Once again, if you don't think you will need the product, don't pay for maintenance yearly. It can't void your warranty. The amount of rich people complaining about this really boggles my mind. People are willing to spend 90k on a car, but cry about pretty average maintenance costs?
Tesla has stated that the model S will be low maintenance. Do you think that's changed suddenly? Do a little bit of thinking here.
Tesla is a new dealership. They have to have service centers, and a lot of them. These things cost money. They could have rolled the price into the car like other manufacturers. However, they wanted to keep prices on the car as low as possible.
Now thankfully, not all rich bastards are as cheap as we are, and will just gladly pay for the piece of mind of always having their car looked at. As for me, I will probably take it in every two years. This is a win win, because the service centers get subsidized by people that don't care about money.
Tesla didn't really lie about anything. I can't believe people are thinking about cancelling over 1800 for 4 years of service on a 50-90k car. If you are that hard up for cash, go donate plasma or something.
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I'm surprised the service page doesn't mention a free Model S loaner as part of the package, that will be one of biggest annoyances for me, with the seattle service center being in downtown seattle (40 minute drive for me, I can drop it off, but if I need to take the bus or go with my wife in a 2nd car, that's not going to be a great service experience)
Hey, I live in Seattle. If you just need a car for a couple hours, you should check out Zipcar (it's car rentals by the hour/half day/ full day). Basically for 20-30 dollars (insurance and gas are included) you can rent a car for 3-4 hours if you need one. Unfortunately the service center is in a pretty boring part of town.
For longer repairs, you're right, I wish a loaner model S was included. I kind of think these sort of things will come in a few years after the dust settles and the company is making money. Right now they don't have the cars.