My Almost delivery in North Houston today - 2nd build

[JasJ]

Murphy's law is powerful with me. My previous car when ordered had a factory fire delaying my car by a year. Now with Tesla my luck is holding true to form. Ordered back in November and when the car came in December, it was not as promised and Tesla decided to rebuild it.

Fast forward to today, the redo was ready for pickup at the north Houston center. They were detailing the car when we arrived and we started about 15 minutes late. That should have been my first warning

Walk up to the car, two visible small cracks/chips in the windshield are seen right away. The delivery person (not my DS that I have been working with for month who was not available for some reason) quickly said that they noticed that when detailing this morning. They would replace the glass whenever the factory sent it to them. It is quite literally smack in the drivers main eye line. So just bummed at this point, but still willing to accept the car.

We proceed to walk around and notice a lump sticking up in the paint on the front driver's quarter panel. The DS said that the quarter panel would need to be repainted and blended in, It would be done by some local Tesla approved paint shop. So a bit further disturbed now.

Moving to the front bumper.. Notice several scratches, divots, blobs, etc- again DS says not buff-able, but easy to repaint the entire front bumper. Further worried.

Moving to passenger front quarter panel, more scratches and bumps in the paint. DS thinks likely able to detail these out.

Keep moving around the car and notice the small A pillar window molding is 'loose'... a common source of noise. Again easy fix.

Now at passenger rear wheel and notice more raised metal flakes in both the quarter panel and bumper... DS comments - likely requires repainting of panel and bumper.

Open trunk and see a scratch 3ft long, blobs and 'divots' in the bumper - not sure if it's the bumper or paint defect but it's there... hey we are already re-painting the bumper, so another reason....

Finish up on the driver side rear... it's OK!!! yeah for small victories.

At this point, my wife is ready to just walk away and ask for our deposit back. I'm still invested, so ask for options. DS says take it and they will schedule to fix everything. We then have a discussion on the value of the car if it is half re-painted before it is even picked up. DS says no drop in value, so we ask why did they drop the value of our trade from re-painting. Can't have it both ways.

DS has no other options and says I need to talk to the manager. I ask for the manager, but they are not 'available' now.

Last comment, the DS said that my car was particularly bad and most cars have some minor defects, but ours was unusual.

At this point, we get back in our trade-in and drive away. A couple of hours later, hearing nothing, I reach out to my original DS. Have to leave a voice mail, but to her credit she calls me back pretty quickly. She offers the same options as the earlier DS and says that they have only been building cars for a couple of years and Tesla should be cut some slack and would I like to reschedule delivery. Hmm, NO.

While I agree with her on cutting Tesla some slack, repainting a significant part of the car and replacing the windshield is a bit much to accept. Whatever happened to factory QC?

Said that I'm not willing to re-schedule a delivery without a better understanding of options, as I'd rather not have a THIRD car built. She said the manager will call me later tonight around 6-7pm.

We shall see. More to come and thanks for reading, helps me vent....think I want the car fixed right and to factory specs, a loaner, some free swag, floor mats, service or other similar compensation. Still bothered about such a large re-paint and value of the car down the road.

Any suggestions on who to contact to properly escalate this issue are welcome.

 

[Tam]

Murphy's law is powerful with me...

Windshield is a consumable item so it's easy to swap out.

With traditional dealers, those imperfections would be caught by Quality Controls and should be fixed, replaced, repainted... before you can inspect your car.

With traditional dealers, you wouldn't know of those flaws.

It sounds that your car went through a rough open transport.

 

[JasJ]

I thought the same thing, they shipped on an open transport.

One comment on the re-paint. I asked what type of warranty on that and was told same as car warranty - 4 years. Seems a bit short to my liking. Normal paint I would not worry about 4 years, but a large re-paint, I have concerns.

And yes, I do keep cars longer than 4 years... our son will be driving in about that time frame.

 

[Kenriko]

Original DS: Whitney?

One that helped you: Dayan?

Waiting on delivery (this week) of our CPO P85 from North Houston, they opted to repaint our bumper before we could even see the car. Hoping for a smooth delivery * fingers crossed *.

 

[Btrflyl8e]

That is terrible! I'm on Tesla#2, which luckily was perfect on delivery. #1 had paint burn from an overzealous attempt to buff out a defect, and I sadly missed it at delivery. it wasn't that noticeable unless you knew it was there, but once I did it was all I could see.

I wouldn't be too concerned with the repainting, it happens more than new car buyers know...but they definitely have to provide you with a loaner, and should toss you a few swag items. Windshield is no biggie at all.

Soon all the bad will be in the past and you'll have a car you can love I hope!

 

[gabeincal]

My worry about reading these things is that Tesla is not improving whatsoever... @davidc18 will probably share my thoughts... This is probably a good reason why I have no trust in M3 deliveries...

