Nightmare Experience! Only 500 miles driven...

[Pianewman]

I'm frustrated with both the product and the service which is why I'm leaning towards giving the car back. The car, service center, and roadside service are terrible

The car is terrible? You had a single failure, which had happened, and could happen, with any car.

You've given no evidence whatsoever that "the car is terrible."

Yes, the service has been terrible, without a doubt. I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that your "terrible car" will be fine after they resolve this initial failure.

Tesla probably won't be able to fix your soured perspective, so...as others have stated, do whatever you need to move forward.

 

[Pianewman]

I didn’t say thousands of cars you did. The simple fact is the OP had a major problem probably due to non-existent QC and Tesla product and service failed him. Surely you aren’t suggesting he is the only one ? And also consider that not all owners post their problems to forums.

I was referring to the 10s of thousands of Teslas that are NOT failing, and "we only hear of a few failures here," that get a lot of emotional attention on this forum. A "few failures" is clear that I'm not suggesting he is the only one.

It's the response to his failure that is unacceptable.

 

[PMPHX]

The car is terrible? You had a single failure, which had happened, and could happen, with any car.

You've given no evidence whatsoever that "the car is terrible."

Yes, the service has been terrible, without a doubt. I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that your "terrible car" will be fine after they resolve this initial failure.

Tesla probably won't be able to fix your soured perspective, so...as others have stated, do whatever you need to move forward.

I waited 5 months for a car and it broke down with only 500 miles. Yes, the car is terrible

 

[M3BlueGeorgia]

I hate that this is my first post, but here we are. I received delivery of a new Model Y Performance on August 1st. The Tesla sales and delivery experience were great and I enjoyed driving my new Model Y... Until this past Monday.

At 1:30pm this past Monday, my Model Y broke down in a fast food drive-thru in Phoenix, AZ. Two notifications went off and I was immediately unable to put my car into gear. The notifications I received were "Power reduced (code DIF_a062)" and "Acceleration and top speed reduced (code BMS_a170). In order to prevent a long & boring post, I will get straight to the point - my car was stranded for 5 hours between 1:30pm-6:30pm in 110-degree heat in Phoenix, all while blocking a restaurant from serving lunch and dinner service. I couldn't put my car into neutral, creating mass confusion and people being hostile toward me. I had heard great things about Tesla Roadside so I wasn't too concerned...

Well, Tesla Roadside completely dropped the ball which resulted in a hazardous situation. I opened about 6 Roadside tickets but all were either closed or ignored. Luckily my wife sat on hold for an hour and finally got ahold of someone in Roadside. I had to beg and plead for him to put me in direct contact with Roadside leadership which he did. Although that was helpful, it still took 2 more hours to get a tow truck, accounting for 5 hours of waiting in total. The only silver lining is it wasn't my wife and kids that had to deal with this.

They towed my car to a local Tesla Service Center who called me the next morning. They told me to come to get a loaner which I did. I discussed the situation with them but all they did was try and assure me that the car is fine and they gave me two toy Tesla's to give to my kids. They said it was probably just the rear drive component and that they didn't test the car enough before delivering it to me. I haven't heard from them since...

My question now is how the hell do you contact anyone at Tesla to discuss this situation? Both Tesla Roadside and Service have been terrible and I honestly don't want the car anymore. My Model Y has only 500 miles on it and I'm shocked that I'm already having issues and that it's taking this long just to get a diagnosis. Don't even get me started on how absolutely terrible and dangerous Tesla Roadside is - I will never go through them again and have absolutely zero faith in them. The same can be said for their Service and communication. I'm wondering if anyone has a Tesla phone number other than their generic customer service line so that I can get an audience.

I'm still in shock at how terrible my Tesla experience has been. It's crazy that I can't get any help from Tesla and that they're okay with this type of product and "service." Assuming they fail to provide clarity, I won't be taking back the Tesla or will sell it. Trash company and I'd rather deal with the crooks at Audi who at least tried to help me.

Suggestion: Drive over to the Service Center that has the car. Get contact information from them.

Insist on speaking to the service supervisor.

Presumably, by now, they will have diagnosed the problem. They should, by now, be communicating with you via the Tesla application on your Mobile phone, as that's their preferred way to communicate.

BTW: Sounds like some early life hardware failure.

