Owners delivery stories, photos and first impressions

[bmah]

Congrats on your car, wonder if you ask if factory operates on 3 or 2 shift schedule, looks like they don't do any work on weekends. Is the production level about 2500 cars per week?

Thanks! I didn't ask about how many shifts they work, and when someone on the tour asked about how many cars get built per day, the tour guide politely declined to give a number.

We actually did see a few people working in the factory, but the production lines weren't running. It looked to me (and this is just an uneducated guess) that they were doing some routine maintenance on the equipment, cleanup, etc.

 

[1ton]

I first test drove the Model S P85 a little over two years ago when I went to visit Miami. There was an Amped event at the Dania Beach location. The car was simply amazing and I wanted one immediately. I put a reservation in but ultimately cancelled my reservation because I didn't have enough funds to get the P85 and I would be settling.

One week ago, I picked up a CPO P85 with all the options I wanted and the color combo I have wanted. I couldn't be more pleased with my purchase. The Orlando team was amazing. The car as you all know is incredible. I've been stopped everywhere I go (on the road, grocery store, restaurant, etc.) with people complimenting my car or asking about it. I have been stopped every day so far.

 

[Electricfan]

I first test drove the Model S P85 a little over two years ago when I went to visit Miami. There was an Amped event at the Dania Beach location. The car was simply amazing and I wanted one immediately. I put a reservation in but ultimately cancelled my reservation because I didn't have enough funds to get the P85 and I would be settling.

I bought mine sight-unseen. I think you did it the sane way, but I fell in love over the internet, tried in vain to talk myself out of it, and now I'm picking up my second one in a couple weeks... So, I know what you mean about wanting one immediately!

 

[flyeyes]

Like many of the lurkers here, I have obsessively read all of the "first impression" posts while waiting for my car. Most of you can skip what is repetitive information, But I know there is a subset of people who will find it useful

I have been following the cars closely for about a year, and test drove a P85+ last summer at the Century City store in Los Angeles. I was very impressed, but unwilling to spend the money until my wife decided she wanted my current car (an AWD BMW) after borrowing it for a road trip on a snowy weekend. The announcement of the 70D prodded me a little further, and I started reading the forums to get a sense of the "real world" experience with the car.

I live over two hundred miles from the nearest store or service center (and over 300 from the nearest supercharger), but I called the store in Atlanta. GA and asked about inventory cars. Within 5 minutes, I had a selection of cars that met my criteria, and the spec sheets e-mailed to me. I pondered for a day or two, then selected one of the cars. The sales advisor was able to get someone local to the car to take pictures of it (although I suspect that the pictures were actually a different car). I paid the deposit with a credit card, and the car was shipped to the nearest store for "prep" and shipped to me a week or so later.

The process was very easy and painless, and everyone involved was friendly and knowledgeable. There was no sales pressure or "upselling" at any point which was nice.

The car was a few days later than promised because of difficulty finding a driver, but the sales advisor shipped me a box full of shirts and a travel mugs as a token for waiting. When it finally arrived, it showed up during the day so they diverted to my office parking lot for the actual delivery. Communication was frequent and helpful. The delivery itself was a two minute affair which consisted of unloading the car and having me sign a release stating the car had no visible damage (it looked perfect).

The car is an "inventory" 85D with pano. air suspension, 19 inch wheels, blue/tan. with the old "tech" package. I was mildly annoyed to see that it had the base 19" wheels rather than the "cyclone" wheels which were in the photos I received. I suspect the photos were of a different car. I deliberately chose the 19" wheels, having had low profile tires on other cars. I like the cyclone wheels better (mainly for the modest range increase) but not enough to have paid the extra to upgrade.

Otherwise the car had 36 miles on the odometer, and no visible wear or damage on anything. It might have been a "showroom" car or a cancelled order but definitely was not a service loaner.

Early impressions in the next post...

 

[ecarfan]

@flyeyes, congratulations on becoming a Model S owner! Note: I am not aware that the optional Cyclone wheels provide a range increase. The discontinued optional "Aero" wheels definitely do.