 

[bluefuego]

Stories like these are why I told my dad who takes delivery tomorrow to go over his X with a fine tooth comb; particularly the paint job. I told him that I would be concerned about cars delivered during this quarter as so many were ordered before the change to the supercharging program. The factory has got to be churning massive numbers right now, and it looks like QC at the factory as well as the stores aren't keeping up.

 

[electracity]

How do these cars leave the factory? Seems like daily production goals supersede quality control.

 

[Spyder14]

Easy for me to say but I would NEVER take delivery of that car. Mine had a few paint & trim issues & they were "easy" to wet sand & fix. This is way over the threshold of reasonable and indicative of a "world-class" vehicle, much less a "world-class" team. Tesla still has a long way to go. If it was me, I would run (or walk) to my next choice. Sorry this has happened to you.

 

[mal_tsla]

Tesla has a way too relaxed attitude towards repainting on new cars.

And before anyone tells me it happens at regular dealers too but you just don't know about it, I'll call BS. We have traded 8 cars in and any time even a little paint work had been done it was found and the value dinged by a few thousand. The majority of them had no paint work done, or they would have found it with their paint gauge.

 

[Spyder14]

I have never had to have a new car painted, wet sanded, or trim replaced. Honda, Mercury, Pontiac, Olds, GMC, BMW, Audi (5) and Porsche (3). Until this one. It is a roller coaster.

 

[BruceR61]

In California, a dealer cannot call a car new if they spent more than $500 in repairs on the car. Painting that many surfaces on the car would certainly not be less than $$500. I think it's Vehicle Code 9990.

 

[JasJ]

Update after two calls with local manager... they seemingly 'buffed' out a lot, but at least two areas still need painting. From the sounds of it, she was only shown 'pictures' of the defects and looked at the car later. I really don't know how they could buff out a paint flake in the multi-coat red color. Guess all the people ordering black or white are smart... no flakes, no multi-coat mess. Too-bad we like red.

She asked that we come spend another morning (Friday) to review the 'fixes' before they send off the car for painting - eta 2+ weeks as they plan to possibly replace the entire rear bumper and paint it. Which will then entail a third visit to finally pick up the car. Don't know about anyone else, but that is about nine hours each of potentially revenue generating time my wife and I are losing (no work, no cash for both of us). That is a real $$ impact for us.

The manager was willing to give us a jacket (swag), but no movement on an extension of the paint warranty or any other compensation. She is going to look in the Dallas area for a similar car (doubtful as we want the now kaput ventilated seats) but warned they might have mileage. I'd call that a low probability option.

I agree with mal_tsla on the paint detector that dealers use when you trade in a vehicle. The irony seems lost on Tesla that they dinged my trade-in value for paint work, but miraculously a Tesla authorized paint and body shop using factory paint causes no loss in trade-in value. Again, the irony and magical factory supplied Tesla paint.

So 'new bumper' plus repainted quarter panel and new windshield at the very least. I almost am afraid to actually sit in the car Friday and see what else factory QC missed as we did not even get to the interior of the car today.

After the calls with the manager tonight, my wife is EVEN more ready to walk away from this car.

Ongoing frustration with Tesla factory Quality Control and poor service recovery continues.

 

[Kenriko]

Update after two calls with local manager... they seemingly 'buffed' out a lot, but at least two areas still need painting. From the sounds of it, she was only shown 'pictures' of the defects and looked at the car later. I really don't know how they could buff out a paint flake in the multi-coat red color. Guess all the people ordering black or white are smart... no flakes, no multi-coat mess. Too-bad we like red.

She asked that we come spend another morning (Friday) to review the 'fixes' before they send off the car for painting - eta 2+ weeks as they plan to possibly replace the entire rear bumper and paint it. Which will then entail a third visit to finally pick up the car. Don't know about anyone else, but that is about nine hours each of potentially revenue generating time my wife and I are losing (no work, no cash for both of us). That is a real $$ impact for us.

The manager was willing to give us a jacket (swag), but no movement on an extension of the paint warranty or any other compensation. She is going to look in the Dallas area for a similar car (doubtful as we want the now kaput ventilated seats) but warned they might have mileage. I'd call that a low probability option.

I agree with mal_tsla on the paint detector that dealers use when you trade in a vehicle. The irony seems lost on Tesla that they dinged my trade-in value for paint work, but miraculously a Tesla authorized paint and body shop using factory paint causes no loss in trade-in value. Again, the irony and magical factory supplied Tesla paint.

So 'new bumper' plus repainted quarter panel and new windshield at the very least. I almost am afraid to actually sit in the car Friday and see what else factory QC missed as we did not even get to the interior of the car today.

