Second thoughts?

[Sagester]

So I'm supposed to take delivery of a model 3 next week and I'm white confident that the car itself is amazing but, I'm getting g second thoughts regarding potential quality control issues and the ability of Tesla customer service to address them in a satisfactory manner.

I guess things like the cr downgrade, Edmonds long term review and various complaints all over the internet are making me a bit nervous, considering I can still cancel without much penalty.

Any thoughts on whether the quality control and access to parts has improved in 2019?

 

[Boilermaker]

Took delivery yesterday. Couldn’t be happier with the experience. The demo felt a little rushed, but I was also familiar with everything from doing my research before purchasing. It was raining so I wasn’t able to look at the car very close. When I got to my parents house, I noticed it appeared that a rim had been curbed already. I emailed the delivery team and got a response within an hour of what the next steps are. I am in Michigan so it complicates things, but they are reaching out to rim shops in my area.

 

[Brandonn22]

Generally, the quality is pretty good for all deliveries now. There may be some things that you will see, but they will fix it. Mine was perfect. The car is excellent and you will not regret it!

 

[Sagester]

How about general bugs and reliability issues down the line?

 

[OCR1]

I had the same concerns after being a long time Lexus owner and having a great experience with the car’s reliability. Lexus service was always great too, although it was expensive. But we now own two Model 3’s and have had zero issues with either of them. More importantly, I look forward to driving now, where previously I would do anything I could to avoid being the driver because it just wasn’t much fun driving my Lexus.

I’m also a long time Consumer Reports reader. If you really look closely at what they downgraded the car for it was mostly quality control issues from the early build days, not reliability of the major components. What’s more noticeable is that they ranked Model 3 owners the highest in owner satisfaction of any car. That really speaks volumes.

Take your time on the delivery process. Inspect the car thoroughly and bring someone with you for a second set of eyes. If you don’t like anything about the car just reject it and wait for another one. Don’t do home delivery if you can avoid it. It’s easier to inspect the car at the service center and they have people there to fix things on the spot if need be.

 

[Leafdriver333]

How about general bugs and reliability issues down the line?

No one can know for sure. Not even Elon.
Model 3 has been out for more than a year and still some people are having issues with the screen going blank. And I do get black rear view cam screen occasionally.
But Tesla keeps introducing new features via update.

 

[rickdogg82]

I'm 3-weeks and 800 miles into my ownership experience. No problems as delivered and quality appears to be very good. I've experienced none of the problems others have mentioned.

 

[Sunshine Speed]

I have had my Model 3 since August 2018. Great car, always works perfectly, even when driven hard. Screen resets once every 1 or 2 months but it doesn't impact driving and it comes back in 30 seconds. Biggest benefits are 1) No buying gas, no gas engine and 2) Speed and handling. Biggest drawbacks are 1) Suspension is firm and bumpy/bouncy on certain roads and 2) Cabin has too much road noise coming from the tires at highway speeds. I'm so happy I bought the Model 3!

 

[nightfly]

Your concern is valid. Given Musk's recent internal cost-cutting initiative announced this week where he and his CFO have to sign off on all expenses (yes the CEO and CFO of a multi-billion dollar company are now reviewing and signing off on all company outlays) it is fair to not expect too much investment in new service centers; super chargers, staff, etc.

Things are likely to get worse than better in the near term as to have parts inventory to provide timely service to SCs takes cash - so they won't build up inventory and instead will cont' down the path of "on demand" inventory which means more time waiting. Additionally, in the cost cutting memo, Musk specifically pointed out "parts" as being a target of the cost cutting. I assume this means reducing the cost of parts going into new cars - so quality of parts may suffer going forward.

No mention of focusing on build quality - which is odd as warranty expenses are Tesla's biggest expense outside of labor and parts. Improving build quality would reduce SC load, improve customer satisfaction, and well reduce cost. I suspect that this is in fact a goal but has not been mentioned as that would imply Tesla cars lack build quality.

If you take a look at staffing where for customer reps, sales associates, etc., all they require is a high school degree and no experience - they are scrapping the bottom of the barrel in areas of staffing they deem not important enough to get the best. That combined with the layoffs - don't speak well for the future of customer service and post sales service.

I am waiting for my LR RWD M3, and I think of these things all the time. I am lucky in that the local SC is not overloaded - yet. I also believe that build quality has in fact improved a great deal and beyond paint issues, you are not likely to have any delivery issues now-a-days. The biggest issue here is if you have an accident or something - you are likely looking at many weeks or worse-case months before things will get fixed up.

I actually thing going Tesla going Bankrupt would be a good thing. Clear the debt, get a different CEO in there, and get the company stable, streamlined, and efficient. What's the chance of that happening? I doubt know. As long as investors are willing to buy Tesla stock and bonds, they will have cash to operate. If that turns, well, as Musk himself stated, they will have about 10 months to turn things around.

 

[Knightshade]

So I'm supposed to take delivery of a model 3 next week and I'm white confident

This typo made me laugh more than it probably should have....

S
that the car itself is amazing but, I'm getting g second thoughts regarding potential quality control issues and the ability of Tesla customer service to address them in a satisfactory manner.

I guess things like the cr downgrade, Edmonds long term review and various complaints all over the internet are making me a bit nervous, considering I can still cancel without much penalty.

Any thoughts on whether the quality control and access to parts has improved in 2019?

I think most Model 3s deliver without a significant issue, and continue to operate that way too.

Some areas seem to have long waits at service centers if you DO have an issue, but you likely won't. And some areas the wait isn't significant at all... (last time I checked locally a month or so ago I could get same-week appointments, even if not same day).

One thing if you know any other Tesla owners near you is they can pull up the app and start to make a service appointment, and it'll tell them how soon they can get it- then they just don't complete it to cancel but you'll get an idea how busy, or not, your local SC is.

Replacement body parts for accidents seems to be the most common thing I see folks say they have issues waiting on parts- obviously most cars won't be in an accident but that still needs improvement for those who do.

 

[67King]

I guess things like the cr downgrade, Edmonds long term review and various complaints all over the internet are making me a bit nervous, considering I can still cancel without much penalty.

I have seen a couple of people here who aren't happy. One was not happy 2 days after he placed his order, and just generally kept complaining more and more right up until delivery. That one to me fell in the "nothing will make this person happy" category. The other was a long time owner, but who seemed to be trolling over a competitor having better MPGe in city driving, but was horribly uncompetitive in every other category (including hwy). And when other issues were brought up, kept stating he only wanted to talk about the one metric.

Wish I could find the article, but I guess I would encourage you to look at how many USED Model 3's are out there on the market, and compare that to, say BMW 3 series or Audi A4's. I think that the 3 outsold both, but there are very, very few 3's for sale. I think that probably gives a pretty good indication of how happy people who own them are.

Not a fan of CR. They tell people what to expect, then they survey them on what they experienced. Pretty tainted sample.