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Yes, I find a lot of this. I too am asked if mine is new, and I just say that no, it is the Tesla that started the revolution! Even in the EV community, a fair number don't seem that aware that there was a pre-Model S Tesla.
wiztecy
Active Member
Shoot, just look here on TMC in the 'For Sale' section, people sell a part thinking that Tesla only made a Model S saying "Tesla Wheels For Sale" and things like that. Then inside the ad all they say is "Tesla wheels for sale, contact me..." Ok, great. So will this this fit the Tesla Roadster? And they're like, no they came off a Model S. Well why didn't you say that in the ad!?!?
I really wish the Roadster owners had our own for sale section, I've stopped looking there for parts nor do I want to sell any parts there due to the over-abundance of Model-S owners that just bury anything us Roadster owners want to see or list.
Habious
Member
Yeah, I got into it (in a friendly way) with a guy who was selling a "Passenger air bag". I asked, semi-jokingly, if it was for a Roadster. The guy was like "Well, since the Roadster doesn't have a passenger airbag, clearly it's not!"
I had to edumakate him in the fact that the Roadster most-certainly does have a passenger airbag (it just doesn't have the now-required "dual-stage" passenger airbag).
But, I know what you mean. You see so many ads for "wheels" or "spoiler", etc.
int32_t
Tesla Spotter
To be fair to gaswalla, I wouldn't have guessed there were any, never mind several (many? most?) trouble-free Roadsters out there just because people come to the Roadster forum looking for help with this or that esoteric issue. Not to say that's bad, of course! Just pointing out that it is possible to honestly think that the vast majority of Roasters have had problems that needed substantial moneys to fix.
I agree with Wiztecy about having to scroll through so many MS for sale items before finding a Roadster item it would be great for the mods to set up a different section. Used to be just Roadsters, now mostly MS but soon it will be mostly M3's....
wiztecy
Active Member
To be fair to gaswalla, I wouldn't have guessed there were any, never mind several (many? most?) trouble-free Roadsters out there just because people come to the Roadster forum looking for help with this or that esoteric issue. Not to say that's bad, of course! Just pointing out that it is possible to honestly think that the vast majority of Roasters have had problems that needed substantial moneys to fix.
I feel that's just a bad assumption he made, gaswalla never chimed in to clarify if he owned one, driven one, so I have to assume he's just a lurker in the Roadster forum who dabs in whenever he feels like it. But what your saying what you believe his impression was just like saying "everyone who's at the doctors office is chronically sick". No, some are there for a routine checkup who're 100% healthy, some are following up after having baby, some getting immunizations, etc. But people can associate only bad things with the doctors since that's quickest and senseless way to make a judgement without making any understanding of the sample. If you just drop in, say, here and there for a class, you wouldn't get much on the subjects taught in class, and most likely not add in a positive way to the class discussions. I've been a member on the Roadster forum for over 4 years, as long as I owned my Roadster, and I've seen practically every thread go by and read most of them, I also contribute threads to the Roadster forum. But I wouldn't feel confident to comment in the Model S or X forum on any sensitive and quantitative subject. For one, that I don't own an S or X, and two, for the fact I'm not active enough in those particular forums to credit and support my comment or my perceived facts of the forum.
Yep, that's probably what happened.
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John W. Ratcliff
Member
I just bought my car very recently. What I found is that, at any given time, there are fewer than like 30 cars for sale in the entire US, and if you want specifically the 2.5 sport edition, there are fewer than 5 or so.
I wanted a Fusion Red 2.5 sport, and I'm pretty sure I bought the only one on the market.
There's a dealership in Del Ray Beach, Florida, called Motorgroup : MotorGroup
They get a fair number of Tesla Roadsters, my salesman told me they get them directly from Tesla who takes them in as trades, and Motorgroup just resells them.
I had already contacted Motorgroup about a 2.5 sport, but it was silver, and simply not my preferred color. The *day* the salesman got the fusion red 2.5 sport, he called me first. I was very fortunate with the timing of that, because I'm pretty sure that car was going to go almost immediately.
One of my key deciding factors in buying the car was due to how rare it is. Until I saw my own, I had never even seen one in real life.
There are, quite literally, hundreds of times more Ferrari's in the US than Tesla Roadsters. And, no matter what electric sports cars might be made in the future, the Tesla Roadster will forever be the world's first. I wouldn't be surprised so see a substantial number of Roadsters end up in car museums some day.
Since my budget was around 70k, I had a clear choice between the Tesla Roadster or a Ferrari 360 spyder. I know a big noisy Italian sports car might not sound appealing to this group, nevertheless, I have an irrational passion for Ferrari's, especially since I used to own one and have owned three Pinafarina designed cars in my life.
I decided on the Roadster almost exclusively based on how reliable it is.
If I made a list of every single thing that can go wrong with a Ferrari that will cost more than $5,000 to fix, versus the Tesla Roadster, it's really no comparison. There are probably hundreds of things that can go wrong with a Ferrari that will stick you with a $5k maintenance bill. Hell, the *scheduled* maintenance, meaning just a service when there is not even anything wrong with the car, can cost over $5k on a Ferrari 360 and, god forbid, the convertible top fails. The roadster only really has two things which can fail that could cost a lot of money; the PEM or the batteries, but after much discussion I deemed the risk for either of those to fail relatively low compared to similar risk on the Ferrari.
I did consider buying a brand new Alfa Romeo 4C spyder, which would have zero maintenance costs due to the warranty; but since it was 100% guaranteed to depreciate by more than 20k for the first few years, I decided against it as well.
