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Model 3 LR RWD - One Year In
- Thread starter PoitNarf
- Start date
Tell me about your tires. It looks like you have the 18" wheels since you mentioned running without the Aero covers. I'm also a year in at 11K miles on 18" wheels and the tires are already due for replacement. Lifetime efficiency is 250 Wh/mi and I do like using all that torque, but it's still hard for me to believe how quickly they wore out.
I have the 18s and run with the aeros.
I've swapped rears to the front once at the onset of winter. So from March to November 2018 I ran the tires from the factory. The rears were noticeably worn; probably half of the tread was gone. The front treads were barely worn at all.
Now it's been 6 months after that last rotation and the rear treads have worn down to match the front. I'm not planning to rotate since all 4 are evenly worn. But this means I theoretically have 1 year left of driving before all 4 tires are bald, which based on my mileage would be around 30,000 miles in total (I'm at 15,000 at the 1 year mark).
At some point this warm season I will pick up a set of winter tires. That takes care of winter 2020. Then I'll likely buy either summer or all seasons in 2020.
timk225
Active Member
I never rotated my tires. At 24,318 miles, the original fronts are getting close to the wear bars. Replacement rears are ok with 8,318 on them.
Eh, they’re not great. I think I saw on Tire Rack that the stock 18’s only come with 8/32 of tread depth. That’s pretty low for a new tire. Most of the replacement tires I’m considering start at 10/32 of tread depth so I’m convinced that the lower tread depth when the tires were brand new is the main factor in why they seem to be wearing quicker than I’m used to. I’ve rotated once so far and due for another rotation very soon. I doubt I’ll be able to go past 20,000 miles before I have to replace the tires which is pretty sad. On my previous cars I was able to get at least 35,000 miles before having to buy new tires.
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SalisburySam
Active Member
Wow! In re-reading @PoitNarf’s and @mswlogo’s original posts here, could there be better examples of the “glass half full, glass half empty” approach to things? Great counterplay guys!
Personally, I just think it’s the wrong size glass. But I do love me my Model 3.
Personally, I just think it’s the wrong size glass. But I do love me my Model 3.
yerEVan
Active Member
@PoitNarf
I asked my Devon, PA SC about the slightly separated mirrors issue and they said it’s normal. I did mention wind noise but they didn’t seem to care much. Overall Devon SC is excellent but I’m wondering if it required a long visit and was it parts they had to truly replace? Or just re-adhere?
I asked my Devon, PA SC about the slightly separated mirrors issue and they said it’s normal. I did mention wind noise but they didn’t seem to care much. Overall Devon SC is excellent but I’m wondering if it required a long visit and was it parts they had to truly replace? Or just re-adhere?
My passenger mirror was replaced by a mobile tech. I was expecting that they’d just somehow reattach the triangle piece to the rest of the mirror assembly and was surprised when the tech told me he has just been replacing the entire assembly in these cases. If the separation is really bad like mine was I would keep pestering them about it. It took the mobile tech less than 10 minutes to replace the mirror assembly.
timk225
Active Member
True. My plan was to swap over to oem 19 inch wheels and tires when these wear out. But most people around here seem to erroneously think that plain, ordinary, oem 19 inch wheels are made of gold or something, so unless I can score a set of 19 inch wheels at a reasonable price (that means nowhere near $400 per wheel), I'll stick with the 18s.
I'm mot gonna pay a lot for this muffler! (or plain ordinary oem wheels).
Bobbo8
Member
I agree. Could you image being married to him, he would nit-pick you to death!!!
My wife, car, and I will definitely celebrate with a glass of something (wine for us, electrons for the car) this July. Best car I've ever owned.
I've had my SR+ for two weeks and I agree with just about all of your points. That said, remember that no other car offers continual improvements through software updates. Also - from what I've seen, Tesla responds quickly to feedback (e.g. improving brakes based on Consumer Reports article, tighter panel gap tolerances based on customer feedback, etc.). Did they have to make fart mode or add Atari games? No - they're kind of pointless. But they make the car fun for many people (including my two small kiddos) and so I don't dock them for it. Are the DashCam and Sentry Mode features rudimentary? Yes - but they didn't have to add these...they were thinking of us consumers when they designed/developed//released these features so I think we should be thankful (plus - I'm sure they will continually improve these features over time). It would've been much easier for Tesla to just send out bug fixes instead of adding more value-add features that actually incrementally improve our car experience over time.
Give Tesla credit where it's due. My .02.
I’m just realistic on what Tesla gave me for $75k and don’t kid myself. If you want to live in a bubble that’s your business.
