How was your model 3 quality when you took delivery?

[UngaBunga1989]

Not acceptable for a $73,000 car.

Thanks for sharing those photos. I completely agree with you...that's not even acceptable for a $19,000 car!

 

[Stanwood Steve]

I'm scheduled to take delivery early next week and can't wait! I don't want to follow that absurdly long inspection list that was part of the article posted earlier in the thread. How did you approach the delivery process? How long did you take?

I didn't have a list or anything like that. I saw what I believed was my car sitting in the delivery area inside the Tesla Store and I saw a Tesla employee going over it with a fine tooth comb. She was the one that noted the minor paint finish issue - I probably would have missed it. We both missed the panel alignment issue (it was pretty minor), but when I brought it in a few days later they agreed that it needed correcting and took photos, etc., and noted it in the car's file. I've never had any issue with Tesla balking over taking care of any cosmetic problem. My delivery process took maybe 45 minutes. I do recall the Tesla rep wanted me to sign the paperwork and hand over the check prior to having a chance to inspect the car up close, which I challenged. I asked to see the car first, and he agreed. I would still insist upon this. That's when the minor paint issues were pointed out with a commitment to have them corrected. My delivery experience was really pretty painless - I look back at the day with a smile on my face. I still remember how excited I was (and still am). It's a great car.

 

[super20g]

Overworked employees in Fremont trying to hit the 900 (now 1000) car/day quota. Get the product out, and someone else (Tesla Delivery and/or Customer Experience) will deal with the aftermath. They're rolling the dice in that some buyers may not notice or even care about quality issues.

And this is obviously acceptable to upper management all the way up to Elon or it wouldn't still be occurring years later.

 

[jgmartin]

Mine was quite good. No paint issues.. they seem to have improved a lot here over the earlier cars that I've seen. Panel gaps were acceptable, if not perfect. Only issue was the weatherstripping on the doors was a bit bunched up in places, which was corrected with a mobile visit a few days after delivery.

 

[Rodolfo Paiz]

We picked up an SR+ M3 in early May. Checked over the entire car carefully (it's my 4th Tesla delivery experience) and found zero defects or problems.

My only two complaints with the car are that the SR+ has no HomeLink capability (silly decision, IMHO) and that the right thumbwheel does nothing if Autopilot is not in use. Having that right thumbwheel control A/C temp (or better yet, be configurable to one of several settings) would reduce the times one has to take one's eyes off the road to change something on the touchscreen. But those two are design and software decisions: the build quality of the car is spot-on.

 

[travis1906]

Had no issues with delivery. Took deliver Feb 2019. Jan 2019 build. No paint or structural issues. Took delivery at home. Brought car to me. Service/delivery rep was great. Took time to answer questions and ensure I was satisfied with everything surrounding the car. Since then no issues. About 8K miles to date.

 

[travis1906]

Have a midrange M3

 

[buyer123456]

That's exactly it. Overworked employees in Fremont trying to hit the 900 (now 1000) car/day quota. Get the product out, and someone else (Tesla Delivery and/or Customer Experience) will deal with the aftermath. They're rolling the dice in that some buyers may not notice or even care about quality issues.

For the amount of money we all spent on our cars, for me, nothing short of BMW/Lexus/Honda/MBZ quality control/tolerances is acceptable imho.

I tagged along for a factory tour recently, the assembly line was chaotic and ad-hoc(compared to BMW ones visited even 10 years ago). Visible blemishes are fixable, the hidden ones(e.g. missing/bad welds, bolts, etc, etc) that can cause rattles and squeaks will drive many crazy.

 

[Jaguar]

Since I live 800 miles from the nearest Service Centre, my M3 was delivered to my door. Aside from the truck driver not knowing how to open the doors from the inside (and using the emergency handle instead of the button) the process ran smoothly. There was a bit of adhesive still on the windshield and on one of the lower body panels but these were easy to clean up. Checked all the panel gaps, since there was so much fuss about them in the media, and they were fine.

 

[rickdogg82]

No major problems.
4/19 build

 

[Skunis]

I had my car delivered to my house and it was raining. I was not really able to inspect the car. Then when I found issues the delivery group's initial reaction was the tell me "sorry" you had to notice these things on delivery day. Of course no one told me I had only one opportunity to inspect for issues with paint or damage to a rim.

Not sure who inspected the car but what I thought were paint imperfections was tree sap. Noticed the day after delivery and I park in a garage! So much for the inspection. Also, I took my aero caps off to put on wheel cap kit (a few weeks later as the cap kit was in and out of stock and I was away on vacation) after my first service appt. to find damage to one rim. I never would have seen it as it was fully covered by aero cap. What was delivery and service reaction when I immediately called....you guessed it. "Not our problem" and now it was I had 3 days and 100 miles to inspect.

Wow! How can policy like this change on a dime? How can no one be told about this "policy" and have to sign an acknowledgement?

Still waiting to hear back from Tesla as I had their online chat support send an escalation in more than 2 days ago and I decided to go the route of BBB complaint as well as it seems that is the only way to get the company's attention.

So, for me the delivery experience was not that great.

Love the car but the service experience is terrible (and what is it that they do not wash a car after service? I had fingerprints left all over the inside of my windshield? Geez! What is this company??? Yugo or something? LOL!)

