please honest opinion only

[Veto888]

Please honest opinion only.
I know this is beautiful car, I like it and you like it.

We currently own Honda Accord touring 2018.
That car we are using for going to work, take kids to school , grocery shopping…..

We also own Acura MDX for long distances.

If we trade our Accord for Model S (CPO) can we trust that car to be Reliable commuter car ?
Most important - even if something happen and we cant use it for tomorrow can we get loaner from Tesla right away?
Being without a car one day is no option for us and we can use Acura only for emergencies (one or two day)

If you are in my shoes would you just wait one or two more years, drive Accord and wait until situation with Tesla service department get better ?
(im member of local Tesla group and there are lot of complains about long wait and not able to get substitute loaner car)

 

[commasign]

Yes, it's a reliable commuter car. Don't let the forums posts convince you otherwise. Vast majority of people have no issues and are not on the forums.

Check with your service center to see what the loaner fleet situation is. At the Rocklin service center they recently increase the loaner fleet from 30 cars to 80 cars and they are owned and managed by Enterprise so there's no chance they'll be sold.

 

[Blu Zap]

My 2014 Model S has been a reliable daily driver for over 4 years. The local Service Center has been great with providing loaners. As @commasign points out, they work with Enterprise to always have a vehicle available. I have a gas SUV and never drive it. Get that CPO now, you'll never go back to gas!

 

[Mark Z]

I think you answered the question with the complaints about a long wait and not able to get a loaner car in the Las Vegas area.

As far as reliability, I have found the Model S to be excellent. Both my 2012 and 2017 are charged and ready for use each morning. No need to visit a gas station. Both vehicles have been driven cross-country and Tesla has resolved issues in hours when necessary. Only a bad charge port on the 2012 and a flat tire with the 2017 caused delay. In those two cases, Tesla service was faster than my experiences with GM vehicles. Annual service visits are usually accomplished in two days, with a loaner provided overnight.

While Tesla mechanical repairs can be accomplished in a timely manner, auto body repairs can take a much longer time. Continue to discuss your concerns with your local Tesla group, as their experiences may provide more accuracy for your area.

 

[pedriscoll]

My 2015 Model S 85D was every bit as reliable as my prior Toyota Camry for the 3 years I owned it. I recently replaced it with a 2018 100D to get longer range and the newer AP 2.5 hardware. It has been rock solid as well.

 

[Snowstorm]

2017 S100D in Canada. No issues since day 1 with the car. The largest annoyance was the screen got stuck a couple times which was resolved with a reboot by holding down the buttons.

Hands down better than any car I have ever driven. Charged and ready to go each day. Handles cold weather without issue, all warmed up in the garage before I get in.

 

[rooter]

Hey Canada, how is it in the snow? Winter tires? When do you know you need chains? Back, or front and back? What kind of chains do you use?

 

[Tam]

...Reliable commuter car ?...

Reliable as in not broken down and leave me stranded in the middle of the road? Yes.

I was left stranded on the road multiple times while owning a gasoline car: from 12V to transmission to running out of gas... but not during my 6 years of Tesla ownership.

But does it break at all: Yes it certainly does!

I owned 2012 Models for 6 years and 100,000 miles and the only problems it got was during in its high mileage, out of standard warranty period, not during its youthful days of <50,000 miles:

$600 Gen1 Mobile Connector

$4,000 for re-manufactured MCU (17" screen and computer)

$4,500 for cabin heater

They were not emergencies and they did not disable me in the middle of the road.

My current 2017 Model X with 22,000 miles and a few months from completing its 2nd year has been rocking good (but it's still not out of its standard warranty just yet

But individual testimonies is not a reliable indicator because the sample is too small.

 

[Mediocrates]

Instead of taking hasty generalizations from owners with both good and bad experiences, let's look at a much larger sample:

Tesla slips several spots in Consumer Reports reliability ranking

That's Consumer Reports aggregate data from a large pool of owners - not forum posts, not a few owners recounting anecdotal experience.

Tesla has very poor reliability.

 

[Knightowl]

Never been stranded by anything but also resourceful. When a rear window regulator gave out hours before my wife was due to drive across country solo with three 5 and under kids in the back seat this summer there was nothing service could do for me. I got the window back up and taped it into position making that door unusable for the start of her trip, big hassle as she had to load and unload a baby in a car seat that was on that side.

However we were able to get an appt in route half way across the country at a service center not far off her course and they changed it out for her. It was about an hour detour from her planned route. Was great as it made the rest of her journey far better, service took 2hrs as they also decided to do a power steering bolt recall at the same time. So all in all a 3hr delay while driving from CO to NY.

Other non-show stopers have been door handle failures, while annoying and you may have to crawl in across the car they wont stop you from using it daily and usually can be fixed within a few days at most by mobile repair comming to you or an hour visit to a SC of your choice.

