Recent Used Buying Experience (New Policy)

[Sports123]

Hi All,

Has anyone had recent experience (after Sept 4th) buying a used Tesla under their new policy (no pictures and 145pt inspection, $500 deposit)?

I am looking to purchase one, but am hesitant to pay a $500 deposit plus shipping without seeing the car. Not sure how comfortable I am at the idea of potentially losing $1K+.

Was the car in good shape? Did the actually fix things mechanically and cosmetically?

Thanks in Advance!

 

[DerbyDave]

I wouldn't buy a car I couldn't see, or see photos of. I wouldn't put down a non-refundable deposit unless I could back out on an unseen car. Even buying my new car from Tesla, it is like they have never sold any cars before. I think this is because they are selling all they make and don't care. If you want it, go see it first -- then put your money down if you like it.

 

[Sports123]

Problem is you are not allowed to see it without putting the $500 deposit down. And since it is located a little far away, I would have to pay another $500 to have it shipped.

 

[DerbyDave]

Problem is you are not allowed to see it without putting the $500 deposit down. And since it is located a little far away, I would have to pay another $500 to have it shipped.

I flew 500 miles to see one in 2015. You mean they won't tell you where it is so you can see it on your own dime? If that is true, buy anything but a used Tesla. Find a private sale from someone.

 

[Sports123]

No, I mean they literally will not take it out to show you the vehicle without putting down the $500 non-refundable deposit. It is part of their new policy.

Does private sale really work out well? I am hesitant about that as well but it seems as though people do it all the time on here...

 

[Ostrichsak]

Tesla has made it nearly impossible to buy used from them. They clearly want out of the used car biz but people keep rewarding their bad behavior no matter how cost prohibitive they make it to trade your car into them. Don't reward bad behavior.

 

[AMPd]

Tesla has made it nearly impossible to buy used from them. They clearly want out of the used car biz but people keep rewarding their bad behavior no matter how cost prohibitive they make it to trade your car into them. Don't reward bad behavior.

I agree, clearly people are still buying used from Tesla so they don’t feel the need to put any effort into selling them. Makes sense from their end, I mean why try if the cars are still flying off the lot. Only when people stop buying will they rethink the process.
I mean come on this is ridiculous! It’s a used car, you’d think buyers would want to see the level of wear and tear the vehicle has endured.

 

[Sports123]

I could not agree more

 

[JoeCW]

@Sports123 I bought mine on 9/8 (delivered 9/20) and posted to my experience to "Used Delivery Experience" if that helps you in anyway. I detailed how I got around/justified some of the concerns (some may not apply now though). One lucky caveat I had is the fact that I was watching the vehicle before the transition period but I bought after the policy change. This made the conversation with the used car team a little interesting as I had more knowledge of the vehicle than they did in front of them when they do the initial lookup.

It is a little riskier now but the car was near pristine, had a good experience with Tesla, and saved a lot. It also allowed me to get exactly what I wanted as some features are not available in the newer MS. Regardless, which ever you decide, double thumbs up for MS. Love driving mine. Good luck!

 

[Kross]

Put in an order for mine on Oct 3rd - nothing other than the generic pictures. Today, Oct 13th it has arrived at my local Tesla Service Center (it was sent from Cali to Maryland).

I got a text today that the next step is the Maryland State Inspection and then it should be ready for me to pick up. Will update how that goes.

 

[Sports123]

@Sports123 I bought mine on 9/8 (delivered 9/20) and posted to my experience to "Used Delivery Experience" if that helps you in anyway. I detailed how I got around/justified some of the concerns (some may not apply now though). One lucky caveat I had is the fact that I was watching the vehicle before the transition period but I bought after the policy change. This made the conversation with the used car team a little interesting as I had more knowledge of the vehicle than they did in front of them when they do the initial lookup.

It is a little riskier now but the car was near pristine, had a good experience with Tesla, and saved a lot. It also allowed me to get exactly what I wanted as some features are not available in the newer MS. Regardless, which ever you decide, double thumbs up for MS. Love driving mine. Good luck!

