you joy!

 

[Scott_K]

...still notice misaligned panels that my OCD won't let go.

Why don’t you take it back to the SvC? It has been widely reported all over this forum that Tesla does a good job in fixing panel misalignments under warranty.

 

[kragma]

Mine also is a CPO, aside some minor details on delivery and sending them sending the title papers to the wrong county. I am totally in love with my Tesla, only issue I had is some rattle coming from the sunroof, will take it in once I have some time.

Wish you the best of luck.

 

[jelloslug]

Out of the last 4 new cars I have owned, the Tesla has been the most reliable so far. The next would be the Nissan Leaf, followed by the Honda Civic I had, and the BMW i3 brings up the rear. As a side note: my wifes Prius has beat them all.

 

[jaguar36]

Trying to debate car reliability based on forum posts is a fools errand. Go to any forum from Land Rover to Lexus and you will find folks who have had zero problems and love their cars and folks that have had pages of issues and hate their cars. Its all just anecdotal evidence. I think most folks will agree that Tesla's are no the most reliable cars in the world, but to get a true scale of where they fall you need to look at more data. Consumer Reports is the only place for us to find data (as Tesla doesn't participate in JD Powers's survey), and they put Tesla pretty much mid-pack.

I was worried about the reliability when I bought both of ours, and they've certainly had some issues, but the rest of the time they are just way way better cars than anything anyone else makes.

 

[Venomboy]

I love and dislike mine.

Love the looks, the space, the handling. It's a really beautiful car. And I love that it's electric.

I don't like the fit and finish issues and the interior materials are pretty damn cheap. The LED interior lights are useless so I replaced mine with Abstract Ocean lights. It's a bit noisy. The ultra super duper audio...isn't ultra super duper. The audio interface is crappy. Playing music from a USB stick...sometimes works. Sometimes stops. Sometimes does weird stuff. Lately I've had my large LCD freeze up a few times.

Someone on this forum said it's a premium car at a luxury price. I'd agree with that. I do think it's overpriced.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

I

I've had many quality issues with our S, but I would say similar German or Japanese cars are not necessarily better. None have direct competitors to the MS so if you want an electric luxury car, there are no other options.

actually traded in a CPO Benz E 350 with about 80,000 on it. The only problem I had were a couple sensors in the exhaust that had to be replaced. I loved that car.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

My only real regrets are not waiting a tiny bit longer and getting a referral for that sweet free supercharging for life tied to my Tesla account, not opting for the dual motors and not getting the PUP for the power liftgate.

I have had a couple minor issues(driver's side mirror not folding out all the way which was fixed via software update and a slight gap between the windshield and the plastic piece that holds the AP cameras fixed in a ~45 minute service appointment) and one relatively major one of overheating during charging that required them to replace the entire HVAC system(took ~1 week). Oh and one time I put on the wrong snow chains and wrecked the control arm on the rear driver's side wheel, but that's hardly their fault. Still well worth it.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

I

Homefrog1, you are playing my tune. Tesla's service is an absolute disgrace. They have now had my car at their Milton Keynes, UK Service Centre for a week with some strange software failure. They admit they have not even looked at it due to the backup of Tesla crap waiting to be fixed. Meanwhile I have to drive a diesel VW loan car - what a joke. My car has less extremely low mileage but I now have zero confidence in it. I shall be returning to ICE as soon as I can. This has been a foul experience and I shall NEVER touch anything by Tesla again ever! I get some small satisfaction by telling anyone who admires the car to stay well clear as it is not fit for purpose. I can't get anyone higher than a junior assistant on the front Service Desk to talk to me. I guess they are frightened. Well I hope one of the useless ******** reads this and has the guts to call me. Meanwhile I will keep trying to get something sensible out of Tesla. Be warned all those reading this, stay well clear of this company unless you're keen to pour money down the drain. All those benighted idiots waiting for Model 3, I wish you joy!

