My ongoing Model 3 troubles since day one!

[Rooster6655]

I didn't ignore anything posted.

At delivery, the OP stated he noticed, "...a toe hitch SR+ rather than just my order of black SR+...there is white writing on the front screen like a second hand car lot. Rear door misaligned. Scratches front and back in the paint, paint defects, misaligned boot seal, side pillars covered in sticky glue misting them all up."

These are all pretty clear signs that the car should have been declined at delivery.

Well I already replied explaining the practises that go on and the promises the staff make and deceitfully getting people to sign and then promising everything will be sorted quickly, leaving people having to wait beyond the 7 days (which is meant for the driving feel, not defects)

 

[tvad]

Well I already replied explains the practises that go on and the promises the staff make deceitfully getting people to sign and then promising everything will be sorted quickly.

Sometimes one has to stand up for oneself and not be pressured into doing something one doesn't want to do.

 

[Rooster6655]

Sometimes one has to stand up for oneself and not be pressured into doing something one doesn't want to do.

Yes of course.

We also have something called basic trust if we ask someone a simple question like this isn’t signing for the car and the person says no then we believe them and don’t expect them to lie.

The 7 day return policy is meant to be for getting a feel of the car and is in addition to any consumer rights.

 

[tvad]

Yes of course...

The 7 day return policy is meant to be for getting a feel of the car and is in addition to any consumer rights.

I think we agree on the 7 day return policy, although I believe it is intended for more than "getting a feel of the car".

Nevertheless, after experiencing problems post-delivery he should have returned the car for a refund. Instead of that option, the OP is left with either getting the car fixed, which he is discovering is a problem, or returning the car under the UK's 6 month period (as far as I've been able to ascertain).

In the final analysis, the OP's situation would have been much different if he had declined the car at delivery, or if he had returned it within the 7 day window...which takes us back to my original post which merely stated the facts of his decisions.

 

[Rooster6655]

I think we agree on the 7 day return policy, although I believe it is intended for more than "getting a feel of the car".

Nevertheless, after experiencing problems post-delivery he should have returned the car for a refund. Instead of that option, the OP is left with either getting the car fixed, which he is discovering is a problem, or returning the car under the UK's 6 month period (as far as I've been able to ascertain).

In the final analysis, the OP's situation would have been much different if he had declined the car at delivery, or if he had returned it within the 7 day window...which takes us back to my original post which merely stated the facts of his decisions.

Yes he could have rejected it but put faith in the company which in hindsight has many problems actually actioning anything.

I’ve not heard of such problems taking so long with other manufacturers obviously they have some issues that they are ignoring.

 

[tvad]

Yes he could have rejected it but put faith in the company which in hindsight has many problems actually actioning anything.

I’ve not heard of such problems taking so long with other manufacturers so it’s just annoying.

Annoying yes.

 

[OCR1]

We also have something called basic trust if we ask someone a simple question like this isn’t signing for the car and the person says no then we believe them and don’t expect them to lie.

That must be a UK thing. We don’t have anything like that here in California.

 

[MrBadger]

Many of us were not allowed to inspect the car at point of collection and duped into signing acceptance. Our inspection process was to report any defects within 24 hours/100 miles - not easy when its dark, wet and many return journeys were > 100 miles. Only so much you can inspect the car parked outside on the side of the road in the dark and wet. Basically sit in, check app, adjust seat, off you go.

I just want to reiterate this point. I came to handover process with pre prepared dashcam and TeslaFi. Its my wifes car, so I was the passenger, so first thing that I did was plug in dashcam - lets say that took a minute.

Dashcam started 15:09:30
During 15:14 I went against their 'health and safety' instructions not to get out of car to check jack points - I had got permission from manager but not handover guy.
By end of 15:16:32 we were on the way out.

So 8 minutes (call it 9 to plug in dashcam) for handover. We spend more time parked outside getting the missing floor mats.

I won't post the video as it shows close ups of staff and me and there is only so much you can fuzz out! But I have it.

 

[Kiwiadventure]

New Zealand has only had paint issues on Model 3's and all fixed by Tesla as soon as it could be done by one of the best auto repair shops and no money spared by Tesla. Fit and finish of the interior are excellent and body panel gaps are excellent as well. I'm very fussy over my vehicles and will never except sloppy work so I've been very impressed by Tesla to date.
I've owned a few new BMW's and even had one BMW returned & exchanged with another new BMW free because of on going problems. VW's with horrible gear boxes which I've had to jump up and down to get repaired as well Jeep. Fait and Alfa Romeo cars have been refunded in full because of sloppy builds. I don't stand for rubbish and Tesla has been fantastic and I don't expect any big issues.
Warranty's are good but New Zealand has consumer protection laws so a vehicle must last a reasonable time and thats more than 4-5 years. So defects must be fixed free in a reasonable time or the vehicle is to be replaced free or complete refund and this goes for any product sold in New Zealand even goods on sale.

