Bad service, great car

[AdamRaphael]

I took my Tesla Model 3 for a pre-arranged appointment at Park Royal service centre (London, UK) at 10.30am on Friday Nov 20th. They said the repair--camera calibration--would take two hours and told me that they would be in touch as soon as it was finished. By 2pm, I had heard nothing, so sent two texts over the next hour. No answer. By 4pm, I had still heard nothing, so phoned Tesla central support. They phoned back and said the car was being worked on. At 5.50pm ten minutes before the service department closed for the whole of the weekend, I got a text message from Tesla saying the work had been completed. By then, it was too late to pick up. So, for three days for a minor calibration, I was without a car.

What is the moral of this story? Don’t accept a Friday appointment from Park Royal unless you are willing to be without your car for the weekend. Don’t expect any sensible communication from Park Royal. Altogether, I received eight automated texts from the service department. None of them was helpful, none of them mentioned what was possibly the cause of the delay—a company bulletin requiring them to rework the electric harness due to water penetration. Sadly, this episode, trivial in itself, is typical of Tesla. A multi-billion dollar company which scorns communications with its customers (and the media), but relies on tweets from its boss is in urgent need of improvement. Tesla has potentially a great future because it has a technological lead and produces world-beating cars, but not if it goes on like this. Adam Raphael

 

[TLLMRRJ]

Yeah, that’s a general rule with any service centers not to book a late week appt if you want your car back for the weekend.

There’s an option to do a camera calibration in the settings menu yourself. What are they doing different than that calibration?

 

[AdamRaphael]

Sorry, not sure what sort of calibration they did. I had the windshield replaced because of stone damage. The company that did the replacement, Autoglass, advised that Tesla would need to calibrate the front camera behind the windshileld following this replacement.

 

[OCR1]

I can’t speak to how things are done in the UK, but at least in California when Tesla finishes working on a car they charge my credit card on file and I can pick up the car whenever I show up. Nobody needs to be there to meet me. They leave the key card in the car for me and I just show up and drive it home. I’m not sure why in the middle of a pandemic they would be doing it any differently in the UK.

 

[SlimJim]

It almost sounds like they don't like OP. And they did it to piss him off.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Tesla did exactly what they said they would do. Said the actual repair would take about 2 hours, and that they would contact him when it was completed.
They are not good at doing hour by hour updates. The repair is assigned to a technician. He gets to it when he can, and notifies the customer when it is completed.
Of course customers want constant updates, so they can conveniently arrange for pickups, but Tesla pretty much waits till the car is ready for pickup before informing customer. Other wise the customere may make a special trip to come down to pick it up, but that it may be delayed due to complications.

 

[polyphonic54]

So, for three days for a minor calibration, I was without a car.

If they're going to hold a car they should offer a loaner.

 

[Uncle Paul]

they usually offer a loaner if they have one available.

With Covid, providing sanitized cars is obviously taking more time.

 

[SlimJim]

Dominos pizza tracker has amazingly accurate up-to-date info.
Tesla should learn how Dominos does it.