My 2nd Experience with the Tesla Service Center

[focher]

I would have simply told them I’m not paying a dime for warranty service. If you did pay them, I’m curious as to why.

 

[SergeyUser]

Service Center Disappointment My first experience went south real fast. This was with the SC in Lake Forest, CA. in October of this year.

My second at the Costa Mesa SC was 75% better... except... First some context. I have an 8 month old 3 with just about 4,600 miles on it, so not a lot. I dropped it off at the CMSC with a short list of 12 items:

1. Vampire drain while parked in garage with NO systems on
2. Anti-lock brake issue (brakes locked up when I hit them hard)
3. White material visible between the glass and the rear center brake light
4. Tire pressure alarm would come on even though pressure at all 4 corners was at 42
5. AC was stinking
6. Reverse camera would go black when going into reverse
7. Left repeater did not work
8. Blindspot detection limited error
9. Lane departure avoidance limited error
10. Autopilot cameras unavailable
11. Autopilot features limited
12. Left turn signal, momentary feature, does note work

So items 1, 2, and 4 were met with the usual, "we compared your car to hundreds of others and your issues are within normal specs" BS. Item 3 was fixed, seems it was some type of white adhesive. Item 5 was an old complaint which I solved by running the outside air for a few minutes after I park the car. It was in their system so they replaced the 2 filters and used some type of cleaner (cool it). Item 6 could not be replicated so not resolved. Item 7 was solved with a replacement of the repeater, this also seems to have solved items 8, 9, 10, and 11. Item 12 was solved by replacing the control module.

Final bill for the above $556. The only thing covered under warranty, it seems, was the turn signal module, the balance was not.

Charges were as follows:

• $138 for the AC issue
• $98 to diagnose the black screen
• $306 for the repeater

Again, had this been any normal 8 month old (ICE) vehicle with 4,600 miles, it would all have been covered under the new car warranty. But we're dealing with Tesla here.

After some discussions with a manager, all of the bill was waived except for the AC parts, which I reluctantly agreed to cover ($34), only because I should have mentioned up front that I resolved the issue.

Owners taking their Teslas in for service during the first year when the car only has 4,600 miles on the ODO should not be faced with ANY repair bill whatsoever, unless the repair was caused by the owner's neglect or damage.

I still like my Tesla, but after two disappointing visits to two different service centers, I'm kinda worried what we owners will face as our Teslas get older.

Everything that was a tangible issue was fixed and as I pulled into my garage and within range on my home wifi, I was advised that 19.40.50.1 was ready to download to my car. It's too early to give an opinion of the download. As for an overall service impression, not too happy.

Did SC pre-approve fixes estimated total before starting the repair? In my case, SC requested electronic pre-approval for $7 work (inspection). I assume you should have received the same request.

 

[SergeyUser]

If i were them, i'd bet that service centers are now being held and measured against Billed Hours for their shops. They have a certain amount of labor that they burn each day by simply paying people who show up to work and need to show what they've charged against that from customer service. This would give management a nice metric for how much warranty or goodwill work is being performed at various centers and how much revenue service is bringing in.

Since all centers work on roughly the same cars (though driving conditions vary) you could assume that all service centers should have similar metrics for % of labor being billed. You can then use this metric to compare and motivate service centers to increase billable hours in order to bring in more revenue/stop the cash bleed at service as much as possible.

This logic is I assume exactly why Tesla said they will not use Service as a source of Revenue. They accrue warranty costs, yes. They have incentive to minimize it. Now, billing a customer kind of eliminates the problem (customer paid -> no warranty cost). So they should ideally analyze the money they still earned from customers and figure out a way to minimize it. I hope this is what Tesla is doing, if they are smart.

 

[kbecks13]

This logic is I assume exactly why Tesla said they will not use Service as a source of Revenue

I believe they said it wouldn't be a profit center, which is a very different thing.

They accrue warranty costs, yes. They have incentive to minimize it. Now, billing a customer kind of eliminates the problem (customer paid -> no warranty cost). So they should ideally analyze the money they still earned from customers and figure out a way to minimize it.

Totally agree, and then main way to minimize something is to measure it and hold people accountable to certain metrics. We've heard countless stories of Service Center becoming less likely to cover something under warranty or as good will, which they used to do all the time a few years ago. The only way those humans in the service center become less willing to do those things is if they know they have a target or metric of some sort that must be maintained, otherwise of course they want to help us out.

 

[SergeyUser]

@kbecks13, you are right about profit center. I stand corrected.

Obviously they started to count money better, which is a good thing. I would rather have options I can pay for rather than no options at all. I just hope they learn that many people will be happy to pay for many things to take care of their cars, as soon as they charge reasonable amounts.

 

[SergeyUser]

Btw, I think it was wrong on a Tesla part to eliminate service intervals. EV is still complex enough and I would rather have my car telling me “go check your car”. And let Tesla do whatever is needed. Nothing to do? Ok, do nothing and tell me everything is Ok.

Now, instead they want to show “no maintenance is needed”, and it is “on as needed basis”. Great. But I still have to check brake fluid every two years. Yes, it is not difficult. But why should I even think about it? This is what service intervals are for.

 

[St☰v☰]

Did SC pre-approve fixes estimated total before starting the repair? In my case, SC requested electronic pre-approval for $7 work (inspection). I assume you should have received the same request.

Nope, not in my case. They had the list and took my keycard and that was it until I received a text advising it was complete.

 

[St☰v☰]

I would have simply told them I’m not paying a dime for warranty service. If you did pay them, I’m curious as to why.

Clearly you didn't rear my post completely.

 

[St☰v☰]

So today I received an e-mail from Tesla about my service experience:

 

[St☰v☰]

Yep, Elon has the upper hand for now. But others are coming out, slowly, take the Mudstain Mach E. V-dub is coming out with one, of course Audi, and others. Hopefully things will get better as the market grows and "T" can't afford be as cocky as they are today. I would have bought the Niro (I have Kia Optima and it's been a trouble free car), but it was just a little too small, but the range was good.

So I thought I'd provide this YT link showing some "T" competitors in 2020: