Service center takes my model s out to lunch ?

[Max*]

There's an underlying bias in your post, which you may or may have not noticed.

The reason for the mess at the tire shop was that they had no reason to test drive the car at all

So after a new tire is installed, there's no reason to go for a test drive to make sure everything is fine?

they drove responsibly

How do you know? The OP never said that

 

[MsElectric]

Having been in the service business at several high end manufactures if you bring you car in for repair and there is something that needs extensive road testing we would call the customer and explain what we need to do and why. Possibly have the shop foreman or myself drive the vehicle with test equipment connected. Anything over a few miles would be ok, going to pick up lunch in the customers vehicle would not be allowed under my management.

I am surprised people are okay with having their Tesla driven by service technicians and parked at some fast food restaurant. If this had happened to me I would be upset not because they necessarily drove the car to a fast food restaurant but because they likely did not park it carefully like I would to minimize door dings and other possible damage.

When our Mercedes was in for service if they needed to do anything more than a standard professional test drive of a few miles they would always call me, ask for my permission, and let me know exactly who is driving it, where to, and for what purpose.

It seems really unprofessional to drive a customer's car to run errands. I also find it odd they would disconnect your dash cam during test drives. If they want to disconnect it when performing service within their premises that is fine but not when it is out on the open road.

Though not as extreme reminded me of this video... I feel it is fair for cars dropped off for service to be only driven for the professional purpose of ascertaining technical data pertaining to an issue but not for picking up dry cleaning or fast food...

http://www.wftv.com/videos/news/parking-lot-owner-takes-wftv-rental-corvette-out/vG59R/

 

[green1]

So after a new tire is installed, there's no reason to go for a test drive to make sure everything is fine?

Correct. I've never had a tire shop test drive any of my vehicles, they back it out of the shop and tell me it's ready. That's it (and yes, I do track my vehicle, and for any tire work I generally wait in the waiting room because that sort of work doesn't take long)

How do you know? The OP never said that

I said from all indications. If you have evidence to the contrary, please show it. In the tire shop incident there was proof.

 

[Max*]

I don't have evidence one way or another, which is why I wasn't making any claims based on any 3rd hand indications.

 

[SherSlick]

It seems really unprofessional to drive a customer's car to run errands. I also find it odd they would disconnect your dash cam during test drives. If they want to disconnect it when performing service within their premises that is fine but not when it is out on the open road.

I agree with this. There is a reason the dash cams on police vehicles have chain of custody controls and will notify when they become inoperable.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Observation: when a tire shop employee took a car for a spin (in valet mode) the employee was fired and there were pages and pages of complaints on TMC. When a Tesla employee takes the car for a spin "that's normal, they're just testing the car".

The employee in the tire shop was recorded on camera trying to do a peak acceleration run (which puts the car in danger of an accident). The test drive was not necessary for the repair.

In this case, the owner had a radar issue which necessitates taking it for a test drive in the first place. The displeasure is mainly over the location and test driving while doing other errands (like lunch). However, there was no apparent danger the car was put in.

Completely different situations and not apples to apples.

 

[AMPUP]

My S has been driven to lunch by Tesla Technicians before, the reason I know is that they used navigation to direct them to Chipotle. It didn't bother me but Its still not official testing/work which ever way you spin it, they also disconnect my Dash cam and turn off app connectivity each time its been in the SC.

 

[rlang59]

I bet this will be another service center that makes sure they disable the remote access once they take a car in for service.

 

[mknox]

My S has been driven to lunch by Tesla Technicians before, the reason I know is that they used navigation to direct them to Chipotle. It didn't bother me but Its still not official testing/work which ever way you spin it, they also disconnect my Dash cam and turn off app connectivity each time its been in the SC.

The only thing that bugs me a bit about this is that when I do go some place like that, I like to park way out in the lot so as to avoid door dings from other cars. I think fast food stops would have a lot of cars coming and going and flinging their doors open. I would be really pissed to get my car back with parking lot door dings.

 

[tezzla]

The only thing that bugs me a bit about this is that when I do go some place like that, I like to park way out in the lot so as to avoid door dings from other cars. I think fast food stops would have a lot of cars coming and going and flinging their doors open. I would be really pissed to get my car back with parking lot door dings.

That would be my worst nightmare also. I never park where I can dinged (well, not never, just reduce the chance).

 

[Max*]

The employee in the tire shop was recorded on camera trying to do a peak acceleration run (which puts the car in danger of an accident). The test drive was not necessary for the repair.

In this case, the owner had a radar issue which necessitates taking it for a test drive in the first place. The displeasure is mainly over the location and test driving while doing other errands (like lunch). However, there was no apparent danger the car was put in.

Completely different situations and not apples to apples.

The employee COULDN'T do a peak acceleration run, and didn't. I didn't realize that we can now blame people for any attempt* crimes.

Lots of people seem to think there was apparent danger, in the Tesla case, due to the potential for door dings.

I think it's apples to apples.

*besides murder, manslaughter, etc.

 

[MsElectric]

The only thing that bugs me a bit about this is that when I do go some place like that, I like to park way out in the lot so as to avoid door dings from other cars. I think fast food stops would have a lot of cars coming and going and flinging their doors open. I would be really pissed to get my car back with parking lot door dings.

