Calling high mileage, long term owners

[Phoenixhawk101]

Been digging through the threads here and have not quite found the one I was looking for.

I want to talk to some of your long time owners. We now have enough data and time under our belts to start to see some idea of the ownership experience as our Teslas get older. Some people have cross the 4 year mark and I've now seen at least two Model S that have crossed 100k miles.

How is the long term ownership experience? What sort of maintenance have you found yourself needing to get done on your older vehicle (not so much early development issue). Do the handles continue to work well after 200k opens and closes? How often are you replacing the headlights? How have your seats worn? Have you noticed any slowdown in performance on your tablet display?

Many of you took the early plunge and I would love to hear what your experience and day to day is like today, post warranty and maybe even post ESA.

 

[nwdiver]

I've got a 2012 P85 with 87k miles... VIN3000ish

- A few LEDs died in my drivers side tail light due to corrosion from water leakage.
- DU milling sound... just aesthetic but Tesla has offered to replace it... gonna take them up on it before the warranty expires in 2020.
- Passenger visor mirror cover broke ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Everything else is doing great... last max range charge was 236 rated miles. Never had any door handle problems but I think they were replaced as a precaution in 2013.... couple other 'bullets' that I may not have noticed.

 

[ChadS]

2012 with 66k. no problems since the standard early~car issues were addressed in 2013. except for the contactor upgrade in 2014.

Range charge is 249 miles. No DU replacements or noises.

 

[supratachophobia]

Been digging through the threads here and have not quite found the one I was looking for.

I want to talk to some of your long time owners. We now have enough data and time under our belts to start to see some idea of the ownership experience as our Teslas get older. Some people have cross the 4 year mark and I've now seen at least two Model S that have crossed 100k miles.

How is the long term ownership experience? What sort of maintenance have you found yourself needing to get done on your older vehicle (not so much early development issue). Do the handles continue to work well after 200k opens and closes? How often are you replacing the headlights? How have your seats worn? Have you noticed any slowdown in performance on your tablet display?

Many of you took the early plunge and I would love to hear what your experience and day to day is like today, post warranty and maybe even post ESA.

I don't have all your answers. But I did take a 2014 to 50k miles, and it never once broke down and/or left me stranded anywhere. Door handles would be my greatest concern out of warranty. I had textile seats and they looked every bit as perfect on the day I turned it in as the day I picked it up. Range charge was 248 at that time as well. Center console was always a dissapointment as far as speed and responsiveness, same issue with the 2016. If Tesla offered an upgrade to something more current (nvidia x or z or something) for 1200-1500 bucks with an option to core the existing (2000 without core), I would jump so hard and fast on that.

 

[AlanSqB]

- Passenger visor mirror cover broke ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Then how do you get the little light to stay off?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[nwdiver]

Then how do you get the little light to stay off?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

LOL... the cover... not the visor itself... you can't even tell unless the visor is down. I think I flexed it the wrong way putting it back up... I use it almost everyday to keep my sunshade in place when I park at work.

 

[ImperialG]

2013 Model S - 104k miles

1. How is the long term ownership experience? Phenomenal.
   
2. What sort of maintenance have you found yourself needing to get done on your older vehicle? Besides new tires, I had the front brakes changed at 94k miles. Back brakes and rotors still original.
   
3. Do the handles continue to work well after 200k opens and closes? I had the 1st generation door handles and experienced a problem with the front passenger handle not extending at 98,000 miles. They swapped both of the front door handles for the newer generation handles. From what I understand, the newer door handles (the ones that move a few millimeters when pulled) are far more reliable and not as problematic. Outside of this one issue, I haven't had any issues with the door handles. This issue was covered by my extended warranty.
   
4. How often are you replacing the headlights? How have your seats worn? Have you noticed any slowdown in performance on your tablet display? Haven't replaced headlights. Seats not worn. No slowdown in performance in anything. Car still drives and operates like when I first got it.

 

[Phoenixhawk101]

Thank you for the input 'Oh dedicated early ones', one of the things that I don't see talked about enough is that for many people (Myself included) a purchase of a vehicle like this is a long term investment. In my entire (driving) life I have only owned 3 cars in 20 years, and one of them was given to me already being 8 years old.

Like anything these machines age and understanding how they act once they age helps us all prepare better. What will model S be like at 200k miles? 300k? heck Elon seems to think the DU will go to 1 Million miles.

 

[ken830]

Over 3 years and approaching 70k miles. Lots of minor issue in the beginning that were taken care of by Tesla. I still have an occasional issue with the charge-rate being reduced to 30A for no apparent reason. Two DU replacements for noise. Performance hasn't changed. 90% is 229 miles.