My kids now are 5yrs, 3yrs, and 1yr old with twins due in another month to month and a half to make 5 kids all under 5yrs old.

Even with all these littles we bought a 2nd Tesla S85 and now have only these as our primary cars, the 2nd one is my wifes and has the rear facing kid seats in the back to support 5 kid transport.

Oh, also teach your kids not to slam the doors! Gently but firm.

 

[Tiger]

Hey Canada, how is it in the snow? Winter tires? When do you know you need chains? Back, or front and back? What kind of chains do you use?

In the winter, Studded Winter tires are safest. You know you need chains when snow is thick (with maybe ice underneath) and you drive steep uphill or downhill (also, you must drive in an area where snow chains are legal (or required)).

 

[S'toon]

Hey Canada, how is it in the snow? Winter tires? When do you know you need chains? Back, or front and back? What kind of chains do you use?

Norwegian Bjorn Nyland has extensive videos on winter driving.

I've never seen anyone use chains, we drive with winter tires up here.

Bjørn Nyland

 

[dark cloud]

Hey Canada, how is it in the snow? Winter tires? When do you know you need chains? Back, or front and back? What kind of chains do you use?

Wish I could tell you. I have been praying for snow for 2 months and next to nothing yet here in the lower middle of BC. It is mid-December and I can wash my car in my driveway. And yet there is a snowstorm in Texas going on. What strange happenings regarding the weather the last several years...

And with decent winter tires I have never needed chains in any of my vehicles: Infiniti, Mini Cooper All4, Honda all wheel drives (CRV and Ridgeline), Civic and Element front wheel drives, Acura EL, even going back to my ole' diesel front wheel drive Rabbit which drove to Whistler mountain hundreds of times; that thing would go anywhere with those skinny snow tires.

 

[whitex]

Go online and try to book a service center visit at your nearest service center. See what the wait is - will give you an idea how long you might have to wait should something require service. We've had issues for service to fix on each of our 4 Model S, but none of them rendered the car undriveable for longer than 15 minutes (though it's scary if you don't know if you can drive for that long), most were not even that serious, just annoying. The current wait for our service center appointment is a month where I live, now that the Model 3's are out, so a bit concerning. I don't have a recent experience with a loaner as the last few times SC took care of the problem via mobile techs. Mobile tech appointment wait is less, only about a week and half, but you may need require 2 visits as they don't stock a lot of parts, and parts can take a while to arrive from Tesla - but that's a problem with SC visits as well.

No car is guaranteed to never break down or be in an accident. About accidents, if its serious and makes the car undrivable you may be at months without a car - number of stories on this forum how long it takes to repair a Tesla (shortage of qualified body shop personnel, shortage of parts, long parts delays, etc). When my wife had her accident a year ago, it took 3 weeks just to get to a damage estimate during which there is no Tesla loaners. I hear the wait is longer now.

All that said, how would you deal with your Accord breaking down? Nothing lasts for ever, things do break eventually, and sometimes it's just bad luck and you drive over a deep pothole or get hit by another car while stopped at the red light. Does Acura provide you an instant loaner for however long the car is not driveable for such occasions?

 

[Snowstorm]

Hey Canada, how is it in the snow? Winter tires? When do you know you need chains? Back, or front and back? What kind of chains do you use?

I swap to winter tires after Halloween each year and then back to all seasons after Easter. Handles great in the snow as long as it isn’t too deep. AWD with winter tires gives good traction. No need for studs or chains for me.

 

[Struja]

Hey Canada, how is it in the snow? Winter tires? When do you know you need chains? Back, or front and back? What kind of chains do you use?

I have X-Ice 3 on mine in the inter and it is a beast in the snow.

I came from a Lexus and I have owned Lexus’s for a long time. Has my S90D been as reliable as my Lexus? Not quite, but close. Has the service department been as good? No. Have I ever had to wait for a loaner? No. I have always got one right away.

Having said all that...my S90D is the BEST car I have ever owned by a long mile. It’s not even close.

 

[Veto888]

Go online and try to book a service center visit at your nearest service center. See what the wait is - will give you an idea how long you might have to wait should something require service. We've had issues for service to fix on each of our 4 Model S, but none of them rendered the car undriveable for longer than 15 minutes (though it's scary if you don't know if you can drive for that long), most were not even that serious, just annoying. The current wait for our service center appointment is a month where I live, now that the Model 3's are out, so a bit concerning. I don't have a recent experience with a loaner as the last few times SC took care of the problem via mobile techs. Mobile tech appointment wait is less, only about a week and half, but you may need require 2 visits as they don't stock a lot of parts, and parts can take a while to arrive from Tesla - but that's a problem with SC visits as well.