After the calls with the manager tonight, my wife is EVEN more ready to walk away from this car.

Ongoing frustration with Tesla factory Quality Control and poor service recovery continues.

Can you confirm the names of the DS and manager you dealt with?

 

[JasJ]

DS was supposed to be Whitney - she scheduled the time, but was not available at the last minute. I believe 'Monica' stepped in (might have the wrong name) this morning as I was a bit distracted with what happened. Theresa was the manager I spoke to. Everyone has been very supportive and polite, but I get the impression no one that I have spoken to so far is really empowered to perform true service recovery.

Is there a reason you ask?

 

[bob_p]

Several years ago, our silver P85 was hit in the rear and required a replacement bumper.

The repair was done at a Tesla-approved body shop, using Tesla parts and paint - the color is pretty close, but not a complete match to the original paint job. The body shop offered to repaint the bumper, but warned me it was impossible for them to guarantee they'd get the bumper to match 100%.

We have a delivery scheduled at the same service center on Friday - and just had our ICE appraised by CarMax. Our car is in great condition, no accidents, and had some repainting to fix minor scratches in a few areas - which resulted in a markdown by CarMax.

When I purchased my last car prior to our "classic" P85, Lexus called me and stated some minor damage had been done during transport, and that while the damage was cosmetic and could be fixed easily, they would not be able to sell the car as "new", and instead expedited delivery of another car with the same features.

I wouldn't be too worried about a windshield replacement. Replacing the windshield shouldn't impact re-sale value - many cars get replacement windshields, especially with all of the construction in the Houston area. The early Model S cars had some issues with the windshield - and we had ours replaced several years ago, without any issues.

Some minor trim fixes are not unusual for new cars - and also shouldn't be a major concern.

But if many areas have been repainted, that is something with a potential long-term impact on re-sale, and it may be time to escalate this issue to Tesla HQ.

My first delivery experience was quite different when our S P85 arrived 4 years ago. Tesla's nearest Service Center was in Denver, so the car was shipped by UPS directly to our house (OK, UPS subcontracted the delivery, so it wasn't a big brown truck dropping the car off on the porch). We had to pay 100% for the car before it left the factory, without any opportunity to inspect it. And there wouldn't be any Tesla employee present when the car was delivered to the house. And the transport truck hit a deer in west Texas.

While I was quite concerned about the car at delivery, fortunately things worked out, and other than Tesla sending someone out to the house to clean and detail the car, everything went smoothly.

Hopefully Jasj's experience is unusual and not typical of current deliveries...

 

[TexasEV]

I've read about this "Tesla has only been building cars for a few years" excuse by delivery specialists in several posts recently. Are they being trained to say that?

 

[JasJ]

....But if many areas have been repainted, that is something with a potential long-term impact on re-sale, and it may be time to escalate this issue to Tesla HQ.
...

Appreciate everyone's thoughts. My wife finally figured out what was really bothering her -- It feels like a used car buying experience not a new luxury car experience. Everything is excused and dismissed and you are basically told to suck it up. If there are issues you get: we'll fix it; we've only building a cars a few years; re-painting pre-delivery doesn't affect resale; this many problems are routine; others aren't as upset, etc.

Anyone have a suggestion on who to contact at 'Tesla HQ'? All I know is the general 800# outside of the local crew. Any next level folks would work (e.g. regional Texas or similar management).

 

[Spyder14]

Appreciate everyone's thoughts. My wife finally figured out what was really bothering her -- It feels like a used car buying experience not a new luxury car experience. Everything is excused and dismissed and you are basically told to suck it up. If there are issues you get: we'll fix it; we've only building a cars a few years; re-painting pre-delivery doesn't affect resale; this many problems are routine; others aren't as upset, etc.

Anyone have a suggestion on who to contact at 'Tesla HQ'? All I know is the general 800# outside of the local crew. Any next level folks would work (e.g. regional Texas or similar management).

JAS: I don't have the correct contact at Fremont for you--the one I have was in order support & not very reliable or prompt with replies. My opinion on this is call Fremont or your Service Center & tell them you are cancelling the order & expect all monies to be returned within xx days or xx hours. If that does not get you in touch with upper management ASAP, then you know what to do. Again, sorry you have had to go thru this. Since technically this is now a "used" car, make them an offer to buy it at a reduced price if you even want the car at this point.

 

[electracity]

I've read about this "Tesla has only been building cars for a few years" excuse by delivery specialists in several posts recently. Are they being trained to say that?

It doesn't explain why the inspector at the factory with a flashlight and glove releases these cars. The only reasonable explanation is tremendous pressure to meet short term numbers. Tesla likely has limited repaint ability at Fremont.

This is really pre 1980 stuff, where only high end cars had perfect paint. Today a Toyota Yaris has nearly perfect paint.