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My incredibly detailed CPO buying experience

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I know, another one of these, but this one is hopefully not normal:

My Tesla Pre-owned Buying Experience
Josh Cooper

First of all, let me state right out of the gate that I’m a big fan of Tesla. I love the technology, the style, the power and the efficiency. I don’t know that I’m a fan of everything that Elon Musk does, but I absolutely respect his vision and determination, the things he’s accomplished, and the fact that he had the chutzpah to try them in the first place is frankly inspiring. I’ll also say, I love the car, and I feel like I got a tremendous deal. With those disclaimers out of the way, I’m going to recount the true story of my Tesla purchase experience, and hopefully it’ll entertain most of you, help some of you, and ideally improve a frankly terrible process.



The Decision


I’ve been the proud owner (lessee?) of a 2017 Chevrolet Volt. How I landed on that one is a different story, but I can say that the Volt went from a car that I almost didn’t even CONSIDER, to one of the best cars I’ve ever owned. To say it exceeded my expectations is a tremendous understatement. Not for nothing, it was also the car that taught me that I’d be fine with the range of a full electric. In the 2 years I’d had it, we’ve only exceeded the roughly 50 mile electric range a handful of times. We put on a little over 15,000 miles in 2 years, and over 14,000 of those were all electric. We were on about our 5th tank of gas, in 2 years.



For those of you thinking “I’ve never heard of a two year lease”, you’re right. The original term was 3 years, I think. The terms were great, too. I had $10,000 on trade, and all said and done, a fully loaded Volt only ran me $108 a month. This is a no-brainer car at that money. Between gas costs for the car I traded in (a 2009 Jaguar XFS) and the difference in insurance (it really wasn’t THAT bad), the Volt lease literally paid ME $20 a month, even though the Jag was paid off.



So why end the lease early?



Well, as anyone reading here probably knows, in July 2018, Tesla sold their 200,000th car, which triggers the phase-out of the government rebate. If you’re going to buy a Tesla, you have to own the car before the end of 2018 to get the full $7,500. In January it cuts in half, then it cuts in half again. I knew that the Model 3 was a possibility, but if I waited until my lease was over, then I’d be paying about $6,000 more for the same car. Chevrolet is on track to sell THEIR 200,000th in December or so, which means if I ended up re-upping for another Volt (which is honestly the way I thought this whole thing would go) then I’d be at least at a $4,000 disadvantage. A quick trip to CarMax and a call to the financing company showed I actually had about $2,000 in equity in the Volt, so I had room to move, but the smart play was to not wait.



Why Used?



Knowing that we needed to do something, my wife and I went to the local Tesla showroom to see the Model 3s. My biggest justification for moving to a more expensive car than the Volt, which we all liked a lot, was that it was a great car, but just needed to be … a little bigger. From the pictures of the Model 3 online, it looked like it had more backseat room than the Volt did, which is where we needed it most (6 year old legs are just right for kicking mom’s seat.) Yes, it was partly an excuse.



So we looked at the Model 3, and … it was nice. In the interest of full disclosure, my wife absolutely HATES the front-end design. I’m not a fan either, though I get it, but she just really can’t stand it, (she’s a car person also.) I was convinced we could get past it though, if the rest of it was fine.

But it wasn’t. The backseat wasn’t noticeably different than the Volt, and it looked like we’d be giving up some storage space as well. As much as I like the full length dash vent, the lack of a driver situated instrument panel was really a deal-breaker for me. I get why they did it, putting it in the middle means they don’t have to have two dashboards for right hand drive and left hand drive cars. The Toyota Echo did it years and years ago.



But is that the company you want your (realistically) $50,000 car to be in? “Yes, that center mounted screen was good enough for an $8k Toyota, so I had to have it.” It was also a problem for me, because I rented an Echo once, and without the speedometer in my peripheral vision, I kept looking down (over) to realize that I was doing 95 mph on the interstate. True testament to the quality of Toyota’s cheap car… I threw an awful lot of things at that poor rental that cars 3 times the price couldn’t handle, and it handled it with aplomb. At one point there was so much mud on it that you couldn’t tell what color it was. So, with a center speedo in a car with serious torque behind it, I figure the speeding tickets alone were probably going to cost me more per month than the payments.



Ultimately, the thing that killed the Model 3 for me was the Volt, though. As nice as the Model 3 was, it just wasn’t $15k nicer than the Volt. My wife pointed that out to me, and I had to agree. It wasn’t 15k faster, it wasn’t 15k nicer on the interior, it DEFINITELY didn’t look $15k better on the outside. The only true thing that it had over the Volt (to our opinion) was the badge. GM should just re-badge all their Volts and Bolts as “Edison” and get rid of that bow-tie stigma. It’d be kinda poetic right? Edison vs Tesla? Anyway.



While we were there, we checked out the Model S. And it was glorious. It was… it had the back seat space that we wanted, the looks (although my wife still liked the older ones better) weren’t as bad as the Model 3. She deemed them ‘acceptable’. With the fold down rear seat and the flip up, removable deck, the trunk was CAVERNOUS. As someone who has loaded 400 lbs of tile into the back of that Chevy Volt, this was something I was definitely interested in.



And it had a real honest-to-goodness display for the driver.