I so wanted to love this car and did at first...until the problems started. I don’t understand why people are willing to stand for crap quality. A few fun bells and whistles don’t make up for a lack of quality. If you don’t trust it on the road, what’s the point? I read about a person who has had their drive unit, the transmission in an ICE, replaced three times prior to 127,000 miles and they’re willing to buy another one. Seriously? If these things are so awesome why are the service centers stuffed to the gills every time I have to go in? People say, “it’s a new company. We are the guinea pigs and helping to work the bugs out.” We shouldn’t have to be. Musk needs to stop focusing on 7 different projects and get the cars right first. When the semis start having problems with reliability like this....orders for semis will drop off rapidly. Same here...I tell everyone and anyone about all my problems and steer them as far away from Tesla as possible.

 

[Dutchie]

No regrets, we did have to go to the service centre a couple of times for some minor things. But you know what? We like to go there, the people are always so friendly and they do things I did not ask for like topping up the washer fluid, pressurize the tires etc.

The car is amazing. Once you step into an ICE car you will see how spoiled you are for driving such an amazing car. I push myself not to think about the money it had cost us to buy the car though because it is a s..load and it remains a s..load.

 

[jaguar36]

Same here...I tell everyone and anyone about all my problems and steer them as far away from Tesla as possible.

But for every one of you there are 9 (according to the data) other Tesla owners telling people how awesome they are. That's substantially better than any other brand. In addition, while its quite common to have some issues with the car, its quite rare (although it does happen) for them to leave you stranded. There are also lots of other car brands that are much less reliable than Tesla, and most of them have been around for 100 years.

 

[demundus]

I'm beginning to think that many of these almost new CPO cars are lemons that people traded in.

More likely than one might think.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

Trying to debate car reliability based on forum posts is a fools errand. Go to any forum from Land Rover to Lexus and you will find folks who have had zero problems and love their cars and folks that have had pages of issues and hate their cars. Its all just anecdotal evidence. I think most folks will agree that Tesla's are no the most reliable cars in the world, but to get a true scale of where they fall you need to look at more data. Consumer Reports is the only place for us to find data (as Tesla doesn't participate in JD Powers's survey), and they put Tesla pretty much mid-pack.

I was worried about the reliability when I bought both of ours, and they've certainly had some issues, but the rest of the time they are just way way better cars than anything anyone else makes.

If they’re so great why do they refuse to let jd power use their data on initial quality? When a company refuses to let the world see their information.....they have something to hide. That should tell you something right there.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

No regrets, we did have to go to the service centre a couple of times for some minor things. But you know what? We like to go there, the people are always so friendly and they do things I did not ask for like topping up the washer fluid, pressurize the tires etc.

The car is amazing. Once you step into an ICE car you will see how spoiled you are for driving such an amazing car. I push myself not to think about the money it had cost us to buy the car though because it is a s..load and it remains a s..load.

I love the people at my service center too. They are always really nice and I don’t fault them because they didn’t make it. They just have to try and fix all of Tesla’s problems. Nice people aren’t a reason to stay with something that’s unreliable though. You can find nice people at any dealership. I have a Chevy HD2500 with 97,000 miles on it and only one problem when the AC went out. No biggie, not our every day car, just a work truck. My wife has an 11 year old Honda Odyssey with 110,000 miles on it with no major problems just regular maintenance. The power sliding doors and power lift gate still work as well as they did on day one, because it’s a Honda. Sure the little bells and whistles are nice and cute but when reliability sucks and you’re in the shop roughly every two months for some kind of failure or adjustment i don’t see the big whoop. Every time I get in the tesla I’m constantly waiting for the next failure and watching for a warning on the MCU. I don’t trust it because of the failures and will only be taking my wife’s Odyssey on road trips now which sucks because the one trip we took, before all the crap started, was pretty cool. I drive It around town but that’s it. I am the kind of person who demands reliability, especially, as you said, after spending such a huge amount of money. I actually used to love this car but I have a young family and I am not about to risk their safety or comfort by going on a road trip in an unreliable car. Sorry if it seems like I’m coming down on you. I am very happy that you love your car and wish I did. I just feel very betrayed, let down, and angry towards tesla and my car right now.

