One week later I get a bolt right through the tire and Tesla tells me I need a new one. The manager knows I just bought them last week and comps the tire for me. So there are still good managers who care about customer service out there and this was just a few months ago.
Unless there is a clear service policy on this (I don't know one way or another but the within a "week" may be important), when I was managing service on a national level (not at Tesla), I would have moved that manager to another position. If the policy is wrong, then FIX the policy for everyone. That is what improves customer service. Perhaps establish a clear expense line for early tire failures. If you cover up the problems through violating policy then I don't need you as a manager. Again, they might have an perfectly adequate policy.
As you describe it, there is no fault on the part of Tesla for the bolt in your tire unless you meant to say it happened in the Tesla parking lot
. So what is the justification for the repair. Why is Tesla (a public company) accepting responsibility for that bolt? It is clearly not a warranty repair. There was no defect in material or workmanship. Some quality systems require that every warranty failure be returned for failure analysis. The expense of that bolt just keeps going up and there can be corrective actions after that.
Are they establishing a precedent that implies legal liability for tire failures? What if that bolt had resulted in an accident? What if the new tire fails causing an accident?
They likely would have to have falsified the service documents. Accounting is going to have to approve/assign the expense both part/tire and labor to some bucket. Labor can be a bit vague but the capital for the tire is a hard expense. Perhaps they falsified the car the tire came from such as a demo vehicle - another problem. These are all potentially deeply problematical from a business conduct viewpoint. Internal auditors have an uncanny way of finding such unusual charges.
If they have a clearly defined expense item (doubtful) for such tire problems, then all is good and it should be applied evenly for all.
My exaggerating a bit but connecting the purchase of the powerwall with the gift of a tire opens up another problem which suggests they have two price lists for certain products. Did they incent the purchase of the powerwall through the gift of the tire? Now we are bumping up against Safe Harbor issues and selling outside of a published price list and now the Corporate Legal department might be drawn in.
Safe Harbor Regulations | Office of Inspector General | U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
My point is not to bang on this post or Tesla service, my point is that great customer service is difficult to deliver with consistency and fairness. In the end, policies and practices driven with clarity, consistency and fairness get vastly superior results IMO. Practices that are not consistent or are subjective are not the best IMO.
