I wanted to give a condensed version of some key experiences for new buyers. This is going to read like an AAR.
TLDR: Bought a 3P+, returned it for a refund (no refund yet), ended up leasing a S100D through TESLEASE by Doering
I placed an order for a 3p+ online in October. Used my cc to run the deposit. Initial estimate is 4-8 weeks.
One day later I get a txt msg saying that my car would deliver to Costa Mesa in 5 days. I was thinking, "OH MAN FRESH OFF THE PRESS".
5 Days later I come in, sign in at the front. They take me into their delivery waiting lounge give me some documentation, water and some breath mints.
10 mins later a girl comes out along with a dude. I guess the girl is a delivery person rep and the dude is a initiate or something.
The girl and dude take me to a bar table, she has me transfer the money via ACH (do it on the Tesla account portal). Once they see the confirmation of success (but money didn't actually transfer out, it is just a verification), I start signing paperwork while she makes small talk.
After all paperwork is done, it took a total of 5 mins from the time I was in the lounge to the time the dude started giving me a rundown of how the car works and the girl says bye.
I'm out the door in another 10 mins. I did a manual walkthrough and walk around and everything looks great.
Now for the bad part. In my rush to experience this new type of car buying, I skimmed all documents presented to me when I was signing it. They had me sign something called a used vehicle certification for a demo or executive vehicle. I KNEW I signed that document. And in my mind which was cluttered with excitement from getting a new car, confused by small talk about oreo cookies and vegan leather (in reference to my car being black and interior being white), and thinking I'm old and seasoned enough where nothing gets past me, it didn't register as suspicious. I justified that document was given to me because my car being a 3P+ and an electric car, that somehow 522 miles SHOULD BE on the odometer. How else would you know how fast it can go, or maybe it was on a hamster wheel like machine to test out it's electrical abilities before giving it to a valued customer. I brought the car home to my wife who promptly said "What kind of new car has 522 miles on it?" and "Why the F*** did you sign a used car certificate?". That was when I had my a-ha moment. Do I still qualify for my $7500.00 Fed tax credit and $2500 whatever credit from CA?
I've recently lost a chain of arguments to my wife, so best I got on her team. I told her it's not a big deal but I'll look into it, hey if we don't like the car we can always return it in three days right? (reality is that you have 3 days if the car was delivered to you and never did a test drive, and 1 to 2 days if you pickup the car at a delivery center and or you've done a test drive)
I start googling and reading forums, trying to dig deep into my memories Inception style see where everything went wrong. On the purchase agreement doc I remember signing something that shows the car was a "Demonstration Vehicle." At the time again I justified signing any weird thing in front of me by saying "It's an electric car and a performance plus!, It's unique and has unique DMV paperwork..."
3AM I send two emails. One to the delivery center person who sent me my scanned signed docs (when you sign in person they email the copies to you), to complain and ask them to either give me a discount along with an explanation, or I'll return the car. Two, I sent a similar complaint to Elon Musk Office @ Tesla.com. I read somewhere he randomly reads emails and then makes customers happy somewhere. It's like praying to your choice of a god, asking for some miracle. You don't know if he ends up helping you or not but you feel better knowing that at least you made it known. I go check the vehicle and there's an extra keycard assigned to the car without me knowing about it, and I look through GPS history and there's the Las Vegas racetrack, Brea Mall, and some other locations on it. I decided to build a story to myself that this car was driven by some Tesla employee for a week, riding around socal, racing on the track, then dropped off in Costa Mesa. Whatever, that's fine. I just didn't like knowing someone else's keycard was assigned to mine when it should have been kind of new. Yeah it can get removed but you feel violated that this wasn't known to you when you left the dealer.
A few hours later a delivery manager at the facility emails me back and assures me he'll look into it and find a way to help.
I find out later that when you order online, they are NOT supposed to give you a DEMO vehicle unless you explicitly agree to it (I did not). My car was auto assigned a demo vehicle because Tesla was trying to sell as many cars as possible during this period, so all demo vehicles were put into inventory to allocate. I should NOT have been reserved a Demo vehicle, but I was.
I come into the delivery center in the morning and talk to the guy who emailed me. I told him I'll return the car but before that I said I'll keep the car if you give me a discount for the 522 miles.
