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Service Center Experience.

Service Center Experience

  • Great

    Votes: 37 40.7%
  • Good

    Votes: 12 13.2%
  • Okay

    Votes: 18 19.8%
  • Terrible!

    Votes: 24 26.4%

  • Total voters
    91
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I've had two services associated with my Model 3, one Mobile and one at a service center.

My mobile service was amazing, it was to install homelink with a due bill from delivery. I got communication the day before and the morning of, for a time that they would be showing up. The technician was great, minus the fact that he broke tabs on my headlight mounted bumper retainers. He broke tabs on both sides. I was told that this was normal operation (doesn't sound right)

I ended up setting up another service to fix these retainers at a service center. Well I had the complete opposite experience. I had a call a week before to let me know that they will be ordering my part so I can have my service completed when I was scheduled.

I arrived 5 minutes early and was told a service advisor would come see me to address my issues. Well, I am a patient man and I had some work to do. I ended up waiting 2 hours without anyone coming to get me or let me know what the wait was for. I had to go out to the service valet to ask what was up. Who then told me my advisor was out for lunch, and I wasn't checked in .... I had to get another service advisor to come over and address my issue. But, the part wasn't ordered or in stock.

What is your service experience? I've heard good things about mobile, but don't know what the experience is like at a normal service center.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Leafdriver333
I haven't been able to reach anyone at Service Centers other than people that work in sales.

When I took delivery of my vehicle I didn't notice that had padding missing from my driver seat. The leather is severely creased too. I scheduled a mobile service and sent emails to the service center I took delivery from but haven't received any responses back. They finally got back to me and asked me to send pictures through a text, and so I did. They then said I have to come in to the service center and changed my appointment.

I go in this Friday so I'll post updates soon.
 
  • Love
Reactions: neroden
tesla service at the service centers seems to genuinely be a shitshow with variance from one location to another but the main thread that ties them all together is that good service experiences are the exception, not the rule

im not sure what it is about me, maybe my account is flagged, but i just do not get any satisfaction when I go - theyre always trying to resist or deny the work. It also seems like the staff is overworked and pretty stressed.

In less than 1 month of ownership, I dread having an actual issue that will require them to do work! ive got another appintment this week to address my leather seats and the nasty rancid milk smell

my expectations are very low
 
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Reactions: GreenT and neroden
I arrived 5 minutes early and was told a service advisor would come see me to address my issues. Well, I am a patient man and I had some work to do. I ended up waiting 2 hours without anyone coming to get me or let me know what the wait was for. I had to go out to the service valet to ask what was up. Who then told me my advisor was out for lunch, and I wasn't checked in .... I had to get another service advisor to come over and address my issue. But, the part wasn't ordered or in stock.

You waited 2 hours without anything happening before checking with someone? You do have a lot of patience...
 
I haven't been able to reach anyone at Service Centers other than people that work in sales.

When I took delivery of my vehicle I didn't notice that had padding missing from my driver seat. The leather is severely creased too. I scheduled a mobile service and sent emails to the service center I took delivery from but haven't received any responses back. They finally got back to me and asked me to send pictures through a text, and so I did. They then said I have to come in to the service center and changed my appointment.

I go in this Friday so I'll post updates soon.

I hope you're experience is better! I had contacted them through email and phone, and they told me nothing would happen without me scheduling an appointment... Little did I know I would still have to wait another week after this to get the parts in.
 
  • Love
Reactions: neroden
2 hours?! Holy hell man!


You waited 2 hours without anything happening before checking with someone? You do have a lot of patience...

Yup... I saw some people come and go. I usually give people and the workers benefit of the doubt. But I did get these due bills in after this without a hitch. I heard it's hard to get them to acknowledge that they should fix something after delivery, but I guess my patience helped this time around!

I even waited for the sales rep, a good 30 minutes, to talk to a delivery specialist. (because the service center wouldn't get me a delivery guy to talk to about my problems, and just told me to do it this way) I think they were just happy I wasn't going to yell and demand service right away.
 
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Reactions: neroden
Service is sad now. It use to be great, they would fix anything weird the car caused. Now our rep said nothing free. Car activated garage as we were backing out, cracked window, oh well talk to your insurance. He told me a year ago , they would have fixed as obviously we would not purposely closed garage while we we’re backing out. Now they hire pretty people basically to do nothing.
 
  • Love
Reactions: neroden
I used to hear good things, but don't know if the large numbers of tesla cars on the road has eroded their service.

It just seems crazy that I have to go through the app for everything. And they won't confirm that my appointment will have all the parts needed, even though I got a call about having the part ordered.
 
I had a pretty unique situation about service.

Making a roadtrip from California to Vancouver, it was late at night, around midnight on the highway after 15 hours of driving. Needless to say, NOAP was awesome.

