Great Service Center Experience

[Patrick W]

My car was due for it's 1st annual checkup and I needed snow tires mounted so I headed to the Salt Lake City service center to make an appointment. With things there so busy and with talk on these forums about service centers taking weeks just to get an appointment, when I showed up I thought I was just going to make an appointment for some future date.

So imagine my surprise when I heard “Can we get started on it today?” Wow!

So a few minutes later my S 60 was in the shop and I was driving home in a loaner P85D.

While doing the service they decided a couple of faint yellow stripes I'd seen on the touchscreen were not acceptable so they decided to replace that while they were at it. Wouldn't you know it it took 2 days (actually I expected more) to receive the new screen which meant I had to "suffer" with the P85D for two long (read: fun) days.

Uncle Elon, if you're listening your crew at the SLC service center is the best.

 

[Vince Cobelo]

Yes...I have had a couple SC experiences and all were better than excellent. I have had my share of new luxury cars from the likes of Mercedes and while they give a VIP experience better than any Chevy or Ford dealership I have been to they don't come close to Tesla's service. Tesla has trained their people extremely well and the SCs are their own parts suppliers. Yesterday I called my SC in Tampa and told the person on the phone that I was erasing some favorites and recents in navigation but they kept appearing back. He said when I parked the car to call him back and he would wipe the memory clean which was fine by me. I forgot to call him when I parked so about 10 minutes later he called me! He knew that I had parked and just wanted to be sure I wasn't needing to drive again soon so that he could wipe and reboot the system remotely.

Two days ago I called to make a appointment for new tires (mine have 44K on them) along with annual maintenance. The technician told me to wait until 50K which would be for the big maintenance checklist. Works for me since we won't see any rain here for a couple of months and there is still tread on the tires. I was impressed that he put off bringing the car in. They don't care about taking my money like a ICE dealership would. He only cared that my car was cared for properly and only when needed. AWESOME.

Maintenance visits at the SC have been much the same for me as your experience. So it is nice to see consistency across the country.

BTW...your post is probably not in the appropriate section for this discussion. Some posters here get twisted about that.

 

[sapitswill]

I've been to the Syosset, NY service center about 3-4 times in my entire year of ownership so far, and two of those times had overnight appointments made three weeks in advance. Both times had no Tesla loaners available, only Enterprise.

 

[iffatall]

Yeah I think it might be a little odd that it is sort of announced to all passengers every time it turns on/off.

 

[iffatall]

Sorry for the above irrelevant post. Mods, please delete it if possible.

I had a recent excellent experience at the Fremont service center. I was in for annual service (4 year mark). Here is my experience:

The Good:

1. This was my first visit to the new (and temporary) Kato Rd service center. There were nice markings on the pavement directing me to drive into the service area, where a service rep checked me in.
2. He already had the issues I had reported jotted down, and made notes. Explained to me what work they'll do. This was in contrast to my previous experiences, where this process was never this smooth.
3. None of the issues raised was contested and there was no claim that something was expected behavior. And (almost) everything was taken care of, above and beyond my expectations.
4. Got a Tesla MS 100D loaner. Very smooth process again.
5. Received regular text notifications about the status of work.
6. Received the service complete text message the following day, even though the service rep had estimated it might take up to four days given that some parts needed replacement. In total the car was there for ~30 hours only, drop off to pick up.
7. I was surprised even the tires were rotated, cleaned, and polished, even though I have tires they don't sell. I had read here before that they don't touch the tires if they are 3rd party.
8. The inside of my car was extremely dirty when I dropped it off. They cleaned it nicely.
9. Overall the entire process was very well organized, and systematic. All my past experiences have been more chaotic, in terms of the process.

The Bad:

1. Well, this is nitpicking, but the calendar attachment in confirmation email I received for the appointment had the wrong (old) address. I had just added it as is to my calendar, and if not for the address change email I had received a few months earlier, I would have gone to the wrong location. It's no big deal, but when I informed the service rep about it, he seemed to not care much for it. He said this is a temporary location anyway, and they will fix it once they move to the final location. How much effort does it take to change an email template twice? He said it was OK because they have a sign at the old location directing customers to the new location. I know they are not that far apart, but it wastes at least 5-10 mins of customer's time.

The Ugly:

1. The day after I got my car back from service, I found that one of the key fobs does not work at all. I never tested the fobs when picking the car (but they should have, given it is part of the service checklist).
2. I was late for work, and didn't want to go back into the house to get the other fob, so I just used my phone to drive to work. I figured they probably replaced the battery with a dead one, so dropped by the service center so they could replace the batteries again. They did it in a few minutes, but it still didn't work. They said the fob will have to be reprogrammed. Since I did not have both fobs with me, it could not be done right away. They said I did not need to make an appointment, and could drop by whenever to get the fobs reprogrammed. I went back a couple of days later, and now they were short on staff and evidently very very busy. I had to wait 10 mins before I could even get to the help desk, and when I did, the (different) service rep started to suggest me to make an appointment for this. Seeing my reluctance, and frustration, she then changed her mind, and asked me to wait. After running around a bit, she finally found someone to help me. The one fob was then replaced, both reprogrammed, and I was good to go in ~5 mins. This turned out to be a good experience in the end, but I am putting it in this category, as I had to go to the service center three times. Not their fault, but ugly nonetheless.
3. I noticed the guys employed to move around the cars at the service center are extremely reckless. The parking spots at the service center are very tight, and one has to be extra careful when parking or coming out. It takes me at least three times the time to park. I noticed those guys were slow and careful when the customer was around and/or looking. But when no one was looking, they were very rash. I saw two of them run over curbs at least on four cars. Eg. the car is parked back-in, on the spot at the very end, so there is a curb on the side. When getting out, the guy turns too soon, so the underside of the car between the front and the rear wheels hits the curb and rubs over it. The same guy then makes the exact same mistake again to another car. And it didn't even seem like they were sorry about it. They were just laughing it out, and making fun of each other.