I've finally managed to drive my MS last week (Husband was only too wiling to go back to his Roadster). While the MS is really fun and amazing to drive, I've found that it is not what I think of as an ideal family car.
I have three kids - 10, 7 and 5. The 7yr old finds the doors quite challenging to open, so school drop offs have been a bit stressful (school insists that children be able to exit cars unassisted). I so hate being the one in the queue that's holding everyone else up. In a way, I'm glad HK did not get approved for the rear facing child seats in the trunk. This would make my school drop off even more of a production.
The real problem is with my 5 year old who still has to use a car booster/safety seat. It's a Group 2 and 3 car seat which means it comes with an adjustable headrest. Trying to get the car seat through the door was harder than I thought it would be. Leave yourself plenty of space to manoeuvre - and I do mean, having enough space to open the door completely. But even then, the door space is actually quite narrow!
The buckles for the rear seat belts are flush with the seat - this can be quite tricky for even the average size adults! With a car seat, buckling in becomes quite a problem. Our car seat, because of its bulk, does sit on top the buckle. I've had to push the car seat (with my son sitting on it) out of the way in order to get the belt latched, then push the car seat (and my son) back into position. My son hates this bit and so do I. Once, my 7yr old helped me insert the belt into the buckle. I drove off and a minute later the rear seat belt alarm went off. My daughter had inserted it into the wrong buckle. I found this very surprising as such a thing will never happen on my Nissan - each seat belt can only latch with the designated buckle. I stopped the car while she made the correction. Now, why didn't the indicator go off almost immediately? As in, the second the car was in motion. I haven't decided if it's worth the expense of getting a seat belt extender. For now, I solve this problem and hassle by using my Nissan Presage instead! A note of caution - I don't recommend using the car booster seat without the head rest (the ones with the bottom seat only) in the MS because, as we discovered, the belt strap will go over the child's throat.
If you do have children in your MS, please find out if any or all of them are in any way susceptible to car sickness or getting sick and vomiting when they've had too much ice-cream. Please learn from our mistake. ALWAYS keep a "Vomit Kit" in the car at all times ie. large ziplock bags or even a bucket (I wish we had one at the time!). If such unfortunate incident should happen at night (as it did for us), please be aware that the lighting in the car is horribly inadequate for the cleaning task. You will need someone to shine a powerful torch for you. I would like to emphasise "powerful" because yes, vomit in your Model S will make you cleaning-frantic on a level you never thought possible. Have plenty, PLENTY of wet wipes on hand!
The "new car stink" bothers me a lot. I'm quiet sensitive to smell and being in the MS has given me headaches every time. I found some charcoal odour absorber in the supermarket and bought one 500g bag and two 250g ones. The 500g is in the trunk and the two smaller one go in the front in various places. The improvement is significant so I highly recommend them! You can find them in most supermarkets (with the dehumidifier packets in the household section) or any household stores.
