Howdy Y'all.
I got my M3 exactly 5 months ago, and for the first 3ish months it drove like a magical unicorn. Then it developed a bit of wheel vibration, so I made an appointment at the closest service center (12 days of waiting, 1.5 hour drive to the SC). I finally got to the appointment hopeful to have my unicorn driving smooth again, but their response was something like... "it's minor, we're not sure what's causing it, treads are even across, we'd *start* with balancing the tires for $175 but we're not sure it'll fix the problem".
That experience was pretty discouraging. On one hand, I realize that alignment and tires are maintenance and consumables, and perhaps most of the employees there drive ICE cars... so maybe I seemed like just a whiny customer complaining about a tiny vibration (sometimes it's fairly prominent, sometimes not so much). On the other hand, the car had less than 7k miles at that appointment.. they didn't rotate the tires (which the manual recommends doing at 6250 miles) or check the alignment, and $175 for tire balancing is *really* expensive. I declined any further service and took my vibrating expensive vehicle home.
My assumption from that experience is that Tesla's service centers (at least this one) have a lot of other Tesla-specific issues to deal with and price their wheel/tire services very high to discourage customers from bringing those issues there. Fair enough... I took the hint and started calling local tire and automotive shops. It's still a car, right? Anyone should be able to figure this out, I thought. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. I visited 6 different places, and called another 4. No one else will touch the car (at least not anyone in a position to actually resolve the issue, not even an alignment). The reasons ranged from liability, lack of alignment specs in their machine, inexperience with Tesla, and in some cases what seemed like anti-Tesla sentiment.
What I did learn from this journey... a friend told me that the tires have some feathering... "probably just rotating them criss-cross will resolve the issue". Bringing it to one place to have them rotated (anti-Tesla I think), the guy pointed out inside-tread wear on the front tires, said *only* Tesla can fix this and refused to touch it. Another young guy at a shop put it on their alignment machine just to check (didn't have the actual specs, used a 2017 Model S specs for reference, and couldn't make any adjustments)... he noted a difference in camber between the front tires. Since the camber can't be adjusted, he suggested it could be an issue with front passenger ball joint (that tire was furthest from the Model S spec).
Running out of options, I scheduled another service. This time for alignment and balancing. I mentioned inside tread wear in the front tires plus the vibration. The response I received in the app is the typical "Approve your estimate now for a faster service appointment". The estimate is for $1,100 and includes $570 for 2 new tires, $100 for putting them on, $300 for an alignment, and $50 for tire rotation. This situation now feels *very* wrong to me. The vehicle has just over 8,000 miles and needs new tires? Granted, they haven't seen these tires yet... perhaps the story will change at my appointment.
Service appointments are never fun. I'm outnumbered, and by people who have more experience than me. I'm posting here so that I can be as prepared as possible. Has anyone here had a similar experience that would be willing to lend some advice? I'm inclined to pay them only for rotation and alignment and keep the same tires... that'll still be almost $400 in overpriced services for a brand new car (sheesh). I certainly won't pay $1,000 every 5 months for two new tires, but that's what this estimate seems to advocate.
Thanks for taking the time to read and for any advice you're willing to throw my way.
I got my M3 exactly 5 months ago, and for the first 3ish months it drove like a magical unicorn. Then it developed a bit of wheel vibration, so I made an appointment at the closest service center (12 days of waiting, 1.5 hour drive to the SC). I finally got to the appointment hopeful to have my unicorn driving smooth again, but their response was something like... "it's minor, we're not sure what's causing it, treads are even across, we'd *start* with balancing the tires for $175 but we're not sure it'll fix the problem".
That experience was pretty discouraging. On one hand, I realize that alignment and tires are maintenance and consumables, and perhaps most of the employees there drive ICE cars... so maybe I seemed like just a whiny customer complaining about a tiny vibration (sometimes it's fairly prominent, sometimes not so much). On the other hand, the car had less than 7k miles at that appointment.. they didn't rotate the tires (which the manual recommends doing at 6250 miles) or check the alignment, and $175 for tire balancing is *really* expensive. I declined any further service and took my vibrating expensive vehicle home.
My assumption from that experience is that Tesla's service centers (at least this one) have a lot of other Tesla-specific issues to deal with and price their wheel/tire services very high to discourage customers from bringing those issues there. Fair enough... I took the hint and started calling local tire and automotive shops. It's still a car, right? Anyone should be able to figure this out, I thought. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. I visited 6 different places, and called another 4. No one else will touch the car (at least not anyone in a position to actually resolve the issue, not even an alignment). The reasons ranged from liability, lack of alignment specs in their machine, inexperience with Tesla, and in some cases what seemed like anti-Tesla sentiment.
What I did learn from this journey... a friend told me that the tires have some feathering... "probably just rotating them criss-cross will resolve the issue". Bringing it to one place to have them rotated (anti-Tesla I think), the guy pointed out inside-tread wear on the front tires, said *only* Tesla can fix this and refused to touch it. Another young guy at a shop put it on their alignment machine just to check (didn't have the actual specs, used a 2017 Model S specs for reference, and couldn't make any adjustments)... he noted a difference in camber between the front tires. Since the camber can't be adjusted, he suggested it could be an issue with front passenger ball joint (that tire was furthest from the Model S spec).
Running out of options, I scheduled another service. This time for alignment and balancing. I mentioned inside tread wear in the front tires plus the vibration. The response I received in the app is the typical "Approve your estimate now for a faster service appointment". The estimate is for $1,100 and includes $570 for 2 new tires, $100 for putting them on, $300 for an alignment, and $50 for tire rotation. This situation now feels *very* wrong to me. The vehicle has just over 8,000 miles and needs new tires? Granted, they haven't seen these tires yet... perhaps the story will change at my appointment.
Service appointments are never fun. I'm outnumbered, and by people who have more experience than me. I'm posting here so that I can be as prepared as possible. Has anyone here had a similar experience that would be willing to lend some advice? I'm inclined to pay them only for rotation and alignment and keep the same tires... that'll still be almost $400 in overpriced services for a brand new car (sheesh). I certainly won't pay $1,000 every 5 months for two new tires, but that's what this estimate seems to advocate.
Thanks for taking the time to read and for any advice you're willing to throw my way.
