So I will comment after resurrecting this old thread, that I did finally get the loan paid off 3 weeks after I took delivery.
So here is what happened:
In my scenario above, I would have expected that someone would reach out to me when they couldn't mark my car as delivered because of the service issue to get that scheduled to be fixed. I would have expected that when the trade-in came across the desk and couldn't be completed, that they would have reached out to me or to the local delivery team to have THEM contact me to correct whatever needed to be fixed on my car to mark it as delivered. When the car was finally marked as delivered, I would have expected the delivery team to let all the other teams know that their part was done and they could proceed with their parts now. I would have expected the trade-in department to follow up on their cases with exceptions in them to give them some forward progress. NONE of these things happened.
To anyone who finds this thread in the future because your trade-in loan isn't paid off: Call Tesla. Call everyone at Tesla. Your delivery adviser, the local delivery team, the local sales team, the 800 number. Be persistent. Take notes. Always follow up with them. CONSTANTLY. Every day. Multiple times a day. Ask when you should hear back from people...and call them back pretty much immediately if you don't hear back from them by then.
...I still don't have my permanent license plate and my temporary plate expires on Oct 1...and i'm going to have to call them about that tomorrow.
I am pretty certain that if I just ignored it all, my car still wouldn't be marked as delivered, I wouldn't have my app access yet, my loan wouldn't be paid off, and i'd have to make yet another payment on my old car which would've been due on 10/1. I guess i'm just used to going in to a car dealership, signing a bunch of papers, and having literally everything handled for me. I've never had to babysit every step of the process. Every time i've traded in a car, the payoff was sent to the old lender within a week...tops.
The car...it's fantastic! Tesla sure does know how to manufacture an amazing car. Tesla still has a LOT of work to do on figuring out how to SELL the cars.
So here is what happened:
- I took Delivery on Sept 1.
- A week later, I still didn't have access to the car via the app, so I called the local dealership. They called some people and found out that my car had an open service item and they couldn't mark the car as "Delivered" until that was completed. You don't get access to the app until they mark the car as delivered. There was no call or notification about this. I did have to make 2 or 3 calls for them to figure that out and for them to schedule the service appointment.
- The service item was that they had to replace the 12V battery. It was a proactive service item because they thought they got a bad batch of 12V batteries at some point. For whatever reason, they couldn't mark the car as "delivered" until all of the open service items were completed. So I scheduled the appointment as soon as I could because I wanted to get the phone key working, which was the following Saturday (2 weeks after delivery).
- On Saturday, bright and early at 8am, got to the service center, and waited about 45 minutes for them to replace the battery. Had a really nice chat with the guy at the service desk. He was as much of a Disney World nerd as I am. 2 hours later, the app started working and I am assuming the car was marked as Delivered at this point.
- After the service appointment (9/16), I decided I should check the loan on my old car to make sure it was paid off and I didn't have to send another payment. It wasn't paid off. I called the local service center again at lunch time and they said they would investigate. I also googled a bit and found this thread and posted above.
- 5:00 rolls around and no call back, so I call them again to get a status update. No details. As far as I could tell, no investigation had been started. Explained my situation again, and I was promised I would get a call back in an hour or so with an update...no call back.
- Next day (9/18) I call them back again at about 11:00am. I was told the delivery team was at lunch and i'd get a call back.
- Called them back again at about 2:00pm...finally spoke with someone who said that because of my service issue above, the car wasn't marked as delivered when the trade-in came across the desk of the person in the trade-in department, so they shelved it and never came back to it (wtf...?) They said that my trade in was marked for expedited processing to go out the next day (9/19) He said to check on that Friday (9/21) and if it wasn't paid off then to call them back.
- Checked on Friday (9/21) morning and it still wasn't paid off. Called them, had to explain again, was told I would get a call back...no call back. Called Friday right after lunch, spoke with someone who saw on my account that "something was done by the trade in department on 9/19, but the notes didn't say what was done. She said she would send the trade-in department an e-mail and have them reach out to me. Never heard back from them
- Finally logged in on Saturday morning 9/22 to check the loan and it was FINALLY paid off...Nearly 3 weeks after trading it in.
In my scenario above, I would have expected that someone would reach out to me when they couldn't mark my car as delivered because of the service issue to get that scheduled to be fixed. I would have expected that when the trade-in came across the desk and couldn't be completed, that they would have reached out to me or to the local delivery team to have THEM contact me to correct whatever needed to be fixed on my car to mark it as delivered. When the car was finally marked as delivered, I would have expected the delivery team to let all the other teams know that their part was done and they could proceed with their parts now. I would have expected the trade-in department to follow up on their cases with exceptions in them to give them some forward progress. NONE of these things happened.
To anyone who finds this thread in the future because your trade-in loan isn't paid off: Call Tesla. Call everyone at Tesla. Your delivery adviser, the local delivery team, the local sales team, the 800 number. Be persistent. Take notes. Always follow up with them. CONSTANTLY. Every day. Multiple times a day. Ask when you should hear back from people...and call them back pretty much immediately if you don't hear back from them by then.
...I still don't have my permanent license plate and my temporary plate expires on Oct 1...and i'm going to have to call them about that tomorrow.
I am pretty certain that if I just ignored it all, my car still wouldn't be marked as delivered, I wouldn't have my app access yet, my loan wouldn't be paid off, and i'd have to make yet another payment on my old car which would've been due on 10/1. I guess i'm just used to going in to a car dealership, signing a bunch of papers, and having literally everything handled for me. I've never had to babysit every step of the process. Every time i've traded in a car, the payoff was sent to the old lender within a week...tops.
The car...it's fantastic! Tesla sure does know how to manufacture an amazing car. Tesla still has a LOT of work to do on figuring out how to SELL the cars.