I knew though, sitting in it, that this wasn’t something I was going to do. The salesperson (or whatever clever thing they’re called in Texas so they don’t get in trouble) was in the car with us and we were discussing it, and as he was showing us features I said “Realistically, this isn’t a car you’re going to get into for less than $80,000, is it?” He was like “Yeah, no, not really.” So I asked “If I were interested in a pre-owned Model S, would I still come through you? Or is there a different team that handles that?” “It’s a different team, but if you decide to go that path, give me a call and I can put you in touch with them.”



… and that’s where the trouble started.



Shopping
I’ve looked at used Model S’s before. I’m a big fan of letting someone else take the depreciation hit and picking up a great car used for a fraction of the price. Before the Volt was a 2009 Jaguar XF Supercharged, original sticker was over $80,000 and I brought it home for $30,000 AFTER adding a 5 year warranty from Jaguar. (It was absolutely worth that, too… it was an amazing car, and more dependable than the 540 BMW I traded in on it… but I digress.) The price on used Model S’s just doesn’t come down like that though. Still, browsing Tesla’s pages, I was finding that the ballpark for what I wanted was about 45k-50k. I wanted 2 or 3 years old, I preferred not black, and DEFINITELY not Red or Green. My wife got involved and said she wanted the old front end. Okay, that just makes things cheaper. I also wanted less than 40k miles, and the Tech package. Autopilot wasn’t a MUST have, but if it was a difference of a couple hundred bucks, I’d take it, sure. And I wanted one with the 4 year warranty, because I drive like 7k miles a year, and a 2 year, 100k mile warranty isn’t enough time for anything to happen.

One thing that struck me as I was looking, was that there were no PICTURES on Tesla’s preowned site. I mean, there were pictures of Model S, but from listing to listing it became pretty clear the only thing that changed was the color. You’re not seeing actual pictures of the car. A little research showed that Tesla TOTALLY REFURBISHES every Model S they bring back in. The reasoning was, you’re getting a car in perfect condition, so there aren’t going to be any chips, dings, scrapes, for you to see. What a great idea! Saves money on pictures, saves time lost in arguments over pre-existing conditions, and ill will toward the dealers. Now you can go through their whole website and really just pick out your color and features and know you’re getting a great car.

Except, as of about April they don’t do that anymore.

Which is fine, really. No one else does it that way. They must have figured out that it didn’t make financial sense and so they had to change the way they handle it. I get it. I support it.

… However.

If you’re NOT going to refurbish it, fix dents, dings, paint chips, body panels, interior pieces… then I need to SEE the car you want me to drop $50k on.

I know you can buy a used Model S at other places cheaper… the big selling point for me was that the best of them are going to go back to Tesla for one… for two, the manufacturers warranty applies as well. Most of their low mileage used cars have the same 4 year warranty that their new cars have. Others have a 2 year, 100k mile warranty. Used cars outside of Tesla, if they have ANY warranty, it’s one of the useless ones that really doesn’t cover anything. So even though I could have saved $10k, it’s still a pretty new company for me to be comfortable with that kind of risk.

Anyway…

On Tesla’s website, they provide a link that you can use to request pictures. I had found a couple of cars that I was interested in, that Tesla’s website said were close to me in Dallas, Texas (even though search results for nearby included several from Chicago and one or two from the Rocky Mountains, which are NOT, according to my opinion, all that close to me), so I reached out and requested pictures.

A day or two went by, and nothing came.

In the meantime, I’d done some additional looking around and discovered that, at the very least, the $1000 deposit for a Tesla could be switched to another car if for some reason it doesn’t meet your needs. I’d pretty much talked myself into a Model S at this point, so I reasoned that, worst case, I could just keep shifting my deposit around until I found a car I wanted. I still had a year on my lease, and there’s no tax credit on a used electric vehicle, so I wasn’t in a huge rush. I further reasoned that, surely the reason I had not heard from them regarding pictures was that they must get a lot of people who aren’t really serious about buying, and so they don’t prioritize those sorts of requests.

The Purchase
So I picked the one I was most interested in, a Titanium 2015 70D with Autopilot and upgraded interior, with only 22,000 miles on it, and put down my $1000 deposit. The other car I was trying to decide against was a 2015 Dark Gray P85D without autopilot and without the upgraded interior, with 38,000 miles. They were $300 apart, and I was having trouble deciding. I figured that now that they saw I was serious, they would contact me and we’d discuss it and if I found I liked the P85D better, that we would shift the deposit to that one. Of course, now that I had put down my $1000, a salesperson would reach out to me and we’d get the process really going.

They didn’t.

I had put my deposit down about noon, Central time. I figured it might be a couple of hours, but someone would reach out to talk about the car I wanted, let me know what the next steps would be, answer questions about the car, all of those normal things that make sense when you buy a $16,000 Corolla much less a $52,000 luxury car.

But they didn’t. Even by noon the next day, a full 24 hours later. So I found the business card for the salesperson we talked to in the showroom who offered to connect me with someone on the pre-owned side. I called and got his voicemail, and I asked if he could get me a number for someone on the used car side, I’d picked one out and had some questions, and could he please call me back when it was convenient.

But he didn’t.

Now, when I say he didn’t, I don’t mean that I had some barely realistic or totally unrealistic arbitrary deadline that he didn’t meet, like an hour later, or a day later, and he missed that window of opportunity. I mean now it’s almost November, that was August, and I haven’t gotten a call from him.

