On April 25th, I managed to snag a 2013 Model S P85 (tech package, no spoiler, 21" turbines, sound studio, free supercharging, air suspension, carbon fiber interior) with the help of EV-CPO.com (thanks @HankLloydRight!!!) with 73,942 miles for $38.5k. According to EV-CPO, the car is the 10th cheapest P85 offered under their perview. Below is a VERY detailed timeline of how the process played out:
April 25th - EV-CPO alerted me of the massive dump of used Teslas. Deposit placed. Jumping up and down out of joy for hours ensued!
April 26th - First correspondence with my Owner Advisor, who walked me through filling out the task checklist of six items (delivery location, trade-in, driver's license, insurance information, registration information, and payment method) to complete. I was mulling over the idea of trading in my daily driver (2011 Ford Taurus SHO), but the initial blind offer from Tesla was well below what I owed on the car. I was also introduced to the regional delivery advisor (who has the title of Delivery Experience Specialist) that would be sending me photos of the car prior to transport to the Lyndhurst, Ohio Service Center (the car was in Florida) where I would be picking it up. The photos were necessary in the event there were physical issues with the car that would cause me to pass on it. I was told that once I gave the okay to transport it, I was on the hook for the $2,000.00 transport fee.
April 30th - The iPhone 6s photos below were sent to me by the Delivery Experience Specialist. Given the car was covered in the stock paint armor (you can make out faint lines of it along the edges of the body panels), the front bumper damage didn't look too bad to me. I'm also not concerned about the road rash on wheels because honestly, it's possible I will be contributing more to that myself. After carefully combing over the photos for a few hours, I gave the go ahead to transport the vehicle to the Ohio Service Center. I did not receive confirmation back from the Delivery Experience Specialist that my approval was received.
May 1st and 2nd - I sent one email per day to the Delivery Experience Specialist without receiving a reply. I thought the silence was kind of odd because there were significant amounts of emails being exchanged up until this point. I still had questions about financing and coordinating that with receiving the Motor Vehicle Purchase Agreement (MVPA) and I also just wanted confirmation that they saw I approved transport.
May 3rd - Assuming the Delivery Experience Specialist was out of the office, I CC'd in my Owner Advisor. I received an email shortly after from the Delivery Experience Specialist. Financing details were confirmed.
May 4th through May 7th - More questions from my end about the process and communication goes dark from Tesla's side.
May 8th - I CC my Owner Advisor back in and get a response from that person. I finally get an email back from the Delivery Experience Specialist asking to set up a delivery date and time. I chose May 18th at 1:30pm and a confirmation email was sent back to me acknowledging the appointment. Since I had a 7 hour round trip from where I live to where I was picking up the car, I set up a reservation with Enterprise, which has a location really close to my home. The plan was to dump the rental car down the street after my wife and I took possession of our Tesla.
May 10th - The Delivery Experience Specialist introduced me to the local (Ohio) Delivery Advisor. Questions about taxes in Ohio were answered. Since I was registering the car in Michigan, Tesla collected the tax up front at Michigan's rate (6% instead of Ohio's state tax of 5.75% and a county tax as high as 2%). I confirmed with our Secretary of State (what we call our DMV) that this was proper and that as long as I show proof of purchase in Ohio with the tax being collected there, I was off the hook for paying it again in Michigan.
May 11th - Final MVPA was received. I asked for a copy of the Monroney sticker and was denied.
May 12th - I was told the "Vehicle has been assigned a load". This statement was a surprise to me and made me concerned. Granted, I was not told the car had been transported yet, but I gave the go ahead to transport twelve days earlier, so I pressed for confirmation of the delivery date. I also paid a good portion of my down payment this day. For the record (since another CPO experience said otherwise), I was not asked to place a downpayment at all.
May 14th - The financed funds were wired to Tesla and I fired off another email to the Delivery Experience Specialist and the local Owner Advisor asking some questions and also asking for confirmation of the delivery date. I got some questions answered, but both of them neglected to state anything about the delivery date.
May 15th - I send yet another email asking for confirmation of the delivery date. The Delivery Experience Specialist chimes in and says "I am checking on your vehicles movement, it has an arrival date this week." Since we were three days out from delivery, I was starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach because my wife and I had already made plans to take off work, we locked in the rental car, and I had already activated insurance on the car. I sent off another email to all three Tesla people I worked with up to this point and expressed (rather franticly) that I was reading between the lines of what I was being told and that I was very concerned that I was going to be able to pick up my car on the 18th.