Them: "We can request a refund of $125.00 for 522 miles, but it needs approval"
Me: "What?? No forget it, return the car and give me my money"
Them: "Sure we'll help with that, it'll take 4-6 weeks to get you tens of thousands of dollars back"
Me: "Oh WTF, fine whatever let me work with your sales to see if there's another car I want then"
10 mins later I'm with a sales guy scrolling through his laptop looking at Tesla inventory with incentives and discounts.
I find a model 3 P+ like mine with 300 miles on it and a $3000 dollar discount because it was a demo vehicle. I check the history of it and no damage, no problems, just discounted demo 3p+. I can't reconcile the reality between them saying they can only give me back 125$ for 522 miles, but in their system theres a 3000 dollar discount for the same car with less mileage.
I get excited on what I perceived as my newfound "deal finding" ability. I spend another 30 mins with the guy going through everything. In the end I saw the one with the best discount as being an S100D. 9k off for 1.5k miles. I test drove a similar one in their showroom and decided I was going to switch up from a 3p+ to a s100D. I'm old and the chairs in the S is much better than the 3P+. But hot damn is the 3P+ a much more fun car.
Delivery manager comes out, finalizes and thanks me for the purchase, and then schedules me a Lyft back to my work.
I did some calculations and I didn't like the leasing from Tesla and went with Doering instead. Doering was on the ball trying to get paperwork over to Tesla, but Tesla didn't respond for two days. I had to go after the guy who helped me return the 3P+ before and he rerouted everyone so the paperwork went through.
Two weeks later I have an appt to come in and get the car. I do a walkaround and there's food, cups, bottles and napkins in and around my center console. Broken plastic and loose screws in the frunk and trunk. This time only one dude came out to intro me to the car, no delivery sales person. I asked the dude to clean up my car for me and document the broken plastic and the screws. He said he would but I dont feel like he did. I ended up telling him I want a copy of the documentation of the condition of the car in case I need to return this car later. He said sure he can do that, but instead a delivery manager comes out and tells me the broken plastic and screws are from the front license plate mount. And apologized about the messy car saying "Elon wanted to start doing 15 min car washes before deliveries so some things get missed." At this point I just want to leave, so I said okay thanks.
Tesla is a newer company that still has some growing pains. Its evident in their staff. I feel the management at the delivery center level are good, but my experience with the line staff is that they really weren't that helpful or looked out for you.
TLDR: Bought a 3P+, returned it for a refund (no refund yet), ended up leasing a S100D through TESLEASE by Doering
I placed an order for a 3p+ online in October. Used my cc to run the deposit. Initial estimate is 4-8 weeks.
One day later I get a txt msg saying that my car would deliver to Costa Mesa in 5 days. I was thinking, "OH MAN FRESH OFF THE PRESS".
5 Days later I come in, sign in at the front. They take me into their delivery waiting lounge give me some documentation, water and some breath mints.
10 mins later a girl comes out along with a dude. I guess the girl is a delivery person rep and the dude is a initiate or something.
The girl and dude take me to a bar table, she has me transfer the money via ACH (do it on the Tesla account portal). Once they see the confirmation of success (but money didn't actually transfer out, it is just a verification), I start signing paperwork while she makes small talk.
After all paperwork is done, it took a total of 5 mins from the time I was in the lounge to the time the dude started giving me a rundown of how the car works and the girl says bye.
I'm out the door in another 10 mins. I did a manual walkthrough and walk around and everything looks great.
Now for the bad part. In my rush to experience this new type of car buying, I skimmed all documents presented to me when I was signing it. They had me sign something called a used vehicle certification for a demo or executive vehicle. I KNEW I signed that document. And in my mind which was cluttered with excitement from getting a new car, confused by small talk about oreo cookies and vegan leather (in reference to my car being black and interior being white), and thinking I'm old and seasoned enough where nothing gets past me, it didn't register as suspicious. I justified that document was given to me because my car being a 3P+ and an electric car, that somehow 522 miles SHOULD BE on the odometer. How else would you know how fast it can go, or maybe it was on a hamster wheel like machine to test out it's electrical abilities before giving it to a valued customer. I brought the car home to my wife who promptly said "What kind of new car has 522 miles on it?" and "Why the F*** did you sign a used car certificate?". That was when I had my a-ha moment. Do I still qualify for my $7500.00 Fed tax credit and $2500 whatever credit from CA?