So I called Tesla’s Sales support number, and asked if I could talk to anyone. The nice lady on the phone acted very surprised that no one had talked to me yet, so she added a note to my account and sent a message to the person who was assigned to my sale, and said he should call me back shortly. I felt pretty good about it, at least it was finally getting handled.

But it wasn’t.

That was around noon, and after the remainder of that day ended, (this is now three days after I put down $1000 deposit on a car I hadn’t even managed to see PICTURES of yet, that no one has even been able to confirm if it EXISTS or not) the next morning I called Tesla’s sales service again. By luck or chance, I reached the same lady and she again was shocked that no one had talked to me and put a message through to the sales person. Now this time, four or five hours later I actually did get a call: this person was my assigned salesperson and it was being transferred to someone else, so apparently he wanted to call to tell me that he wasn’t going to be able to help me. I was polite, but for the record, this wasn’t the best use of my social interaction credits for the day. I’m anti-confrontational by nature, and get easily distracted. To the extent that I recently went without one of my prescriptions for nearly 2 weeks because I didn’t really want to call the pharmacy and find out why it hadn’t been filled with the other one. But again, I digress.

Finally, the FOLLOWING day, I received a call from Salesperson #2, who must have drawn the short straw. He apologized (I think) and told me how exciting it was to get a new car. He also told me, as of the VERY DAY I put the deposit down (August 20th, 2018) Tesla changed their policy on transporting cars. Prior, if there was a car you wanted, and it was in a different city, they would shift it to a closer one for you. If there wasn’t one closer, they would help you make arrangements to have it delivered to you. That was no longer the case, now they are sold as-is, where-is. If Tesla gets you hooked on a car in Chicago, and you want that car, you will take delivery in Chicago, even if you have to fly up there yourself, complete the transaction, hire transport while you’re up there, load it, fly home and receive it.

By luck or design, the car I put my deposit on was located in Dallas, about 15 miles from my house (thank you Teslahunt.com, who at least knew the car was in Texas, where Tesla.com just provided a helpful blank that did NOT say Chicago.) Unfortunately, the P85D I was also trying to decide on ALSO happened to be in Texas, so I couldn’t use that to make my decision. Eventually what it really came down to on the choice was the 4 year warranty on the 70D vs a 2 year warranty on the P85D.

He saw that I had requested pictures, so he was going to be sending them to me over email and discussing next steps. He also said, that since the car was only 15 miles away, if we could get the papers signed by the end of Thursday, I could probably pick up the car that weekend.

The Financing
That WAS good news. Especially since I’d already qualified for a loan at my bank. I wasn’t particularly happy with the rate they offered (5.6%) though, so I told him I’d be interested to see what they offered. The immediate response “Well, if that’s what your bank offered, we won’t be able to beat it, you should just take it.” I said “Maybe, I’ve got a couple of other places I want to check first” “Oh, you shouldn’t do that, it’ll hurt your credit rating.” (It actually won’t.)

An hour later, I had an offer from another bank, 3.6%, unsecured. That’s a difference of $2,843 on a five year loan, and there’d be no lien on the car, so for transaction purposes, it’s like paying with cash. Good thing I didn’t take the professional car salesperson’s advice. For the record, the additional inquiries didn’t impact my credit.

The Trade-In, Part 1
The next thing to work through was the trade-in of the Volt. Salesperson #2 looked at the year, make, model, pictures and registration and offered me $22,200 for my trade, which was wholesale, but fair, and most importantly $2k more than the payoff. He said that it might be adjusted because what they did was take the car to auction and it might bring less, but usually was pretty close to that. I told him I’d had it appraised at CarMax for $22,000 even, and he suggested I take it there. I didn’t really want to do that because A. Trade-ins are supposed to lower your sales-tax paid for the car, and B. Carmax wasn’t sure if GM Financial would agree to let them payoff the lien for whatever reason. So instead, Salesperson #2 lowered his offer to match CarMax.

I wasn’t very happy about this, but it was only $200, and maybe that’s fair enough to have a guaranteed $22,000 instead of a gamble at only $200 more letting them do it their initial way of taking it to auction.

The Paperwork
The next morning, Thursday, I received the Motor Vehicle Purchase Agreement, or MVPA from Salesperson #2. It included the cost of the car, the trade-in addendum which showed the payoff amount and the amount due back to me, payment instructions and the delivery declaration.

Unfortunately, I noticed that they had listed $52,000 in the financing section and didn’t use the trade-in to lower the price or the tax of the car. I sent an email back within 10 minutes to Salesperson #2 and said “Just received the contract – it shows the trade-in addendum, but doesn’t show it applied to the cost of the car on 2A or 5D. Is that an oversight or what’s going on there?” He said “Hmm, I don’t see the trade-in either. Let me find the money from the trade-in. I’m assuming there was definitely an error.”

Additional info – once the MVPA was signed and delivered to the bank, they could fund my account that day, as long as it was before 4pm. As long as I had the funds and the signed paperwork done by Friday, Salesperson #2 told me I could pay for the car on Friday and pick it up that weekend.

No response.