May 16th - I received an email from the Delivery Experience Specialist stating the following:
"I would like to continue with your delivery for May 18th at 1:30pm. Transport expectations can change any time and can feel very frustrating. It is time for me to step back and let [the local Delivery Advisor] move forward with all communication as your delivery advisor. This will better your experience and appreciate the feedback."
This email struck a huge nerve with me. Not only was I being indirectly told that my car's transport to Ohio was possibly being delayed, the person who locked in the delivery date was walking away from communicating with me! I fired off a rather angry email back to everyone I've corresponded with up to this point and basically stated that I was very disappointed with the disjointed and partial communication I was receiving from Tesla with regard to the whereabouts of my car. Two hours later, I receive a call from the local Delivery Advisor stating that my email had made it all the way up to their regional executive team. I received an apology for the lack of proper communication and was told that they had contacted the transport driver for an ETA. Given the timing, the car was supposed to arrive in the morning on May 18th. I was given the option of a rushed delivery processed, which I turned down since I wanted them to look over everything as best as possible prior to delivery. We then rescheduled delivery to May 19th and I was comp'd a one-way rental from Enterprise down to the Ohio Service Center. Not more than five minutes after the call, I received another call from the Delivery Experience Specialist who apologized for the communication problems.
May 17th - The local Delivery Advisor called to let me know that upon inspection of the car, they found the MCU had some bubbling and that "since you have not taken delivery of the vehicle and did not know about the problem prior to approving transport, we're going to go ahead and take care of the problem even though it's not covered by the used Tesla bumper-to-bumper warranty." Again, this caused another sinking feeling in my stomach. I asked why the MCU was not covered by the "bumper-to-bumper" warranty and I was told that their Service Managed told them that "anything located in the interior of the car was not covered under the warranty." After doing research for months on end about my purchase and sensing that I was going to explode at the local Delivery Advisor over the phone, I asked to kindly be provided with a copy of the warranty terms via email. After receiving this, I penned an email back going over the terms word for word and explaining how what was stated to me by the local Delivery Advisor was completely incorrect. I threatened to walk away from the deal unless the phone statement was completely walked back in writing. An hour later, the local Delivery Advisor sincerely apologized and stated that the Service Manager thought my car had an expired warranty, which is why I was being told incorrect information. Satisfied with this, I stated we're moving forward and that I would be there for delivery on the 19th. I called up Enterprise and redeemed the rental reservation that Tesla comp'd for me.
May 18th - I was advised to grab the rental car a day early, so I did. The car was a brand new Ford Escape SE AWD. My wife drives a 2013 Escape, so the car was very familiar and had plenty of room for my son's car seat since he would be making the trek with us.
May 19th - DELIVERY DAY! My wife and I packed up the rental Escape and drove the 200 mile trek to the Service Center At this point, the emotional rollercoaster was definitely taking a toll on me. About 10 minutes away from the Service Center, I began freaking out. What if the car looked absolutely horrible in person and I had wasted all of this time and energy for nothing? What if there were additional problems that they were going to spring on me at the last minute? If I walk away, how the crap are we going to get home?!?!
We finally pulled up at the Lyndhurst Service Center at 1:40pm, ten minutes late for our delivery appointment (I called ahead saying we were running a little behind). Surprisingly, there were very few Model 3s in the parking lot. We were kindly greeted and asked if we were there for a delivery. I said yes and provided my name. Within a few minutes, the local Delivery Advisor came out to greet us an also introduced the Customer Experience Specialist who was going to give us a formal tour of the car itself.
At this point, we were taken to the delivery area (2 garage bays) and we had ten minutes to look over the entire car. After carefully inspecting the front bumper, I concluded that my gamble with it's unknown condition had paid off. 95% of the damage shown in the pictures is only on the paint armor!! The road rash also didn't look terrible in person. The MCU bubble is gigantic, but that doesn't matter since they're going to be taking care of the problem. Aside from standard wear and tear, the car was in phenomenal condition! The tires all appear to be replaced very recently and have a date stamp of October 2017. I was told at this point that both the passenger side front and rear door handles were not presenting by touching them, so they were adding those to the due bill list of things to be fixed after delivery.
After inspection, I was given a large number of papers to sign. Further clarification of the titling process also came to light at this time. Tesla is registering the car in the state of Ohio on my behalf. Once I receive the title in the mail, I can then register the car in Michigan, since Tesla is not allowed (due to stupid state law) to sell the car to me in my home state.