No car is guaranteed to never break down or be in an accident. About accidents, if its serious and makes the car undrivable you may be at months without a car - number of stories on this forum how long it takes to repair a Tesla (shortage of qualified body shop personnel, shortage of parts, long parts delays, etc). When my wife had her accident a year ago, it took 3 weeks just to get to a damage estimate during which there is no Tesla loaners. I hear the wait is longer now.

All that said, how would you deal with your Accord breaking down? Nothing lasts for ever, things do break eventually, and sometimes it's just bad luck and you drive over a deep pothole or get hit by another car while stopped at the red light. Does Acura provide you an instant loaner for however long the car is not driveable for such occasions?

I cant try to schedule appointment since I don't own Tesla yet.
Im not concerned about small problems, but if something happen (cant start , red lights....) and my wife needs to go to work or take kids somewhere then it becomes problem.
My wife know nothing about cars, and if she see any type of alerts she will start panicking.
Acura and even Honda (rent a car) give us loaner right away. That's no problem.
My concern is this - If my car does not start today for some reason what are my options?
Call Tesla local service? Then what they can do? Can they give me loaner while my car is still in garage and not able to turn on or some other problem?
Yes, im going to call my local service tomorrow and ask them about all this, I just wanted to hear here from owners how often that happens.
I have read consumer reports, its really negative, but Im only concerned about big things (not able to drive my car at all) and not minor issues.
And I know about problems with body shops, that's also another problem but I have not been in car accident for 20 years so I hope it wont happen with Tesla too.

 

[whitex]

I cant try to schedule appointment since I don't own Tesla yet.
Im not concerned about small problems, but if something happen (cant start , red lights....) and my wife needs to go to work or take kids somewhere then it becomes problem.
My wife know nothing about cars, and if she see any type of alerts she will start panicking.

I am familiar with the same situration. I had to teach my wife how to reboot the car. Unfortunately she got stuck twice where the car wouldn't close the trunk, no reboot would help. Lucky I was there with her the first time and my son the second time and turns repeated slamming of the trunk eventually did close it (though once it wouldn't open back after she drove home) - we have since replaced the rear latch, but it took a month during which my wife was afraid to open the trunk when out.

but I have not been in car accident for 20 years so I hope it wont happen with Tesla too.

You can never predict accidents, my wife has never been in an accident until this happened:

Not much you can do to guard yourself against such drivers under influence, or some other unpredictable things. The one important thing I will say, while the Model S was totalled, the low center of gravity allowed it to pirouette 360 degrees at 60mph, hit concrete blocks, and still my wife walked away unharmed. Big reason why we replaced it with another Model S.

Bottom line is, nothing is risk free. Tesla service was always stellar for me, the reason why I kept coming back, but they have operate within the restraints of Tesla corporate, so if corporate takes weeks to send parts, there is nothing they can do, if corporate doesn't provide enough cars for loaners, same thing. Tesla are great cars to drive, and very safe (providing you're not using autopilot wrong), but they are nowhere near Toyota or Honda reliability, so it's up to you whether you think it's a worthy tradeoff.

 

[StealthP3D]

We have two Model 3's, one since May, the other since September. Neither one has had so much as a rattle or hiccup that required more than a 30-second reboot (always to fix something non-essential like the web browser). I'd be really surprised if this changes anytime soon but I would trust Tesla to provide a loaner if necessary. Same as any car but more reliable because it's more simple and uses top quality componentry.

But I would expect all modern cars to mostly reliable, at least for the first 50-100K miles for ICE cars and much longer than that for pure EV's. Where the Model 3 really shines is in its pure driving pleasure and how easy and responsive it is to drive.

 

[dark cloud]

Not much you can do to guard yourself against such drivers under influence, or some other unpredictable things. The one important thing I will say, while the Model S was totalled, the low center of gravity allowed it to pirouette 360 degrees at 60mph, hit concrete blocks, and still my wife walked away unharmed. Big reason why we replaced it with another Model S.

Bottom line is, nothing is risk free. Tesla service was always stellar for me, the reason why I kept coming back, but they have operate within the restraints of Tesla corporate, so if corporate takes weeks to send parts, there is nothing they can do, if corporate doesn't provide enough cars for loaners, same thing. Tesla are great cars to drive, and very safe (providing you're not using autopilot wrong), but they are nowhere near Toyota or Honda reliability, so it's up to you whether you think it's a worthy tradeoff.

And I am a huge Honda fan, still own a couple of them in the family, but I would trade a few door handle repairs, a new sunroof seal and a few reboots for the performance and safety factor anyday. I will add that I have had to replace 2 air conditioners on 2 different Honda's in the past few years. And Honda doesn't have mobile mechanics.

My Honda's are commuters, my Tesla is a lifestyle.