So I emailed him again at 5pm, about 6 hours later. “Any word yet?” “Not yet. But I should have an answer soon. I’ll still be working on this even while I’m on vacation the next 8 days.”

8:30am the next morning, I emailed to let him know I had the funds as soon as they had the paperwork corrected, and got his vacation responder. I also emailed ‘[email protected]’ as directed by the website. No response from either of them.

4 hours later, I emailed the next contact person he listed on the vacation responder, Salesperson #3 “Is this something you can help me with? I have the money and everything is ready, I just need the contract fixed so I can pay you and get my car. Thank you!”

2 hours later, I emailed Salesperson #2 again “I guess we won’t be picking up the car this weekend then? I guess the person who does the contracts must have left for vacation before you did.”

I called Sales Service at Tesla again, and didn’t get the same lady this time. I’m guessing she was off receiving more training on how to act shocked and surprised on the telephone. I was told they’d let my salesperson know.

3 full days later, I emailed [email protected] again, and CC’d Salesperson #2 “Any word on this yet? The loan is credited to my account, so I’m already making payments on a car that I don’t have yet. Why does it take 5 days to correct 2 lines on the purchase agreement?”

For the record, it’s almost 2 months later, and I’ve still not seen any more response from Salesperson #2. I made a note to talk to my manager about vacation because I guess I’m not doing it right.

Finally an hour later, with no response from anyone, I emailed [email protected], salesperson #2, [email protected], salesperson #3 and salesperson #4 (an alternate listed on salesperson #2’s vacation responder) and expressed my frustration. There was no cursing, and given the circumstances I think I was fairly polite. I recounted all the issues I had getting people to talk to me so far, the fact that it’s been 5 days to fix the contract, etc. I also mentioned that “this is the worst car buying experience I’ve ever had, bar none, and I’ve bought cars sight unseen off of eBay, shipped them across the country and STILL had better communication and faster delivery than buying a car that I could LITERALLY walk to, from a high-end luxury car manufacturer who was supposed to be changing car buying for the better. The longer I wait to hear from you, the more I’ve been window-shopping Jaguars and Mercedes, because I have a feeling if I walked into their dealership with $56k in cash, someone would PROBABLY talk to me, and I’d most likely drive off with a car in under 2 hours.”

Salesperson #4
Two hours later, I got an email from a fourth salesperson, asking what a good time to call was. He was very apologetic to me on the phone, apologized for the horrible experience I’ve had so far and promised that they would ‘make it up to me.’ He DID manage to get the financing corrected on the form, and told me that the trade-in didn’t show up because that wasn’t the way they did it. He said I would get a check after the car was paid off and sold. It didn’t seem right to me, but it’s Texas and I know Tesla has to jump through some hoops for Texas. I was also so frustrated at this point I wasn’t prepared to delay things further by asking questions. My suspicion was that, credited properly, the savings would only be 8.25% of the roughly $2k positive equity, which wasn’t worth the additional delay to me. So once he got it corrected, I paid the $56k balance instantly. This was 8/28/18, for those of you keeping track.

Over the next few days, Salesperson #4 was in touch with me a few times, getting things like odometer readings on the Volt, etc. Overnighting documents, which I signed and overnighted back immediately. (spellcheck insists I totally verbed that noun, but I maintain overnighting is a word.) Finally on the 30th, I received an email from the Delivery Advisor for Texas that they scheduled delivery of my car for Sept 17th, nearly 3 weeks out. Despite the car just sitting there, 15 minutes away. I said “Are you sure, because it’s already there at the facility?” She said “It may be sooner, but I didn’t want to promise anything if I wasn’t sure.” Another call to Salesperson #4 put that right, on 8/31, he confirmed that I’d be good to pick up the car Saturday at 2pm.

Only it wasn’t.

Failed Delivery #2
Failed delivery #1 was the previous weekend when they told me it’d be ready if I had the paperwork done, and it wasn’t, just in case you missed it.

Getting ready to head out the door on Saturday afternoon for my scheduled delivery at 2pm, I sent Salesperson #4 an email around noon. “Based on everything that’s happened so far, I feel compelled to check before I drive an hour into Dallas. Can we confirm that they’re going to be ready for me at 2pm?” (They informed me previously that they couldn’t deliver it to me at the facility where it was stored, which was 20 minutes away, they had to deliver it in Downtown Dallas, which is about an hour.) I got a phone call right back, apparently when they went to transport my car from the storage facility on Friday night, they found the battery was dead and they couldn’t get it on the truck. Now the facility was closed for the weekend, including Monday, because that was Labor Day. He asked if I was able to pick it up on Tuesday. I told him no, I had meetings all day Tuesday, and wouldn’t be done until after they were closed, I’m sure.

He said, “What if we bring the car to you?” I said,“What?” He said, “Instead of bringing it to the Service Center, we would just have them bring it directly to your house, finish up the paperwork, pick up your trade-in and do it all from there, does that work?” I looked at my meetings and figured I could step out for 30 minutes or so. So we agreed on it.

2 hours later, I got a call from a lady in charge of Deliveries at the Dallas Service Center. They don’t do home deliveries, there’s no way for them to make it work, etc. They asked if I could come in Tuesday (again), I told them no (again). So they set up delivery for Wednesday at 2:30pm. She also told me that “If you don’t hear from us on Tuesday, just assume it’s not going to happen and call to reschedule again.” That was honestly the part that bothered me the most, was the casual attitude setting the stage to expect yet another failure on their part.

