I was happily driving a 2014 Model S P85D that I purchased a little over a year ago from a used car dealership, and despite the warnings about "only buy from Tesla"? It worked out great for me. The dealership had a few small issues corrected at the nearest Tesla service center before they even dropped the car off to me when we completed the sale, and let me keep driving my previous car (a Jeep Wrangler) until it was ready to swap with them.
Well ... our teenagers keep growing, and our family of 5 really can't comfortably all ride in the Model S on a road trip. Even just going out for the day with everyone winds up being a two vehicle affair, if we don't feel like putting up with the fits or fighting that ensure about whoever gets crammed in the rear middle seat.
Realizing that prices keep coming down -- I realized if I could find the right deal, I could probably trade in my S for an X (giving up the "P" in the process to make it more affordable), while finding something a little newer so I get some factory warranty coverage back. Seems like every time I found a promising deal though, the place sold the car within a matter of hours or 1 business day! That, or they were located many hundreds of miles from me, so just not feasible.
Yesterday, I spent the day looking at several newer Model S's and the only X I could find advertised for sale in my area. (The Model S's in question were low mileage 2017 models, but were all sold from rental car companies and were really stripped down models. I had no interest after sitting in one and really looking it over. But hey - I wanted to at least see what you could get in my price range right now.)
The dealer advertising the X told me it was "out on a test drive" when I showed up to look at it. (Fair enough. I didn't call ahead.) They suggested I go run an errand or something to kill 20-30 minutes and come back, to see if it's still there.) I told them I would, but I actually just wound up sitting in my car for 20 minutes, parked across the street in their new car area, checking mail on my phone and what-not. I kept trying to look up occasionally to see if I saw the X roll back in, but never saw it. I finally walked back over to the place, where they told me the car was back. (Ok?!) I took a look at it and the color was my favorite choice (blue), so that was a start. 2017 P75D with about 20K miles on it. Started looking it over and everything looked pretty clean and new. But driver side falcon wing door would only open part way for me. Passenger side opened fine. (Salesman kept telling me the doors had been fine for weeks, so he didn't know what was wrong.) I wrote it off as it maybe needing re-calibrating .. didn't seem like a "deal breaker". So took a test drive. Drove perfectly .... just like the only other Model X 75D I ever drove, when I had one as a loaner recently. But wait? Noticed a loud creaking noise from the front end whenever it went over a speed bump or when I turned the wheel. Same sound when I first hit the brakes. (Salesman claimed they heard that too, but only in the last couple days after they had a new tire put on it.)
At this point, I was on the fence about the whole thing .... but I got them to give me a few thousand more for my trade-in than they originally offered, and I figured the X is still under warranty for 30K more miles or 2 more years, so I decided to just make the deal and let Tesla address the problems.
A day later though? I think I'm having a bit of buyer's remorse already. I was charging the car back up and setting things up on the screen when the thought occurred to me, "I sure hope this one doesn't develop those yellow screen borders so many seem to have!" And I mean, literally 2 seconds after that crossed my brain? A nasty yellow border faded in to view around the whole thing! I sat there and watched the thing appear! I just sat there, stunned, and started messing with the brightness adjustment. No matter how dim or bright? Obvious yellow border still there!
Additionally? They told me the car "had autopilot", but it definitely doesn't. Sure, it shows the positions of the vehicles around it and speed limits and so on. But cruise control is acting just like a basic, dumb cruise control and can't activate auto-steering or any of that. Is it possible that won't activate until the car is actually registered with Tesla as belonging to me (so I can pair it with my app, etc.)? Or am I just SOL and have to buy the EAP for it?
One of their web site listings also said it had the "cold weather package" and the HEPA filter. I see no evidence it has either of those, but I never had them on my S before so not sure what to look for exactly either?
Well ... our teenagers keep growing, and our family of 5 really can't comfortably all ride in the Model S on a road trip. Even just going out for the day with everyone winds up being a two vehicle affair, if we don't feel like putting up with the fits or fighting that ensure about whoever gets crammed in the rear middle seat.
Realizing that prices keep coming down -- I realized if I could find the right deal, I could probably trade in my S for an X (giving up the "P" in the process to make it more affordable), while finding something a little newer so I get some factory warranty coverage back. Seems like every time I found a promising deal though, the place sold the car within a matter of hours or 1 business day! That, or they were located many hundreds of miles from me, so just not feasible.
Yesterday, I spent the day looking at several newer Model S's and the only X I could find advertised for sale in my area. (The Model S's in question were low mileage 2017 models, but were all sold from rental car companies and were really stripped down models. I had no interest after sitting in one and really looking it over. But hey - I wanted to at least see what you could get in my price range right now.)
The dealer advertising the X told me it was "out on a test drive" when I showed up to look at it. (Fair enough. I didn't call ahead.) They suggested I go run an errand or something to kill 20-30 minutes and come back, to see if it's still there.) I told them I would, but I actually just wound up sitting in my car for 20 minutes, parked across the street in their new car area, checking mail on my phone and what-not. I kept trying to look up occasionally to see if I saw the X roll back in, but never saw it. I finally walked back over to the place, where they told me the car was back. (Ok?!) I took a look at it and the color was my favorite choice (blue), so that was a start. 2017 P75D with about 20K miles on it. Started looking it over and everything looked pretty clean and new. But driver side falcon wing door would only open part way for me. Passenger side opened fine. (Salesman kept telling me the doors had been fine for weeks, so he didn't know what was wrong.) I wrote it off as it maybe needing re-calibrating .. didn't seem like a "deal breaker". So took a test drive. Drove perfectly .... just like the only other Model X 75D I ever drove, when I had one as a loaner recently. But wait? Noticed a loud creaking noise from the front end whenever it went over a speed bump or when I turned the wheel. Same sound when I first hit the brakes. (Salesman claimed they heard that too, but only in the last couple days after they had a new tire put on it.)
At this point, I was on the fence about the whole thing .... but I got them to give me a few thousand more for my trade-in than they originally offered, and I figured the X is still under warranty for 30K more miles or 2 more years, so I decided to just make the deal and let Tesla address the problems.
A day later though? I think I'm having a bit of buyer's remorse already. I was charging the car back up and setting things up on the screen when the thought occurred to me, "I sure hope this one doesn't develop those yellow screen borders so many seem to have!" And I mean, literally 2 seconds after that crossed my brain? A nasty yellow border faded in to view around the whole thing! I sat there and watched the thing appear! I just sat there, stunned, and started messing with the brightness adjustment. No matter how dim or bright? Obvious yellow border still there!
Additionally? They told me the car "had autopilot", but it definitely doesn't. Sure, it shows the positions of the vehicles around it and speed limits and so on. But cruise control is acting just like a basic, dumb cruise control and can't activate auto-steering or any of that. Is it possible that won't activate until the car is actually registered with Tesla as belonging to me (so I can pair it with my app, etc.)? Or am I just SOL and have to buy the EAP for it?
One of their web site listings also said it had the "cold weather package" and the HEPA filter. I see no evidence it has either of those, but I never had them on my S before so not sure what to look for exactly either?
