My Tesla 3 delivery during the year end rush in No. California

[p4594spa]

Received car on Dec 20. I was loaded up with the various inspection checklists available here.
What I found:
1) I could NOT find a single paint fault. There might be one somewhere but it surely isn't apparent
2) Door, sheet metal alignment was extemely good, matching what I have seen of various MBZs I have hadin the past

So #1 and # surprised me some given I took delivery at Fremont deliver where they had about 100 cars/day being delivered. I thought that because of the rush to push out cars, the quality might go down, but no, everything looks great

Featurewise, 2 comments:
1) Automatic wipers seems to work very well once they got started (certainly equal to what I have seen on our latest MBZ). Only caveat is that if the rain is very light and misty, it take a little bit for it to get going. BUt I contrast this to our MBZ which has some ghost wipes when there is no rain
2) TACC works extrememly well. I have 30 mile, 60-90 minute commute and I basically am able to keep my foot totally off the accelerator on the whole trip. Only caveat, if you are in the right lane and no one in front of you, it gets fooled by car turning onto offramp on road. This is easily overcomeable by hit the accelerator for about one second.

 

[ewoodrick]

1) and 2) are prime examples of what you hear on forums often represent a minority of reality.

 

[p4594spa]

I agree. Just reporting what I am seeing

 

[vogz]

I took delivery on Dec 23rd in Westmont, IL. I have one super small paint chip on the crease on the driver's side rear 1/4 panel. Otherwise my car was pretty much perfect. People typically only post when they have issues. I had one minor one so I didn't even post about my delivery experience which was just fine.

 

[coffeesipper3]

May be you are not looking hard enough. I have some thing that is wrong on every panel but most of them are things that I can live with

 

[Dash-8]

Took delivery on 12/21 in Fremont (ordered 10/14), and only visible fault was 1/16" scratch under the front bumper, probably rock chip from the delivery across the freeway. Agree with the OP on everything else (and have indeed looked very carefully in the past 3 weeks...)

Not at all discounting folks' issues, but can offer another positive data point about the car* in this very small (and picky) sample.

*The ordering/communication experience was a, um, different journey...

 

[mreynolds767]

I think as time passes they get better and better as far as fit and finish.

You read so much about it but most of that was in the very early cars and also at times when they were really rushing in 2018 during the Tent days.
As 2019 went on they were less and less.
Since the switch to White Paint as the standard hearing of delivery issues was rare ; that was about July 2019 I believe.
The end of Q4 rush was all planned in advance as was end of Q3 rush. Beginning of quarter they catch up on cars for Europe and wait till near end of quarter for closest locations like California so I don't believe production was under any more stress than they anticipated.

 

[rxtm3]

I initially posted that my car was pretty much paint defect free, but in the past few weeks of ownership I've found more issues.

1. Chipped door corner paint near the chrome trim (driver side)
2. Exposed primer and missing paint on passenger side front fender (where it meets the bumper). Not visible from the side, but you can see if on the underside if you look from the wheel well.
3. Raised "chip" or contamination under the clear coat on the pillar right above driver side window.
4. Small dust particle or contamination embedded under paint on rear passenger side door.
5. Scratched metal trim around the center display. Discovered this after 100miles/72hours so I can't claim this on delivery.
6. Lots of paint swirls and clear coat scratches after 2 weeks. Looked fine on delivery but these showed up later. In my experience so far Tesla paint is extremely soft and shows scratches way more easily than other cars I've owned. The clear is so soft I was able to paint correct these spots just by hand with a light polish, no DA needed.

Nothing major, but if I really wanted Tesla to fix these issues they would have to pretty much repaint a bunch of panels which could lead to more issues down the line. Decided to just live with it since its "just" a 35k car. I'd be more bitter if I paid upwards of $60k for a performance model with these issues. I've owned other cars in that price range which have a much higher standard of paint quality.

 

[AdamVIP]

The biggest paint defect is the large areas where paint isn't actually applied. The most noticeable is opening the front door and looking in at the primer on the fender. The trunk hinges are another easy place to spot.