 

[Durzel]

Yes he could have rejected it but put faith in the company which in hindsight has many problems actually actioning anything.

I’ve not heard of such problems taking so long with other manufacturers obviously they have some issues that they are ignoring.

This is the key problem really.

7 days really isn’t very long in the grand scheme of things, particularly if you work full time. Before you’ve really settled in with the car it’s already upon you.

If a Tesla rep straight up lies and tells you signing the iPad is just for account transfer and not actually signing off on the car, then I can see how that would dupe a lot of people.

Most people, almost everyone I’d expect, would not expect to be straight up lied to during what they’d assume to be a pleasant handover experience. You don’t expect bare faced lies in most typical interactions really.

I only know about the signing duping stuff from comments on here, I can imagine I’d get duped too had I not known. I’m thinking of ordering in January and Heathrow is likely to be my pick up point, and I’m primed to expect this trick so will be vigilant about it.

But really people shouldn’t be expected to have to have a checklist to go through, or to be forewarned by consistent experiences on here of shady tricks, etc.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

I can verify that I was asked to sign for the car on an iPad before I was allowed to look at it. This was at West Drayton. The reason I was given was that this was to "prevent the car systems being confused when I got in it with my 'phone on".

I was not told that I was signing acceptance of the car at all, in fact when I found a couple of paint defects and reported them a few minutes later, the same sales chap used his iPad to photograph them and file the report on them, promising that they would be rectified (little did I know that this process wouldn't be until January 20th, and involve a 100 miles round trip).

 

[Rooster6655]

I can verify that I was asked to sign for the car on an iPad before I was allowed to look at it. This was at West Drayton. The reason I was given was that this was to "prevent the car systems being confused when I got in it with my 'phone on".

I was not told that I was signing acceptance of the car at all, in fact when I found a couple of paint defects and reported them a few minutes later, the same sales chap used his iPad to photograph them and file the report on them, promising that they would be rectified (little did I know that this process wouldn't be until January 20th, and involve a 100 miles round trip).

It seems that the problem is worse than I thought, I reported this to Tesla but they are the ones that have encouraged the signing over as quickly as possible, bearing in mind that us forum members are a small amount of the car sold I believe they have tricked many people.

How bad were your paint issues? Are they planning to book into a third party paint shop? If so becareful incase they suddenly say they are ordering a part instead making it sound like they are doing you a favour by getting you a brand new part when in reality its another 8 weeks+ for the part to arrive

 

[Rooster6655]

This is the key problem really.

7 days really isn’t very long in the grand scheme of things, particularly if you work full time. Before you’ve really settled in with the car it’s already upon you.

If a Tesla rep straight up lies and tells you signing the iPad is just for account transfer and not actually signing off on the car, then I can see how that would dupe a lot of people.

Most people, almost everyone I’d expect, would not expect to be straight up lied to during what they’d assume to be a pleasant handover experience. You don’t expect bare faced lies in most typical interactions really.

I only know about the signing duping stuff from comments on here, I can imagine I’d get duped too had I not known. I’m thinking of ordering in January and Heathrow is likely to be my pick up point, and I’m primed to expect this trick so will be vigilant about it.

But really people shouldn’t be expected to have to have a checklist to go through, or to be forewarned by consistent experiences on here of shady tricks, etc.

Well they can talk about their 7 days for as long as they want but reality is our sales of goods act and consumer laws are much better than this if there is a problem that was there on purchase.

I'd advise everyone to video the whole process if picking up a car from Tesla with audio.

I have given Tesla enough time to resolve my issues and nothing has been done to resolve my issues, I will now be making it quite clear what the Tesla experience is really like!

 

[Glan gluaisne]

It seems that the problem is worse than I thought, I reported this to Tesla but they are the ones that have encouraged the signing over as quickly as possible, bearing in mind that us forum members are a small amount of the car sold I believe they have tricked many people.

How bad were your paint issues? Are they planning to book into a third party paint shop? If so becareful incase they suddenly say they are ordering a part instead making it sound like they are doing you a favour by getting you a brand new part when in reality its another 8 weeks+ for the part to arrive

The paint issues are minor, a small chip down to grey primer on the driver's side door pillar, plus a scrape on the driver's side rear bumper, low down, on the curved part under the rear corner.