Once everything was signed, the Customer Experience Specialist gave us a 15-20 minute tour of the car. His only mistake during the process was not knowing the car did not come with Autopilot. It took him a little extra time to regurgitate his knowledge of the older steering column stalk controls, but I managed to figure it all out on the spot in a couple of seconds. He was also not aware of the fact that recent firmware had disabled passive entry to temporarily correct the theft issue.
After walking through everything, the Customer Experience Specialist took a few pictures of us posing with our car. He then drove it to the front of the building where our rental car was. We transferred all of our stuff to our Tesla, exchanged some congratulatory handshakes with him and the local Delivery Advisor, and then began our trip back to Michigan!
Driving home was uneventful other than our son getting a little cranky around hour 6 of the drive. We stopped at the Toledo supercharger located at 1500 E. Alexis Road Meijer parking lot. While setting the car up to supercharge for the first time, we had our first encounter with someone who wanted to ask questions! The guy said he had never seen anyone charge their Tesla at the supercharger before and had plenty of questions about how everything works. After answering his questions, we headed inside the Meijer for 30 minutes and did some grocery shopping. After coming out, the car had charged up about 120 miles worth of energy (the 300mph rate began to taper off as the battery filled up, which I understand is normal). Disconnecting from the supercharger was also uneventful and we headed the rest of the way home. During the drive, we encountered some pretty nasty downpours. I'm happy to report the car's weather seals performed admirably without any indication of leakage!
So that's about it! As stated, I've got a due bill in place for the replacement parts the car needs (door handles and MCU). I also had them pen into the agreement a significant discount on the LTE upgrade to compensate for the communications troubles, which they didn't have to do and is GREATLY appreciated. All in all, the experience has been a positive one, but could have been better if the communication was a little stronger and more consistent from Tesla's end. I'm glad I ultimately did follow through with purchasing the car though.
The driving experience so far has been life changing and unlike anything I could have imagined. I forgot to mention that I had never driven a Tesla before sitting behind the wheel of mine (I had only sat in a few at car shows)! The smooth and quiet ride is unreal and really does a number on your senses knowing how ICE cars have driven for my entire life. The acceleration is mind blowing and has surprised everyone I've taken for a ride in the past 24 hours. Getting my car is truly a dream come true!!
Pre-Transport Photos:
April 25th - EV-CPO alerted me of the massive dump of used Teslas. Deposit placed. Jumping up and down out of joy for hours ensued!
April 26th - First correspondence with my Owner Advisor, who walked me through filling out the task checklist of six items (delivery location, trade-in, driver's license, insurance information, registration information, and payment method) to complete. I was mulling over the idea of trading in my daily driver (2011 Ford Taurus SHO), but the initial blind offer from Tesla was well below what I owed on the car. I was also introduced to the regional delivery advisor (who has the title of Delivery Experience Specialist) that would be sending me photos of the car prior to transport to the Lyndhurst, Ohio Service Center (the car was in Florida) where I would be picking it up. The photos were necessary in the event there were physical issues with the car that would cause me to pass on it. I was told that once I gave the okay to transport it, I was on the hook for the $2,000.00 transport fee.
April 30th - The iPhone 6s photos below were sent to me by the Delivery Experience Specialist. Given the car was covered in the stock paint armor (you can make out faint lines of it along the edges of the body panels), the front bumper damage didn't look too bad to me. I'm also not concerned about the road rash on wheels because honestly, it's possible I will be contributing more to that myself. After carefully combing over the photos for a few hours, I gave the go ahead to transport the vehicle to the Ohio Service Center. I did not receive confirmation back from the Delivery Experience Specialist that my approval was received.
May 1st and 2nd - I sent one email per day to the Delivery Experience Specialist without receiving a reply. I thought the silence was kind of odd because there were significant amounts of emails being exchanged up until this point. I still had questions about financing and coordinating that with receiving the Motor Vehicle Purchase Agreement (MVPA) and I also just wanted confirmation that they saw I approved transport.
May 3rd - Assuming the Delivery Experience Specialist was out of the office, I CC'd in my Owner Advisor. I received an email shortly after from the Delivery Experience Specialist. Financing details were confirmed.
May 4th through May 7th - More questions from my end about the process and communication goes dark from Tesla's side.