I emailed Salesperson #4 and said “Was just told that they don’t do delivery, they put me on the schedule for Wednesday and said if I don’t hear by Tuesday to just assume it’s not going to happen. Can I just cancel the whole transaction and refund my money? If this is the level of service I can expect, then even having the 4 year warranty isn’t going to be enough for me, and I don’t want to spend $56,000 for a car that’s been abused in a parking lot, left with a dead battery for months. I really had high hopes for this, but maybe I’m better off not dealing with a niche, boutique car seller.”

I also followed up by saying “I DO want to add that it’s been 10 times better since you got involved. I feel like you’re doing the best you can, but unfortunately one person can’t compensate for whatever is going on with the rest of the process. You’ve been pretty much top notch from the moment it landed in your lap, and the people at the 800 number have also been great. The people in charge of getting cars ready, getting loans ready, logistics and storage need some sort of serious help, retraining or additional staff, because this is terrible. I’ve bought a lot of cars, and I’ve fired dealerships for a LOT less than this level of ineptitude. But I wanted you to know I realize you’re doing everything you can, I just feel like that level of effort ends with you.”

Because I know it’s not HIS fault.

Yes, I’m nice to telemarketers, too.

But not door-to-door salesmen, f*** those guys.

Finally...
I had an email and a phone call from Saleperson #4 again, and I told him how frustrated I was, and he talked me down on the ledge, with about the 5th promise that they would “make it up to me”. I was like “At this point, I don’t know if giving me the car for free would make up for all of this, much less a pen or a baseball cap or a t-shirt.” Anyway, he talked me down off the ledge a bit and I agreed to go through with the sale on Wednesday.

Tuesday night, he sent me a text screenshot that showed the car had been delivered to the Service Center. So it was fine, it was happening, it was ready to go. The paperwork was signed 2 FULL WEEKS ago, the car had been paid off an entire week ago, but finally I would be able to actually see the thing for the first time, this car I’d spent $56,000 on, and fought over for 3 weeks now.

And let me be clear, I knew to expect a while from purchase to delivery, because the Internet prepared me with people that took a month or several to get their cars. But in all the cases I found, those cars were being reconditioned, or transferred, and Tesla DOESN’T DO THAT ANYMORE, so there’s NO EXCUSE. Even if they’d told me that it would be a month to get through the process, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but because it was always “You’ll be in your car this weekend if you just do this” and then an utter lack of communication after I’ve done the thing they asked, and made it as easy for them as possible. That’s the part that made it most frustrating… not the delay, but the constant baiting and snatching it away.

It had honestly been a bait and switch from the start. They don’t post pictures because the car you get will be refurbished and perfect. Oh wait, no. We’ll get you the car you want no matter where it is. Oh, no, we don’t do that either. If you sign the papers, we can have you in the car this weekend. Not only no, but now I’m going to pretend you don’t exist for 4 days. Et cetera…

But finally, armed with the knowledge that I had an appointment, and a screenshot proving my car was at their facility, I took the afternoon off work, made arrangements to have my daughter picked up at school so my wife could come with me, and we went to pick up the car for our 2:30pm appointment. Walking through the door 30 minutes early (Dallas traffic is unpredictable.)

So we walked in the door, with our paperwork, and we reported in to let them know we were there for our 2:30pm appointment. The person behind the desk, typed our name into the little computer. Hit a button a few times, and said “Give me just a second.”

Now… the more cynical and perceptive among you have probably already figured out what’s coming by how far the scrollbar on the side is from the bottom of the screen. Now that I’ve pointed it out, the optimistically naive among you are thinking, “Maybe the rest is just all about how much he loves the new car and everything came out great and they made it up to them and now he’s happy and this is just a funny story to share with total strangers on the internet and perhaps win some sort of award, like a Pulitzer for blogging.” Oh sweet, Summer child, I was like you, once, before I tried to buy a Tesla.

Which brings us to . . .

Finally . . . Failed Delivery #3
I already knew, I KNEW, what was coming, so it surprised me not at all when the person at the computer came back with their manager, who also pressed many buttons on the computer in hopes of making it tell her anything different from the truth, which was that they’d screwed me AGAIN. As irritated as I was by all this, I was also amused, because “Of course”, right? It’s kind of satisfying when you can predict the precise way in which the Universe will smack you over the head. It’s not pleasant, but you get that pleasure of saying “YES! THIS IS THE WORLD AS I KNOW IT!”

The afternoon took a bit of a surreal turn for me at that point – some subtle interplay of cynicism, high blood pressure, and the knowledge that THIS is the proper order, maybe. But I’ll recount as best as I can.

I said ‘Let me guess, you can’t find my appointment?” and the lady, whose voice I recognized from the call telling me that they don’t deliver to people’s houses, asked “Do you remember who set it up? Was it your salesperson?” and … being a nice person, at nearly my total wit’s end, my brain quested for the appropriate way to say “REALLY?!?! IT WAS YOU!!!!” I believe I paraphrased it back to say this was setup by someone from Dallas delivery when they called me on Saturday after they failed to make the previous delivery date. (Lest we forget that they ONLY called to tell me that they weren’t going to bring it to my house… they would have happily waited for me to show up downtown, wasting more than 2 hours of my life rather than call to tell me that the car didn’t make it.)

