Service center experience: trading my 3 in for a Mercedes

[Uncle Paul]

This thread is going no where.
There are good and bad things about Tesla automobiles and Tesla Service.
Some are looking at only the good things, and posting that things are good.
Others are looking at only the bad things, and posting that things are bad.

Reality is that, like most things automotive, there are both good and bad things about the vehicles we drive.

Hear the same drivel about Ford Vs. Chevrolet, Vs. Dodge. Some rave about what a good choice they have made and how wonderful their enlightened purchase has been, and others rave equally loudly (or even louder) about how their car sucks and they have been treated unfairly.

Currently Tesla makes the most successful versions of all electric cars on the planets...warts and all.
Nobody can come close to what they have accomplished.

Most would agree that many forces are at work to convert most of personal transportation from polluting gassers to much less offensive EV drive.
The handwriting is on the wall that most Urban areas will someday be banning or heavily taxing polluting cars from their city centers. Entire nations are making plans to convert their Busses, Trucks and mass transit away from Diesel over to cleaner Electric drives.

Along this path, Tesla is leading the way. They are showing the cleaner path to the future. It is taking some time, but most of the legacy automakers are now beginning to come around and announcing they also will begin to offer a selection of all electric vehicles.

This journey will not be without bumps in the road. Some cars will suffer from defects, quality will not be perfect, some will have their cars need premature services, and some will even incur personal costs and inconveniences along the way.

But few would be able to make a strong case that the future will belong to the gassers. That governments will not continue to stand by while they grow in volume and continue to exact a very personal pollution caused illness on their citizens.

Feel free to continue with your isolated instances of where someone was put off by not getting a free loaner, that someone did not reutrn your call to chit chat, that you needed to wait for a part to come in, or that the cars are not perfectly designed so no part ever fails...ever.

Then put on your big boy pants and get with the program. Stop being so negative to try to make your case against progress. Continue to drive your noisy gassers, burn your 1,000 gallons of gasoline per year, and move out to the countryside where the air is still fresh and clean. Do what you will, but keep your whining to yourselves.

 

[PACEMD]

I learned to program when I was 5, in the days stuff got saved to tape if it got saved at all, but since none of that really related to current networked security practice this probably isn't the most relevant diskwaving contest....

Slow starter, eh? I was programming before I could walk. Course in those days, the mid-50s, it was mostly cold war stuff done with card punch, you know............had to keep an eye on Khrushchev and everything..........

 

[tvad]

Do what you will, but keep your whining to yourselves.

When did you become deputized by the TMC Forum Police?

 

[jonquiljo]

This thread is going no where.
There are good and bad things about Tesla automobiles and Tesla Service.
Some are looking at only the good things, and posting that things are good.
Others are looking at only the bad things, and posting that things are bad.

Reality is that, like most things automotive, there are both good and bad things about the vehicles we drive.

Hear the same drivel about Ford Vs. Chevrolet, Vs. Dodge. Some rave about what a good choice they have made and how wonderful their enlightened purchase has been, and others rave equally loudly (or even louder) about how their car sucks and they have been treated unfairly.

Currently Tesla makes the most successful versions of all electric cars on the planets...warts and all.
Nobody can come close to what they have accomplished.

Most would agree that many forces are at work to convert most of personal transportation from polluting gassers to much less offensive EV drive.
The handwriting is on the wall that most Urban areas will someday be banning or heavily taxing polluting cars from their city centers. Entire nations are making plans to convert their Busses, Trucks and mass transit away from Diesel over to cleaner Electric drives.

Along this path, Tesla is leading the way. They are showing the cleaner path to the future. It is taking some time, but most of the legacy automakers are now beginning to come around and announcing they also will begin to offer a selection of all electric vehicles.

This journey will not be without bumps in the road. Some cars will suffer from defects, quality will not be perfect, some will have their cars need premature services, and some will even incur personal costs and inconveniences along the way.

