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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.

case in point... :rolleyes:

you seem to be punishing Tesla for other people's mistakes, stretching back three decades. that is ridiculous.

Tesla is a different company. Upscale and highly customer-oriented, not made up of meth-head service techs from a used Chevy dealership looking to take advantage of you.

Again, all of this could have been easily cleared up with a private phone call to the Service Center. This website gets a BAD reputation if every molehill is made into a very public mountain. to say nothing of emailing George Blankenship. boy I bet the service team really appreciates that. and I'm sure Mr. Blankenship is really regretting giving out his email address now.
 
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.

+1. I found it neat that I was able to track the progress of the tow truck driver as he took my car to the Chicago service center. I found it worrisome that they took it to some other place and let it spend the night, but was relieved to learn that they have limited parking space inside the Chicago center and look after the safety of the car by storing it at another secure facility. Trust, but verify seems the appropriate route here -- ask the questions.
 
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...

While I agree the OP pulled the trigger on contacting George too quickly, you have to consider the numerous stories of dealership employees taking high-end customer cars for joyrides. In recent memory I can think of an M5 that was destroyed this way. In other cases, people have found fast food wrappers and used condoms under the seats. When the car is destroyed its pretty clear the dealership is liable. But in other cases it's door dings, wheel rash, etc., and it always ends up with the employee denying it and the customer losing, except for the rare case when the owner comes up with evidence (car cameras, GPS tracking, etc.) It's shame to have to think this way, but it's an old story- one or two people do something really stupid and ruin it for everyone else.
 
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.

I've had a few OnStar equipped vehicles and too am a big fan of these kinds of telematics systems. OnStar offers something similar.

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you seem to be punishing Tesla for other people's mistakes, stretching back three decades. that is ridiculous.

Tesla is a different company. Upscale and highly customer-oriented, not made up of meth-head service techs from a used Chevy dealership looking to take advantage of you.

Actually, I'm not punishing anyone for something that happened decades ago, rather I learned my lesson three decades ago. Whether a Chevy dealer, a Lexus dealer or Tesla, people are people and accidents happen. Ask me if it's okay for a service tech to take my car home, and I'll say "no". Do it without asking and I'll be pissed.
 
While I agree the OP pulled the trigger on contacting George too quickly, you have to consider the numerous stories of dealership employees taking high-end customer cars for joyrides. In recent memory I can think of an M5 that was destroyed this way. In other cases, people have found fast food wrappers and used condoms under the seats. When the car is destroyed its pretty clear the dealership is liable. But in other cases it's door dings, wheel rash, etc., and it always ends up with the employee denying it and the customer losing, except for the rare case when the owner comes up with evidence (car cameras, GPS tracking, etc.) It's shame to have to think this way, but it's an old story- one or two people do something really stupid and ruin it for everyone else.
It's not like some sales employee took the car for a joyride. This is a service tech we are talking about here. I'm sure that they have driven company owned roadsters and model S plenty of times, so it's not like some dealership tech that works on and drives Corollas and Prius all year and then once in a blue moon gets to drive a turbo Supra which most likely results in a joyride. Since most of these cars perform the same and have no clutch to burn or rev limiter to bump against the outcome is totally different than a traditional Dealership visit.
 
It seems like a phone call to Todd with an update before the car went home with the service manager would have avoided all of the stress. I manage an auto repair center and on the rare occasion that we need to take a customer vehicle on an extended drive home we get permission from our customer. We always have test equipment hooked up and in use during the drive so there really isn't time to even think of a joy ride.

With that being said I believe that its great that Tesla management is accessible to their customers. I sold my Porsche so that I can reserve my Model S and this forum has been a great help to me. I hope Todds issue get corrected soon.
 
Actually, I'm not punishing anyone for something that happened decades ago, rather I learned my lesson three decades ago. Whether a Chevy dealer, a Lexus dealer or Tesla, people are people and accidents happen. Ask me if it's okay for a service tech to take my car home, and I'll say "no". Do it without asking and I'll be pissed.

Would you let them drive the car around to make sure everything is working properly?

Would you allow them to pass by their residence on that trip?

If so would you let them drive the car on their lunch break? Would you let them stop at a fast food place (eat there)?

I am just wondering where you draw the line. If I take a car in I expect it will be driven, at least shuffeling it around the parking lot. I expect the service techs to fix a driving/vibration issue I expect them to drive it a lot. Why do I care where it gets driven? As long as it isn't excessive, or reckless. I would expect to not have more than driving.

Granted I took my VW GTI into the dealership (for a problem with a published service bulletin) about a fuel line rattle. I told them it happened in a temperature range, and only when at idle. They put 0.1 miles on my car when they told me they couldn't replicate the problem. So I have been burned by people NOT driving my car.

I agree they should have called and said "[ENTER NAME AND TITLE HERE] is going to drive your car home in hopes to witness [INSERT APPROPRIATE PROBLEM HERE]."
 
Completely agree, Bonnie...like I said, I'm not going to assume malice. I emailed GeorgeB to notify him of it, ask Tesla's policy on that, and recommend that in the future technicians get permission from the owner when they're going to do this.

Certainly I'm going to avoid the police report/horn honking...

