Model 3 problem already???

[qwerty]

All,

I finally got my car back & it has been in the shop over a week. First of all the service manager Mark (Torrance, CA) had been awesome and very supportive. He had provided excellent customer service (as other members had mentioned) that had made this experience a little less painful!!! He kept me informed daily. Long story short, the repair took a long time because they had to fly two model 3 engineers from Northern Cal to troubleshoot and fix the problems. They ended up replacing sensors and harness and I'm definitely overwhelmed with all these technical analysis. I'm sure some of you can digest all these (see below) much better than I can. At the end of the day I was told all these repairs should definitely mitigate the problems. I sure hope so..... Hope this helps and take care all.

 

[Lbkmxp100d]

All,

I finally got my car back & it has been in the shop over a week. First of all the service manager Mark (Torrance, CA) had been awesome and very supportive. He had provided excellent customer service (as other members had mentioned) that had made this experience a little less painful!!! He kept me informed daily. Long story short, the repair took a long time because they had to fly two model 3 engineers from Northern Cal to troubleshoot and fix the problems. They ended up replacing sensors and harness and I'm definitely overwhelmed with all these technical analysis. I'm sure some of you can digest all these (see below) much better than I can. At the end of the day I was told all these repairs should definitely mitigate the problems. I sure hope so..... Hope this helps and take care all.

Your attachments did not post. Will you repost as I’m interested in what they state.

 

[insaneoctane]

^what he said....

 

[qwerty]

 

[C141medic]

Good to hear they took care of the issues for you. Hope that was the end of it and the vehicle remains issue free. Keep us updated.

 

[Dr. J]

I dropped off to the detailing shop next morning for various detailing services for 3 days.

Hmm. A possible cause of wheel sensors and wiring harnesses going bad?

 

[MotoEvCA]

View attachment 274048 View attachment 274049

Thank you for sharing this very important assessment and conclusion-to-date. I regret the number of posts in this thread questioning your motivation for sharing this unfortunate circumstance.

Tesla appears to have resolved this BUT it is a reminder with any 'from the ground-up' product there will be problems that will test Tesla' ability to respond quickly and effectively.

I strongly suggest no one take delivery and hand over final payment without a 30 minute test drive / inspection of your vehicle. It is quite fair to consider holding-back (not finalizing your delivery and handing over payment) UNTIL these sort of things are resolved.

Consider how much time the OP has been without their vehicle.

 

[30seconds]

Hmm. A possible cause of wheel sensors and wiring harnesses going bad?

Maybe. Probably just the sensor, but smart to replace the whole system and send the malfunctioning sensor + wiring back to engineering to see exactly what went wrong.

 

[Moderatefan]

I strongly suggest no one take delivery and hand over final payment without a 30 minute test drive / inspection of your vehicle.

The story looks like a quite rare mini-lemon and Tesla went an extra mile here it seems to make things right. I don't believe right now there is such an option to not pay and get to see your car, so not sure what you're suggesting. Put a hold on your reservation until the line is worked through entirely and then they have extra vehicles in the stores for sale?

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Suspect they didn't need to replace ALL those harnesses, just that it was cheaper (time is money) to replace them all rather than try to find the single specific problem (assuming it was just ONE problem) in the harness. Similarly replaced the wheel sensor even though after swapping it things seemed fine until they played with the harness. Time is money, and flying out field engineers is not cheap, never mind the good will as well as practical costs (loaner/rental) of keeping the customer happy. Swap out everything suspect and worry about finding the specific issue back in the lab. Might even lead to some engineering/design/manufacturing tweak to prevent it happening again on another vehicle.

 

[MotoEvCA]

The story looks like a quite rare mini-lemon and Tesla went an extra mile here it seems to make things right. I don't believe right now there is such an option to not pay and get to see your car, so not sure what you're suggesting. Put a hold on your reservation until the line is worked through entirely and then they have extra vehicles in the stores for sale?

The story looks like a quite rare mini-lemon
I don't have access to Tesla' service / delivery records. Do you know more?

Tesla went an extra mile here it seems to make things right
I would prefer they go the extra mile BEFORE my delivery date and inspect the vehicle for damage and imperfects and attempt to make efforts to correct them.

I would prefer Tesla to take my car for an extra mile test drive and look for squeaks, rattles, scratched consoles, dented body panels BEFORE my delivery date

Contract law is pretty clear. If you come to take delivery of a new car there nothing that prevents the purchaser to ask for a test drive. There is nothing to prevent the customer from inspecting the vehicle for damage.

If I ask for a brief test drive to ensure the vehicle was not damaged in-transit and the car starts shaking (as described) in the OP post, Telsa will not require you to take delivery and provide the final check. They will reschedule the delivery date.

If you arrive at your delivery event and a body panel is dented Tesla is not going to force you to provide final payment. They will make the repairs and reschedule the delivery.


Tesla is under no obligation to educate the consumer on purchase norms and contractual law. Each consumer has the right to do (or not do) as they please.

In a selfish way, those who quickly and gleefully hand over a check and drive off speed up my delivery date.

As you have alluded, they run the risk of dealing with mini-lemons on their own time.

 

[MP3Mike]

I strongly suggest no one take delivery and hand over final payment without a 30 minute test drive / inspection of your vehicle. It is quite fair to consider holding-back (not finalizing your delivery and handing over payment) UNTIL these sort of things are resolved.