I’m not about to sell it or anything but if I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I probably would not have bought the car, at least not when I did. And I’m one of the luck ones !! My bumper has stayed on so far, my roof has not cracked, no water in truck etc. Partly because I baby the car and don't take it out in conditions that may cause issues (namely heavy rains or freezing rain).
The two main things I got the car for was AutoPilot and Cost of ownership (both I’d give a C- to at the moment). It’s pretty dangerous to use NoA. Even if it works very good 99% of the time. It’s that 1% that really could get you into deep trouble. What really bugs me is Tesla doesn’t even acknowledge that NoA has any issues. And even talks about running with no nag. Hello, are you kidding me!! But the OP would just give an automatic "check mark" as another successful update. Regardless of how good it actually runs. I hope that one day the software will catch up to what is advertised, I really do, I'd like to get what I paid handsomely for.
The other reason was cost savings in fuel to offset the high up front cost. Well that’s close to non existent for me with electricity at $0.25 kWh. Also you can’t ignore the cost of eating tires and insurance. All in all this is a very expensive toy to operate. $1000 worth of tires every two years sure covers a lot of oil changes. I keep my car in chill mode 99.9% of the time so that I don't eat tires, watts or earn myself some tickets.
In 6 months, I don't think I've seen a single bug fixed yet, they just keep adding features with more bugs.
My wife knows I’m honest about what I got myself into and knows I won’t lie to myself when she even knows the cars has some issues. She also refuses to drive it alone knowing the bumper might fall off or it might slam on the brakes if she uses auto pilot, or the backup camera goes out or the window freezes and she damages the chrome. She knows she won't baby it like I do and doesn't want that responsibility.
It is a fun, expensive toy. But it is in no way a "practical" purchase by any stretch of the imagination. Now it sure is financially more practically to own if you only have to pay $0.07 kWh and live where it never goes below freezing.
I agree the continual improvements are great. The DashCam is probably one of the best added features. But it's incredibly fragile. I have music on USB too. If I want to use Music on the USB, the DashCam drive (will corrupt). If I don't use USB music it won't corrupt. So I have to lose USB Music (which doesn't work all that great eaither). USB Music is extremely slow and needs to scan every time you get in the car. Navigation USB is clumsy. Jeep uConnect works flawless. It's a huge step backwards for USB Music. The Video quality on the DashCam is a little disappointing too. Better than nothing.
I even understand why they add things like fart mode. But they need more progress on bugs. I also realize it's not all the same resources.
Sentry Mode. Fantastic. I'd use it, if it didn't have to suck the battery down to use it. So it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. Sure Sentry Mode will use power. But why does the car have to be more or less completely ON to just run the cameras. There is some flaw in software or design that requires that the entire vehicle be ON if any subsystem needs to be on. There is no inbetween. Radio Amps are on, Cooling Pump or Fan is on if anything needs to be on. They are obviously aware of that since it won't stay on sticky and I think there are warnings about the power it uses. The CPU/Cameras shouldn't take that much. I don't know if this is a software design issue or simply how the car is plumbed. I hope it's software.
I don't mind them adding features if they would equally work on bugs. But they know people, like the OP, look at check marks before they consider quality. Especially new buyers.
It is possible that this last 2019.8.3 release might have fixed the car being "near" it's WIFI connection no longer sucks down battery. Crossing fingers. It was horrendous before that. It will be the first real bug fix I've noticed. I'm sure they have fixed some hidden/less visible ones. But this would be the first really visible one for me.
I'm not saying that features like NoA deserves an "automatic check mark". It's definitely got tons of issues. I just have grown to learn which areas it makes sense to use it and which segments of road it just cannot handle at all. I do not believe the current iteration of NoA is ready for confirmation-less automatic lane changes and Tesla is going to have to show some substantial improvements with it before I would ever trust it.
Geez, electricity rates in MA are that high?? I pay $0.12 per kWh on average for the whole year in NJ. So compared to my previous car, 2012 Ford Mustang, my 3 costs a whole 2/3 less to fuel for the same driving distance per month. And insurance varies so greatly from person to person so you can't really count that as a strike against the 3. Compared to my Mustang my 3 only costs around $15 more a month to insure for the same coverage. Not too bad since it's almost twice the MSRP.
I'm not living in a bubble and totally recognize that there are some glaring major issues Tesla still needs to fix. But it used to be much worse. A year ago I had to regularly reboot the screen, the display would crash constantly or there would be other strange behaviors that would require a reboot. A year later the systems in the car are much more stable. In my opinion there have been many more improvements and fixes introduced than new bugs over the past 12 months.