 

[jelloslug]

I


I so wanted to love this car and did at first...until the problems started. I don’t understand why people are willing to stand for crap quality. A few fun bells and whistles don’t make up for a lack of quality. If you don’t trust it on the road, what’s the point? I read about a person who has had their drive unit, the transmission in an ICE, replaced three times prior to 127,000 miles and they’re willing to buy another one. Seriously? If these things are so awesome why are the service centers stuffed to the gills every time I have to go in? People say, “it’s a new company. We are the guinea pigs and helping to work the bugs out.” We shouldn’t have to be. Musk needs to stop focusing on 7 different projects and get the cars right first. When the semis start having problems with reliability like this....orders for semis will drop off rapidly. Same here...I tell everyone and anyone about all my problems and steer them as far away from Tesla as possible.

There was never a lack of cars in the service bay when I had to take my BMW in for warranty work. This is not a Tesla thing.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

But for every one of you there are 9 (according to the data) other Tesla owners telling people how awesome they are. That's substantially better than any other brand. In addition, while its quite common to have some issues with the car, its quite rare (although it does happen) for them to leave you stranded. There are also lots of other car brands that are much less reliable than Tesla, and most of them have been around for 100 years.

Like I said in the original post, I left mine 260 miles away from home a week ago when the hv battery coolant heater and 12 v battery went south. I drove home in a rented Kia minivan. I know cars have problems. That’s why I demand excellence from mine but 8 trips to the SVC in 15 months....anyone would be fed up.

 

[NateGordonJr]

Like I said in the original post, I left mine 260 miles away from home a week ago when the hv battery coolant heater and 12 v battery went south. I drove home in a rented Kia minivan. I know cars have problems. That’s why I demand excellence from mine but 8 trips to the SVC in 15 months....anyone would be fed up.

Have you thought about maybe.. idk.. selling it?

 

[stallhorn]

Here is how my Tesla Service center experience went:

The phone rings out of the blue one day and Caller ID says it is Tesla.

Lady on the other end: Hi, my name is Jxxxx and I am calling from Tesla

Me: Hi, what can I do for you?

Lady: Well, I am calling to checkup on you and the car. We didn't see you since you drove out of here with a new car 35,000 miles ago

Me: Yeah.. do you need to do an oil change or something?

Tesla Lady: Naa.. we just want to look at the car if you could drive it by when you get a chance. We should probably change the brake fluid and rotate your tires too if you need it.

Me: Ok.. but the tires are wearing evenly, I don't think they need to be rotated.

Tesla Lady: We will look.. maybe we can change the battery coolant and clean your brake parts too.

So I drove in one fine Tuesday morning - $750.00 for 50k maintenance and $250 for brake parts clean up. No tire rotation. I guess they knew they probably won't see me ever again Car now has 52k miles on it, drives like the day I bought it. I am regretting buying the extended warranty for $4k, but then it is peace of mind.

She forgot to say they saw me when the car had about 5k miles - they replaced the charging port, and talked about a small scratch by the door handle.

I guess I am one of the lucky ones.

Then the wife bought a Mercedes 350GL - used (33k miles). A week later, check engine light comes on. Dealer says it may be because the diesel cap is not tight enough. Felt tight, but opened it closed it just for the heck of it, still check engine light. Dealer says drive it around another couple of days. Finally went away after 4 days or so. Minor issue, but something I don't have to think about in the Tesla.

 

[Hornedfrog1]

Have you thought about maybe.. idk.. selling it?

It just happened and since I blew all the money I could on it...I gotta ride it out for a while and let the funds build back up. It has crossed my mind.