 

[EdA]

@flyeyes - great first post and welcome. Strange about the wheels, did you ask them about it?

 

[flyeyes]

I have read most of the "initial impression" threads on the site, and early on there seemed to be a lot of complaints about poor fit and finish and mechanical defects that seem to be decreasing with time. The following is a "stream of consciousness" list that I'll update later. Currently I've had the car a little over a week and put 500 miles on it.

My car, an inventory 85D with VIN #718xx has excellent fit and finish overall. Although I haven't waxed it yet, I haven't found any paint flaws anywhere. The paint isn't as good as a couple of porsches I've owned, but at least as good as my most recent BMW, with less orange peel.

There is a small defect under the chrome on the top of the driver's door handle, which looks like a piece of machining swarf that got stuck and chromed over. I'd knock it off, but I don't want to have a defect in the chrome which might rust later in a very visible spot.

The fit of the chrome and body panels seems excellent all around. The tan napa leather interior is good, not as good as a current mercedes or up market BMW but still nice. The leather has a nice soft touch, with a few of the panels very slight loose/wrinkly.

The AC is weaker than any car I've owned in 15 years, but mitigated by the ability to preheat or cool the car with the iphone app. It's fine now, but I'm a little worried about the middle of the summer here in the southeast with the pano roof.

The standard stereo is more than adequate for me, about as good as my last couple of BMWs. I thought I'd miss the XM, but the slacker internet radio pretty much replaces it for my needs. It's not an "audiophile" system, but I've never felt like a vehicle is the right place for serious music appreciation anyway. I'd rather spend the $2500 on a better home stereo. I will also note that the stereo is vastly better than I had in a Porsche 997 with the Bose upgrade, and the car is quiet enough that you can tell.

I find the car very comfortable, as do passengers. I can easily find a good driving position, better than many cars I've driven. I'm 5'8" with short legs and a long trunk, and everything is within easy reach. I agree with others that the sun visors should be bigger. Sightlines are pretty good, except maybe to the rear. My wife was definitely disappointed with the rear visibility, but very impressed that she could leave the rear camera on.

Noise is minimal. A faint gear whine on acceleration, expected wind and road noise. No air leaks or whistles, no squeaks, rattles, rubs, etc. Build quality seems very good.

Driving dynamics are awesome. The instant torque is addictive, and the single pedal driving is fun and seems natural very quickly. Steering (on sport) is nicely weighted and positive.

Almost everything seems to work like it should. I've noticed a couple of small defects, some of which may be normal.

The "self-cancelling" turn signal doesn't reliably cancel after left turns. It makes a loud click after straightening but fails to cancel about 1/3 of the time. It's perfect on right turns, I suspect it's just a bad switch.

I had the rear passenger side door open spontaneously in the garage just as I plugged in. When I walked around to close it the car lowered about an inch (air suspension). Odd, and it hasn't happened since.

The GPS aware feature of my air suspension doesn't seem to work as advertised, or I'm not understanding what it's supposed to do. I made 6 or eight trips to a nearby hotel to drop off friends, and left via a steep driveway. Each time I had to stop and raise the car manually to negotiate the dip. It might have to do with the canopy in front of the hotel obstructing the gps signal.

Occasionally when making a slow stop, there will be a subtle "bump" in the drivetrain. It's hard to describe, but it's very much like an old ZF/Getrag transmission in a mercedes when it hasn't warmed up. The car would thump when dropping into first gear at a stop for the first few blocks until the oil got warm and circulated. Obviously this isn't what's happening in the tesla, but that's what it feels like.

Before delivery I was eager to add a plug on the outside wall behind my office for charging at work (and I have a partner with a plug in hybrid as well) but now I realize that it's really unnecessary with the range of the tesla.

overall I'm very happy with the car, and will update more later.

- - - Updated - - -

Re: the wheels

Yeah I asked, they asked me to check the Monroney sticker, which in fact doesn't list them. I didn't pay for them, so really don't have much room to complain. It -was- annoying to get the photos with the cyclones though, and then have the car show up with the base wheels. My wife posted photos on facebook, and I've already been asked what happened to the wheels.