They tried to tell me that the car wasn’t here this time as well. So I produced my phone, with the screenshot from the previous night, showing the car arriving. We waited another several minutes while they typed things into the computer, perhaps trying to come up with and rehearse new and innovative ways to disappoint people and jerk them around.

Eventually, they told me that it was at a remote lot a few blocks away and that they were going to bring it over and clean it up and get it ready, and if I could come back at 4pm, it should be there. She suggested we go get lunch (It’s 2:30!) and come back in a few hours. I didn’t see that we had much choice, so went to the mall, where my wife jokingly suggested that we stop by the Tesla showroom. She’s obviously a laugh riot.

Delivery Attempt #4
Finally, at 5pm, we were able to actually get the car. There were one or two dents and scratches that we saw on the Mannheim report pictures that they’d sent over, that were much less pronounced in person, and one scratch that WASN’T there, but nothing to write home (or the Internet?) about. Overall, it was in beautiful condition, and looked almost brand new. Nothing wrong with the car at all that we weren’t expecting, every bit as described.

Except it didn’t have Autopilot. And the saleslady doing the demo (the same one who did/didn’t make the initial appointment) was like “It didn’t come with auto-pilot, did it?” “Yes, it did. That was one of my search criteria, that was one of the things that I specifically looked for when determining that the value of this car was worth it.” She went away for a few minutes and came back “You’re right, it was listed with Autopilot. We can get that enabled for you, it should be an over-the-air update.” I also asked when we would see the money back from the trade-in “Wasn’t that credited on the price of the car?” “No, it wasn’t.” “Well, they’ll probably mail you a check after it’s all closed out.”

At least we got to drive it home.

Autopilot
Like I said before, the car was great, and we enjoyed it. It was pretty much exactly what I’d hoped for, the drivetrain, power, and tech that I loved in the Volt (plus some!), the styling and luxury of the Jaguar. It was a way to get the best of both worlds. Overshadowed the whole time by the knowledge that it’s not over yet, and they’re still going to screw me more before this was over. At least the wait was over.

I waited, and the next day, Autopilot was not enabled. Not the day after, either. Or the one after that. I began doing research and online it was posted that you can tell whether a Model S has autopilot by whether you can see the cameras in the B pillars, which mine did not have. I began to think about whether I would want a different car, or whether I would agree to have them refund $6,000 (the cost of the autopilot option) off the price of the car. The answer was definitely $6,000. Autopilot is a neat parlor trick, but I like to drive, and I’d much rather have the money. Realistically it wasn’t likely they’d agree to that… would I take $3,000? $2,000? At what point would I say “Okay, then find me another 2015 with less than 30k miles, not black or red or green, and take this one back, or give me back my Volt.”

Finally, 6 days after I picked up the car, after no communication at all from Tesla, I emailed my salesperson (#4, in case you lost track). “I’m beginning to get a sneaking suspicion, that this particular Model S. The one I chose specifically because it had the upgraded interior, low miles, and autopilot, not only doesn’t have autopilot, but can’t actually be made to have auto-pilot at all, and it feels like I’m not hearing because you’re internally trying to figure out what the solution is, and you’re not coming up with a good one? How far off am I?” He responded pretty quickly “That is absolutely not the case. I want to be certain it can’t be activated remotely before having you schedule a service appointment.”

Eventually, it happened remotely. But once bitten twice shy. (For those keeping score, it turns out B pillar cameras are only on Autopilot 2.0 cars.)

The Survey
Tesla sent me a “Quick Survey” on 9/19. It won’t surprise you, if you’ve made it this far, that it ended up not being very quick at all. I want to point out though, it’s always best to try to be factual as you can, because people don’t want to deal with angry people, and the person you’re talking to is almost never the person responsible anyway. If you’re a person that complains, (I’m generally not, unless there’s a real opportunity to improve something, as I HOPE THIS does), make sure to carefully name people whose fault it is NOT. I made it clear there, here, and in emails that have been to Tesla, etc, that even though Salesperson #4 is my final salesperson, he is NOT AT ALL the reason for my displeasure. I work in business processes, and a lot of times, when looking at a specific incident they don’t see the entire assignment history, unless they look for it specifically, so you don’t want someone taking the blame who actually did their best to help you.

Also, realize that these are other people’s lives, and as terrible at their jobs as they are today, there’s a chance they can improve. Your goal when complaining or reporting things like this is to improve outcomes, get people training, fix processes, not get people fired. You have no idea what was going on in people’s lives that day. Sure, he might be a pothead trying to get to level 22 of Candy Crush, or he may have just heard his grandma died.

The Trade-In, Part 2
I’ll be impressed if anyone else remembered the trade-in at this point. I honestly almost forgot it myself and we’re talking about nearly $2000 of my money. On 9/15/18, the second week after buying the car, trading in and completing the paperwork, I reached out to Salesperson #4 because my GM Financial account still showed a balance on the car. I know multiple credit checks for the same purchase won’t lower your credit score, but a late payment will, even if it’s just $108. He was able to give me a tracking number for the final payment, and showed that it was sent two days before. That was a load off, even if there was no more news about my check.

