I think it's completely nuts to buy a used car in this price range sight unseen. It's not even the cost; it's that you might be stuck living with a substandard vehicle for the years that you own it. Not everything is practically repairable. Saying that they're refurbished helps. If they're not, it's like a lottery.
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Does Tesla really want to have the worst CPO Program in the world?
- Thread starter P85Dave
- Start date
I think it's completely nuts to buy a used car in this price range sight unseen. It's not even the cost; it's that you might be stuck living with a substandard vehicle for the years that you own it. Not everything is practically repairable. Saying that they're refurbished helps. If they're not, it's like a lottery.
davidc18
Active Member
You would have to be insane to buy from Tesla with this new policy. It was iffy before with the lack of transparancy with actual photos of the cars and its service history.
We were looking for a CPO from Tesla to replace the remaining ICE. With the new policies, there's no way I am considering that now. We'll either buy third-party or wait to see what other EV's hit the market in the next few years.
Absolutely, and this current policy change is essentially a hidden undisclosed cost on top of the already quite high prices since they are now refusing to refurbish the vehicles and they don't even tell you how badly the vehicles are damaged when they show the listings
It's astounding some claim so who cares if the car has scratches all over the place, dents, curbed wheels, and the interior has been abused as a service loaner
I'm sure most people who pay $70K for a car care. Many of them would want to purchase a car in like new condition and know the actual cost for such a vehicle. Not $70K for the vehicle and then possibly thousands more when you see the extent of the damage that needs fixing.They should list a clear price for the vehicle with refurbishing that you can purchase and drive home with some dignity and pride. I'm not sure who is looking to buy a car at these prices that hasn't been refurbished.
Hopefully they will reconsider this horrible policy. There is another thread about a CPO car delivered in bad condition. At least they are doing the right thing by fixing the issues. Imagine if that was your car and they told you "We are not going to fix anything because the car still works 'mechanically'!"
Here you go... They will give you a bill to fix any damage to the car as long as the car functions "mechanically." They don't show photos of the car so you have no clue what needs to be refurbished and they don't disclose the cost to refurbish anything non mechanical.
The reasoning for this is very simple. They are basically trying to get used car buyers to pay for all the damage caused by the previous owner or people who abuse loaner cars while not disclosing what that damage is or how much that damage will cost to fix when the cars are listed. How could this be fair or reasonable?
Super_Popular
Well-Known Member
It would be a lot more transparent if there was an "as-is cosmetically" price and a "refurbished cosmetically" price. If the two are close to each other, you could deduce the car is in good condition. If the two are far from each other, you could deduce the car was pretty beat up. This would still be dumb in the sense that Tesla should just sell the car at the higher "refurbished cosmetically" price in the first place to maintain a a higher standard for their cars in general, plus keeping CPO's at a higher price would in theory hold up the values of the cars a little more. However, if the cars are being used as service loaners, this would not be possible since the condition could change on a weekly basis, unless the service loaners received an appraisal upon every time they are returned to Tesla.Absolutely, and this current policy change is essentially a hidden undisclosed cost on top of the already quite high prices since they are now refusing to refurbish the vehicles and they don't even tell you how badly the vehicles are damaged when they show the listings
It's astounding some claim so who cares if the car has scratches all over the place, dents, curbed wheels, and the interior has been abused as a service loaner
They should list a clear price for the vehicle with refurbishing that you can purchase and drive home with some dignity and pride. I'm not sure who is looking to buy a car at these prices that hasn't been refurbished.
I don't see the issue here - if Tesla discounts a car by about say $5K because it has scratches under the bumper, rim rash and a peeled headliner, I would gladly take it, fix what is needed (from my perspective) for less the half the price with my own detailer and save the rest of the money. All I want Tesla to do is to make sure the car is mechanically (and electrically) sound and give me a good warranty. For everything there is a right price.
