Roadside Assistance - First Experience

[Darlin]

I've had my LR MX for about 2 months. I absolutely love driving the car, although I'm still having difficulty judging the distance to the curb. I've curbed the rims twice already. Today I pulled over to the side of the road to check something out, and didn't realize I was within an inch of the cobble stone edging. I backed up a little, and the tire pressure warning light came on. I punctured the side wall of the tire - there's about a 1.5" hole! I drove about 50 feet to a safe area, and called Tesla Service. No humans available, you have to request service from the Tesla App. No, I wasn't happy about that, but I didn't have much choice. I figured the rest of my day was lost, and this was going to be a real PITA. I entered my information into the Tesla App at 3:50 PM. Within 5 minutes, I received a text from Tesla, acknowledging my request for roadside assistance. A few minutes later, I received a text stating that Roadside Assistance (actually, a private company working for Tesla) would be at my car within 55 minutes. They will loan me a tire and a rim, install it on my car, and I'll have to go to the Service Center to pick up my new tire and have it installed. Sounds like a great idea to me! The Tesla Roadside guy shows up, tells me to put the car in JACK mode, jacks up the car, removes my wheel, puts on the loaner (the rim is painted red because people used to keep the loaners!), has me turn off Jack mode, and we're done. Amazing service! Within 1 hour of my reporting that I punctured my tire, I had a loaner wheel on my car, and was back on the road.

After reading about all of the horrible experiences with Tesla service, I wasn't expecting much. I certainly was impressed with how smoothly everything went, and how fast Tesla responded. The guy who responded was polite, knowledgeable, efficient, and a nice guy. Thank you RJB Towing (Westchester, NY).

Thank you Elon for providing such a fantastic service experience!

Oh - I should mention that the first appointment I could get to have my new tire installed is 1 week from today. There's no problem using the loaner wheel, except that it doesn't look so nice with the one red rim. It would have been perfect if I could have stopped by the service center tomorrow to get the wheel exchanged, but I'm not complaining.

I too have a hard time with curbs especially in parking lots. If you install Wheel Bands on your rims, they will protect them from some damage.

 

[Darlin]

I too have a hard time with curbs, especially in parking lots. If you install Wheel Bands on your rims like I have, they will protect the rims from most rubs.

 

[IanMcL]

Thanks for sharing your experience, I'm terrified of curbing my car, its only 7 weeks old, the alert system gets so excited when I am near things that I turn off the audible beep, so one of these days it'll hit a curb.

I close my eyes. I can't bear to watch!

 

[trekkie]

I wanted to share my experience, but not create a new thread over it. We were taking the X to a road trip down to South Carolina, about 75 miles from home the low pressure light comes on. I've been having issues with it getting colder but didn't think anything of it, pulled over at next exit paid $1 for air (gross) and took off again.

We stopped at the first supercharger. wandered over to a gas station nearby for snacks because nothing is open at 10am on a sunday. were wandering around teh car with the kids when my 7 year old says 'ooh, the car hisses like a snake!'

Ruh Roh.

same tire, look closer, crap a staple right on the shoulder of the tread near the sidewall. It's 10am on a sunday, so I try roadside.

I used the app, that might have been my first mistake, because nothing went right after that.

First I get a text telling me nothing is within 50 miles of Raleigh, so it'll cost more. Cool I guess. I can't go anywhere as there is no runflat or foam inflation kit, apparently that's extra on the flagship car but came with my Bolt EV...grumble.

I finally get a text that they WONT tow me for extra money, I need to tell them where to take me. I'm in the middle of a dead zone here in Lumberton, NC. There is nothing open today, towing me to a closed tire shop with my five other occupants isn't going to do me a lot of good. I reply with 'there is nothing nearby'

Apparently the computer wants an address, as it would go no further but tell me over and over they won't help me without a place to be towed too.

So I walk back to the gas station, find tire foam, shove two cans in because all they have says it's for a 15" wheel and I have 20s.

of course this gas stations air pump is dead. There's one down the road and I chance it to drive down there, pump air up to 50 in it, and find the only open place in town. A walmart. I drive over there it's within a few miles, and they take one look at the tire and are like yeah, policy can't fix that. You could buy a kit inside and try it yourself (this is like me telling you go ahead and set up the full analytics suite in the cloud, and i'll push go when it's done) so that's a non-starter, i'm not mechanically inclined.

