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.