Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Dartford Delivery experiences

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Hey all!
I’m due to collect in Dartford next week hopefully.
I would love to hear your experiences so far.
Where the staff helpful/pushy?
We’re you given what you felt enough time with someone to help you, get confident with the car?
Where you pushed to leave ASAP?
Where you given time to go through your whole checklist...?
Was your battery charged sufficiently?
 
I picked mine up from Dartford last year and it was absolutely fine. A little disjointed when you first get there, with me having to knock on a door to get hold of someone, but the actual demonstration on a car in the garage was fine.

All the cars being collected were outside on charge and a couple of guys were walking up and down answering any questions and gave you as long as you wanted. My car was pretty well fully charged.

It's a very different experience from collecting my Audi SQ5 (last car) but it was ok.

Hope it goes well for you and you enjoy your new car.
 
Parts service? Just fine. Very helpful when I dropped into buy a wall charger and 32Amp commando adapter.

New car delivery? Awful. Just awful...

My timeline went like this.

Booked into an early afternoon 3pm slot to pick up my car from Dartford on a Monday. Perfect, I needed to home by 6:30, and Dartford is 25 minutes drive away. Booked the day off work.

Confirmed the delivery with Tesla and with the lease company, even went physically went to the service centre the Friday before to confirm the collection date and time. All good.

Come Monday, I take elongated and tortuous train and bus route to the service centre at Dartford. Anyone who thinks public transport is the answer to traffic and overcrowding is deluded. It’s a pain in the arse.

On final leg of the journey (bus stop - miserable weather), I had a phone call from the service centre; “Your car isn’t here, it’s at Heathrow, we’ll have to arrange for another day” - My immediate response was pretty much “over my dead body, you can explain this to me in person when I get there.”

A brief but enlightening conversation when I got there elicited a key bit of info.
- Tesla don’t apologise for anything. A simple sorry would have served to reduce my ever increasing levels of rage, but apparently this was my fault...

Tesla phoned for an Uber for me to Heathrow.

On leaving Dartford I give the guy there 3 key requests. (That’s “requests” in the context of a wife's stern request to a husband - to be read as, “do this, do it now, do it exactly as I ask, or I’ll come back here and remove parts of your anatomy”)

1/ I absolutely must be on my way back from Heathrow by 5 if I was to have any chance of getting back to home by 6:30. Or else it’s not worth going, do whatever must be done to ensure that car is ready upon my arrival.
2/ put the car on a supercharger, NOW, while Im on my way there to pick it up so I don’t have to hang about.
3/ Under no circumstances will I sit through your PowerPoint presentations and demo’s on how to drive the car. I’m In and out, no messing around, do not engage me in any conversation other than handing me the keys.

The Uber was a typical clapped out Prius with all fuel savings measures enabled such as the air con and heating turned off, an enforced maximum speed of 56mph, windows fully fogged to save you the terrorising sight of being tailgated by artics, and acceleration that could best be described as glacial, much like the temperature of the interior. On the plus side, Tesla paid for it.

I arrived at 4:30. They knew who I was the moment I got in the door, so they’d definitely been briefed to expect an angry man who doesn’t take no for an answer. The car was “Ready in just a moment, it’s just with the detailers”. (Begging the question ‘why is isn’t it already cleaned? you were expecting me one and a half hours ago’)

At 5pm the car was still nowhere to be seen. By 5:30 I was just about ready to get a train home and cancel the bloody thing. Finally after what must have been the most intense wash ever, it appeared. I gave it the once over, signed the form and drove it out of the delivery centre...

... and straight onto the supercharger for 40 minutes as the thing had a range showing of less than 90 miles. It was barely above freezing outside, so with a stone cold brand new battery it took forever to work up a decent charge rate. So much for charging it up for me...

All in all, atrocious. The worst handover I’ve ever had.
 
Hey all!
I’m due to collect in Dartford next week hopefully.
I would love to hear your experiences so far.
Where the staff helpful/pushy?
We’re you given what you felt enough time with someone to help you, get confident with the car?
Where you pushed to leave ASAP?
Where you given time to go through your whole checklist...?
Was your battery charged sufficiently?
We collected from Dartford SC on a Saturday morning last year and it was all fine. Quite busy but we were all treated courteously and given time to ask questions after a short group guide round the car. When we were taken outside and introduced to our car the app was working and we were givens much time as we wanted to go through the car. We had more than sufficient charge to get home (be aware that there are also superchargers just down the road at Bluewater shopping centre). We also did a trade in - no issues with that even though technically we were way outside the quoted trade in period.

We have also been back mid week a couple of weeks back to get some work done and the staff were super helpful and polite. We texted them on the way in as we got held up in traffic behind an accident so they were expecting us to be delayed. (Don't forget to set up Waze on your journey in as it will get you there in the best time if there is a delay on the motorway.)

Worth saying that while we were there last time, there were a couple of unhappy customers who seemed to have bought the car without doing much prior research about their suitability for EV ownership. The SC staff were again super courteous and helpful.

Worth also knowing that it was, at the time of visiting, a different set of staff working weekdays to weekends.

Nice clean environment if you are waiting for service to be carried out - comfortable, quiet, decent tea/coffee, fruit. Happy to drop you at Bluewater if you wanted to go shopping or to point out a nearby cafe if you wanted an alternative.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Blueskye
I have to admit I was pretty nervous before picking the car up - I’d read all sorts of horror stories on here and was concerned that I would experience the same.

My experience at Dartford was actually pretty good though; I was given ample time to check over the car (I was the last of our group to complete my checks - thanks to anyone who has ever posted a checklist on here!), the car was charged (I think to around 75% IIRC) and I signed over my old car as trade-in without any problems.

