There are a number of "one month in" reviews on this forum, I've read them all and now it's my turn.
I'm trying not to repeat things that have been written before but hope to provide some new thoughts or at least different perspectives on old topics.
Background: Comparisons and opinions are from a 45yr old male who spent the last 3 years in a 2016 Audi TTS on 20" alloys. That's a pretty good baseline to compare my new M3P experience.
I collected my car, when they said, where they said, and had no issues to report or get fixed. Panel alignment is passable. Fit and finish inside is good. No squeaks yet.
Thoughts:
1) I thought the TTS was one of the best balanced cars wrt handling / comfort. It prioritizes poise and handling (sublime 10/10) over comfort (6/10). I expected the M3P to handle worse and ride about the same. I was right and wrong. The handling isn't as good, the steering is unbelievably vague and has little feel and on high speed roads (see point 2). Its more highly sprung, less damped suspension makes it feel less planted at speed but it rides over bumpy roads in a far superior way. There's a little thunking through potholes but nothing like the spine shattering experience of the Audi at a pothole. A different, but winning, balance.
Scores? Handling 8/10, comfort 8/10
2) Steering. Car came set to "comfort" this is so light you can't feel anything. Set to standard and it stiffens up just a little too much. You get a better sense of the road on standard but it's either too light or too heavy. I've settled on standard as the lesser of two evils
3) Wow factor. Don't underestimate how much attention this car gets (especially in white with dark alloys). It seems to be a halo car for anyone aged 12-18! I got slightly embarrassed by the attention waiting to pick up my son from his secondary school.
On the flip side you soon discover that the guided tour of the car (for friends not school children!) is quite tricky. You both get in and you say "erm, so that's it really" and proceed to showing off fart-mode
4) Wipers. Recent update has made them as good as any other auto-wipers. Don't forget that pressing the left stalk button does a single wipe and will trigger the system in to action
5) Updates. It really does get better overnight. (See point 13)
6) There is a great, cheap, Wireless charging pad on amazon (c. £30) which is an easy replacement for the wired solution as standard. It comes with some reasonably pleasing rubber cubby hole mats too
7) In the winter, if you drive like you would a sporty petrol car you'll use 1.8 miles of indicated range every mile on average. Best not to think about miles of range and set your battery display to a percentage or you get range anxiety. Talking of which...
8) Range anxiety is a thing but you get over it once you realise that a 280 mile charge (if you still have the battery set to miles) is only good for 180 miles.
9) Long distance journeys are perfectly achievable. You just need to plan. There are good planners recommended in this forum
10) There is wind noise. It's most noticeable at motorway speeds. More than the Audi but on balance (given the lack of engine noise) probably on a par. I'm going to experiment with a decibel meter because I'm weird. I'll let you know the results.
11) Passengers in the back seat who are susceptible will get car sick. None of my family have ever suffered but wife and son 2 both felt sick after a moderate journey. This has been replicated.
12) There are only 3 responses to the 0-60 demo. Squeals, swearing and a third which requires a trip to Next to buy new underwear.
13) There are so many nice touches in the software. For example, in the morning the nav will automatically assume you're going to work (or the location of your first calendar meeting) and navigate you there. In the evening it automatically navigates home
I was surprised you couldn't read text messages on the screen. Last week a software update added that. Happy Christmas from Elon.
14) Google Traffic - I had this in the Audi but the Tesla implementation has traffic for more roads. Audi is only motorway and main A road. Tesla is just about every road. Routing and rerouting is faster than any other system I've tried. Almost instant.
15) Entertainment. Netflix is impressive if you ever sit around in your car (I don't). Spotify is awesome.
16) The rear window demister sucks
17) The front window fogs up just after you set off even with climate on. It clears but I don't understand why this happens. It's unique to the Tesla. minorest of issues though.
18) One-pedal driving and column shifting is so simple and obvious that when you do drive another car it really does take 5 seconds of mental retraining to go back to the dark days when you had silly things like key-fobs, handbrakes, gear sticks and on/off buttons to worry about
I think I'll stop now. You're probably bored.