The whole ordeal around the changed to the used/cpo tesla program has been pretty crazy. At first I was mad, especially for tooth cause it was totally a bait and switch and it's horrible that he had to go through (and is still going through that experience). Then I calmed down and read some of the other replies about how maybe Tesla is re-allocating resource to model 3 production, which totally makes sense and I can understand why.
The change in policy from "CPO" to "not refurbished" is not the worst thing - in most cases, there is still a 4yr/50k warranty and Tesla has historically been very good about fixing/replacing things that break during that time. Yes, this probably won't include cosmetic things like dings, scratches, etc. so that's unfortunately, but not entirely unreasonable.
What definitely bothers me is the change in pricing of late where these "Used" vehicles prices have spiked. I remember when you could reasonably find a CPO for 45-50k and now it seems like you're looking at minimum 60k and in many cases significantly more. Seems like they are really discouraging people from buying used OR just trying to make it more worth it on their end to sell them. In any case, where I would have suggested looking into Used from Tesla for friends that didn't want to or couldn't afford a new Model S, there's no way I could comfortably do that now. I suspect there will be a shift to more private sale purchases now unless you can justify an extra 20k for a 4 year Tesla warranty.
The change in policy from "CPO" to "not refurbished" is not the worst thing - in most cases, there is still a 4yr/50k warranty and Tesla has historically been very good about fixing/replacing things that break during that time. Yes, this probably won't include cosmetic things like dings, scratches, etc. so that's unfortunately, but not entirely unreasonable.
What definitely bothers me is the change in pricing of late where these "Used" vehicles prices have spiked. I remember when you could reasonably find a CPO for 45-50k and now it seems like you're looking at minimum 60k and in many cases significantly more. Seems like they are really discouraging people from buying used OR just trying to make it more worth it on their end to sell them. In any case, where I would have suggested looking into Used from Tesla for friends that didn't want to or couldn't afford a new Model S, there's no way I could comfortably do that now. I suspect there will be a shift to more private sale purchases now unless you can justify an extra 20k for a 4 year Tesla warranty.
Don TLR
Active Member
The problem is the pricing has not reflected the lack of refurbishing.
They better have a LOT of detailed pictures of each car now, there's no way I'm buying something not brought up to prior CPO standards based on stock photos.
I purchased CPO based on the reputation they had prior to this change and was ecstatic when I got my car in mint condition.
They better have a LOT of detailed pictures of each car now, there's no way I'm buying something not brought up to prior CPO standards based on stock photos.
I purchased CPO based on the reputation they had prior to this change and was ecstatic when I got my car in mint condition.
I’ve been told they WILL be adding a suite of pics for each car put up for sale. The intent is to up the bar of what will be offered for sale with no refurb process and wholesale the majority of the rest. They still have to do something with the current cars and crazy offering prices, though.
For the photos to be of any use, they really need to be of very high resolution though.
I hope they realize what a huge can of worms they are opening with this new policy as customers start balking at the state of cars that are not refurbished.
In the long term, they need to figure out a better strategy than having their most expensive cars trashed as service loaners and how then to deal with who pays for that cost. I don't think their current plan of getting Tesla customers to pay for the damage to loaners is going to fly.
Seems the best approach is to have an inventory of Model 3 vehicles for use as service loaners.
Dp7-81
Member
Is it fair to say for example that the P90D mentioned in this thread located in Chicago, can be viewed at one of the service centers in the Chicago area? Is is possible to find out where the car is located, view it, and if it looks good, put the deposit down? It would give the buyers somewhat of a comfort level I would think but at the same time limit them to cars in their area.
I think this is going to be really tough for a bunch of cars that are loaners as the car might be driven by a Tesla customer making it very difficult to examine the car. I think people were okay with not being able to see the car knowing Tesla would refurbish it appropriately but with that not being done any more, I don't know how it makes sense to put down a deposit for one of these cars not knowing the condition or how much it would cost to properly refurbish the car.
