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People are crazy not to buy Tesla cars!
- Thread starter Sanny
- Start date
Corolla is pretty much the worst driving car I can think of. Maybe even worse than Jeep Wrangler.
But I agree that Tesla lease prices don't make any sense. Might as well buy at that price. Especially with Feredal tax credit going away.
If you buy, you are getting a far more durable car (at least theoretically) that mostly drives itself and saves (me) about $400 per month in fuel costs. Not to mention not having to stop for fuel every day (for me.)
Ok. Good luck with whatever you purchase.
I usually only looked at a vehicle to get from a to b. That changes with my Tesla. Now I actually ENJOY driving again. I know I’m paying for the “fun factor”. But for me, it’s worth it. Life is too short to be annoyed with much of it behind the wheel. Heck, even stop lights and stop signs don’t bother me anymore because of regen braking. Sure, some energy is still lost but not nearly as bad as wearing down brakes and momentum with a gas car.
Sadly, service is very hit or miss. The hot spots of Tesla ownership appear to have the biggest bottlenecks right now. Understandably. Here's hoping it's all better soonish.
That's why everyone needs to calculate for his own situation. I'm for one, saving around $250/month on electricity vs gas (I never realized that I drive so much until I specifically checked) and you can imagine - it makes a difference in monthly costs. I'm making an assumption that for taxis/fleet/people who drive a lot the equation is the same as for me - meaning Model 3 will be on par with a cheap 25k car like an optioned Civic.
There is no question that the weakest link is the organization of customer contact—from initial delivery expectation, to actual delivery and especially (because it’s for the longest time) customer service.
We’re on Maui with our delicious, spectacular AWD LR Model 3. To get to the nearest service center (Honolulu), we’d need a snorkel and some efficient jets or propellers. We are totally dependent on the ONE service tech who services ALL of the outer islands. (They fly him from island to island.) He, and the service rep who schedules him, have been absolutely terrific so far, but we have only had minor software problems that were fixable remotely. The only service so far has been that I requested assistance in installing roof racks, as I preferred that Tesla crack the glass roof rather than me if a mistake were to be made! Even for this unimportant service, both the rep and the ranger were terrific—it was scheduled within a reasonable period of time, friendly and thorough.
Even though our service experience so far has been superb, If Tesla is listening, IT’S THE ONLY REASON WE ONLY OWN ONE TESLA. We feel that we need a backup vehicle BECAUSE we’re not confident that with a larger problem, it would be resolved in a reasonable amount of time.
There are A LOT of Teslas on Maui!!
All that being said, what other car company sends a service tech to your door at no additional charge?
In contrast, we just bought a new John Deere “zero-turn “ mower (boy, I wish they made electric ones!!) There is a service center here. To fix a blown tire when it was only one week old, they wanted to charge me $125/hour drive time to send someone out with a trailer, assess the problem, bring it back to their shop, replace the tire and charge me for it, and then charge to bring it back. Total estimate was $650!!! (We figured out a better way). So there’s the other extreme.
That being said, I would more readily push friends into Teslas if we were not dependent on the health and availability of one (albeit excellent) tech.
We had to wait weeks for an appointment in Torrance CA and then they had the car for 12 days to resolve an electronic issue - car wouldn't go into gear. Great car. They need to ramp up Service Centers.
Yes they do need to ramp up service centers. Fortunately they are in many areas.
I ordered a SR+ in Canada and it will be my only car. This is the way I see it as a future owner.
Wins:
- Fun to drive
- Expecting lower cost fueling with electricity vs premium gas
- Less parts to maintain, hopefully translating to less parts to replace
- Available superchargers in good numbers
Losses:
- Set up cost to install electrical outlet (small amount)
- Higher insurance rate
- High cost of the car ($65k CAD, or $60k after incentives, whereas most non-luxury cars looking between $32-$38k after tax)
- Still clueless on replacement parts, if any would be available
Risks:
- Build quality, not so confident given others' feedback, I will bring a delivery checklist with me on Day 1
- Mildly decent communication from sales advisor, will respond within 48 hours
- Repairs.. I will have to pray I do not get into any fender bender, this is the biggest anxiety for me (forget range anxiety)
Wins:
- Fun to drive
- Expecting lower cost fueling with electricity vs premium gas
- Less parts to maintain, hopefully translating to less parts to replace
- Available superchargers in good numbers
Losses:
- Set up cost to install electrical outlet (small amount)
- Higher insurance rate
- High cost of the car ($65k CAD, or $60k after incentives, whereas most non-luxury cars looking between $32-$38k after tax)
- Still clueless on replacement parts, if any would be available
Risks:
- Build quality, not so confident given others' feedback, I will bring a delivery checklist with me on Day 1
- Mildly decent communication from sales advisor, will respond within 48 hours
- Repairs.. I will have to pray I do not get into any fender bender, this is the biggest anxiety for me (forget range anxiety)
I was seriously considering the model 3, but unfortunately the seats are a deal breaker for tall people. That basically prevents a big chunk of the population from considering it. The headrest is very awkward and protruding forward and not adjustabl. You can maybe tolerate it for a while, but if you want to keep it for years, good luck with the discomfort
Yeah, my buddy just traded in his Porsche for a M3P for that very reason. He said if he waited much longer, he expected the value of his Porsche to be zilch. BTW, he lOVES his M3!!!
