P85+ test drive - the car conked out twice!!!

[Denarius]

2500 miles on my P85+ with no issues. I LOVE this car!

 

[MartinAustin]

There is another 'drive event' in Austin this weekend if you wanted to give it another shot. Call the Domain store.

How prophetic that you should suggest this, dsm363.

The salesman just called me on my cellphone and suggested I come in for another test drive! Which I will do this weekend I told him I wanted a P85 with 19" wheels, and he said he would try to get that.

I guess there aren't many folks that do more than one test drive. I can think of better ways to spend my weekends... but not many

 

[AmpedRealtor]

If a car pooped out on me during a test drive, I would probably take that as a sign to wait...

 

[MartinAustin]

If a car pooped out on me during a test drive, I would probably take that as a sign to wait...

No way, AmpedRealtor! I'm too much of a believer

SO, my second test drive was today and it was a lot more enjoyable than the first, due in part because I was more used to the car, and partly because it didn't conk out. While I am aiming to buy a P85, this was yet another Performance Plus car w/ Sound Studio Package. (goodness am I "getting used to" Performance Plus???)

I have a fuller list of audio formats that I was able to test here -

FLAC lossless -yes
MP4 720p lossy movie file - it plays the file, just no video but you hear the sound (cool!)
MP4 1080p lossy movie file - it appeared to play for about 20 seconds then it gave up - data rate too high? more testing needed
OGG lossy - yes
PCM 11K 8-bit file - NO played with lots of clipping/distortion
PCM 11K 16-bit - yes
PCM 22K 16-bit - yes
PCM 44K 16-bit - yes
PCM 44K 24-bit - yes
PCM 96K 16-bit - yes
PCM 192K 16-bit - yes
Apple Lossless file - NO - it simply hung the media system up with a little rotating "thinking" icon (rather disappointing error handling, and disappointing altogether)
Windows Media Audio Lossless - yes, though it seems to truncate the first few milliseconds of the track. Will have to do some more testing with this.
Windows Media Audio (lossy) - yes, though it played with a glitch at the beginning of the track every time. Not sure if it was my test file... I only made one test file ><
MP3 320Kb/s - yes of course but I would never use this if I could choose something better.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE SOUND SYSTEM - during this second test I was able to visit the audio processing screen and I saw firstly that the test car had all three of its EQ faders turned up nearly to the max. This is pretty pointless and does not help the sound system. I reset them all to zero and was able to turn up the main volume without hurting my ears. Also, there is something called "Dolby Surround" which has two positions - on and off. It was on, and I turned it off. Once I had Dolby Surround disabled and the EQ set to flat, the sound system was pretty nice! I think it gave a pretty good account of itself. The stereo is really loud, like, probably louder than I will ever want to use it. However, it is not built like a club P.A. and will not pump out tons of bass. If you want that, go get it modded, or buy a different car. For the cleanest audio, assuming you have modern, well-produced source material, turn off the surround and level out your EQ.

As for driving the car, this one did not conk out at any point, it just brought a 50-50 mix between a smile and a scary gasp of astonishment to my face several times. The acceleration of the car is great, and I found many places where it is useful - for example when going up hills. Was able to pass other cars that were having trouble maintaining anywhere near the speed limit as they climbed the hill.

I was also able to test out the air suspension's ability to get the car over ramps and slopes that would scrape any regular car. 100% pass on that test. I tried out the cruise control... it is actually very nice. I like being able to adjust the speed of the car by +/- 3mph or so with the touch of the little lever - and the car responds very quickly to those changes.

The road noise - from tires only, as far as I could discern - is still non-trivial in this car at speeds above 40mph. Below that it is really really quiet, almost silent. I don't think it's fair to criticize them for tire noise at highway speeds though, in 245 low-profile rubber. Still a really quiet car.

Overall, the "product specialist" and the Tesla folks overall scored major points today by inviting me for this second test drive. I am expecting to place my order August 8th. (hopefully you know why)

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

It's somewhat of a legal difference. The Galleries can't offer walk-in test drives, but they can schedule "drive events" with the state and offer pre-arranged test drives to people with whom they have an existing relationship. There's probably some legal nuance that I've missed, but that's the basic idea.

Perhaps it works as a manufacturer demonstration.

 

[Twiddler]

So I now have in my possession the car in question (it is being used as a loaner as my pano roof is being un-creaked). I have certainly had my fun with it so far today and it has given me no problems. Got at least one reservation out of it as well

 

[Mayhemm]

So it has been repaired, then?

 

[MartinAustin]

Yeah I was surprised to see the blue P85+ from my first test drive back in the test fleet one week later, and was informed that it had quickly been repaired at Austin's service center. (the car would only break down when drivers floor the pedal, so it was driven over there under its own steam... for want of a better term... LOL)

The one I drove yesterday was a white P85+. (and very nice)

 

[Twiddler]

So it has been repaired, then?

Possibly, however when I asked if the problem had been identified I got a puzzled look and was told that they were unaware of this car (or any one in Austin) having such an issue. As nice as the P85+ was to drive though, I would never EVER opt out of the tech package - its absence made it obvious just how spoiled I have become. The headlights were more like flashlights, not the beacon of awesome that blasts out of the front of my car