New Build Date (January 2019+) Owners - Quality Impressions? Positives?

[Common_Loon]

I'm curious about getting feedback from lurkers who have recently received their cars as to their impressions and issues. Mainly, I'm curious on my end as a potential buyer to see if recent cars have been built to a better standard or have suffered as many odd gremlins (backup cameras cutting out, flickering lights, audio issues, build quality issues, etc. etc.) as earlier versions of the car.

Many of the problem threads on here are much earlier adopters, and people with problems tend to be more vocal.

 

[dnvr-ev]

I took delivery January 2019. My lights flickered until the sentry mode update. Now they are good. Everything on the car looks perfect except tons of micro scratches on the hood. I have been trying to buff them out myself. They are only visible in the garage at night with artificial light shining on the hood. I missed them when I signed for the car outside. The only regret I have is not waiting until February 28th when the price dropped $4k.

 

[super20g]

If you reply with information on your recent delivery, can you also reply with your cars build date found on the drivers door jamb just so we know it is a recent build?

I am in the same boat as far as wondering how quality is going compared to my August rush build. Considering requesting a buy back but if the new builds aren't any better, then it's a lot of hassle for nothing.

 

[ewoodrick]

Remember, 200,000 sold. How many reported here?

 

[robski]

I don't think you can draw a line using the start of the year. If the factory is running on December 31st and crosses over midnight, are the cars now better built? That being said, I have no clue where else to draw the line lol.

 

[Common_Loon]

Yeah, the Janurary thing is arbitrary! Mainly I'm just trying to draw an imaginary line in the sand which is ultimately meaningless. It seems they are in another production crunch right now with the European and Chinese deliveries + entry level models, so who knows if quality will go back down to "from the tent" levels.

 

[Stirfelt]

I'm not sure a question about build date in January is that helpful .... but I sure do wonder if QC has improved in recent months.

It seems ...... that there are fewer negative complaints about paint and fit & finish on the forum

I hope that perception is right. We all desperately want Tesla to succeed.

 

[Probllama]

I was at Park Meadows Tesla showroom yesterday and they had a red performance M3. I didn't look at the build date but I am guessing it is probably a relatively recent build since it is a showroom model. One would think they would carefully handpick the showroom cars but clearly this wasn't a well-built M3. I understand that hundreds of people open the doors and sit in the car but still the panel fitment and alignment were visibly bad. So much so that my wife, who is not a car person, even commented on some of the gaps. There were significant variances in the size of panel gaps from one side to the other. Interestingly the rear right door was not flush with the floor of the car when it was shut close. I still love the car and definitely buying one before the end of the year but I was hoping the build quality would be improving by now.

 

[Stirfelt]

"I was hoping the build quality would be improving by now."

Didn't we all.
And I don't understand why Tesla hasn't been able to make improvement.
I thought vehicles assembled by robot would be identical. (provided the robot is aligned properly).
Perhaps the tolerances are too large to facilitate rapid production???
The "S" does not seem to suffer similar assembly defects.

Come on Tesla .... get your act together. There are many of us that want to own a copy.
But the best looking car on the road, with trend setting technology .... does not compensate for shoddy assembly and the necessity to make frequent trips to the SC.

 

[zhu-]

I thought vehicles assembled by robot would be identical. (provided the robot is aligned properly).

It's not just the assembly but more so the manufacturing of the individual body pieces and there's significant variance even with German manufacturers. The difference is they'll analyze each piece and put together a car with the best fitting parts while Tesla might not have or want to invest those resources when they're focused on other things like FSD.

 

[super20g]

"I was hoping the build quality would be improving by now."
The "S" does not seem to suffer similar assembly defects.

I sure did think by year 3 production and ~400K cars later the quality issues would have been mostly worked out... I guess a lot of people must just take delivery and accept the issues, because otherwise I would think all the rework would totally swallow the profit margins forcing corrective action. I can give them a little leeway given the age of the company and tech advantage you currently get with a Tesla, but it's still a bummer when plenty of economy brands have better fit/finish/assembly/attention to detail.