There is a FAQ somewhere on the teslamotors site which talks about the aero wheels, and states that there were few sales, and most of the benefit was realized with the cyclone wheels anyway. Since I'm 311 miles by road from the nearest supercharger, range is pretty important to me.

 

[EdA]

@flyeyes - hopefully the SC network creeps closer to you soon!

Regarding the noise, door opening and the signal, you should definitely talk to Tesla about them...

Enjoy your new wheels!

 

[Electricfan]

@flyeyes - just curious since you take such good notes on your impressions - what do you think of the TACC?

and is there a story behind your user name?

 

[flyeyes]

re: TACC

I really like the TACC, and think it works very well. The only other car I've used it in is a Hyundai Equus that my Dad owns. I've been surprised how useful it is on a long trip.

The Tesla TACC seems to be much better than the Hyundai system, but I haven't made a long road trip yet. This weekend I'll put ~450 miles on the car so I'll have a better idea. The TACC definitely brakes later and harder than I would, but overall I'm very impressed so far.

The username is an ancient (by internet standards) one that goes back about 20 years. I'm an ophthalmologist, and my avocation/hobby is aviation.

 

[Electricfan]

re: TACC

I really like the TACC, and think it works very well. The only other car I've used it in is a Hyundai Equus that my Dad owns. I've been surprised how useful it is on a long trip.

The Tesla TACC seems to be much better than the Hyundai system, but I haven't made a long road trip yet. This weekend I'll put ~450 miles on the car so I'll have a better idea. The TACC definitely brakes later and harder than I would, but overall I'm very impressed so far.

The username is an ancient (by internet standards) one that goes back about 20 years. I'm an ophthalmologist, and my avocation/hobby is aviation.

Thanks. User name makes sense now. Very glad to hear you like the TACC, as that and the Auto-pilot are the main reasons I took a humongous financial bath to upgrade my Model S. Well, I'm also hoping the driver's seat is more comfortable - I think it is, at least based on my test rides in new models, but won't know for sure until I've driven the new one for a couple weeks.

There have been some posts about the TACC sometimes failing to recognize a stopped car in front of you, which I hope is an extremely rare occurrence. If one came to rely on TACC you could easily not react quickly enough and rear-end somebody - at least that's my concern (never had this feature before). But I drive in stop/go Houston traffic daily and am really hoping for relief via my new car's auto-pilot features. Absolutely cannot wait until auto-steering is released!

 

[McMuggets]

Got my P85D about 3 weeks ago. After driving it, well above my daily average, I've come to the conclusion that this is very well the best overall vehicle I have had the privilege of driving. I can't be the only Tesla driver who now looks forward and smiles every time he enters his garage and sees the technological marvel just sitting there waiting to be driven. Still get the "is this for real? pinch me" feeling, which hasn't worn off.

The wife loves the storage capacity and we've seriously used the frunk on a daily basis. The issues with easy denting of the hood as mentioned on other threads have been a non-issue for us. My car came with the winter tires in the hatch, and we were surprised at the cargo room left over with all of them stuffed in the hatch. It really feels like you could just lay down the back seats and have a very comfortable camp-out in this thing, staring up at the stars through the pano-roof. It definitely can carry more than my an SUV I used to own (Subaru Forester). Overall, the practicality side of things won the wife over.

This car drives and feels stuck to the road unlike anything I've experienced before. All I have to compare against are the test-drives of Audi's and BMW's (and not Lambo, Ferrari, etc), and this thing just blows them away with handling, acceleration, etc. I found it a little difficult to stay within the legal speed limit at times due to the sheer power and silence of the car, and so I've now turned on the "chime" feature and set it to trigger about 15Km/hr above. A tendency to drive aggressively comes naturally, but only when merging or needing to pop out from one lane to another after a stop-light. It's great when the fellow beside you decides he's not letting you in his lane because your lane ends due to parked cars or lane narrowing ("and you should have gotten into my lane earlier behind me"), and you just push a little on the pedal and he just can't stop you. Yes, a brief mention of the whiplash inducing Insane Mode is warranted. It was as if we fell forward into the future at 3.1s. I don't know the official measurement, but I could swear the back of the seat started feeling like a new "down" direction, and forwards was now "up". So this thing must pull some major G-Force on you midway through the acceleration. Made a few friends sick over it, and wish I took some videos of their reactions. One fellow is a convert and placed a deposit on a Model-X that same night.