 

[voip-ninja]

That's exactly it. Overworked employees in Fremont trying to hit the 900 (now 1000) car/day quota. Get the product out, and someone else (Tesla Delivery and/or Customer Experience) will deal with the aftermath. They're rolling the dice in that some buyers may not notice or even care about quality issues.

For the amount of money we all spent on our cars, for me, nothing short of BMW/Lexus/Honda/MBZ quality control/tolerances is acceptable imho.

You hit it on the head. Now go post it into the investor forum where they live in a bubble and can't possibly comprehend how Tesla's poor QC (they also fired their QC team "didn't need em") affects perception of their premium priced product.

I have had literally dozens of people ask me how I like my Tesla and I tell all of them the same thing. Nothing drives as well as a Tesla Model 3 anywhere near its price range but virtually any car in the same price range (BMW, Merc, Audi) will have higher assembly quality, better paint, fewer defects and a far more competent staff by way of a massive dealer network for correcting the service issues that do show up.

 

[JRP3]

You hit it on the head. Now go post it into the investor forum where they live in a bubble and can't possibly comprehend how Tesla's poor QC (they also fired their QC team "didn't need em") affects perception of their premium priced product.

I think most of us understand it quite well, plenty of people there complain about it, as well as the service problems. It's an unfortunate effect of trying to keep production numbers growing beyond what they are actually capable of handling at a higher quality level. Bottom line is at this stage numbers are more important, though hopefully they can now start getting on top of the QC issues, and service issues.

 

[groovidad]

I had my car delivered to my house and it was raining. I was not really able to inspect the car. Then when I found issues the delivery group's initial reaction was the tell me "sorry" you had to notice these things on delivery day. Of course no one told me I had only one opportunity to inspect for issues with paint or damage to a rim.

Not sure who inspected the car but what I thought were paint imperfections was tree sap. Noticed the day after delivery and I park in a garage! So much for the inspection. Also, I took my aero caps off to put on wheel cap kit (a few weeks later as the cap kit was in and out of stock and I was away on vacation) after my first service appt. to find damage to one rim. I never would have seen it as it was fully covered by aero cap. What was delivery and service reaction when I immediately called....you guessed it. "Not our problem" and now it was I had 3 days and 100 miles to inspect.

Wow! How can policy like this change on a dime? How can no one be told about this "policy" and have to sign an acknowledgement?

Still waiting to hear back from Tesla as I had their online chat support send an escalation in more than 2 days ago and I decided to go the route of BBB complaint as well as it seems that is the only way to get the company's attention.

So, for me the delivery experience was not that great.

Love the car but the service experience is terrible (and what is it that they do not wash a car after service? I had fingerprints left all over the inside of my windshield? Geez! What is this company??? Yugo or something? LOL!)

I actually had to ask my Delivery Specialist "how long" I had and she had to go back into the office for the answer. (20 y/o female that didn't seem very confident in what she was doing). Answer I got: 3 days to file a punch list. Though, I had plenty of time to scour the vehicle on fit and finish, appearance, one never knows what will come up after driving away. Sounds like the Jersey SC needs some training(?) Sorry you're having a bad experience with them.

 

[bogich]

Yeah, QC is little to non existent at Tesla and I wonder, if (lets say) Toyota buys Tesla and implements their manufacturing model, how would that affect the creativity?!? Yes, they can fix the manufacturing, but would they kill the creativity?
Is it even possible to have both creativity, cutting edge tech and and the dry, boring manufacturing excellence and the same time?

 

[buyer123456]

Yeah, QC is little to non existent at Tesla and I wonder, if (lets say) Toyota buys Tesla and implements their manufacturing model, how would that affect the creativity?!? Yes, they can fix the manufacturing, but would they kill the creativity?
Is it even possible to have both creativity, cutting edge tech and and the dry, boring manufacturing excellence and the same time?

Toyota does have hydrogen EVs, which can be quite creative and innovative too. It is unlikely those Toyota EVs are in the same league as Tesla EVs, in terms of defects!

Toyota is also working on next generation of solid state battery EVs, tentatively targeted for 2022.

 

[SammichLover]

It is unlikely those Toyota EVs are in the same league as Tesla EVs, in terms of defects!

I believe I can identify a key one in the Toyota drivetrain that definitely puts them in a 'different league'.

My understanding is you can't do a drop-in replace of batteries into a H2 design and expect BEV-from-a-clean-sheet results. So that H2 experience doesn't buy Toyota that much beyond what they got doing the RAV4 with the borrowed Tesla parts.

 

[buyer123456]

I believe I can identify a key one in the Toyota drivetrain that definitely puts them in a 'different league'.

My understanding is you can't do a drop-in replace of batteries into a H2 design and expect BEV-from-a-clean-sheet results. So that H2 experience doesn't buy Toyota that much beyond what they got doing the RAV4 with the borrowed Tesla parts.

Yeah battery powered versus hydrogen fuel cell EVs are two different beasts.

The Toyota HFC experience may become valuable if/when battery powered EVs make a turn for the worse.

 

[JRP3]

When considering all parameters hfcvs aren't viable as passenger vehicles.

 

[SammichLover]

When considering all parameters hfcvs aren't viable as passenger vehicles.

Not personal ones, AKA "cars", probably. They might have some potential on buses, short-haul freight, and maybe boats. Basically where volume doesn't matter, there's lots of size, and you've got a highly hub-centric path of traffic.

If Japan can't make H2 fuel cells work nobody will be able to, so Toyota's initial bet on it wasn't total madness. It is looking bleaker as time passes, though.