 

[Pianewman]

Waiting 5 months has nothing to do with your car being terrible.

A single early breakdown doesn't mean your car is terrible.

Please, please, just get it resolved and move on to another car and another forum. Clearly you'll never be satisfied with anything being posted here.

 

[PMPHX]

Suggestion: Drive over to the Service Center that has the car. Get contact information from them.

Insist on speaking to the service supervisor.

Presumably, by now, they will have diagnosed the problem. They should, by now, be communicating with you via the Tesla application on your Mobile phone, as that's their preferred way to communicate.

BTW: Sounds like some early life hardware failure.

I've done all of that

 

[phonetele226]

I seriously think that there was a period in May/June/July where a bad batch of electric motors were made. Bad quality control. These are starting to show up in failed units.

 

[ucmndd]

I waited 5 months for a car and it broke down with only 500 miles. Yes, the car is terrible

Mechanical things break when very new or very old. It happens. This is not surprising or novel.

Your car was towed to a service center and you were given a loaner. They’ll fix it when they fix it and you’ll be on your way (hopefully straight to CarMax where you can experience the catharsis of getting rid of this terrible life endangering car you have and replace it with the nonexistent vehicle that doesn’t ever have mechanical problems).

The pearl clutching hysteria about it being “dangerous” that your car broke down in a drive through () isn’t helping your case. You were 5 feet away from an air conditioned restaurant in Phoenix, not stranded in the middle of the Sahara.

Move on, brother. You’ve said your piece.

 

[pepperoni]

I'm frustrated with both the product and the service which is why I'm leaning towards giving the car back. The car, service center, and roadside service are terrible

If you only have 500 miles on it, I’m guessing you purchased recently after waiting months for the car. With all the recent price hikes. price you paid is likely much less than the current sales price. If you truly don’t want the car anymore, getting a refund from Tesla (assuming they even do that) would likely net you less than selling it. Demand is still pretty strong.

I needed roadside assistance at around 500 miles too (flat tire). The tow truck came about an hour later, and Tesla kept my car for 3 days just to replace the tire. The roadside assistance was okay, though could have been faster. My basic complaint was the total lack of communication. I really disliked having to interact with an app, and my text messages were mostly ignored. I just wanted to talk to a human to follow up with simple questions like when will my car be ready. In retrospect, I should have had it towed to a tire shop of my choice. While my experience was nowhere near the nightmare yours was, I would say Tesla has a long ways to go in their service experience.

 

[phonetele226]

Tough crowd here. Clearly the people that have no problems (yet) are not sympathetic to those that do.

 

[VT_EE]

Wow. I agree the roadside situation is unacceptable, but I don't understand why you are complaining about the SC the day after the car was towed to them and a loaner provided. WTF. An engine failure on a BMW isn't likely to get resolved in 1 day. You got unlucky with the faulty drive unit (likely problem), but it will get resolved, and you are unlikely to have the issue again. All electronics have some small % that will fail early on. I have only had good experiences with Roadside so I can't relate with that. If I was dealing with your situation though, I would probably have just used my AAA towing after the first 30 min.

 

[Operator64]

Depending on others to move yourself forward in life will only lead to your own failure, the car broke, it was “a dangerous, and hostile environment“ call your own tow truck FIX THE PROBLEM. no police presence was mentioned must not have been too hostile….no fire,Ems presence mentioned, must not have been too dangerous. If you allowed you and your family to stay in the car in 110 degree heat when it was inoperable, that’s on you. YOUR OWN INSURANCE failed you where is the outrage for them. You failed your family by not stepping up and getting your own tow truck making things “safe” and then dealing the problem.
Gonna ”give the car back”, if that’s really how your mind believes things work I can fully understand why you couldn’t get yourself out of the situation you were in. I’m not sure what car manufacture I could suggest to help you out not having these types of issues in the future so you may look into the BLM they have wild horse adoptions and sales that may be more fitting to your expectations of perfection.
Good luck in your endeavors I do hope your car is fixed properly and promptly so you can get back to enjoying the car YOU chose to wait 5 months for, just keep in mind the next brand may not leave you in a hostile drive thru it may leave you unable to charge at a charger owned and operated by a 3rd party who Only built a system to keep Audi owners from getting a proper payout on cars they were unable to use.