Yup, this is why I said that I would be almost infuriated if someone parked my car irresponsibly at a fast food restaurant in a place where I'd never park my car. IMHO this whole taking your personal car for lunch thing is really disrespectful to the owner of the car. The car was dropped off to have work performed on it. I assume the service technicians have their own personal cars and they should use them for their errands. At the very least this practice is very unprofessional and I'm surprised some people seem to be defending or making excuses for this practice.

I guess all the more reason to very thoroughly check the car for any dings or damage when you get the car back...

 

[Vgsllc1]

Test drive should not include a food break.

 

[sorka]

My P85D is a Fremont for service. I dropped it off Wednesday morning. Thursday night around 7:30 PM I checked and it was still parked in the same spot. The next morning I checked around 7:00 AM and it was inside the service bay but it had lost 40 miles of range. I figured that was a little excessive for tracking down a dash creak. I can't figure out why they would have driven it so much especially given that they drove bunch the next morning. It will be interesting to see if they unplugged my blackview with my 64 GB card in there because you can bet it's going to be the first thing I look at when I get my car back.

I'd be livid if I found out my car was taken to a fast food restaurant. Any amount of driving for anything other than actually diagnosing the problem is a risk to the car. I took 30+ close up pictures and video of my car and another equal amount for the loaner. I usually spend about 10 minutes when I pick up my cars carefully looking it over including underneath. I have 5 photos of the underside of the front nose showing there are no scrapes. I do this every time. My wife thinks I'm completely OCD and Aspergers on top of that.

Now I've had a mechanic on other cars in the past ask if they could take the car home for the night while trying to diagnose an intermittent problem that rarely shows up. Because they asked and seemed like they were being responsible, I gave the OK.

It's killing me that I didn't leave VR running so I could look at the location history but the last time I had it in, they disabled the app access. For some reason, they still haven't.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, they're driving it again. It's going 43 MPH at this very moment....

- - - Updated - - -

I can see why they normally disable access. I'll probably be looking at it every few minutes all day long

 

[SW2Fiddler]

They disable access because people remotely honk the horn and stuff.

 

[ChadS]

Tesla service has asked me before if they could take my car on an errand. I was happy to say yes, and it's obvious that others here are too - though clearly not everybody. If they'd consistently ask, they could separate the two groups and everybody would be happy.

It's not just that I'm "OK" with it; I would rather have them to take my car on an errand (assuming they have to drive the car anyway). As long as they have to drive my car, I'd prefer it to be a useful trip that eliminates another trip they'd have to take later.

Asking first would solve most problems - though not all. When the car gets dropped off in the morning, they probably don't know which car will be ready at the time that a specific errand will be run, and some people may allow certain errands but not others (say, dropping off a co-worker to pick up another car for service might be OK, but they don't want any food in the car). Covering all possibilities in advance may be difficult for both sides, just as calling at the time of the errand may be inconvenient.

As for dings, yeah, you should check that any time anybody has your car, no matter who or where they take it. Tesla service did a very minor scrape on my car once, but it wasn't on an errand - it was while moving the car in to position for service. They told me before I picked up the car (which was nice as I likely would not have noticed it until the next time I washed the car; then I wouldn't have known who did it), and ordered a new part to replace the scratched piece. I don't think where they take the car significantly changes the fact that this can happen or how they should handle it when it does happen.

 

[sorka]

They disable access because people remotely honk the horn and stuff.

Understandable for sure. That's why when they didn't I'm careful to not do anything but passive observation. Would hate to vent the roof and have it cause an accident because of distraction.

 

[Emobile]

Interesting recent local story about a service tech getting into an accident with a customer's car.

http://www.kpho.com/story/29447143/when-repair-business-gets-into-an-accident-test-driving-your-car

 

[mbaier]

So i went and picked up the car tonight. The service manager was there and informed me about having to recalibrate the radar and "ahh - here's the technician now, he can tell you all about it". So up walks this young guy in his twenties and tells me about having had to reset the radar. I can not resist and ask him how the food at McDonalds was. His jaw literally drops open and he looks at me dumbfounded. The service manager does a Mr. Spock eyebrow raise in his direction. "Guys - you realize I have my app and can see wherever you take the car ?" I say. "Uhmm yes, that's true" says the technician. Then the young guy blushes like a red light and explains that yes, he went for a short break before heading for the autobahn.

So I guess at least officially it is not standard behaviour to stop for lunch in a customers car. What would have happened if someone dinged my door at the busy McDonalds parking ? I would have had a hard time arguing that the ding was not there before as we did not do a check of the car when I handed it off. We did however do a DETAILED scan of the loaner....

As the young technician obviously was very uncomfortable I did not press the issue further. I did however inspect the car very closely. I'm still considering maybe mentioning this again next time. It just did not seem professional to me. They should do their job and take their own cars to go for lunch. Period.

Oh and by the way, the car was not cleaned. Neither inside nor on the outside. You guys in the US seem to get much better service ; (

 

[stopcrazypp]

The employee COULDN'T do a peak acceleration run, and didn't. I didn't realize that we can now blame people for any attempt* crimes.

Lots of people seem to think there was apparent danger, in the Tesla case, due to the potential for door dings.

I think it's apples to apples.

*besides murder, manslaughter, etc.

Risk of crashing the car and risk of door dings is not apples to apples. A lot of people have said here they would be okay with their car being taken out for lunch (esp. if they got permission). I highly doubt they would be okay with an acceleration run, esp. when a drive was not necessary, no matter if valet mode was on or not.