May 8th - I CC my Owner Advisor back in and get a response from that person. I finally get an email back from the Delivery Experience Specialist asking to set up a delivery date and time. I chose May 18th at 1:30pm and a confirmation email was sent back to me acknowledging the appointment. Since I had a 7 hour round trip from where I live to where I was picking up the car, I set up a reservation with Enterprise, which has a location really close to my home. The plan was to dump the rental car down the street after my wife and I took possession of our Tesla.
May 10th - The Delivery Experience Specialist introduced me to the local (Ohio) Delivery Advisor. Questions about taxes in Ohio were answered. Since I was registering the car in Michigan, Tesla collected the tax up front at Michigan's rate (6% instead of Ohio's state tax of 5.75% and a county tax as high as 2%). I confirmed with our Secretary of State (what we call our DMV) that this was proper and that as long as I show proof of purchase in Ohio with the tax being collected there, I was off the hook for paying it again in Michigan.
May 11th - Final MVPA was received. I asked for a copy of the Monroney sticker and was denied.
May 12th - I was told the "Vehicle has been assigned a load". This statement was a surprise to me and made me concerned. Granted, I was not told the car had been transported yet, but I gave the go ahead to transport twelve days earlier, so I pressed for confirmation of the delivery date. I also paid a good portion of my down payment this day. For the record (since another CPO experience said otherwise), I was not asked to place a downpayment at all.
May 14th - The financed funds were wired to Tesla and I fired off another email to the Delivery Experience Specialist and the local Owner Advisor asking some questions and also asking for confirmation of the delivery date. I got some questions answered, but both of them neglected to state anything about the delivery date.
May 15th - I send yet another email asking for confirmation of the delivery date. The Delivery Experience Specialist chimes in and says "I am checking on your vehicles movement, it has an arrival date this week." Since we were three days out from delivery, I was starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach because my wife and I had already made plans to take off work, we locked in the rental car, and I had already activated insurance on the car. I sent off another email to all three Tesla people I worked with up to this point and expressed (rather franticly) that I was reading between the lines of what I was being told and that I was very concerned that I was going to be able to pick up my car on the 18th.
May 16th - I received an email from the Delivery Experience Specialist stating the following:
"I would like to continue with your delivery for May 18th at 1:30pm. Transport expectations can change any time and can feel very frustrating. It is time for me to step back and let [the local Delivery Advisor] move forward with all communication as your delivery advisor. This will better your experience and appreciate the feedback."
This email struck a huge nerve with me. Not only was I being indirectly told that my car's transport to Ohio was possibly being delayed, the person who locked in the delivery date was walking away from communicating with me! I fired off a rather angry email back to everyone I've corresponded with up to this point and basically stated that I was very disappointed with the disjointed and partial communication I was receiving from Tesla with regard to the whereabouts of my car. Two hours later, I receive a call from the local Delivery Advisor stating that my email had made it all the way up to their regional executive team. I received an apology for the lack of proper communication and was told that they had contacted the transport driver for an ETA. Given the timing, the car was supposed to arrive in the morning on May 18th. I was given the option of a rushed delivery processed, which I turned down since I wanted them to look over everything as best as possible prior to delivery. We then rescheduled delivery to May 19th and I was comp'd a one-way rental from Enterprise down to the Ohio Service Center. Not more than five minutes after the call, I received another call from the Delivery Experience Specialist who apologized for the communication problems.
May 17th - The local Delivery Advisor called to let me know that upon inspection of the car, they found the MCU had some bubbling and that "since you have not taken delivery of the vehicle and did not know about the problem prior to approving transport, we're going to go ahead and take care of the problem even though it's not covered by the used Tesla bumper-to-bumper warranty." Again, this caused another sinking feeling in my stomach. I asked why the MCU was not covered by the "bumper-to-bumper" warranty and I was told that their Service Managed told them that "anything located in the interior of the car was not covered under the warranty." After doing research for months on end about my purchase and sensing that I was going to explode at the local Delivery Advisor over the phone, I asked to kindly be provided with a copy of the warranty terms via email. After receiving this, I penned an email back going over the terms word for word and explaining how what was stated to me by the local Delivery Advisor was completely incorrect. I threatened to walk away from the deal unless the phone statement was completely walked back in writing. An hour later, the local Delivery Advisor sincerely apologized and stated that the Service Manager thought my car had an expired warranty, which is why I was being told incorrect information. Satisfied with this, I stated we're moving forward and that I would be there for delivery on the 19th. I called up Enterprise and redeemed the rental reservation that Tesla comp'd for me.
