Are you worried about your order? Are you wondering if the delivery dates will ever settle down to a firm commitment? Are you worried about having everything lined up before delivery? Are you worried that there will be a bunch of things wrong with your car? Are you worrying about all the issues you read about here?
I was ........ primarily because I did tons and tons of research to see if I was crazy to want a Tesla. I concluded that I might be. BUT, the features of the car and the fact that Tesla owners love their cars more than any others outweighed all I read about quality control and customer service being terrible. So I decided to get one.
But I became more and more terrified as I read all the posts here.
If you are feeling anything similar, read on. I think you might be encouraged.
Test Drive: Nashville
- Super easy to schedule - friendly SA reached out and confirmed
- Tornado ruined the day of my appointment
- Super easy to reschedule - SA was super accommodating
- Test drive was awesome - SA was super helpful
Order: Tesla website
- Total no-brainer
- Easy peasy
- No annoying salesperson trying to sell me something I didn’t want while pretending to be my friend
- Don’t ever want to go to a dealership again
Waiting for delivery: Tesla Website
- Checked the site every few minutes like everyone ...... at first ..... but slowed down after a while
- First window was 6-10 weeks
- Second window was a 4-week window
- Window shifted once or twice and settled down to a one-week window
- Spoke to my SA about all but a couple days in the window being blocked by other commitments on my schedule - SA was understanding
- Got a text to schedule delivery in a 3-day window (one of which was open - yay)
- Managed to squeeze it into a slot in my schedule (a little stressful, but no big deal)
- Had another couple interactions with SA which went a little like this:
- Sent him an email
- No reply
- Called him or sent another email
- Instant reply
- I’m okay with that. Sometimes that’s what you need to do to get a reply from me!
- Ordered April 9 ............. Delivered May 2
Final pre-delivery items: Tesla Website
- Registration - check
- Trade-in - decent offer - check
- Financing - decent interest rate (lower than my interest-bearing investments) - check
- Final payment - a little dicey - but ...... check
- I haven’t had a bank account since the ‘80s
- All my funds are with a brokerage, and cash runs through a “Cash Management Account”
- The CMA is tied to a bank in order to provide checking, but often doesn’t behave like a bank with online payment systems
- Plaid was no exception ...... told me none of my accounts with the Bank handling the account were eligible (I wasn’t surprised)
- Entered my Routing and Account numbers off my check manually - worked great - easy peasy
- Insurance - uploaded proof - check
- Loan Documents - eSignature - super easy - check
—————— Drumroll please———————
Delivery: Nashville
- Arrived about 15 min early
- Busy day, lots of customers standing around, checking out cars, talking to SAs
- Walked around looking for car, but didn’t see it
- SA spotted us and ran over to flag us down
- Took us inside, did something on his computer, took us back out and showed us car
- Left us alone with car for all the time we needed to check it out
- I was so paranoid from reading this forum that I checked and checked and checked and followed the checklist and checked some more
- All I could find was 4 minor cosmetic “flaws” that I never ever would have noticed for as long as I owned the car if I had not been sensitized by this forum
- Front passenger window not flush (by maybe 6mm) - SA said “good catch” and helped me report it
- Frunk very slightly (millimeters) off flush to right of badge
- Front passenger door handle recessed maybe 2mm from flush (sheesh! 2mm!)
- Dashboard trim at corner where pillar meets dashboard and windshield has gap (maybe 0.5in)
- No kidding ....... I would never have noticed these items nor would I have cared
- Made an appointment with service a couple weeks out ....... which was also super easy ......... but might not keep it ...........
- The only real potential worry was the window because of wind noise or leak issues, but on the 150 mile ride home:
- We drove at highway speed and all was quiet
- It then rained on us for the second half and there was no leak
- And for extra credit
- No booming
- No buffeting
- No ear pain
- Similar ..... possibly less noise than my trade-in Honda CR-V on bumpy roads
- Much smoother and quieter than my CR-V on highways
- Finished up a few documents related to trade-in, handed over the keys and title, and drove away in my new Tesla
- So basically .......... for me ............THE CAR IS PERFECT ....... and my wife and I LOVE IT
- And the experience of test driving, ordering, buying, and taking delivery was smooth, easy, and fuss-free. Loved that too.
So I just wanted everyone to hear my extremely positive experience ........ with every part of the process .......... every step of the way. And my guess is there are many others like me who haven’t posted their experience or just aren’t even here on the forum.