I had a brand new fresh off the delivery truck S100D loaner and it was better than the 3's I have inspected but it still had its issues, just a lower rate of occurrence. Aren't they more hand built and much lower volume production? The paint was better but not best. Panel fitment was better but not best. Sunroof got stuck open the first time I used it. Finally got it to close 2 hrs later. Display rebooted occasionally while I had it. Not what I expected for a car with a ~115K monroney in the glove box. Wind noise was a lot better than the 3 which was nice. (And of coarse the non-3 features like the power lift gate, auto presenting handles, heated steering wheel, firmer wider seats, etc. were much appreciated.)

 

[dmurphy]

My build is an April 2019. I initially gave it a 100% grade, but I've since found one thing that's off.... the front and rear glass roof panels are "off" by a millimeter or two. In that, they don't align perfectly side-to-side. The front glass is offset to the left about 1-1.5mm or so from the rear. Enough that I can notice if it I look from the right angle.

I added some gap filler (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P7LC2R3) around the front glass last night, and that takes the visual aspect of it away, so I'm good. It's obviously sealed well, so not something I'd want them monkeying with anyway, but that's the one thing I've discovered that's noticeable.

Panel gaps and all seem good.

 

[OCR1]

Our M3s were built in December 2018 and March 2019 and both are very well built. They are not perfect but I really have no complaints with body panel gaps on either of them. And both have been trouble free so far, other than some software reboots which seem to be related to the 2019.8.5 software build but seem to be fine now that we are running 2019.12.2.

I did reject a March 2019 MR model due to significant variation in body panel gaps and generally misaligned panels. And last week I was helping a friend take delivery of a Model 3 when I noticed a white Model 3 in the next bay that had some really bad alignment issues. The couple signed the papers and drove away, seemingly never even noticing them. My friend thought the gaps were so bad you could see them from Mars. Not everyone notices stuff like this though, so I’m guessing Tesla gets away with selling a lot of misaligned cars to people who don’t pay attention to those details.

 

[mcars]

I had an April 2019 build. I've found no actual issues at all as far as gaps or panel alignment issues.

 

[Transporter]

I took delivery of a SR a couple weeks ago and noticed paint defects right away which were noted at time of delivery(few dots under the paint making raised dots on the surface) and it had clear coat damage on front bumper, hood, and rearview mirror casing supposedly from adhesive on the paper from trucking it.
The DA said these could all be fixed within a few hours and to schedule a SC appointment. I took delivery of the car based on this and scheduled the service.
Drove the 2 hours back to the SC 4 days later and they told me it would take 3 weeks and have to repaint half the car to fix it. Ended up having to return it unfortunately. Otherwise the car was perfect, but too much paint damage on a brand new car.
Waiting on my refund and will reorder as soon as it arrives.

 

[MountainJedi]

I was at Park Meadows Tesla showroom yesterday and they had a red performance M3. I didn't look at the build date but I am guessing it is probably a relatively recent build since it is a showroom model. One would think they would carefully handpick the showroom cars but clearly this wasn't a well-built M3. I understand that hundreds of people open the doors and sit in the car but still the panel fitment and alignment were visibly bad. So much so that my wife, who is not a car person, even commented on some of the gaps. There were significant variances in the size of panel gaps from one side to the other. Interestingly the rear right door was not flush with the floor of the car when it was shut close. I still love the car and definitely buying one before the end of the year but I was hoping the build quality would be improving by now.

I was at the same store for several hours last Saturday and given the way kids used those cars as a jungle gym, it wouldn't surprise me if they chose models with defects knowing they were going to get trashed.

 

[quikshifter]

March builds have issues with power conversion system. Mine and I already came across a few others with same problem

 

[Coulomb_Cowboy]

I received my M3LR AWD in Mid-April. Zero defects as far as I can tell. Panel gaps all look good to me. It's been a great car in the short time I've had it.

 

[Groove_E]

We received our M3 April 2nd and were very pleased with the build quality. The only issue that doesn’t appear to be attributable to a software bug is the rear passenger door sticks when you try to exit. We had them write it in our file and will get it serviced eventually, maybe when it’s time to update the cpu.