Thanks Joe! I did not see that thread, will read through it! Thanks for sharing your experience, glad to hear it was a good one and the car was in great shape!

 

[Sports123]

Put in an order for mine on Oct 3rd - nothing other than the generic pictures. Today, Oct 13th it has arrived at my local Tesla Service Center (it was sent from Cali to Maryland).

I got a text today that the next step is the Maryland State Inspection and then it should be ready for me to pick up. Will update how that goes.

Please keep us posted! Very excited for you, I hope its great!

 

[rstamper]

Hi All,

Has anyone had recent experience (after Sept 4th) buying a used Tesla under their new policy (no pictures and 145pt inspection, $500 deposit)?

I am looking to purchase one, but am hesitant to pay a $500 deposit plus shipping without seeing the car. Not sure how comfortable I am at the idea of potentially losing $1K+.

Was the car in good shape? Did the actually fix things mechanically and cosmetically?

Thanks in Advance!

Hey sports welcome man! I am currently going through the tesla used cpo experience as well. I *would* not purchase a car without having seen photos of it. THE nice thing is you can still see the photos of the vehicle actually. So even though Tesla does not show you the photos anymore on their website the photos are still there. In the XML data of their listing they actually link the links to all the photos that have been uploaded for the vehicle. You can access these photos at https://tesla-info.com/car/US-<VINNUMBER> so just put in the VIN of a car you want to purchase off their website and you will see the date / time the photos were taken and the photos themselves. In my case I hit purchase on my Tesla on 9/24/2020 and saw photos that had been taken and uploaded on 9/15/2020 by Tesla during the check in process.

So I was able to see everything. I printed them all out and used that for the basis on clicking purchase. It is now of course 10/14/2020 and my vehicle is still in transit from Atlanta, GA to San Antonio TX.

I would advise calling their used delivery team number and speaking to people on the phone that will actually move your case along. Do not rely on their website since it gets things on a slow update cycle. You have to call them and see what their system says, they are happy to help you. They will not disclose service history, I do see that some people say they were able to get it in the past in my experience they did not disclose it. I am told that they should give you that when you go to sign for the vehicle so you can at least see if the screen has been replaced, or door handles etc.

If you are doing a trade in (like I am) you will drive your trade in to go get your Tesla. Tesla is now doing personless exchanges due to covid so your vehicle will be in the parking lot with the keys inside of it and your paperwork on it to be signed. How you are going to get any issues resolved by their service center I dont know if you see any. Perhaps texting they will come out? I dont know. I *hopefully* should be going to pick up the vehicle this weekend so can post an update to say how all of that occured etc. Remember that cars prior to 2017 are on the gen 1 mobile chargers so if you are purchasing adapters for the chargers keep that in mind. However I have also been told of cars having the latest gen mobile charger thrown into the car so now I dont know if I wasted my money on buying adapters for the gen 1 mobile charger.

You need to have your Tesla on your insurance before they will even transfer or start the delivery process. Also your loan / payment has to be done / arranged.

So I have been paying for my current trade in and my Tesla at the same time and also on insurance. PLEASE PLEASE pull a carfax on the vin you are thinking of buying before you make a deposit. In my case it had door damage in a prior wreck which for me was not a big issue since I saw on the photos it looked ok and it was in that wreck the first year of its life and it would have been handled by now.

 

[rstamper]

@Sports123 adding the tag if its needed.

 

[ahhlun]

With the recent price drop, I'm not sure is it even worth getting a used tesla
a 100d starts at around 60k, but from experience the bottom priced one is usually super beat up.
I usually automatically skip the bottom 5-10 cars when sorted by Price low to high.

That means used 100d would be at like ~62,500, but you gotta add $2500 for mcu upgrade for these model.

These model are also pre-raven at this price...

Buying new seems the obvious choice, depending on how much one should value FSD.

Im debating about this myself...

 

[iqless]

Getting used from Tesla has all sorts of horrendously bad possibilities.

I think a private purchase is the best way to go, if you aren't gonna do new. Might make it a bit harder to finance if you're gonna go that route, though.