A few weeks later, on 9/28 I followed up again: “Good afternoon! Have you been able to find any more information on the payment? I received the payoff confirmation today, so I feel better about that, but there should be still about $2k coming back to me personally, which would be nice to have. Thank you!” He responded back “Happy to hear you received the payoff confirmation. The only thing I see that we are waiting on is the title from the bank. I’ll have to check if the $2k refund is tied to this.”

Which was fine, but that was also 3 weeks ago. I actually, literally today, a few hours ago, sent him another email to follow up. “Since it's been almost 2 months and I still haven't seen the check, I have to ask the question again that I asked before I bought the car. Should the trade-in allowance have been applied to the purchase of the car to reduce the amount of tax paid? Not only am I not getting the $1600, but did I also overpay $1815 worth of sales tax due to this?”. He replied a few hours later: “I’ve forwarded your e-mail to management to handle the case moving forward.”

Honestly, if I’d received the check before now I wouldn’t have probably pursued it any farther, just cashed the check and went on my way, but now I’ve had a good rest from the initial events. I have the car finally, and where I was ready to be done with it before, now I want to make sure that I’m not (wow, almost can’t even type it with a straight face) being taken advantage of. You know, more than I have been so far.

Closing
Mr. Musk, I love your cars, your ideas, and your ambition. I love that you made a beautiful 4 door sedan before giving up and making a hulking soccer mom car. Nearly everything that you’ve done and set your mind to is a thing that I look at and think that the idea is so brilliant, that it has to succeed, and if it doesn’t succeed, it’s almost more an indictment of the world itself than a reflection on the merit of the idea itself.

I know you’ve had some hard times lately, I know you have more hard times coming, but I also see some amazing accomplishments on the horizon as well. Look, if you need to hang onto my money a little longer to tide you over, I get it. Just let me know that you know that you owe it to me, and give me some kind of a plan. I know you’re good for it, I just want to know that you know, you know?

“Making It Up to Me”
You don’t think anyone there remembers that they said this, do you? Besides, I’ve already got almost three pens and several shirts, I’d hate to put anyone out.
 
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Wow, I'm glad it finally worked out for you. I'm currently in the CPO buying process and it doesn't seem any better than what you just described. I'm a week in after deposit, all loan papers are completed and my delivery adviser can't even give me an ETA on delivery or even return a email with various questions. Unfortunately I'm in a different state so if those 'failed deliveries' happened in my case I don't think I'd keep as cool and collected as yourself. Find it comical that my my mother purchased a model 3 and had it delivered from CA to CO in 2 weeks and I can't even fly out to pick up a used car in LA that needs to be delivered to Marina Del Rey service center but no ETA can be determined. Starting to question if my love for the model S over the 3 will be my downfall in this CPO buying experience.
 
Thanks for that excellent write-up. It was considerable work to write it, and I am sure it was somewhat unpleasant to re-live some of those moments.
This has pretty well cemented my resistance to buying a CPO car rather than to "simply" buy out my lease on my 2015 Model S. I know where the dings are on my car, i know what has been repaired, and even though the buy-out price is more than comparable-sounding cars I see on the Tesla web site in their used car inventory, and even though I have the nagging fear that there is a really nice car out there I could buy for less than the leased car. BUT then there are the horror stories like yours. Just the time it took for you to get your car would cost me another month's lease, or a month of a rental car, if it happened to me. Terrible experience, and if Tesla doesn't fix that process as well as several other processes, they will be doomed to fail.
Before the Model 3 came out, Tesla was a low-volume specialty retailer, and most customers got very personal treatment. No more. they have failed to staff up and their processes have not scaled up to match their current level of business. If there were a viable alternative, I'd buy something else, but at this point Tesla is still a year or two ahead of most of the competition. But not for long....
 
Before the Model 3 came out, Tesla was a low-volume specialty retailer, and most customers got very personal treatment. No more. they have failed to staff up and their processes have not scaled up to match their current level of business. If there were a viable alternative, I'd buy something else, but at this point Tesla is still a year or two ahead of most of the competition. But not for long....

I wish their treatment of customers buying a used car at least equaled the treatment you get at a used car dealer where you can see detailed information about the car, see photos, inspect personally, do a test drive, etc., and then drive home a refurbished car in great shape. They've instead come up with an experience that is worse in so many ways than how you are treated at a used car dealer.

I can't believe I'm saying here how I only wish Tesla treated their customers as well as a used car dealer selling CPO cars but that would be a tremendous improvement to what they have now...
 
i traded in a 2014 S60 when we picked up the 2016 P90D. i had about 13-14k equity in the car. the said they will mail me a check for the difference over the payoff to the bank.

i went back to my emails from over two years ago:

19 days from trade in for Tesla to simply pay off the loan at my CU and another 14 days AFTER that to get a refund check for the 13-14k. so all told, about 5 weeks to settle it up.

and that was 2 years ago before things got crazy. so it could be a while :(
 
I purchased an inventory 2013 P85 5yrs ago and it was a similar experience of terrible communication, missed delivery deadlines, and swirled paint that didn't show up in a dark parking lot at night when I took delivery. I'm now attempting to buy a 100D and it is feeling very similar. Car is in TX. Attempting to plan a date to fly out there with Salesperson #1, purchase the car, and drive it back... They're pushing me to fill out all the paper work (which I've done except for signing the purchase agreement) because I have yet to see any pictures of the car.. despite requesting them several times. Delivery is "scheduled" for 11/30, but we are reluctant to lock it in due to the unknown condition of the car and unreliability of their delivery process...
 