Now that I have the Tesla Roadster, I'm quite happy with the unique driving experience. I realize the car is probably way too small for most people but, personally, I really like small cars. The acceleration and handling is superb, and you get to enjoy the speed every single time you drive it with virtually zero chance of doing damage to car; not something you can say about any Ferrari.
I wanted a Fusion Red 2.5 sport, and I'm pretty sure I bought the only one on the market.
There's a dealership in Del Ray Beach, Florida, called Motorgroup : MotorGroup
They get a fair number of Tesla Roadsters, my salesman told me they get them directly from Tesla who takes them in as trades, and Motorgroup just resells them.
I had already contacted Motorgroup about a 2.5 sport, but it was silver, and simply not my preferred color. The *day* the salesman got the fusion red 2.5 sport, he called me first. I was very fortunate with the timing of that, because I'm pretty sure that car was going to go almost immediately.
One of my key deciding factors in buying the car was due to how rare it is. Until I saw my own, I had never even seen one in real life.
There are, quite literally, hundreds of times more Ferrari's in the US than Tesla Roadsters. And, no matter what electric sports cars might be made in the future, the Tesla Roadster will forever be the world's first. I wouldn't be surprised so see a substantial number of Roadsters end up in car museums some day.
Since my budget was around 70k, I had a clear choice between the Tesla Roadster or a Ferrari 360 spyder. I know a big noisy Italian sports car might not sound appealing to this group, nevertheless, I have an irrational passion for Ferrari's, especially since I used to own one and have owned three Pinafarina designed cars in my life.
I decided on the Roadster almost exclusively based on how reliable it is.
If I made a list of every single thing that can go wrong with a Ferrari that will cost more than $5,000 to fix, versus the Tesla Roadster, it's really no comparison. There are probably hundreds of things that can go wrong with a Ferrari that will stick you with a $5k maintenance bill. Hell, the *scheduled* maintenance, meaning just a service when there is not even anything wrong with the car, can cost over $5k on a Ferrari 360 and, god forbid, the convertible top fails. The roadster only really has two things which can fail that could cost a lot of money; the PEM or the batteries, but after much discussion I deemed the risk for either of those to fail relatively low compared to similar risk on the Ferrari.
I did consider buying a brand new Alfa Romeo 4C spyder, which would have zero maintenance costs due to the warranty; but since it was 100% guaranteed to depreciate by more than 20k for the first few years, I decided against it as well.
Now that I have the Tesla Roadster, I'm quite happy with the unique driving experience. I realize the car is probably way too small for most people but, personally, I really like small cars. The acceleration and handling is superb, and you get to enjoy the speed every single time you drive it with virtually zero chance of doing damage to car; not something you can say about any Ferrari.
John W. Ratcliff
Member
I'm sure that Roadster Archivist, @TEG will have his records updated with the change in Roadster "Stewardship" from @cdave to @John W. Ratcliff
Don't get freaked out @John W. Ratcliff, @TEG tracks ALL things Roadsters, and congratulations on your Roadster.
Don't get freaked out @John W. Ratcliff, @TEG tracks ALL things Roadsters, and congratulations on your Roadster.
John W. Ratcliff
Member
Ok, thanks for letting me know. I noticed that you didn't own it very long or drive it much. I paid $70k for it, which I thought was a fair price; though I imagine you got a lot less on trade-in. Anything in particular to share about the vehicle? It's got a couple of very minor cosmetic issues, but other than that I'm pretty thrilled with it.
I was a great car but I never drove it much (family of 4 does not work well with a 2 seater
) I had the paint corrected and opti coat put on which you can see in this blog post:Tesla Roadster Correctional - Show and Shine
Great car, a real head turner! Enjoy it!
shrink
Member
While I love my Roadster and plan to keep it a long time, I have unfortunately indeed had a number of quality issues and potentially costly repairs.
I'm the second owner and bought it almost 3 years ago now (8/2013 to be exact) with 8100 miles. It now has just under 16,000 miles on it so the miles are still relatively low (I don't drive it everyday and when I do my commute is very short). Just off the top of my head, I have had to have the following repaired:
- subwoofer replaced just a few months after taking delivery
- peeling stock headlights replaced with HID's (there was a very long wait for the OEM HID's)
- TPMS sensors replaced twice
- Coolant reservoir repair
- hood switch repair
- full ESS (battery) replacement with refurbished ESS
I didn't notice it previously, but when I got the new battery I noticed the PEM was replaced at some point, too.
Those are some major (and expensive) repairs.
Thankfully, most of this was covered under my CPO warranty and I'm planning on renewing the warranty before it expires.
Perhaps I got some bad luck since my car was the first 2.0 manufactured. I assume build quality only continued to improve with later cars. I would have been very upset and bitter if my car did not have a warranty when I bought it. I'm ecstatic that warranty seems to have addressed the quality issues with my car.
I still absolutely love the car and it brings a smile to my face every time I drive it. Given my experience, though, repair costs honestly concern me and I'm hesitant to be without a warranty. However, I hope most of the issues have been fixed and that my warranty extension is more insurance than necessity.
Obviously, the poster (gaswalla) is uninformed. I have the Roadster and the S.
To say the ride is unrefined is a insult to the car. The Roadster has more precise control than most cars even twice as expensive.
I can't say the same for the S.
Other than a few minor things that were fixed under warranty, I found the car is way more reliable than any ICE I've ever owned and about as reliable as the S, maybe even more so.
To say the ride is unrefined is a insult to the car. The Roadster has more precise control than most cars even twice as expensive.
I can't say the same for the S.
Other than a few minor things that were fixed under warranty, I found the car is way more reliable than any ICE I've ever owned and about as reliable as the S, maybe even more so.
We are working on something to solve this, as well as other categorization woes.
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