First of all this did not happen to me. This is a a cautionary tale of what happened to a co worker of mine. He always wanted a Tesla, found a good deal at a used car lot and got burned.
I heard about this guys because he reached out to me before he bought his model S because he knew that I had one and wanted more info. Before I could help him and and give him some advise, he had already pulled the trigger on a used Model S he found at a local BMW dealer. He had no idea what he bought, did not know all the features, if it had single or Dual chargers, could it supercharge? nothing. He did not even realize he needed a charger or 40 amp circuit to use the car. He was using a standard 110 port to charge and he could not figure out why he was not getting enough charge for his commute. The sad part is the dealer just told him they don't know anything about the car and could not really help him.
So after we finally talked, I offered to help him with his car and get him started. Similar to the delivery of the Tesla I gave the guy a quick tutorial and hooked him up with a bunch of links and the 24 hr Tesla number. We found that he was missing a lot of features he wanted. For example, the car could not supercharge and initially he did not even have App access to the car.
This past week, he got a bombshell. He was trying to use some of the newer features of the car like auto park and the Tesla would not work. So he took it into the Tesla service center. After a day or so, the service center called him up and gave him the bad news. His Tesla had damaged cabling caused by rodents that got in and chewed on some cables. It's at minimum $5000 repair not covered by warranty. The really devastating part is this issues was found with the previous owner. The previous owner was told it was not covered under warranty. The previous owner just off loaded the car to a used car dealer.
The Car is currently at the Tesla dealer. Tesla will not release the car because the car is not safe to drive. He had been driving the car for over a month and had no clue the potential danger he was in.
There is one saving grace here. The used car dealer sold the Tesla as a certified pre-owned car. The dealer has supposedly performed a full inspection of the car. don't know how they certified the car considering even big dealers have no clue how to properly work on their own EV's let alone a Tesla. The CPO contract should protect him since he will have proof the problem was on the car prior to his purchase. But I'm sure he has a long battle ahead.
I heard about this guys because he reached out to me before he bought his model S because he knew that I had one and wanted more info. Before I could help him and and give him some advise, he had already pulled the trigger on a used Model S he found at a local BMW dealer. He had no idea what he bought, did not know all the features, if it had single or Dual chargers, could it supercharge? nothing. He did not even realize he needed a charger or 40 amp circuit to use the car. He was using a standard 110 port to charge and he could not figure out why he was not getting enough charge for his commute. The sad part is the dealer just told him they don't know anything about the car and could not really help him.
So after we finally talked, I offered to help him with his car and get him started. Similar to the delivery of the Tesla I gave the guy a quick tutorial and hooked him up with a bunch of links and the 24 hr Tesla number. We found that he was missing a lot of features he wanted. For example, the car could not supercharge and initially he did not even have App access to the car.
This past week, he got a bombshell. He was trying to use some of the newer features of the car like auto park and the Tesla would not work. So he took it into the Tesla service center. After a day or so, the service center called him up and gave him the bad news. His Tesla had damaged cabling caused by rodents that got in and chewed on some cables. It's at minimum $5000 repair not covered by warranty. The really devastating part is this issues was found with the previous owner. The previous owner was told it was not covered under warranty. The previous owner just off loaded the car to a used car dealer.
The Car is currently at the Tesla dealer. Tesla will not release the car because the car is not safe to drive. He had been driving the car for over a month and had no clue the potential danger he was in.
There is one saving grace here. The used car dealer sold the Tesla as a certified pre-owned car. The dealer has supposedly performed a full inspection of the car. don't know how they certified the car considering even big dealers have no clue how to properly work on their own EV's let alone a Tesla. The CPO contract should protect him since he will have proof the problem was on the car prior to his purchase. But I'm sure he has a long battle ahead.