The minimalist interior is definitely growing on me, but I also found storage a non-issue because I ordered the premium centre console, which I highly recommend based on the amount of usage it gets. The overall feel of the interior is spaceship-like. I got the premium audio upgrade, which I think sounds excellent but I am not an audiophile so I'm sure many here who are would disagree. Yes, it can't hold up against a $10,000 custom audio system, but then again it was only $2500 and came pre-installed. The quietness of the interior helps the audio clarity I believe.

Overall an absolute joy to drive. Would I ever reverse my huge purchase if I could? Emphatically NO! Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them, and in this case once you've seen and experienced a car like this there is no going back. My wife has tasked me with getting on the early reservation list for the Model 3 for her (doesn't like driving big cars), which surprised me because she's just not into cars at all. A few of my friends looking at the latest greatest ICE cars are now seriously considering a Model S instead, because it just makes the ICE vehicles seem dated and old-fashioned. Plus, they'd hate to spend pretty much the same amount of $ and be blown away by my Tesla on the road. One friend said it was like showing someone the iPhone when it first came out, and then telling them to just go and buy that latest Nokia phone. You can't go back. Those of you who are waiting for your P85D... I feel for you... the wait is excruciating and time only gets slower closer to the delivery date. You'll find yourselves living on the TMC Forums...reading everything to pass the time.

 

[ahurst]

Got my P85D about 3 weeks ago. After driving it, well above my daily average, I've come to the conclusion that this is very well the best overall vehicle I have had the privilege of driving. I can't be the only Tesla driver who now looks forward and smiles every time he enters his garage and sees the technological marvel just sitting there waiting to be driven. Still get the "is this for real? pinch me" feeling, which hasn't worn off.

The wife loves the storage capacity and we've seriously used the frunk on a daily basis. The issues with easy denting of the hood as mentioned on other threads have been a non-issue for us. My car came with the winter tires in the hatch, and we were surprised at the cargo room left over with all of them stuffed in the hatch. It really feels like you could just lay down the back seats and have a very comfortable camp-out in this thing, staring up at the stars through the pano-roof. It definitely can carry more than my an SUV I used to own (Subaru Forester). Overall, the practicality side of things won the wife over.

This car drives and feels stuck to the road unlike anything I've experienced before. All I have to compare against are the test-drives of Audi's and BMW's (and not Lambo, Ferrari, etc), and this thing just blows them away with handling, acceleration, etc. I found it a little difficult to stay within the legal speed limit at times due to the sheer power and silence of the car, and so I've now turned on the "chime" feature and set it to trigger about 15Km/hr above. A tendency to drive aggressively comes naturally, but only when merging or needing to pop out from one lane to another after a stop-light. It's great when the fellow beside you decides he's not letting you in his lane because your lane ends due to parked cars or lane narrowing ("and you should have gotten into my lane earlier behind me"), and you just push a little on the pedal and he just can't stop you. Yes, a brief mention of the whiplash inducing Insane Mode is warranted. It was as if we fell forward into the future at 3.1s. I don't know the official measurement, but I could swear the back of the seat started feeling like a new "down" direction, and forwards was now "up". So this thing must pull some major G-Force on you midway through the acceleration. Made a few friends sick over it, and wish I took some videos of their reactions. One fellow is a convert and placed a deposit on a Model-X that same night.

The minimalist interior is definitely growing on me, but I also found storage a non-issue because I ordered the premium centre console, which I highly recommend based on the amount of usage it gets. The overall feel of the interior is spaceship-like. I got the premium audio upgrade, which I think sounds excellent but I am not an audiophile so I'm sure many here who are would disagree. Yes, it can't hold up against a $10,000 custom audio system, but then again it was only $2500 and came pre-installed. The quietness of the interior helps the audio clarity I believe.