PWRDBYV
Member
I'm 6'4" and have owned my M3 since last July and find it to be extremely comfortable for me. Headrest position and all.
Some of the calculations that show a Model 3 to be less costly to operate at 20K miles per year than a mainstream ICE vehicle include cost of energy consumed and also take into account projected depreciation. Operating cost does not just include maintenance; in fact, maintenance is often the lesser factor. But it's worth noting that depreciation on a Model 3 is kind of an unknown, and all projects that include it are educated guesses. Depreciation on the Model S, on the other hand, is well-known, and could be useful when estimating M3 depreciation rates.
Short question, requiring a long answer.
My main battery was found to be defective when my 2015 P90D was a few months old. They refused to simply give me a replacement despite the car being so new, saying that was not how Tesla did it, instead they would remanufacture my battery. So they installed a loaner 85KW, but instead of taking the estimated 4 - 6 weeks as they said "it depends on how backed up the remanufacturing process is", it was 6 months. When they re-installed my battery they ran diagnostics and found that the battery was defective, wouldn't hold a charge. I was livid -- how could they have shipped the battery without first running diagnostics? This time I insisted I get a new battery, else I was going to fly to Fremont. The people at the SC were great -- truly my advocates -- but they had to fight management at Fremont. They won, and a new battery was shipped.
I was dubious as to whether they were truly giving me a new battery, but it turns out they did. How did I know? Because between the time my car was built and then, they had changed the design of the battery and to put a new style battery into my car required an adapter kit, which hadn't been sent, so that took a couple of extra days to locate and be shipped in.
Then, I made the mistake of running the nose of the car over a parking curb. Because of the frunk, they pack a whole bunch of stuff down very low to the ground, which got destroyed to a bill of over $6,000.00. The authorized Tesla shop told me it could take Tesla 4 - 6 weeks to get the parts shipped, because they were so slow in delivering things. In fact it was 10 weeks and not everything showed up, so the shop borrowed the missing parts off another brand new Model S that was in the shop waiting for its parts to arrive.
Then the drivers door handled failed. The new handle took over a week to arrive. When I was picking my car up, the fellow said "Your car was one of 5 that we replaced door handles on today." He didn't need to tell me that.
Then the airbag warning light came on, and they said to get the car to them immediately. When I dropped the car off they said that when that light comes on, the entire airbag system is inoperable. They determined that the wiring harness had failed, and they ordered a replacement which arrived in under a week, however there was a problem. The harness that arrived had the correct part number, but wasn't the right component and would not work on my car. Tesla had apparently designed a brand new harness, but gave it the old part number. That took weeks for them to figure out.
This was in the second half of December with cold weather in Philadelphia, when the car was a little over 2 years old. While I was driving the loaner car I realized that the heated seats which were really not perceptible in my car were really warm in the loaner car. They checked my car and found that the bottom seat cushion of the drivers seat was defective. And, instead of having to simply install just a new heating element, or the seat bottom as a unit, they had to replace the entire drivers seat. When I asked how much that would cost if it wasn't under warranty, The young gal cheerily said "I don't know **all the ones ** we've replaced have been under warranty". They said it would take 4 to 6 weeks for the replacement seat to show up. That was the first week of January. When I decided to write the big check and pay off my lease 6 months early it was the second half of April -- 3 months later -- and the seat still hadn't arrived. I suspect that the reason why is that my car had a gray interior and they had stopped making gray ones about 12 - 18 months earlier. I hope that whoever buys my car lives in Arizona.
The only saving grace was that there was a large service center about 20 minutes from my home, which really helped given all the many trips I had to make there.
Moral of the story? If you never have a problem with your Tesla, you are fine. However if you do have a problem, God help you.
Well sorry to hear that. I do see plenty of horror stories like this. Fortunately there are some good stories too. I guess I’ll have to find out first hand. But of course I don’t want to. I live in Michigan and the closest service center to me is about a 3 hour drive out of state. There are a couple local certified shops though. But they probably wouldn’t do warranty work.
How do you contact mobile service? There is no link on the phone AP, in the car, or on the website??
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