Mobile app while being serviced

[ckessel]

I think the suggestion to honk the horn a whole lot tonight is a great one.

The strategy being to really piss off the guy that's going to be driving your $90k car back to the service center and then having to trust to work on it?

There's a common bit of advice about saying something when you have a poor restaurant service. Never complain while your food is out of view...

 

[dbullard]

A couple of years ago an employee told me that Elon REQUIRED service personnel to put 50 miles on cars that were in for service to make sure everything was OK. Which was frustrating for them at the time because doing so was time consuming and they didn't have many employees.

My car arrives tomorrow with EXACTLY 50 miles on it, so I'd say they're still doing that.

 

[andrewket]

Service Driving My Car To Their Home?

Don't call the police. You already emailed George, so go that route. I may have waited to ask the service rep about it, not bringing up the remote app to see if they are forthcoming or tried to hide it. Based on that I'd decide the next step.

It's not ok without customer permission. If asked I'd likely say no. You can drive it a bit during work hours for diagnostics. Driving it home introduces too many other variables.

A

 

[dcopperfield]

if you see the car being driven all over town tonight, id be concerned. If not, its likely harmless but annoying nonetheless that they didn't check with you.

 

[UMD86]

Here's my car sitting in someone's driveway...instead of at the service center.

View attachment 15879

I'm not going to assume malice. I agree it seems fair that driving to/from work in the car instead of driving aimlessly makes sense if you're going to have to drive it anyway. However, I'm going to write first and ask what the deal is.

Regardless--and even though I gave permission for them to put some miles on the car--I think in the future they should explicitly ask about driving it to their home overnight. At the very least, this gives me the heebie jeebies. I automatically picture worst-case scenario in my head--a hothead service guy taking my car for a joyride...

Of course this may be completely innocent. But it doesn't bring me comfort.

My concern is the liability. What would happen if the car was in an accident or broken in to or vandalized while located at the home and not the service center? There are numerous reasons why this is not a good idea or proper protocol. I'm sure Tesla has standard operating policies and I don't think this is one of them.

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I'm not too concerned about it being stolen at this point--I'd rather hear from the service center first. While a police report would light fires quickly, I don't want to unnecessarily involve law enforcement or get anyone in trouble at this point. I don't have enough information--it could be that they really are testing the fixes to make sure everything's good.

Either way, in the future Tesla should get explicit permission from the owner for this. I've emailed GeorgeB (hope I got his email address right) to see if he can clarify policy on this. I'll contact the service center in the morning to find out what's going on.

I have a question - Does the service center provide LOANER CARS? It seems from a few posters there ISSUES with the Model S. I'm a little concerned over their service visits...... The closest service center is over 2 hrs in Queens, NY and there's no way I can have someone follow me to pick me up. I hear that there's a SC opening in Edison, NJ but that's still an hour away.

 

[MikeK]

I'll chime in and say that mechanics who have worked on my family's cars over the years have, on several occasions, driven one of our cars home overnight while trying to reproduce problems. I don't think it's particularly uncommon.

 

[vfx]

...
Another possibility, I heard the Chicago service is basically full. They have so many cars waiting for delivery that they are running out of room. Perhaps it is a similar situation and they simply don't have space for it.....

I was going to say this about LA service too. So incredibly packed that someone taking a car home might be a better way to store it overnight.

 

[Todd Burch]

I have a question - Does the service center provide LOANER CARS? It seems from a few posters there ISSUES with the Model S. I'm a little concerned over their service visits...... The closest service center is over 2 hrs in Queens, NY and there's no way I can have someone follow me to pick me up. I hear that there's a SC opening in Edison, NJ but that's still an hour away.

A rental car was offered to me. Enterprise. "They'll pick you up."

 

[Todd Burch]

Wow, that was cool.

I happened to time it perfectly and watched my car get driven from the house directly to the service center this morning. Speeds looked very conservative. I feel a little better now, although they should still ask permission for this.