Overall an absolute joy to drive. Would I ever reverse my huge purchase if I could? Emphatically NO! Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them, and in this case once you've seen and experienced a car like this there is no going back. My wife has tasked me with getting on the early reservation list for the Model 3 for her (doesn't like driving big cars), which surprised me because she's just not into cars at all. A few of my friends looking at the latest greatest ICE cars are now seriously considering a Model S instead, because it just makes the ICE vehicles seem dated and old-fashioned. Plus, they'd hate to spend pretty much the same amount of $ and be blown away by my Tesla on the road. One friend said it was like showing someone the iPhone when it first came out, and then telling them to just go and buy that latest Nokia phone. You can't go back. Those of you who are waiting for your P85D... I feel for you... the wait is excruciating and time only gets slower closer to the delivery date. You'll find yourselves living on the TMC Forums...reading everything to pass the time.

Great write up

 

[EdA]

Great write up

Seconded...

After 44k miles in my car and about 7k on my wife's car (starting a 1,200 road trip tonight), the feeling will never go away...

 

[Wayneb]

Picked up my S85D last Friday and I agree it's a joy to drive. I was surprised at the acceleration, feels very much like the P85 acceleration I felt on my test drive. I gave my banker a ride today, he did pay for it after all, and his first comment on getting out was that he was really upset. Seems he just bought a new Nissan SUV, and now regrets it. He said that if he had done a test drive, he would have bought the Tesla instead. Now I have ruined his new car.
His other comment was that he never thought I would buy such an elite car, which was interesting, since my friends all say it's the perfect car for a geek like me.

 

[EdA]

Picked up my S85D last Friday and I agree it's a joy to drive. I was surprised at the acceleration, feels very much like the P85 acceleration I felt on my test drive. I gave my banker a ride today, he did pay for it after all, and his first comment on getting out was that he was really upset. Seems he just bought a new Nissan SUV, and now regrets it. He said that if he had done a test drive, he would have bought the Tesla instead. Now I have ruined his new car.
His other comment was that he never thought I would buy such an elite car, which was interesting, since my friends all say it's the perfect car for a geek like me.

Welcome to the club.

A few years ago I got an email at work requesting a ride to my town. I ended up driving this woman
to a car dealership to pick up her new car. I too ruined that new car.

 

[catosotp]

I just ordered a Titanium P85D with the Pano roof, spoiler, Autopilot, Suspension, and the darker 21" wheels. Right now the site is estimating a late June delivery. The test drive I took a week and a half ago sold me. I can't wait to be behind the wheel of this beast once it arrives. I will keep updates coming as far as delivery estimates and first impressions once I get the car. Now to get an electrician for the garage charging!

 

[Shawn Snider]

I just ordered a Titanium P85D with the Pano roof, spoiler, Autopilot, Suspension, and the darker 21" wheels. Right now the site is estimating a late June delivery. The test drive I took a week and a half ago sold me. I can't wait to be behind the wheel of this beast once it arrives. I will keep updates coming as far as delivery estimates and first impressions once I get the car. Now to get an electrician for the garage charging!

Congratulations on becoming a Tesla Owner! Welcome to the Forums! That titanium looks pretty sharp, eye-catcher for sure!

 

[Nantang]

In production at the factory:

P85D in new blue, panoramic roof, 19" cyclone, tan Next Gen, obeche gloss, black Alcantara, autopilot, air suspension, ultra-high fidelity, premium interior (*now with Lifgate!), and subzero weather; adding dual chargers and rear strip cupholders, and a HPWC for the garage.

Details and impressions once I'm driving, but my test drives with rear motor 85 and P85 told me two years ago and again last year that this will be my next car.

 

[Electricfan]

Picked up my car last Thursday and it had a problem with the charge port door - see post below.

Other small issues - scratches on the driver's door handle, gaskets not attached, plastic parts not attached, squeaky dash.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...ld-car/page2?p=1038437&viewfull=1#post1038437