 

[mspohr]

My son-in-law and daughter bought a used X at the end of Sept. No pictures. Picked it up in Rocklin. Was in incredibly good condition. Only 16,000 miles on a 2016. Very happy with the car and the delivery experience. (Minor glitch on transferring money to Tesla but that was easily sorted out.) Got a good deal. They had been watching this one and Tesla dropped the price a few thousand at the end of the month.
I'm not sure why people are all hung up about pictures. All of the used car pictures I've seen are generic. You can only see major damage and that would be disclosed. If you're being picky about paint and gaps, you need to see the car in person.

 

[Ostrichsak]

My son-in-law and daughter bought a used X at the end of Sept. No pictures. Picked it up in Rocklin. Was in incredibly good condition. Only 16,000 miles on a 2016. Very happy with the car and the delivery experience. (Minor glitch on transferring money to Tesla but that was easily sorted out.) Got a good deal. They had been watching this one and Tesla dropped the price a few thousand at the end of the month.
I'm not sure why people are all hung up about pictures. All of the used car pictures I've seen are generic. You can only see major damage and that would be disclosed. If you're being picky about paint and gaps, you need to see the car in person.

Speaking from the experience of buying/seeing many used cars offered by Tesla over the years... wanting to see pictures has nothing to do with the paint quality or panel gaps. Don't fall for the media narrative that those are the only issues Tesla has because when it comes to the used offerings it's a whole other set of issues that are far more complex & costly to repair. Those are small potatoes & easily correctable compared to some of the things I've seen. I've seen some of the shot out turds Tesla tries to pass off on people & I feel sorry for whomever ended up with those beat of POS's. I'm sure they regretted that they didn't examine photos, the car itself or both prior to signing paperwork legally taking delivery. They trusted Tesla as a brand and as an entity supposedly in existence to better mankind. They so some pretty crazy things to people who fall for this false façade. Tesla's procedure is to get customer to sign all paperwork before ever even seeing the car for this very reason. This is also why they stopped posting photos of used cars and damage/issues online to hopefully dupe more suckers into buying cars that were trashed.

 

[Kross]

Please keep us posted! Very excited for you, I hope its great!

Took delivery today (Oct 17th). Vehicle was ready for delivery on the 15th but I couldn't make it happen until the weekend due to my schedule.

Delivery was painless, despite an insane crowd at the Tesla center... Saturday test drives I suppose?

I got the "Touchless delivery" - showed up, papers were on the seat with keys in the cup holder. Inspected the car inside/outside. Signed on the highlighted areas, dropped the paperwork in a drop-off box, and drove off. The most painless experience I've ever had!

None of the usual common used car delivery issues with the car. Albeit, it's relatively new (2019) anyway. Tried out everything. All panels seem fine.

I did find one thing wrong on the way home; yellow-ish border outline on the MCU screen. Known issue. Called them. The guy at the center said they can fix it if I want to leave the car. I had ordered a few accessories from the Tesla online store that would be arriving at their center next week for installation, so I told them I'll bring the car back for their installation and for them to fix the MCU at the same time.

All in all, I'm satisfied!

 

[Jojo8391]

Took delivery today (Oct 17th). Vehicle was ready for delivery on the 15th but I couldn't make it happen until the weekend due to my schedule.

Delivery was painless, despite an insane crowd at the Tesla center... Saturday test drives I suppose?

I got the "Touchless delivery" - showed up, papers were on the seat with keys in the cup holder. Inspected the car inside/outside. Signed on the highlighted areas, dropped the paperwork in a drop-off box, and drove off. The most painless experience I've ever had!

None of the usual common used car delivery issues with the car. Albeit, it's relatively new (2019) anyway. Tried out everything. All panels seem fine.

I did find one thing wrong on the way home; yellow-ish border outline on the MCU screen. Known issue. Called them. The guy at the center said they can fix it if I want to leave the car. I had ordered a few accessories from the Tesla online store that would be arriving at their center next week for installation, so I told them I'll bring the car back for their installation and for them to fix the MCU at the same time.

All in all, I'm satisfied!

View attachment 599606

How much was it for 2019 model?