In all, I would say: be prepared to hang around a little as they sort out the paperwork for everyone in your group, take your time with the checklist (they certainly weren’t even remotely pushy with me on this point) and most of all remember to enjoy the experience yourself!
 
  • Love
Reactions: Blueskye
I picked up last October. There was a lot of hanging around and it wasn’t clear what was happening/when delivery would take place or even who to let know I’d arrived, but once the handover started it was fine. Demo didn’t really add anything to the videos I’d watched online, but they gave me loads of time to run through the delivery checklist, there were a couple of employees to answer questions and I had a decent charge.
 
  • Like
Reactions: c7carl
Has anyone got any recent post-COVID experience of a handover at Dartford?

I received a time slot. Travelled by train to the site (bit of a walk from the station.) Arrived on the dot.

There was a doorbell to ring and a bloke asked my name and then passed me the two key cards through the door. That was it. Figured out which car by interior / exterior colour.

Was pretty pleased with that. Last new car I bought was a Porsche and it took an unnecessary number of hours with a car salesman attempting to do unhelpful things like fiddle with settings I didn’t want fiddled with.

This pickup was less than a five minute process. Probably less than one minute if I hadn’t spent the five minutes playing with buttons.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: c7carl
I received a time slot. Travelled by train to the site (bit of a walk from the station.) Arrived on the dot.

There was a doorbell to ring and a bloke asked my name and then passed me the two key cards through the door. That was it. Figured out which car by interior / exterior colour.

Was pretty pleased with that. Last new car I bought was a Porsche and it took an unnecessary number of hours with a car salesman attempting to do unhelpful things like fiddle with settings I didn’t want fiddled with.

This pickup was less than a five minute process. Probably less than one minute if I hadn’t spent the five minutes playing with buttons.
Wow - I have visions of the cards being secretly slid from under a bolted door of a back alley lockup...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Monkeyworld
I received a time slot. Travelled by train to the site (bit of a walk from the station.) Arrived on the dot.

There was a doorbell to ring and a bloke asked my name and then passed me the two key cards through the door. That was it. Figured out which car by interior / exterior colour.

Was pretty pleased with that. Last new car I bought was a Porsche and it took an unnecessary number of hours with a car salesman attempting to do unhelpful things like fiddle with settings I didn’t want fiddled with.

This pickup was less than a five minute process. Probably less than one minute if I hadn’t spent the five minutes playing with buttons.
What buttons?
 
My post-COVID Dartford experience was good.

There were new Model 3s everywhere and more car lorries parked up outside. We squeezed our way to a little desk outside (it was a very sunny day). One person was being seen in front of me but soon left. I gave them my name and driving licence and five minutes later my car was pulled round and I was handed the keys. No instructions or anything but I didn’t feel too rushed in checking it over. The only time limiting factor was that the car was now somewhat in the way, given the business of the car park.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: c7carl
I picked up my M3P last weekend. I had a time slot for 1pm but the M11 and Dartford crossing had delays due to crashes so I phoned up from the car to say I'd be late, maybe 2ish. In the end, I got there 1.15pm and I thought I'd have to wait. Nope! I rang the bell and a guy got me to check in and show my driver's licence. He told me to wait for a few mins then took me to my car which was parked in a SC space, charged to 90%.

He said take as long as you want and if I had any Qs to ask. It was Saturday and I was expecting it to be heaving but in the time I was there, there were only 2 other cars being picked up. Being so quiet, I'm guessing the staff had a lot of time for customers for their questions and showing them around the car etc.

My car was absolutely fine, no body work issues or misalignments, the Tesla app worked perfectly as did all the controls and the screen. I did point out the lack of paint inside the doors where they are hinged but he showed me a few others and they all were poorly painted like that. He said it was a common thing and I'd read the same online so no major surprises. There was also some orange peel effect on the sills of the rear doors but again, I half expected it so no surprise again. This is a lease car so I guess I'm not being so precious. If I bought it, I'd be upset!

When I was satisfied it all checked out and the guy had very helpfully got me acquainted with the major controls, I signed and off I went...only to sit in traffic for 20mins to get to the tunnel a few hundred metres away! Still, I played with the screen when stationary!

All in all, a very happy and satisfying experience with Dartford!
 
  • Informative
Reactions: c7carl
I picked up my M3P last weekend. I had a time slot for 1pm but the M11 and Dartford crossing had delays due to crashes so I phoned up from the car to say I'd be late, maybe 2ish. In the end, I got there 1.15pm and I thought I'd have to wait. Nope! I rang the bell and a guy got me to check in and show my driver's licence. He told me to wait for a few mins then took me to my car which was parked in a SC space, charged to 90%.

He said take as long as you want and if I had any Qs to ask. It was Saturday and I was expecting it to be heaving but in the time I was there, there were only 2 other cars being picked up. Being so quiet, I'm guessing the staff had a lot of time for customers for their questions and showing them around the car etc. ?
My car was absolutely fine, no body work issues or misalignments, the Tesla app worked perfectly as did all the controls and the screen. I did point out the lack of paint inside the doors where they are hinged but he showed me a few others and they all were poorly painted like that. He said it was a common thing and I'd read the same online so no major surprises. There was also some orange peel effect on the sills of the rear doors but again, I half expected it so no surprise again. This is a lease car so I guess I'm not being so precious. If I bought it, I'd be upset!

When I was satisfied it all checked out and the guy had very helpfully got me acquainted with the major controls, I signed and off I went...only to sit in traffic for 20mins to get to the tunnel a few hundred metres away! Still, I played with the screen when stationary!

All in all, a very happy and satisfying experience with Dartford!
Just received my email from Tesla with my registration number and requesting signature for Sales Declaration and Certificate of Examination. I'm assuming that everyone else has signed this once you collected the car and Tesla are just being overly efficient?