But few would be able to make a strong case that the future will belong to the gassers. That governments will not continue to stand by while they grow in volume and continue to exact a very personal pollution caused illness on their citizens.

Feel free to continue with your isolated instances of where someone was put off by not getting a free loaner, that someone did not reutrn your call to chit chat, that you needed to wait for a part to come in, or that the cars are not perfectly designed so no part ever fails...ever.

Then put on your big boy pants and get with the program. Stop being so negative to try to make your case against progress. Continue to drive your noisy gassers, burn your 1,000 gallons of gasoline per year, and move out to the countryside where the air is still fresh and clean. Do what you will, but keep your whining to yourselves.

This is not about the pros and cons of EVs. It is about Tesla service. I think we all know about the urgency of having more EVs on the market (as well as the need to switch to alternative fuels elsewhere). Would your argument be the same if the OP was going to trade his Tesla in for a Taycan? Sure a lesser car, but everyone is allowed their choice.

OK?

 

[OCR1]

This is not about the pros and cons of EVs. It is about Tesla service. I think we all know about the urgency of having more EVs on the market (as well as the need to switch to alternative fuels elsewhere). Would your argument be the same if the OP was going to trade his Tesla in for a Taycan? Sure a lesser car, but everyone is allowed their choice.

OK?

I think he makes a fair point. We want all of the good things that make a Tesla a better choice of vehicle than the legacy ICE manufacturers but we want every perk that we are used to receiving from those ICE manufacturers and dealers as well. It’s not practical for Tesla being so new at volume car production to offer every single advantage that the legacy manufacturers and dealers have spent many decades building.

I think overall the trade offs of owning a Tesla are worth the inconveniences of the sometimes less than stellar service or the Uber credits in lieu of loaner vehicles. I would imagine most of us who own Teslas and post on this forum would agree, or they would not have purchased a Tesla in the first place.

 

[jonquiljo]

No doubt California is a good place to be a Tesla owner.

Warm weather, so no issues with losing range in cold weather.

Very expensive gas but relatively cheap electricity.

California rebates, utitility rebates. Solar power if desired. And lots of service centers, sales locations, and superchargers.

There is good reasons for why so many Tesla owners live in California.

But for the states that have one Tesla service center, how many BMW or Mercedes dealers are within an hour drive of the average home? Perhaps more than Tesla, but a lot more?

What California is like that? Warm weather? Only this year. Cheap electricity, try PG&E if you get into tier 2 or 3. Utility and state rebates? About half of the people around here qualify. The rest get HOV stickers only.

On the other hand, we do have lots of Tesla SC's and stores. But we have a boatload of Teslas on the road. I live on a street with 6 houses and 3 of them have Teslas. I am the only one with a Model 3. Oh well!

 

[stella2018]

Long time lurker, new poster. Got a LR AWD M3 at the end of 2018. Here is my Tesla vs. Mercedes story.

Decided to upgrade the ol' Subaru towards the end of 2018. Agreed to sell it to a relative, and they let me hold on to it for a few weeks to look for a replacement.

Test drove all manner of ICE SUVs. Wife really liked the MB GLC (primarily because of how the air vents looked, I think, but that's a different story). Haggled with a salescritter at the local dealership, which was all sorts of hilarious because they trotted out every single trick in the book. Ended up getting a pretty good discount off MSRP because Google is a thing and it's trivial to look up what others paid at the exact same dealership. Of course, the manager sounded like I was robbing them blind. Whatever.

We spend a LONG time configuring the MB build because wife really wants just the right color interior & leather seat combo. Sales dude says there's nothing even close to it in inventory anywhere on the East Coast and they need to custom build it. Swears up and down it will be delivered well before the date on which I agreed to sell my car. Fine, I put down a deposit and everyone's happy.

Then, complete radio silence from the dealership for weeks. I email and text the sales guy; nothing at all. Starting to get a little nervous about the timing but let it go because Mercedes. Big mistake.