Unless something has changed Tesla won't allow you to drive the vehicle until you have signed the paperwork and taken delivery of the vehicle.

Which will probably be a new concept for a lot of people coming to Tesla for the Model 3, but is more common with custom-orders.

 

[MP3Mike]

Contract law is pretty clear. If you come to take delivery of a new car there nothing that prevents the purchaser to ask for a test drive.

Tesla allows you to inspect the vehicle before you take delivery, but I don't think there is any law that forces Tesla to allow you to drive the vehicle first.

 

[MotoEvCA]

Tesla allows you to inspect the vehicle before you take delivery, but I don't think there is any law that forces Tesla to allow you to drive the vehicle first.

More the reason why Tesla employees should perform this QA work for a $50K+ vehicle before delivery (and sign-off having done it).

Laws vary from state to state but good ones require disclosure of lot damage / damage in-transit and the customer having to sign a document demonstrating notification.

 

[insaneoctane]

This thread does not alarm me. Sh!t happens. Tesla seems to have done an outstanding job here. They flew the engineers to help diagnose. They did not just replace the sensor, but they further troubleshot and replaced the wire harness. The technical logs show why they did this and then they drove the car 30 miles further to ensure that they fixed the problem. They can now take the old harness and see how the short likely happened and make any production line changes that are warranted. I'm very impressed with how Tesla handled this.

 

[daniel]

Thank you for sharing this very important assessment and conclusion-to-date. I regret the number of posts in this thread questioning your motivation for sharing this unfortunate circumstance.

Tesla appears to have resolved this BUT it is a reminder with any 'from the ground-up' product there will be problems that will test Tesla' ability to respond quickly and effectively.

I wish to echo the above sentiment. Too many people were unfairly judgmental of the OP. This is all information it is valuable to have, that Tesla is not perfect, there will be cars that malfunction, and that Tesla is dedicated to fixing problems and insuring that their cars are as close to perfect as they can make them.

I strongly suggest no one take delivery and hand over final payment without a 30 minute test drive / inspection of your vehicle. It is quite fair to consider holding-back (not finalizing your delivery and handing over payment) UNTIL these sort of things are resolved.

Everyone will be given the opportunity to thoroughly inspect their car before making final payment and taking delivery, assuming they pick it up at a store or delivery center, rather than having it shipped to them (as I will have to do, because of my location and my unwillingness to drive a brand new car off the lot and immediately all the way across the state over mountain passes in winter).

I doubt they will let you drive the car before paying and signing for it. Once you have driven the car, it is no longer a new car. It's now a used car and Tesla cannot sell it to someone else as new if you just decide you don't like the ride and refuse it. I've never driven a new car without a test drive in a demo car of the same make and model, but I've never been allowed to drive the actual car I was going to get.

If you're unwilling to take the very small risk of getting a defective car, you probably shouldn't be buying a first-year model, and even with an established model, there's always the possibility of defects, some of which will not show up in the first 30 minutes.

Irrelevant anecdote: The Zap Xebra was so poorly made, that every unit had multiple defects. The dealer I bought mine from never sold a car without himself putting one or two hundred miles on it first, so that he could find and fix as many defects as possible. He had fixed several defects on my car before I ever took delivery, and as a result I had fewer problems than most Xebra owners had. But of course, Tesla cannot put 100 miles, or even 25 miles, on every car before delivery. I think Zap sold 500 Xebras in the entire U.S., and my dealer probably didn't sell more than 25 of those. Maybe closer to 10 or 15.

 

[jbcarioca]

it seems to me @qwerty did everything correctly, including asking for advice from us, whether we know what to do or not. Tesla seems to have treated this as the exceptional circumstance that it was. I have had serious problems with cars before. It would have been amazing if any of those had responded with the alacrity and dedication that Tesla did.

 

[MP3Mike]

Once you have driven the car, it is no longer a new car. It's now a used car and Tesla cannot sell it to someone else as new if you just decide you don't like the ride and refuse it. I've never driven a new car without a test drive in a demo car of the same make and model, but I've never been allowed to drive the actual car I was going to get.

That isn't true. A car is still new until it has been titled. And in the case of every, non-Tesla, car that I have bought new I was allowed to test drive from the dealer stock before I bought it. In one case I test drove two identical cars to decide which of the two I wanted to purchase.

 

[MotoEvCA]

That isn't true. A car is still new until it has been titled. And in the case of every, non-Tesla, car that I have bought new I was allowed to test drive from the dealer stock before I bought it. In one case I test drove two identical cars to decide which of the two I wanted to purchase.

If what was stated was by law true, it would preclude service reps from driving the car in preparation for delivery. It is important to distinguish contractual law from Tesla internal preference.

Add an addendum to your purchase contract to get that test drive before signing the final contract and there will be zero issues at delivery about your rights. Honestly, I don't need to drive but I want to be in my car for 5 miles (driver or passenger) to know all is well. This would be true for a gas vehicle or BEV

 

[Kbra]

I had a similar issue. Primarily in that automatic emergency braking became disabled. Service came and picked it up. Took a little over a week to fix. It was a holiday weekend and they were hit by destructive storms so likely would be quicker normally. Anyways said it was a bad break switch after support from headquarters engineering. All is well now. Somewhat expected for a early run Tesla. Also had my stereo inopperable due to a loose ground wire.

You can see all that and more here:
Model 3 Videos Model 3 Demonstrations - YouTube