I was amazed that I seemed to get updates at 2-4 Hz! I even watched the car go into park, I saw the driver's door open, and the doors lock. So cool!

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BTW UMD86, they trailered my car for the 3.5 hour drive to the service center. No worries there.

 

[Al Sherman]

This is very cool. Why not start at awesome? Indeed. Guess this answers the insurance thread about tracking the car!
I agree with Bonnie and Flasher (though I guess now it's after the fact) it might be against policy to not ask/tell you but I feel this was an employee really working hard to turn the car around with positive results for the customer.

 

[ckessel]

Repairs can take a software push. I think it's some sort of update to the manifest of parts used rather than a real version roll, but it goes through the whole software update process. It can take a little while from the time the tech requests it to when the update is available to install. They may have very well taken it home so they could push the "ok, install it" button once the update was available and have it install overnight.

When I had my charge port door issue fixed, the tech had them push the update the night before I was to bring it in (he knew what the problem was) and then told me NOT to install the update, that he needed to do that after the part was replaced.

 

[Todd Burch]

I got a call from the service center this morning. I actually feel pretty bad for making an issue of this at all.

Engineering had asked the service folks to put some miles on the car to reproduce the issue. They've driven about 35 miles on it, and the service manager (Hi Nathan!) drove it home (just a few miles away) as part of this testing session. Nathan called this morning and said it was him driving the car, just as part of the evaluation process.

Nathan apologized for not explicitly asking about taking the car home overnight--but I guess this is just as much my fault, because they DID ask for permission to drive it--I just wasn't expecting to see it parked in a residential area overnight.

On the bright side, everything's good--as I mentioned, the car was not driven recklessly, so no issue there.

On the bad side, service/engineering hasn't found a cause for the fault or a problem with the inverter, and it seems to have just been a glitch. That's what I was afraid of, actually. Will it happen again?

On the very bad side, it looks like it will at least be a few more days until my car comes home , as they haven't been able to reproduce the turn signal issue yet either. It's almost been a week now! Driving with gas sucks, and damn I miss that car!

 

[kinddog]

Why does everything have to be such a big gosh-darn deal? seriously... this whole website is paranoid as h*ll.

emailing Blankenship was wrong, as was creating a public thread about it. you could have just called them in the morning to de-tangle your underwear if you really needed to..

Am I the only one who thinks it's actually pretty cool that the service team "brings their work home with them"? I trust the Tesla team completely. They were TRYING REALLY HARD to solve your problem. And you email the VP of the company about it? Wow...

 

[mknox]

While I agree the service center should have explicitly checked with you first, I'm just having a hard time getting worked up on this one. It's pretty normal practice for a service person to put some miles on the car - and if they can get the miles on by driving it home and back (vs. waiting until tomorrow), that seems like a smart thing to do.

I have to disagree on this one. I am very fussy about who drives (or even gets into) my cars. I would, for example, NEVER let a valet touch it. When I take my car in for service I am putting my faith and trust into the dealer and assuming that they will not "abuse" that trust by using my car for things unrealted to servicing. I once discovered that my car had been used to shuttle other customers back and forth to their destinations, and was FURIOUS. I had spent the prior weekend cleaning and detailing the car inside and out, and the interior floor mats and carpets were filthy when I got the car back. They offered to clean it, but that was not the point.

 

[dsm363]

I have to disagree on this one. I am very fussy about who drives (or even gets into) my cars. I would, for example, NEVER let a valet touch it. When I take my car in for service I am putting my faith and trust into the dealer and assuming that they will not "abuse" that trust by using my car for things unrealted to servicing. I once discovered that my car had been used to shuttle other customers back and forth to their destinations, and was FURIOUS. I had spent the prior weekend cleaning and detailing the car inside and out, and the interior floor mats and carpets were filthy when I got the car back. They offered to clean it, but that was not the point.

I'd consider that totally different than service driving it home after they had asked if they could drive it to try and figure out the problem.