Turns out the MB dealership straight up forgot about my order. Never put it in. In the meantime, the sales dude quit (or got canned is more likely), and no one thought to follow up with his clients. This is the highest rated MB dealership in the area, mind you.

Eventually, I finally get a response from someone higher up saying oops, we kind of forgot about you but not to worry, we'll put your order in right away. Small problem though, I need the car ASAP because I've already sold mine and the wife is driving the kids around in her mom's car, which is rapidly getting no fun - and MB is telling me it'll take them 6+ weeks to build.

At that point I'm feeling (1) done with MB and (2) out of options. To their credit, I got my deposit back right away (never again, by the way), so bye bye MB. But I still need a new car.

At this point pretty much the only brand I hadn't considered was Tesla. Completely on a lark I go on their website and what do you know, there's a store very close to me and there's a time slot available for a test drive. So wife and I get over there, ooh and aah over the MS on the floor (way out of my price range) and test drive a M3.

After about 2 minutes driving the car I turned to the sales guy - who was nothing short awesome - and said "I'm buying this car right now." Wife had the same reaction. We get back to the store, wife chooses the color in the configurator, and the SA says, we have your exact configuration in stock right now. I'm incredulous because it's the end of the year and I had heard about Tesla's looooong delivery times, but he says you can take delivery in two days (or something like that).

I put down the deposit, immediately got a delivery date & time for literally the next day, and we're off to the races. No haggling, no BS, no nothing. The SA later told me that I was the first person on the East Coast to order and pick up next day, or something like that.

We show up at the delivery center and it's a madhouse. It's the end of 2018 so the full tax credit is expiring, and everyone and their brother is rushing to take delivery. Even so we were there for an hour tops, the guy pointed out our car, showed us a few basic things and we were done. Didn't bother looking over the car at all, no checklist, no calipers, just got in and drove home. Car was perfect, except for a misaligned piece of interior trim which I eventually called into Tesla, a mobile tech came out while I was at work and the car was in the driveway and fixed it in 5 minutes.

It's been just over a year and the M3 is as incredibly fun to drive as it was on day 1. Never going back to ICE. A couple of weeks ago we rented a brand new Charger on vacation and it felt like a horse-drawn carriage.

Bottom line: Based on my on experience, I'll take dealing with Tesla over MB any day of the week.

 

[OCR1]

What California is like that? Warm weather? Only this year. Cheap electricity, try PG&E if you get into tier 2 or 3. Utility and state rebates? About half of the people around here qualify. The rest get HOV stickers only.

On the other hand, we do have lots of Tesla SC's and stores. But we have a boatload of Teslas on the road. I live on a street with 6 houses and 3 of them have Teslas. I am the only one with a Model 3. Oh well!

San Francisco doesn’t count. You might as well be living in Toledo.

And the PG&E thing is a disaster. We have Edison here. Totally different scenario.

 

[KG M3]

But within a one hour drive of my home I could choose between service centers located in Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Lake Forest, Buena Park, Carlsbad, Burbank, Los Angeles (Centinela), West Los Angeles (Santa Monica), Torrance, or Van Nuys. That is ten different locations. .

OK, the thread has moved on since this item, but at what time of day is there any point in SoCal simultaneously within a one hour drive of both Carlsbad and Van Nuys?

 

[OCR1]

OK, the thread has moved on since this item, but at what time of day is there any point in SoCal simultaneously within a one hour drive of both Carlsbad and Van Nuys?

At 2am...of course.

 

[alsetym]

My Honda accord Touring 2020 has everything what you said plus HUD with navi , you would really surprised what tech other cars have these days. Im not even going to mention Sirius XM,HIFI spot,wireless charger and all other goodies that M3 does not have.

Um...what?...I think maybe you don't understand what automatic lane change to follow a route means lol. Hint...it makes a HUD completely unnecessary! And Honda most certainly does not have any of the features I talked about (well, I don't know their implementation of blindspot warning, but I was specifically comparing it to MB which is basically just an annoying blinky light programmed by lawyers).