 

[DFibRL8R]

Approaching 78k miles at 3 1/3 yrs.
Range Charge is 191 (60kWh)
No extended warranty so all on me after 50k miles which so far has been $895.74 for a door handle (first was replaced under warranty) and $202.57 for a new 12v battery (first was replaced under warranty).
Have an intermittent creak from the LF ball joint now which I opted not to replace yet, Tesla service stated it was not a safety concern.
Performance is like-new in other regards.
Car has never left me stranded.

Under warranty I also had an early drive unit failure in first 2 most of ownership, replaced cracked windshield glass, fixed a creaky pano roof, repaired leak from pano roof.

I think this is an important thread as I too like to keep cars for a long time. Ultimately it might be nice to have this information in table or graph form and hopefully there could be a good sample size of experiences. Hopefully would see a trend towards improving reliability over time as Tesla works the kinks out.

 

[idoco]

2013 MS with 50k miles (VIN 7xxx). Few early things (battery, door handles, rotors, usb port, scroll wheel) replaced under warranty. Otherwise rock solid. Still on original DU without any apparent problems.

I did end up buying the ESA (extended warranty for 50-100k miles).

 

[idoco]

Still on original DU without any apparent problems.

Ooops...jinxed myself. DU proactively replaced by SC this week during service visit. Wasn't noticing any problems with it. Per invoice it was logging errors. Replaced under warranty.

 

[TSLA Pilot]

'13 P85, VIN: P066xx; Every option but Pano Roof; 73k miles; 2nd owner was us at 63k miles; LTE upgrade

Highly recommend the ESA, mostly due to being a very picky owner, and, frankly, would not have purchased it without it as we'd had another '13 Model S before this one.

Car is on it's 3rd DU, but it's was mild mis-diagnosis as it was still doing quite well; more on that below.

LTE/4G upgrade enhanced the refresh rate to match our '15's MS's and it's a high-value upgrade for not much money ($500, IIRC?); highly recommended.

New front rotors (at no cost) under Tesla SB/campaign cured brake noise by 100%; highly recommended, but surprised that Tesla didn't replace the pads at the same time. Would have paid out of pocket to do that, but they didn't bother to even ask. Stupid and silly on their part.

New battery contactor(s) per Tesla SB and battery cover; never had a problem though.

The bigger issue: SC communication and expertise. Over 16 months our recurring and CONSTANT "drone" or "hum" sounds in the high 60's and low 70's (mph) was chronically mis-diagnosed as the following, by more than one SC:

1. Bad tires.
2. Worn tires.
3. Bad tires.

And, finally, after easily a half-dozen visits, our local SC finally replaced . . .
4. The DU.

Net result: No impact.

The only thing left they could think would cause such a noise was the wheel bearings so they replaced the two rear bearings (but not all four).

Finally: Success!

The thing that bothers me the most is that it took repeated complaints to get this resolved, and that at every stage they went to such lengths to create a mis-diagnoses of the problem. This includes swapping to "known good tires" which supposedly made a difference (hence the initial attempt to buy new tires), all with no impact. Even worse: delivering a car back to the customer when the problem still exists, especially when SC's are so few and far between (in our case, 50+ mile round trip, or over an hour each way).

Tesla could have done a lot better with this issue as it required way too much effort, pain and suffering to get this resolved, and I doubt too many other customers would have put up with it. In our case as "Tesla Fanatics" it was just our cross to bear, but, really? Wheel bearings? One would have thought those would have been one of the first things to replace given their relatively low cost and ease of repair.

Next post I'll include some pics of the Denver SC's work that could have, potentially, ended up killing us . . . .

 

[qwk]

60k miles and almost 3.5 years. The car is the best drivers car ever, but has had enough warranty work to amount to the original MSRP(no joke). It has constant problems, many of which the SC throws parts at, but fails to completely resolve. After a few tries, they resort to excuses....

Just my experience.

 

[shelbri]

51k miles on a Sept. 2014. So lots of miles but less than 2 years old.

• Replaced one set of tires
• DU replaced due to milling sound at ~26k miles
• One door handle replaced
• All four brake calipers replaced as well as front rotors. This was an issue due to rust and corrosion. I do spend time in the summer at my marina and also drive on salty New England roads in the winter. I suspect the lack of use due to Regen resulted in a corrosion and brake failure. Fortunately, this was covered during warranty. I have read others have had this issue out of warranty and cost over $5k.
• Numerous issues with the pano roof. Vibrations and squeaking during movement. Final repair seems to have done the trip and SC indicates I'll be covered for a while despite being out of warranty now since it was a known issue.
• Textile seats look brand new
• 257 Rated Miles when range charged
• Still have the Tesla smile and have two Model 3 reservations
• I love driving electric and don't miss gas stations at all

 

[seclinton]

2013 P85: P104xx (search other threads for full number, but whatever)

CPO purchased 2015 w/~50K miles, now just ticked over 70k =+20k/yr

Battery crapped out at about 57k miles. 6 months in a loaner battery that got better range than my original "B" pack. Vent cover failure caused the issue pack was repaired, original pack range charges to 246, 90% 224 miles, now just ticked over the 70k mark.