I agree they should specifically ask in the future if they can do this though. With so many customers I'm not sure we can email GeorgeB immediately at the first hint of a problem each time. If service lied or wouldn't offer an explanation then that's one thing but sounds like they weren't given a chance to explain themselves. Anyway, glad everything worked out. I think it is safe to assume, in general, there is no malice involved when dealing with Tesla and taking a normal communication route up the chain of command may be more beneficial.

 

[mknox]

Am I the only one who thinks it's actually pretty cool that the service team "brings their work home with them"? I trust the Tesla team completely. They were TRYING REALLY HARD to solve your problem. And you email the VP of the company about it? Wow...

Respectfully disagree. See my post above about who uses my car. Back in the 80's, a dealer's service personnel took my car home and it was vandalized in his driveway. Dealer told me that they don't assume liability and I would have to contact my own insurance to deal with it. I ended up getting the police involved and still ended up with an insurance claim that affected my rates. This is not okay in my book. With permission, yes, but otherwise NO WAY.

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... I'll bet Tesla service will be turning off the remote app access when they have cars in for service now

 

[sp4rk]

Why does everything have to be such a big gosh-darn deal? seriously... this whole website is paranoid as h*ll.

emailing Blankenship was wrong, as was creating a public thread about it. you could have just called them in the morning to de-tangle your underwear if you really needed to..

Am I the only one who thinks it's actually pretty cool that the service team "brings their work home with them"? I trust the Tesla team completely. They were TRYING REALLY HARD to solve your problem. And you email the VP of the company about it? Wow...

Now I see why mods chose your avatar!
The forums are here for just this reason ... to share information. The good and the (maybe) bad.

 

[kendallpb]

I'll chime in and say that mechanics who have worked on my family's cars over the years have, on several occasions, driven one of our cars home overnight while trying to reproduce problems. I don't think it's particularly uncommon.

For all we know, this happens with most cars, all the time, in overnight service work. I can't track my current car; how many folks can (maybe a lot of you have high-end cars that have this feature and you've checked...I suspect most people don't have it and/or haven't thought to check).

@Todd: Glad things worked out right.

@kinddog: Totes, man, although I do understand Todd's initial concern over this, really. I would've been very taken off-guard--maybe not posted about it till resolved, but maybe not...tough to say when it's not me. ;-)

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Respectfully disagree. See my post above about who uses my car. Back in the 80's, a dealer's service personnel took my car home and it was vandalized in his driveway. Dealer told me that they don't assume liability and I would have to contact my own insurance to deal with it. I ended up getting the police involved and still ended up with an insurance claim that affected my rates. This is not okay in my book. With permission, yes, but otherwise NO WAY.

It would've first been covered by his homeowner policy maybe??? Dunno.

Anyway, I think y'all are wrong on it being safer at the dealer. I had my car vandalized in a service center lot when in for overnight service, years back, and they were all "not our responsibility"--I don't think they even fixed the damage gratis. So being parked at a service center is not protection necessarily. I suppose it depends, and it's possible that they just had cruddy insurance...or were taking me for a ride...but I didn't feel like suing them (ultimately, the damage was minor) to find out.

I'll bet Tesla service will be turning off the remote app access when they have cars in for service now

I bet if they do, people will bitch about it and make them turn it on, especially after this thread. ;-)

 

[Owner]

I actually like the idea that they drive the car home for testing. Instead of driving around aimlessly, they are saving time for themselves, Tesla and power. Seems like a very efficient way to handle the need to reproduce a problem. I think they just need to let us know ahead of time that they may do this. And yes, if the tech lives in a sketchy area with bad parking spots, I wouldn't like it.

The service folks have picked up my Roadster many times, and they have always treated it wonderfully.

 

[Al Sherman]

Another Perspective

Might be a little off thread but; one of the advantages of being/getting old. I just think it's SO FREAKING AMAZING that Todd could track his car and actually see it on his phone. I rationally understand that the technology is and has been there. Young people take this stuff for granted. Go ahead and laugh but I just can't tell you how cool I think this is. Can't wait to play with it and very thankful to have lived long enough to see it progress.