I've recently lost a chain of arguments to my wife, so best I got on her team. I told her it's not a big deal but I'll look into it, hey if we don't like the car we can always return it in three days right? (reality is that you have 3 days if the car was delivered to you and never did a test drive, and 1 to 2 days if you pickup the car at a delivery center and or you've done a test drive)
I start googling and reading forums, trying to dig deep into my memories Inception style see where everything went wrong. On the purchase agreement doc I remember signing something that shows the car was a "Demonstration Vehicle." At the time again I justified signing any weird thing in front of me by saying "It's an electric car and a performance plus!, It's unique and has unique DMV paperwork..."
3AM I send two emails. One to the delivery center person who sent me my scanned signed docs (when you sign in person they email the copies to you), to complain and ask them to either give me a discount along with an explanation, or I'll return the car. Two, I sent a similar complaint to Elon Musk Office @ Tesla.com. I read somewhere he randomly reads emails and then makes customers happy somewhere. It's like praying to your choice of a god, asking for some miracle. You don't know if he ends up helping you or not but you feel better knowing that at least you made it known. I go check the vehicle and there's an extra keycard assigned to the car without me knowing about it, and I look through GPS history and there's the Las Vegas racetrack, Brea Mall, and some other locations on it. I decided to build a story to myself that this car was driven by some Tesla employee for a week, riding around socal, racing on the track, then dropped off in Costa Mesa. Whatever, that's fine. I just didn't like knowing someone else's keycard was assigned to mine when it should have been kind of new. Yeah it can get removed but you feel violated that this wasn't known to you when you left the dealer.
A few hours later a delivery manager at the facility emails me back and assures me he'll look into it and find a way to help.
I find out later that when you order online, they are NOT supposed to give you a DEMO vehicle unless you explicitly agree to it (I did not). My car was auto assigned a demo vehicle because Tesla was trying to sell as many cars as possible during this period, so all demo vehicles were put into inventory to allocate. I should NOT have been reserved a Demo vehicle, but I was.
I come into the delivery center in the morning and talk to the guy who emailed me. I told him I'll return the car but before that I said I'll keep the car if you give me a discount for the 522 miles.
Them: "We can request a refund of $125.00 for 522 miles, but it needs approval"
Me: "What?? No forget it, return the car and give me my money"
Them: "Sure we'll help with that, it'll take 4-6 weeks to get you tens of thousands of dollars back"
Me: "Oh WTF, fine whatever let me work with your sales to see if there's another car I want then"
10 mins later I'm with a sales guy scrolling through his laptop looking at Tesla inventory with incentives and discounts.
I find a model 3 P+ like mine with 300 miles on it and a $3000 dollar discount because it was a demo vehicle. I check the history of it and no damage, no problems, just discounted demo 3p+. I can't reconcile the reality between them saying they can only give me back 125$ for 522 miles, but in their system theres a 3000 dollar discount for the same car with less mileage.
I get excited on what I perceived as my newfound "deal finding" ability. I spend another 30 mins with the guy going through everything. In the end I saw the one with the best discount as being an S100D. 9k off for 1.5k miles. I test drove a similar one in their showroom and decided I was going to switch up from a 3p+ to a s100D. I'm old and the chairs in the S is much better than the 3P+. But hot damn is the 3P+ a much more fun car.
Delivery manager comes out, finalizes and thanks me for the purchase, and then schedules me a Lyft back to my work.
I did some calculations and I didn't like the leasing from Tesla and went with Doering instead. Doering was on the ball trying to get paperwork over to Tesla, but Tesla didn't respond for two days. I had to go after the guy who helped me return the 3P+ before and he rerouted everyone so the paperwork went through.
Two weeks later I have an appt to come in and get the car. I do a walkaround and there's food, cups, bottles and napkins in and around my center console. Broken plastic and loose screws in the frunk and trunk. This time only one dude came out to intro me to the car, no delivery sales person. I asked the dude to clean up my car for me and document the broken plastic and the screws. He said he would but I dont feel like he did. I ended up telling him I want a copy of the documentation of the condition of the car in case I need to return this car later. He said sure he can do that, but instead a delivery manager comes out and tells me the broken plastic and screws are from the front license plate mount. And apologized about the messy car saying "Elon wanted to start doing 15 min car washes before deliveries so some things get missed." At this point I just want to leave, so I said okay thanks.
Tesla is a newer company that still has some growing pains. Its evident in their staff. I feel the management at the delivery center level are good, but my experience with the line staff is that they really weren't that helpful or looked out for you.