Wow what a horrible experience! Sorry to hear of this

So has anyone from Tesla acknowledged that they also overcharged you in sales tax on the S since you had a trade in? I would think they owe you that difference in overpayment along with the $2,000 equity from the trade
 
I was considering buying CPO Tesla but after reading all these negative stories there is no chance until they improve and learn how to sell their cars.
And i really cant understand how is this even possible ,why this is not @ news, people are buying 70k car and waiting one or 2 months to get it after 100s of phone calls and emails.
No wonder why they are doing everything over the phone or email. - So you cant actually go "there" and express your frustration.
I requested pictures of one CPO car and got 3 !!! pictures that look like they were shoot with my 2008 Nokia phone. You cant see absolutely nothing!!
Nobody called me (which i requested) to ask me if im happy with those pictures. Nothing!
When i visited my local show room sales people did everything to tell me how CPO cars are bad and why i should get new one from them.
Do these Tesla people work on commission? What is their hourly pay? Do they get any bonuses? I would like to know that.
 
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I purchased an inventory 2013 P85 5yrs ago and it was a similar experience of terrible communication, missed delivery deadlines, and swirled paint that didn't show up in a dark parking lot at night when I took delivery. I'm now attempting to buy a 100D and it is feeling very similar. Car is in TX. Attempting to plan a date to fly out there with Salesperson #1, purchase the car, and drive it back... They're pushing me to fill out all the paper work (which I've done except for signing the purchase agreement) because I have yet to see any pictures of the car.. despite requesting them several times. Delivery is "scheduled" for 11/30, but we are reluctant to lock it in due to the unknown condition of the car and unreliability of their delivery process...

Why don't you sign the paperwork and add the clause "contingent on personal inspection of vehicle."

You are being super smart not signing the final paperwork until you verify they are not trying to sell you a damaged car.
 
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Your write-up was excellent and I suspect very in-line with the majority of folks trying to purchase a car under the current Tesla CPO program.

My wife and I each purchased a Model S under the original CPO program. My wife got her car near the end of the program. Tesla did an excellent job prepping the cars and delivering vehicles that looked essentially showroom new. However, even under the old program, communication and delay issues reared themselves on several occasions. My wife's car was a particular challenge since it was being transferred from MN to IL.

Because of the great cars Tesla delivered, we were able to overlook the communication challenges Tesla faced and wrote it off to growing pains for the Company. As a result, I had been recommending a CPO Tesla as a viable option to anybody that asked me about my experience. That all changed when my cousin tried to purchase a CPO car in South FL, where we also live now. Without going through all the details, it seems like every time Tesla had a chance to get closer to making a deal, they ultimately failed. In many cases it seemed like they were actually trying not to sell him a car.

When Tesla first started the CPO program, I jumped on it. A new Tesla was a bit of a stretch and a CPO car was perfect for me. At that time, I was able to go to Highland Park, IL (where they kept all the Midwest region CPO cars) and actually test drive the CPO cars I was interested in. To me the BIGGEST issue with the current program, without discounting the myriad issues the OP noted, is the refusal to let a potential customer actually see the car they want to purchase. Not being able to test drive the car is not that big a deal, but when they tell you the car you want is literally at their facility or in a lot nearby, but you can't see it........that is infuriating to me. Some of the higher end CPO cars have essentially six-figure price tags, but you are expected to take it on faith (and a few crappy pics) that the car is essentially as described. That is ludicrous.

I've wanted to sit with somebody of influence at Tesla and explain our experiences and those of my cousin to somebody that might be able to influence changes to the program, but I am not hopeful. We are huge fans of the car, but not of the buying experience. I hope somebody at Tesla is listening.
 
I am sure they know how awful the CPO program is.

Yet, they keep making it worse. Latest is how you can't transfer a vehicle out of California, so for many states with less than CA sales tax, you end up paying up to 10% extra.

What makes not being able to test drive the car before purchase really horrible is the fact that they have recently modified the CPO warranty exclude squeaks and rattles and you would not know of the squeaks and rattles they will no longer fix until you buy the car. o_O

Anyone who thinks buying a used car from a typical used car dealer is the worst car buying experience has not bought a CPO Tesla :p
 
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Reading posts like this make me quite worried when it comes delivery time for my Model S... Since they don't deliver any more I have to fly out to San Francisco from Florida to sign and pick up the car.
Communication has been absolutely abysmal (surprise!), and I worry they'll tell me it's delivered, I'll fly out there and it won't be there.
 
Reading posts like this make me quite worried when it comes delivery time for my Model S... Since they don't deliver any more I have to fly out to San Francisco from Florida to sign and pick up the car.
Communication has been absolutely abysmal (surprise!), and I worry they'll tell me it's delivered, I'll fly out there and it won't be there.
I just recently flew into Dallas to pick up a service loaner, and while the car was ready, the contract and paperwork was not. Short story: waited 8hrs at the Dallas store and ended up driving the car home as a loaner. I'm still waiting on the contract. Reserved 11/02 and picked up 11/24.