 

[DrDabbles]

I've had serious service fails at Honda, Toyota, and for sure, VW dealerships, some of them downright laughable.

The difference is that there are almost certainly multiple of those dealers in your area. You're lucky to have a single Tesla location within an hour in a lot of the US. We were promised that this was being addressed in 2016 when Model S owners complained, again in 2018 when Model 3 owners complained, again in 2020 when Model Y owners had failed HVAC in the dead of winter, and now we're told that Tesla will have "F1-like service". Which is completely meaningless since F1 cars only get tires replaced quickly and it takes a dozen people to change four wheels.

The tow truck driver had to basically drag it onto the tow truck with nylon straps.

My drive unit died with my car in my garage, and the ordeal to drag it out backwards onto a flat bed, then drive to the service center with it backwards on the truck was so far beyond enraging that I couldn't believe it. Even after getting the vehicle booted up, it refused to go into tow mode until the booster pack died and it powered off yet again.

 

[electricar]

Roadside Assistance is subcontracted by all the OEMs and is hit or miss with all of them. The forums for any of them have stories like yours. Cars have warranties because when you manufacture hundreds of thousands of parts a percentage will be defective. Tesla gave you a loaner, told you what was wrong, and is going to fix it - that is more than most brands provide. The days of ” goodwill gratis “ like free expensive restaurant meals and therapy sessions from customer retention specialists to help get over the trauma of a breakdown are long gone from high end car land. You had a lousy experience with Audi and now Tesla. Maybe next time, instead of buying a car loaded with bleeding edge technology, you should try a company like Toyota whose mission is to provide reliable transportation to people who just want their car to be reliable and never want to go to the dealer.

 

[ucmndd]

Tough crowd here. Clearly the people that have no problems (yet) are not sympathetic to those that do.

I’m not defending Tesla by any stretch. Service is mediocre to terrible and roadside assistance is ALWAYS a roll of the dice, no matter who you get it through. Tesla does not have their own fleet of tow trucks. They use the same set of contracted providers that everyone else does. Tesla (and you) are completely at those providers’ mercy.

I have no sympathy for OP’s hyperbolic moaning and artificial escalation of an embarrassing inconvenience into a “safety” concern. Sounds like he eventually got a tow, was promptly provided with a loaner, and the car has been diagnosed and will be fixed good as new in a reasonable time. That’s a better outcome than a LOT of stories around here. His biggest beef appears to be the inability to speak to someone on the phone to rail them for 45 minutes about how Deeply Disappoint (tm) he is with his experience.

 

[VT_EE]

The 1-day turn-a-round for a drive unit replacement is outstanding. I cannot understand how anybody could complain about that. The OP is so upset about the 5-hour roadside wait, there is nothing the SC can do to make him/her happy.

 

[DrDabbles]

The 1-day turn-a-round for a drive unit replacement is outstanding. I cannot understand how anybody could complain about that. The OP is so upset about the 5-hour roadside wait, there is nothing the SC can do to make him/her happy.

Can you find an instance of someone actually getting a drive unit replaced in a day? OP said their event happened on Monday, the SC called on Tuesday, and OP got a call that said it could be complete on Friday. That's a week still. And we don't know if OP actually got their car back on Friday afternoon or not. @PMPHX did you get it back on Friday?

 

[VT_EE]

Can you find an instance of someone actually getting a drive unit replaced in a day? OP said their event happened on Monday, the SC called on Tuesday, and OP got a call that said it could be complete on Friday. That's a week still. And we don't know if OP actually got their car back on Friday afternoon or not. @PMPHX did you get it back on Friday?

My bad. I didn't realize his first post was a few days after the incident. His/her "update" was a few days after the incident.

 

[phonetele226]

Can you find an instance of someone actually getting a drive unit replaced in a day? OP said their event happened on Monday, the SC called on Tuesday, and OP got a call that said it could be complete on Friday. That's a week still. And we don't know if OP actually got their car back on Friday afternoon or not. @PMPHX did you get it back on Friday?

After being tarred and feathered here I would not be surprised if he does not return. I hope he does however just to find out if the SC made it right.

 

[TomServo]

given the current market the OP could sell the car and probably make some money. Hopefully he checks back in with the wrap up.