Worth it to pay prior to delivery? Plan on owning and keeping as primary car at least next 7-10 years
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Maintenance Plans and Extended Service Agreements
- Thread starter jaypatelius
- Start date
If you plan to keep the car and plan to do the regular maintenance on it then I think buying the maintenance plan is a no brainer. It will save you money over paying for the maintenance at the time of service.
The extended warranty is more of a personal choice and a bit of a gamble. It could save you money, but probably won't.
The extended warranty is more of a personal choice and a bit of a gamble. It could save you money, but probably won't.
Agree about the first 3-4 years. Extended seems like overkill and pricey for the 4 year option. Is this all separate from any issues with battery/coverage if battery issue after 4 years.
nevermind - just read all the details on the limited warranty on battery and standard 8 year coverage and another thread going into detail about ESA.
BelgyFester
Member
none of it is really necessary and worth paying for up front - especially if you take good care of your car. You can get your tires rotated on your own and wiper blades and keyfob batteries replaced easily - you probably don't need to go in exactly every 12k miles/yearly basis and can come pay for the service as needed depending on your driving amount and vehicle self recommendations.
Extended Warranties are almost 90% of the time never worth it. Doubtful you will have repair expenses over the cost of what you paid for the warranty. Car manufacturers sell them simply to get extra cash, that's all. Why would they purposely sell something that loses them money?
On this topic, I would normally agree, EXCEPT in the case of Tesla.
Where else are you going to go for a new $5k center display screen?
How about one of the three or four water pumps?
Charge unit(s)?
How about the $1k door handles?
All in all, if you're keeping it past the warranty period (4 years/50k miles) you'd be a fool to not drop a few thousand for another 2 or 4 years of peace of mind.
While pre-paid service provides a slight discount from the a la carte pricing, it also locks you into that pricing for the service period, protecting you from the inevitable price increases Tesla will likely make for service over the next few years.
The extended warranty is essentially insurance - over a large enough sampling, some owners will benefit and others will not. Having the extended warranty limits how much you'll pay for repairs for the second 50K miles or 4 years - and if you did get a major problem, it could save you quite a bit of $$$.
One difference between having the extended warranty and not having it - is the strategy for repairing a problem.
Last year, we had the primary front trunk latch fail while on a road trip. We were towed to the nearest service center from the middle of Kansas (the extended warranty on our 2012 S P85 doesn't include this coverage from Tesla so our insurance picked up the towing charge - new Tesla extended warranty policies include towing).
Since Tesla wasn't sure exactly what had failed, they replaced every component related to the front trunk latch. It's likely only one of those components failed. But rather than take a chance that we'd get a failure at highway speeds - and have the front trunk pop up and cause a safety issue - they replaced everything.
If we didn't have the warranty, we would probably have tried to keep the repair cost down - and have Tesla spend the extra time (which would have cost labor $$) to determine the most likely part that failed - and replace it first, and leave the others alone.
For our new S 100D, we purchased the 4 year pre-paid service plan (if they'd had an 8 year/100K mile plan, we would have bought that) and the extra 4 year/50K mile extended warranty.
Though, you don't have to purchase those when buying the car, Tesla allows you time to make a decision on purchasing these service options.
The extended warranty is essentially insurance - over a large enough sampling, some owners will benefit and others will not. Having the extended warranty limits how much you'll pay for repairs for the second 50K miles or 4 years - and if you did get a major problem, it could save you quite a bit of $$$.
One difference between having the extended warranty and not having it - is the strategy for repairing a problem.
Last year, we had the primary front trunk latch fail while on a road trip. We were towed to the nearest service center from the middle of Kansas (the extended warranty on our 2012 S P85 doesn't include this coverage from Tesla so our insurance picked up the towing charge - new Tesla extended warranty policies include towing).
Since Tesla wasn't sure exactly what had failed, they replaced every component related to the front trunk latch. It's likely only one of those components failed. But rather than take a chance that we'd get a failure at highway speeds - and have the front trunk pop up and cause a safety issue - they replaced everything.
If we didn't have the warranty, we would probably have tried to keep the repair cost down - and have Tesla spend the extra time (which would have cost labor $$) to determine the most likely part that failed - and replace it first, and leave the others alone.
For our new S 100D, we purchased the 4 year pre-paid service plan (if they'd had an 8 year/100K mile plan, we would have bought that) and the extra 4 year/50K mile extended warranty.
Though, you don't have to purchase those when buying the car, Tesla allows you time to make a decision on purchasing these service options.
boonedocks
MS LR Blk/Blk 19”
Did not buy extended anything with my 2015 S85D. With the advent of HW2 and what it is "supposed to do" I did buy the extended warranty but not the maintenance plan.
Rational: I am on track to put about 33k miles a year on my 100D. The prescribed maintenance plan includes many things that are not necessarily mileage but date things. Having a great relationship with my Tesla SA he recommended I do the things that are mileage related on the proper schedule and the things that are more calendar related when they are due. If you pre-purchase the maintenance plan you will have to take your car in every ~12k miles or year, whichever comes first. AND they are a use it or lose it pre-paid option.
I would be carrying my car in almost 3 times a year for services many of which are not even near being needed or required.
Check the Tesla site for what is included with the pre-paid service plan and required visits vs what you actually need.
My first visit will be at around 4 months NOT 12 MONTHS and I will only need:
1: Drive Unit(s) fluid service
2: MAYBE Multi-point inspection
3: MAYBE a wheel alignment but highly doubtful.
1 necessary and two maybes out of 6 items. I definitely would be foolish to pre-pay for maintenance.
Rational: I am on track to put about 33k miles a year on my 100D. The prescribed maintenance plan includes many things that are not necessarily mileage but date things. Having a great relationship with my Tesla SA he recommended I do the things that are mileage related on the proper schedule and the things that are more calendar related when they are due. If you pre-purchase the maintenance plan you will have to take your car in every ~12k miles or year, whichever comes first. AND they are a use it or lose it pre-paid option.
I would be carrying my car in almost 3 times a year for services many of which are not even near being needed or required.
Check the Tesla site for what is included with the pre-paid service plan and required visits vs what you actually need.
My first visit will be at around 4 months NOT 12 MONTHS and I will only need:
1: Drive Unit(s) fluid service
2: MAYBE Multi-point inspection
3: MAYBE a wheel alignment but highly doubtful.
1 necessary and two maybes out of 6 items. I definitely would be foolish to pre-pay for maintenance.
Your assumption is that one of those items is guaranteed to break, which is not a guarantee. Therefore all you do when you buy an extended warranty is piece of mind. You don't even get free repairs, there's a deductible.
It's not just the price of the extended warranty. Its also the fact that you HAVE to do every service within 1000 miles or 30 days to keep the ESA valid. Add in the $200 deductible and a LOT of stuff has to fail just to break even.
Interestingly, it looks like Tesla got rid of the 8 year service plan, so you have to pay out of pocket for service now during the ESA period.
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