It was dark and I was on an offramp heading to my hotel, however I was not merging fast enough into the lane that was closed off by the big orange traffic cones. My passenger side view mirror clipped this and flipped my mirror inwards, and knocked the glass portion off.
20190613_231036.jpg

I was worried since I still had about 6 hours of driving left to go, and was about 2 hours from the nearest service center (Portland). I had called Roadside Assistance however for my mirror, this was not a blown out tire/need a tow, kind of a problem so I was advised to call the SC the next day. My main concern was safety and being able to drive back home ok.

Got a hold of the SC in Portland and they immediately started to look for a replacement part. After a few minutes they called me back and told me they might have a part but it didn't fit my VIN number. This was good enough so I made my journey there (carefully).

Got there to the SC in Portland, and they saw me right away. He brought the car in, and asked his mechanics if it was okay. They suggested we didn't install the replacement as the mismatched VIN part to my model year may mess things up even more. However he helped to call ahead /email someone to keep in contact with me to Vancouver's SC to get a part for me ASAP.

So I go to a local O'Reilly',s and stick on a quick replacement mirror thing (a terrible cutting job I did), and drove all the way back home safely to Vancouver, Canada.
20190614_220344.jpg


Got a call the next morning and told me to bring it in right away, and got the part replaced that day


The service went above and beyond for my case, and had multiple follow ups throw calls and emails to make sure I was alright.

TL;DR
Everyone's service experience can be different, but mine was really great
 
Sounds like my experiences with the Service Center (SC) has been different than most. They've always been very responsive, even when I've dropped by without an appointment. (This is the SC in Bellevue, WA, by the way). I dropped in one day when the audio signal in the rear doors was "clipping" and I was getting ready for a two week road trip. They had a tech check the car (without an appointment), and reseat the speaker connections on the computer - that solved the problem. On two other issues I had scheduled service for, I had Tesla engineers call me and talk about the issues ahead of the appointments and in both cases, the issues were resolved. I had mobile service come out once and the tech went above and beyond what I expected them to do and I was pleased with their work. From my experience, I have no complaints and have found the Service Centers to be great to work with.
 
I am giving the SC experience a "terrible" vote not because of shoddy workmanship but because their customer service makes Comcast and the cable companies look like 5 star concierge. Scheduling only through app, communications only through text, no phone numbers at the newer SC's, and no one who ever answers phone at Cleveland SC is just crap. Waiting 10 weeks for a windshield is bogus. Rocks happen. And guess what - another rock. I tried to have safelite fix it - but the fix was terrible. So new windshield #2 for me. The safelite store was desperately pumping me for information about how to contact Tesla (since I did get my last windshield at a SC). Apparently my local safelite ordered a windshield, and installed it - but Tesla never invoiced them! They can't get their money from the insurance until they can pay for the part! Incompetence. Tesla owners love their cars - but the customer service is going to eventually turn people OFF.
 
  • Love
Reactions: sq.in. and neroden
I'm not going to vote in the poll because I've had a pretty mixed bag of experiences at my local SC. Mobile service has been stellar other than one instance where a tech with apparently marginal technical ability not only didn't fix my problem but made it worse.

What I will say is that they have always been polite and treated me respectfully and most of the problems with them have been related to execution (or lack thereof) getting problems resolved. They have also multiple times given me back my car with new problems (scratched paintwork, new vehicle noises, etc.).

You can absolutely tell that they are stressed out and I get the weird feeling sometimes that they are underpaid. Tesla cars are reportedly extremely easy to work on and of course no engine/transmission so maybe they hire lower skilled techs and pay them less money.

Tesla is finding out how difficult automotive service is, especially as they scale to increasing number of vehicles on the road. Tesla seems to be gambling that since their cars require very little regular maintenance that they will be able to handle with the relative low # of SCs they have.

As unpopular as the opinion is I think Tesla would have been better off cutting bait on the service piece and having a 3rd party do it... someone who actually knows how to service cars that are billed as "luxury vehicles".
 
  • Love
Reactions: GreenT
The service experience is rapidly eroding in Michigan. After our 3 was picked up and driven to Farmington Hills, it sat there for 3 days before they decided to drive it to Toledo and they're unsure when it will be sent to Cleveland for a strut replacement they scheduled more than a month ago. I was also told that owners will now have to drive to out of state Service Center, even though we don't have any Service Centers in MI.
 
I haven't been able to reach anyone at Service Centers other than people that work in sales.

When I took delivery of my vehicle I didn't notice that had padding missing from my driver seat. The leather is severely creased too. I scheduled a mobile service and sent emails to the service center I took delivery from but haven't received any responses back. They finally got back to me and asked me to send pictures through a text, and so I did. They then said I have to come in to the service center and changed my appointment.

I go in this Friday so I'll post updates soon.


Following up on my post. I took PTO so they can get a mobile service out to my house to fix it, but I got rescheduled to go in. I took PTO for this in person service thinking it'll take a few hours or something but when I get there they just look at it and tell me that they don't have the parts in stock so they'll have to order and reschedule me again... I sent so many emails and messages to them with images so they can order the parts for me prior to my service date but I guess no one reads the messages or emails. I have to go back on August 13th now. So far, not having a good time with service. I've wasted two days of PTO.