I disagree. I’ve seen several 3’s that had horrible panel gaps. Mine had minor inconsistencies between the left and right side of the car (headlight seating, trunk, etc but they were minor enough for me to ignore and still accept the car.
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Model 3 Inventory - Does Anything Look Off?
- Thread starter Brkshlt
- Start date
I disagree. I’ve seen several 3’s that had horrible panel gaps. Mine had minor inconsistencies between the left and right side of the car (headlight seating, trunk, etc but they were minor enough for me to ignore and still accept the car.
And for me since Im getting an inventory car, I dont really have to settle because there might be a better made car on lot right next to it. Its more just because of the paint color. Going down there today to look at the car, and if its not as bad as the photos look, hopefully drive home with the car today
And for me since Im getting an inventory car, I dont really have to settle because there might be a better made car on lot right next to it. Its more just because of the paint color. Going down there today to look at the car, and if its not as bad as the photos look, hopefully drive home with the car today
Good luck. I will say something you probably already know....black looks amazing when it’s clean but it is SO HARD to keep clean and will show scratches much more than any other color Tesla offers. If you love black, go for it though!
Im torn between black and blue. If I get there and blue looks better, I might switch. I heard the OBM hides them better than black, but Im guessing not by much? Im gonna get some XPEL paint protection on it before taking it on its first road trip so that'll hopefully help.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
And for me since Im getting an inventory car, I dont really have to settle because there might be a better made car on lot right next to it. Its more just because of the paint color. Going down there today to look at the car, and if its not as bad as the photos look, hopefully drive home with the car today
I have an August production AWD car with a VIN in a similar range (mine is 99xxx and was produced last week of August and I took delivery of it in late September).
Your car has almost the exact same cosmetic characteristics mine does.
1. driver front/rear doors are slightly misaligned. I've seen many cars here at my company parking lot with the same assembly issue.
2. Glass roof slightly misaligned so that one corner protrudes higher than the steel roofline. On my particular copy I am suspicious that this could be contributing to very noticeable wind noise on the highway coming more from the passenger side of the car.
3. Can't fully tell from the pictures but it looks like it has the same sunken hood where the hood is slightly lower on the passenger side than on the driver side where it is properly flush.
4. You can't tell from photos but based on the state of the paint shop it's likely the car has some fish eyes in the clear coat or paint. You will for sure want to go over the car carefully and make sure there are no deep scratches or paint runs and check to see if the car is painted behind the front doors (mine is just primer with some overspray) and in the trunk area.
They are all fairly minor issues and I could live with them if it wasn't for the wind noise I'm getting. I haven't had Tesla tackle this one and not sure if they would as they'd probably argue the car is in spec.
My recommendation is if the issues don't bother you and that's the color you want then you should be pretty safe pulling the trigger. I would not recommend you let Tesla "fix" these problems as it's highly likely they will make things worse in the process. That's why I haven't had them do anything with mine.
I would also recommend that, if at all possible, you get a later build car, preferably one that was built closer to the end of 2018. There is strong anecdotal evidence that the later production car you get the fewer of these issues you will have to deal with. Your car is fairly "old" having probably been produced in late July through early August. A November/December car will likely have better assembly quality... just my guess anyways.
Ok, so update time! After seeing the OBM in person, I wasn't feeling it as much as in the photos. So instead we found a 2019 VIN White Model 3 and I fell in love with that paint color. Probably going to Stormtrooper it a bit sometime. Only issue was the passenger window wouldn't fully roll up into the frame so they are fixing that tonight/tomorrow morning, and they are driving the car to my house tomorrow afternoon! Any other tiny issues like misaligned doors/glass that doesn't affect the actually performance and safety of the vehicle, I will take for what it is. Can not wait to finally have my dream car. Got a 199xxx vin on this one.
And still “free” paint upgrade? Any mileage discount on that one?
Congrats. If you got any kind of discount that is kind of crazy seeing as how it’s almost ViN 200k!!!
No mileage discount (only had 7 miles), but got the paint taken off (in the process now). Its some kind of promo my owner advisor was pushing. Not sure if I can go into detail about it though.
only thing this one had was the passenger window not going up all the way into the door frame. they messed with it and said it was going as high as possible after recalibrating. considering its been on site for a month or so and no interior water damage, im guessing the sealing is still solid regardless. the black one had some gaps around the trunk area.
No worries. I’m sure they are just trying to sell as many as they can.
I’m honestly shocked that the demand has dried up. People don’t know what they are missing. I can’t believe that many people are waiting for the $35k version. They are going to be somewhat disappointed when their car isn’t as nice as other Teslas and realize the 220 range really is more like 150 when you try to not charge above 90% or below 10-15% regularly.
For sure. They said how they've sold some since the holidays, but it has slowed down. For LR AWD, there was a good handful of cars but not a full parking lot or anything. I kept sitting on the fence but finally sucked it up and knew that I would regret continuing to put it off.
Oh for sure. I really probably spent $10,000 too much getting the long range but the tax credit helps and I got to get the 3 sooner.
Will do. I rode in the passenger seat from their offsite lot to their main property and didnt hear any rattle before with the window, and they said it didnt need to be changed, so hopefully it'll all be the same. We had music cranked to about 70-80% and didnt hear any rattle then. Knock on wood it'll all be good to go still.
My original plan was to go with an SR, Premium, EAP, and FSD. But, once it was obvious there was no SR coming before the tax credit was reduced I decided to go with RD LR as I had little $$ to lose. I also realized that FSD was probably YEARS off, so I dropped that. While 220 miles probably would have been plenty for the driving I do, I do enjoy having a HUGE amount of range. In eight months I have yet to need a Supercharger. My longest trips have still brought me home with miles left. I don't drive fast, so I get good efficiency and the full 300+ miles. The LR basically has the same range as my old gas car did on a full tank!!