I'm trying not to repeat things that have been written before but hope to provide some new thoughts or at least different perspectives on old topics.
Background: Comparisons and opinions are from a 45yr old male who spent the last 3 years in a 2016 Audi TTS on 20" alloys. That's a pretty good baseline to compare my new M3P experience.
I collected my car, when they said, where they said, and had no issues to report or get fixed. Panel alignment is passable. Fit and finish inside is good. No squeaks yet.
Thoughts:
1) I thought the TTS was one of the best balanced cars wrt handling / comfort. It prioritizes poise and handling (sublime 10/10) over comfort (6/10). I expected the M3P to handle worse and ride about the same. I was right and wrong. The handling isn't as good, the steering is unbelievably vague and has little feel and on high speed roads (see point 2). Its more highly sprung, less damped suspension makes it feel less planted at speed but it rides over bumpy roads in a far superior way. There's a little thunking through potholes but nothing like the spine shattering experience of the Audi at a pothole. A different, but winning, balance.
Scores? Handling 8/10, comfort 8/10
2) Steering. Car came set to "comfort" this is so light you can't feel anything. Set to standard and it stiffens up just a little too much. You get a better sense of the road on standard but it's either too light or too heavy. I've settled on standard as the lesser of two evils
3) Wow factor. Don't underestimate how much attention this car gets (especially in white with dark alloys). It seems to be a halo car for anyone aged 12-18! I got slightly embarrassed by the attention waiting to pick up my son from his secondary school.
On the flip side you soon discover that the guided tour of the car (for friends not school children!) is quite tricky. You both get in and you say "erm, so that's it really" and proceed to showing off fart-mode
4) Wipers. Recent update has made them as good as any other auto-wipers. Don't forget that pressing the left stalk button does a single wipe and will trigger the system in to action
5) Updates. It really does get better overnight. (See point 13)
6) There is a great, cheap, Wireless charging pad on amazon (c. £30) which is an easy replacement for the wired solution as standard. It comes with some reasonably pleasing rubber cubby hole mats too
7) In the winter, if you drive like you would a sporty petrol car you'll use 1.8 miles of indicated range every mile on average. Best not to think about miles of range and set your battery display to a percentage or you get range anxiety. Talking of which...
8) Range anxiety is a thing but you get over it once you realise that a 280 mile charge (if you still have the battery set to miles) is only good for 180 miles.
9) Long distance journeys are perfectly achievable. You just need to plan. There are good planners recommended in this forum
10) There is wind noise. It's most noticeable at motorway speeds. More than the Audi but on balance (given the lack of engine noise) probably on a par. I'm going to experiment with a decibel meter because I'm weird. I'll let you know the results.
11) Passengers in the back seat who are susceptible will get car sick. None of my family have ever suffered but wife and son 2 both felt sick after a moderate journey. This has been replicated.
12) There are only 3 responses to the 0-60 demo. Squeals, swearing and a third which requires a trip to Next to buy new underwear.
13) There are so many nice touches in the software. For example, in the morning the nav will automatically assume you're going to work (or the location of your first calendar meeting) and navigate you there. In the evening it automatically navigates home
I was surprised you couldn't read text messages on the screen. Last week a software update added that. Happy Christmas from Elon.
14) Google Traffic - I had this in the Audi but the Tesla implementation has traffic for more roads. Audi is only motorway and main A road. Tesla is just about every road. Routing and rerouting is faster than any other system I've tried. Almost instant.
15) Entertainment. Netflix is impressive if you ever sit around in your car (I don't). Spotify is awesome.
16) The rear window demister sucks
17) The front window fogs up just after you set off even with climate on. It clears but I don't understand why this happens. It's unique to the Tesla. minorest of issues though.
18) One-pedal driving and column shifting is so simple and obvious that when you do drive another car it really does take 5 seconds of mental retraining to go back to the dark days when you had silly things like key-fobs, handbrakes, gear sticks and on/off buttons to worry about
I think I'll stop now. You're probably bored.