Almost zero communications about this so far. I was told when picking the car up that they would probably get a local body place to do the work, but was given an appointment for 20th January at the Bristol SC. I've tried to ask how long they will have the car, etc, but so far no response at all, just the confirmation of the appointment. I'm going to ring them after Christmas and try and find out what's going on. Seems daft to have to drive all the way to Bristol for something that the local chip repair people could do in a couple of hours. I've used the local chip repair people before and found them to be extremely good, and not expensive, so it would probably be cheaper for Tesla to just use them (they are one of the big franchises, so my guess is they should be on any approved list).

 

[Rooster6655]

The paint issues are minor, a small chip down to grey primer on the driver's side door pillar, plus a scrape on the driver's side rear bumper, low down, on the curved part under the rear corner.

Almost zero communications about this so far. I was told when picking the car up that they would probably get a local body place to do the work, but was given an appointment for 20th January at the Bristol SC. I've tried to ask how long they will have the car, etc, but so far no response at all, just the confirmation of the appointment. I'm going to ring them after Christmas and try and find out what's going on. Seems daft to have to drive all the way to Bristol for something that the local chip repair people could do in a couple of hours. I've used the local chip repair people before and found them to be extremely good, and not expensive, so it would probably be cheaper for Tesla to just use them (they are one of the big franchises, so my guess is they should be on any approved list).

Well I would expect that they will not agree to it, if you can even get through to anybody on the phone as its impossible to speak to anyone if you haven't got a contact already

 

[CertLive]

As an update I was called up by the manager who is now in the process of entertaining the options I suggested I could go down, he didnt call be back yesterday afternoon as told but I hope next week something will happen which is not going to lose me as a customer. I thank you all for the feedback here I didn't believe this was an isolated incident but I can see a clear picture of sales figures over quality of product and customer satisfaction. For a company to pass on these issues for the customer to sort out and take is irresponsible. Its burdening your customers with wasting their time chasing for service when it should be the other way round, Tesla should be chasing its customers to make sure they are OK with their product. Unless anyone object here would you mind if I used some of these experiences in my video? I think if I have to go down the rejection route here or more like forced down it because of the above then its something people should know about more than the reach of this forum. There are 0 spot checks done on the car by the company on delivery. Each of those Tesla representatives should be using the check list generated on these forums to check a car over before they take their time to travel to buy a very expensive product. Now wouldn't that set a proper new standard in the EV era? Cars are complicated products and things can and do go wrong after sales but these obvious defects are wasting our time for a sales target and poor quality checks. With my own experience I can only confirm this with plenty of video and photo proof. Lets see what happens...

 

[Durzel]

Not being able to view the car before signing off on it is just nuts. What if you spot something serious enough that you know it’s going to involve replacement parts - e.g. stains on seats, chips or otherwise in glass roof or other panels etc, after you’ve committed to the car?

There is no way I’m signing anything before getting a chance to look around the car. If my phone is an issue I’ll turn it off, leave it with them and bring a digital camera to take any evidential photos.

 

[OCR1]

In the US we have a word that is very effective when someone asks us to do something we don’t want to do. We say:

NO

 

[Rooster6655]

As an update I was called up by the manager who is now in the process of entertaining the options I suggested I could go down, he didnt call be back yesterday afternoon as told but I hope next week something will happen which is not going to lose me as a customer.

Well done this is better than I have achieved in 3 months worth of asking for a call, I think the only solution will be through the legal system at this rate.

Not being able to view the car before signing off on it is just nuts. What if you spot something serious enough that you know it’s going to involve replacement parts - e.g. stains on seats, chips or otherwise in glass roof or other panels etc, after you’ve committed to the car?

Fortunately we are not committing to faults in the car during the 7 day return period if we can prove they existed from day 1

 

[OCR1]

Not being able to view the car before signing off on it is just nuts. What if you spot something serious enough that you know it’s going to involve replacement parts - e.g. stains on seats, chips or otherwise in glass roof or other panels etc, after you’ve committed to the car?

There is no way I’m signing anything before getting a chance to look around the car. If my phone is an issue I’ll turn it off, leave it with them and bring a digital camera to take any evidential photos.

This is just silly nonsense. Are they going to grab your hand and force your signature on a piece of paper? They will ask you to sign papers. You will say no thank you I’m going to be inspecting the car first. Period. It’s really that simple. You are the customer and you are in control of the process. But you can’t allow yourself to be taken advantage of. At some point you have to stand up for yourself and tell them what you expect of them, not the other way around. Just because someone tells you to something doesn’t mean you have to do it.