BTW...tesla has wireless chargers now too, you'd be surprised what the far and away highest tech car on the planet has these days...

massive eye roll

Anyway, tesla service is clearly overwhelmed in some places. It is generally getting better and will likely continue to do so as they mature but at least when you go in there no one ever gets the feeling they are trying to shake you down for your lunch money. They're so busy they'd rather not fix something even if they were getting paid lol.

 

[ElectricIAC]

This is not about the pros and cons of EVs. It is about Tesla service. I think we all know about the urgency of having more EVs on the market (as well as the need to switch to alternative fuels elsewhere). Would your argument be the same if the OP was going to trade his Tesla in for a Taycan? Sure a lesser car, but everyone is allowed their choice.

OK?

I’d be sure to have better fire coverage.

 

[cwerdna]

Huh? Tesla making bucks on warranty repairs? That doesn't compute.

Ok @JayNJ and @afadeev who disagreed. Please explain how a potential liability for which an automaker has to set aside reserves to cover (which may or may not be enough) makes money for the automaker?

If a vehicle incurs 0 warranty cost during the duration of the warranty and there weren't extraordinary steps taken to achieve that, that's the best case.

 

[Jest]

Real talk here: as someone who has yet to purchase a Tesla: would I have to physically drive my car the 100km+ it would take in heavy traffic to the service center? That would be a complete deal breaker for me.

I’m from BC here if that helps. I avoid Vancouver whenever possible.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Depends what’s being fixed..

 

[tvad]

Real talk here: as someone who has yet to purchase a Tesla: would I have to physically drive my car the 100km+ it would take in heavy traffic to the service center? That would be a complete deal breaker for me.

I’m from BC here if that helps. I avoid Vancouver whenever possible.

Unless it required a tow, yes.

 

[focher]

everyone is allowed their choice.

Currently, yes. But that door is closing. Countries have already started to set deadlines for banning new ICE sales. Even now, it’s wholly irresponsible to switch from a BEV to an ICE.

 

[Apprunner]

Ok @JayNJ and @afadeev who disagreed. Please explain how a potential liability for which an automaker has to set aside reserves to cover (which may or may not be enough) makes money for the automaker?

If a vehicle incurs 0 warranty cost during the duration of the warranty and there weren't extraordinary steps taken to achieve that, that's the best case.

Maybe they don’t understand that dealers typically make money on warranty repairs because the OEM pays for that repair. For Tesla, they own their service shops so they actually incur costs instead of revenue.

 

[OCR1]

I’ve learned to ignore people who vote disagree without commenting on what they disagree with. If they are too lazy to tell you what they disagree with their feedback doesn’t add any real value, so why bother wasting time on them.

 

[Knightshade]

Um...what?...I think maybe you don't understand what automatic lane change to follow a route means lol. Hint...it makes a HUD completely unnecessary! And Honda most certainly does not have any of the features I talked about (well, I don't know their implementation of blindspot warning, but I was specifically comparing it to MB which is basically just an annoying blinky light programmed by lawyers).

Yeah- I pointed out to him earlier his Honda doesn't have half the stuff he thinks it does (or he doesn't understand what the Tesla has- either way).... but on blind spot honda genuinely is better for 2 reasons- 1 fixable and 1 not-


Honda displays the side camera when you turn on your turn signal.

This is fixable (and indeed Elon has mentioned fixing it) with an OTA update on a Tesla.... they just haven't released it yet- but every Tesla since late 2016 has the HW to do it.

Honda also has rear radar so it can do legit cross-traffic blind spot alerting. Tesla can't- it lacks the HW. The Tesla "fix" for this is to back into spots so you're never backing out... auto-park backs into spots for that very reason.... and doing so is objectively safer when leaving a spot (regardless of safety systems).... but OTOH backing in in a very busy lot can be challenging when you pull past a space to back into it and someone pulls right behind you because it's crowded.

This has nothing to do with service of course- but I do find the lack of rear radar at least a tiny bit surprising for a car that thinks it has all the HW it needs for FSD.