Cheers. In my experience with my old ICE, the service rep took my car home to try and diagnose some issues, but only after asking my permission.
 
And OnStar charges $3.99 a month for this additional service. At that price, the Model S will pay for itself in like... 50 years!

I've had a few OnStar equipped vehicles and too am a big fan of these kinds of telematics systems. OnStar offers something similar.

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Actually, I'm not punishing anyone for something that happened decades ago, rather I learned my lesson three decades ago. Whether a Chevy dealer, a Lexus dealer or Tesla, people are people and accidents happen. Ask me if it's okay for a service tech to take my car home, and I'll say "no". Do it without asking and I'll be pissed.
 
It could have been worse. Your car could have been parked outside a night club, say, Good Guys in Wash DC.

You don't need an app to figure out that it went to Good Guys...just look for glitter stuck to the seat along with a smell of vanilla body lotion ;)

I'm on board with Kinddog on this one. Everything on this site seems to be a "Deal-breaker" or major "flaw". I am, by no means, witholding information from the site but I just don't feel the need to overreact to a situation until I have had the ability to acutally figure out what's going on with the car or situation prior to making a public outcry. Now with all that being said I don't think that OP did anything wrong by emailing GB. He can email whomever the hell he feels like to get answers that he wants.

Posting on TMC about it...I would have probably passed on that one and left it as an interesting story to tell at a Model S owners meet up.

To the OP, I'm glad everything was figured out.
 
Would you let them drive the car around to make sure everything is working properly?

Would you allow them to pass by their residence on that trip?

If so would you let them drive the car on their lunch break? Would you let them stop at a fast food place (eat there)?

I am just wondering where you draw the line.

A test drive for the purpose of verification... yes, and passing by their residence, well what difference would that make? Lunch breaks and stopping somewhere.. NO WAY. I'm very careful about where I park to avoid parking lot door dings and a lot of cars come and go from fast food restaurant (lots with little kids swinging car doors into each other :cursing:)

I draw the line at operating the vehicle for testing/verification purposes, but NO PASSENGERS and NO SIDE TRIPS. (As I mentioned before, I've had my interior messed up when my car was used to ferry other customers to/from the dealer and had a car vandalized while parked where it shouldn't be).

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And OnStar charges $3.99 a month for this additional service. At that price, the Model S will pay for itself in like... 50 years!

I think I need to know what the Model S connectivity plan is going to cost before I can make that comparison. I currently pay $28.20 CDN (including taxes) for my OnStar services and this tracking plan would be on top of that.
 
Wow, this thread really blew up way more than I intended it to.

A few things:

1. I started the thread "assuming no malice", and asked opinions on whether I should be concerned that the car was parked at a private home--frankly because I'd never heard of that being done, and it did genuinely worry me a bit. This car is worth more than a third the cost of my home. I have a right to be worried about its treatment. Many responses indicated that there was reason to be concerned.

2. I sent an email to GeorgeB because I was (it turns out incorrectly) worried that something fishy was going on, and feared that contacting the service center directly would not yield a straight answer. In hindsight I shouldn't have gone to that level, but honestly the responses to my OP had me a bit freaked out. I apologized to George for occupying his time.

3. GeorgeB has been fairly vocal and responsive to issues on this board in the past. Other customers from this board have exchanged emails with him directly in the past. That's why Tesla's a different company. But I admit I shouldn't have contacted him about this. I was tired (end of a long travel day for a business trip) and clearly wasn't thinking straight (enough). Let's recall that the suggestions for horn honking and police reports probably would've been worse than my single email asking for clarification on policy--so I could've gone a much worse route.

4. I apologized to everyone--George, Joost (who sent me an email this morning), and Nathan (the infamous driver). Nathan, who I talked to this morning, was nothing but gracious and he said not to worry about this.

To analyze the issue here:

-I take the blame for jumping the gun and not waiting to talk to the service center this morning before elevating.
-I did authorize Tesla to drive the car--but did not realize it was going to go to someone's private home overnight. In all honesty, Tesla should've mentioned that they might be doing this, but since they did get my permission to drive the car they did nothing wrong. They never said it would only be during the workday.

OK, so I'm sufficiently embarrassed. Sorry everyone.
 
Don't feel bad! I'm on a business trip (currently in Germany), and have been checking the app roughly every ten minutes or so, just because I can! Well, my car is in for service, and at one point this morning my car started to move, about 1-3 mph, so I immediately went to the map function and watched as they apparently quite carefully moved my car from inside the service center to outside (in the back). Watching my car go even that short distance for 2-3 minutes was nerve-wracking as I sat thousands of miles away, so I can only imagine how you felt (or how I would've felt) seeing the car go to someone's home overnight!

BTW, can we reflect for a second on the fact of how amazing it is that, as an owner of the Model S, I can see where my car is at any time, even if I'm half a world away?!
 
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No problem at all, no need to apologize. Classy response Todd and great post too. You had every right to wonder what was going on so am glad everything worked out for you.

Yes, I agree with Todd's analysis of the situation on every point. I agree with you it took some courage for him to admit creating a situation that would best have been handled with a call to the service manager and escalated only if warranted.

Larry