They pump it back up to 50, and the foam either worked or it slowed the leak enough that we got it back home without the PSI warning going off again (or the foam ruined the sensor, either way the tire held up). Course no one has that tire in stock anywhere (<2000 miles, not buying a new set)

So yes, I've ordered a inflation/foam kit and a spare canister of foam, and buying the new tire. But that's not how I expected roadside to go, and I'm pretty disappointed. I didn't buy this thing to be a daily driver close to Tesla. We're planning on driving 1150 miles one way and there's a lot of empty country between civilization that would have really sucked on a weekend before Christmas to have this happen.

 

[AMPd]

Also there should be a person for roadside assistance. Don’t do that through the app.

I dunno, sounds about as efficient as what a human would do.
I’m glad to hear things went great considering the bad situation.

 

[jordanX]

Thanks for sharing your experience, I'm terrified of curbing my car, its only 7 weeks old, the alert system gets so excited when I am near things that I turn off the audible beep, so one of these days it'll hit a curb.

Get it over with bc odds are highly likely it happens sooner or later. Let your mother drive it at night in a strange area at a weird intersection she's not used to as she just drove a thousand miles to visit and you want her to try your 2 week old M3 on her birthday. I felt so bad... But a month later a lady ran a stop sign and took his M3 out of commission for 4 months. The only good news was they fixed my oops and he has a second mobile charge cord.
I couldn't say a whole lot when my husband scuffed my MX wheels a few weeks after I got it, other than I kept shouting to him that he was going to do it...and I was right!
I just realized we were visiting Denver when it happened; both cars were 'christened' in Denver area.

 

[bhavanikodali]

I've had my LR MX for about 2 months. I absolutely love driving the car, although I'm still having difficulty judging the distance to the curb. I've curbed the rims twice already. Today I pulled over to the side of the road to check something out, and didn't realize I was within an inch of the cobble stone edging. I backed up a little, and the tire pressure warning light came on. I punctured the side wall of the tire - there's about a 1.5" hole! I drove about 50 feet to a safe area, and called Tesla Service. No humans available, you have to request service from the Tesla App. No, I wasn't happy about that, but I didn't have much choice. I figured the rest of my day was lost, and this was going to be a real PITA. I entered my information into the Tesla App at 3:50 PM. Within 5 minutes, I received a text from Tesla, acknowledging my request for roadside assistance. A few minutes later, I received a text stating that Roadside Assistance (actually, a private company working for Tesla) would be at my car within 55 minutes. They will loan me a tire and a rim, install it on my car, and I'll have to go to the Service Center to pick up my new tire and have it installed. Sounds like a great idea to me! The Tesla Roadside guy shows up, tells me to put the car in JACK mode, jacks up the car, removes my wheel, puts on the loaner (the rim is painted red because people used to keep the loaners!), has me turn off Jack mode, and we're done. Amazing service! Within 1 hour of my reporting that I punctured my tire, I had a loaner wheel on my car, and was back on the road.

After reading about all of the horrible experiences with Tesla service, I wasn't expecting much. I certainly was impressed with how smoothly everything went, and how fast Tesla responded. The guy who responded was polite, knowledgeable, efficient, and a nice guy. Thank you RJB Towing (Westchester, NY).

Thank you Elon for providing such a fantastic service experience!

Oh - I should mention that the first appointment I could get to have my new tire installed is 1 week from today. There's no problem using the loaner wheel, except that it doesn't look so nice with the one red rim. It would have been perfect if I could have stopped by the service center tomorrow to get the wheel exchanged, but I'm not complaining.

 

[bhavanikodali]

I installed a 360 camera on Tesla
This helps to see curbs and lanes on both sides of the car. Hopefully future TEsla will include this useful option. I always check the screen when going on tight corners to keep distance from the curbs.
Go to youtube.com and search for Kodali's Tesla

 

[bhavanikodali]

I installed a 360 camera on Tesla
This helps to see curbs and lanes on both sides of the car. Hopefully future TEsla will include this useful option. I always check the screen when going on tight corners to keep distance from the curbs.
Go to youtube.com and search for Kodali's Tesla