Still have 3 years warranty left on the CPO, effectively a new car when I bought it.

What was fixed at purchase:
- back passenger door interior panel replaced
- gen 2 door handles
- driver door panel (due bill now replaced)
- floor mats
- 2 wheels 21" gray turbine (holy expensive, and yes covered in road rash (all my fault)...oh well she is driven and loved

- 2 weeks after CPO purchase, brakes squealing. Tesla replaced rotors and pads. Again didn't I say my CPO was like new to me?

 

[Sasmania]

92,000 miles. Vin 2233. P85.

I did NOT get the extended warranty.

So far I've spent $1400 out of pocket on a 12v battery and 1 door handle just recently. I've also had a drive unit replaced, but that was covered and was almost as easy as getting my wipers fixed. Painless. Also had a regular battery replaced, under warranty of course. That took a bit longer (3 days) as they had to get a battery from out of state. I get 225 rated miles at 90% It dropped off rather quickly (from 245 when new), but has leveled out and stayed there now for months.

One other minor issue - I've had the small air bubble on the right side of the tablet screen for almost a year now. It hasn't gotten worse and doesn't seem to affect anything. If I was loaded, sure maybe I'd fix it but I'm not dropping 3K on an almost invisible cosmetic issue. I'll wait till it causes the screen to actually fail.

Overall, car still runs great. Love driving it every time. Seats / interior look great, Paint / exterior has some road wear, minor chips & dings etc that you would expect close to 100K miles on any car..

 

[GlmnAlyAirCar]

37500 mile 70D new in June 2015 (1 year old). As of right now, I am NOT planning to purchase the ESA. At the rate I am piling on miles it will only get me about another 18 months. My thought is that most items that could fail will either be covered by the drive train/battery warranty or be more calendar-time limited than mileage limited. For instance, I doubt the 17" display cares much if it is driven 10000 or 100000 miles.

I have put aside the $4k that I would have spent on the ESA into a savings account to cover any big-ticket items that come up. I'm rolling the dice here a bit but in my case I think it's the right choice.

 

[demundus]

82K and about a year and a few months of ownership (second owner). Out of warranty and no extended.

Two drive unit replacements, no failure but enough noise/issue for them to replace them upon inspection.

TPMS sensors all around at about 400 bucks.

Otherwise, still love my car, except for the below:

92,000 miles. Vin 2233. P85.
One other minor issue - I've had the small air bubble on the right side of the tablet screen for almost a year now. It hasn't gotten worse and doesn't seem to affect anything. If I was loaded, sure maybe I'd fix it but I'm not dropping 3K on an almost invisible cosmetic issue. I'll wait till it causes the screen to actually fail.

I had bubbles, and it got worse FAST (in the summer at least). I was told 3k for a screen and I said no way, I'll live with the bubbles. Now the bubbles have turned into a giant bubble around the outside of the screen, like a goofy looking O-ring. At the base of the screen I am leaking adhesive as seen in my post on this thread: bubbles on touchscreen

Just wanted to give you a heads up on this. Trying to get a goodwill fix but its been hell on earth trying to get a call back.

 

[DFibRL8R]

37500 mile 70D new in June 2015 (1 year old). As of right now, I am NOT planning to purchase the ESA. At the rate I am piling on miles it will only get me about another 18 months. My thought is that most items that could fail will either be covered by the drive train/battery warranty or be more calendar-time limited than mileage limited. For instance, I doubt the 17" display cares much if it is driven 10000 or 100000 miles.

I have put aside the $4k that I would have spent on the ESA into a savings account to cover any big-ticket items that come up. I'm rolling the dice here a bit but in my case I think it's the right choice.

That was my strategy also, pocket the ESA money and spend it if I have to on repairs. I agree that most of the things failing out of warranty like touch screens, door handles and the like are more time dependent than mileage. Understand why Tesla has a Mileage based warranty but I burned through 50K in 2 years and will likely hit 100K at 4. The car is just too damn enjoyable to drive to not put miles on! We basicly stoped using our second (ICE) car. I wonder if the average miles/year for a Model S are more than 12,500 for most Model S owners.