December Issue Consumer Reports

[StellarRat]

So demoralizing. I’m expecting my Model 3 in about a week. Yes, I’ve read the multitude of posts in these forums about the issues upon delivery and beyond. I didn’t know exactly how Tesla was rated as a whole though. Not until I read this new CR on vehicle dependability. The Model X was by far the worst but the all of the models ranked low. Has anyone else read this? I don’t know what to think. Growing pains? This is made worse by the service center reports I’ve been reading about. I sure would like to be convinced to the contrary.

I just went and looked at the CR reliability report for the 2018 Model 3 and it is good. The only areas they rated less than 5 out of 5 were in cabin electronics 4/5 (good) and body hardware 3/5 (above average.) The drive train aka what will leave you stranded, is rated at 5/5 (Excellent.)

I'm not sure what the problem is with CR's report from your perspective. I think would be good to bear in mind that there isn't much data for them to construct good averages yet. They don't even have 100 reports to construct an owner satisfaction number yet. The cars they probably do have data on would be earlier built vehicles. Also, I think many of the cabin electronic problems have probably been fixed by software updates already.

I can tell you that I've not had any real problems and the minor ones I did have were fixed with software updates.

 

[Daniel in SD]

4 out of 5 Model 3's in our office have had warranty service after delivery. It's what makes a Tesla a Tesla!
If reliability and/or build quality is a top priority you should probably buy something else until there is more long term data.

 

[roblab]

Anecdata, but our 2016 Model X has been just as reliable as our previous Japanese cars.

It's probably been in the shop for a total of 4 days in two years.

And, other side of the coin, I've owned two Model S, 80,000+ miles on both, zero days in shop. I did take my first to the factory for a passenger door handle problem, but it was fixed before we'd hardly sat down to wait. We had one of the inverters die, but it just meant we'd charge more slowly. It was fixed in a couple hours while we waited. Not like we couldn't drive even with those problems.

Our second S has had about zero problems, and the 3 has had also zilch. They're getting better.

As to being "reliable", yes. I think CR is pushing. Tesla will have very little service for a very long time, unlike any gas car out there.

 

[NeverFollow]

I don't think that CR use a database reporting what was performed on a car and how long it took to fix a problem.
I think that you can only find this type of information from airplane maintenance records.

So I wonder how CR establish their own classification of car models issues and manufacturers service quality?
I just guess that they might compile reports from various customers and put a grade for each reported issue.

I wonder if they also include reports from users not having any issues?
Then they might put a coefficient between the number of cars sold and the number of reports received?

All of this doesn't seem to be very scientific for me.
Does anyone has any clues about the CR methodologie used?

This seems to be a little bit like the 'Yelp' users satisfaction, something from my own experience that I don't really trust.