May 18th - I was advised to grab the rental car a day early, so I did. The car was a brand new Ford Escape SE AWD. My wife drives a 2013 Escape, so the car was very familiar and had plenty of room for my son's car seat since he would be making the trek with us.
May 19th - DELIVERY DAY! My wife and I packed up the rental Escape and drove the 200 mile trek to the Service Center At this point, the emotional rollercoaster was definitely taking a toll on me. About 10 minutes away from the Service Center, I began freaking out. What if the car looked absolutely horrible in person and I had wasted all of this time and energy for nothing? What if there were additional problems that they were going to spring on me at the last minute? If I walk away, how the crap are we going to get home?!?!
We finally pulled up at the Lyndhurst Service Center at 1:40pm, ten minutes late for our delivery appointment (I called ahead saying we were running a little behind). Surprisingly, there were very few Model 3s in the parking lot. We were kindly greeted and asked if we were there for a delivery. I said yes and provided my name. Within a few minutes, the local Delivery Advisor came out to greet us an also introduced the Customer Experience Specialist who was going to give us a formal tour of the car itself.
At this point, we were taken to the delivery area (2 garage bays) and we had ten minutes to look over the entire car. After carefully inspecting the front bumper, I concluded that my gamble with it's unknown condition had paid off. 95% of the damage shown in the pictures is only on the paint armor!! The road rash also didn't look terrible in person. The MCU bubble is gigantic, but that doesn't matter since they're going to be taking care of the problem. Aside from standard wear and tear, the car was in phenomenal condition! The tires all appear to be replaced very recently and have a date stamp of October 2017. I was told at this point that both the passenger side front and rear door handles were not presenting by touching them, so they were adding those to the due bill list of things to be fixed after delivery.
After inspection, I was given a large number of papers to sign. Further clarification of the titling process also came to light at this time. Tesla is registering the car in the state of Ohio on my behalf. Once I receive the title in the mail, I can then register the car in Michigan, since Tesla is not allowed (due to stupid state law) to sell the car to me in my home state.
Once everything was signed, the Customer Experience Specialist gave us a 15-20 minute tour of the car. His only mistake during the process was not knowing the car did not come with Autopilot. It took him a little extra time to regurgitate his knowledge of the older steering column stalk controls, but I managed to figure it all out on the spot in a couple of seconds. He was also not aware of the fact that recent firmware had disabled passive entry to temporarily correct the theft issue.
After walking through everything, the Customer Experience Specialist took a few pictures of us posing with our car. He then drove it to the front of the building where our rental car was. We transferred all of our stuff to our Tesla, exchanged some congratulatory handshakes with him and the local Delivery Advisor, and then began our trip back to Michigan!
Driving home was uneventful other than our son getting a little cranky around hour 6 of the drive. We stopped at the Toledo supercharger located at 1500 E. Alexis Road Meijer parking lot. While setting the car up to supercharge for the first time, we had our first encounter with someone who wanted to ask questions! The guy said he had never seen anyone charge their Tesla at the supercharger before and had plenty of questions about how everything works. After answering his questions, we headed inside the Meijer for 30 minutes and did some grocery shopping. After coming out, the car had charged up about 120 miles worth of energy (the 300mph rate began to taper off as the battery filled up, which I understand is normal). Disconnecting from the supercharger was also uneventful and we headed the rest of the way home. During the drive, we encountered some pretty nasty downpours. I'm happy to report the car's weather seals performed admirably without any indication of leakage!
So that's about it! As stated, I've got a due bill in place for the replacement parts the car needs (door handles and MCU). I also had them pen into the agreement a significant discount on the LTE upgrade to compensate for the communications troubles, which they didn't have to do and is GREATLY appreciated. All in all, the experience has been a positive one, but could have been better if the communication was a little stronger and more consistent from Tesla's end. I'm glad I ultimately did follow through with purchasing the car though.
The driving experience so far has been life changing and unlike anything I could have imagined. I forgot to mention that I had never driven a Tesla before sitting behind the wheel of mine (I had only sat in a few at car shows)! The smooth and quiet ride is unreal and really does a number on your senses knowing how ICE cars have driven for my entire life. The acceleration is mind blowing and has surprised everyone I've taken for a ride in the past 24 hours. Getting my car is truly a dream come true!!
Pre-Transport Photos:
