Hey Folks,
Final update - out of purgatory!! Tesla dropped off the car today, and as usual it wasn't without drama.
Below are my thoughts, and experiences.
- Ordered 6/1, Bay Area CA with a Fremont Factory pickup. 8-12 weeks initial wait, using a referral code.
- Few days after ordering, SA from a closer Service Center reached out to me, welcomed to the "team" and let me know that my pickup would be at their facility, instead of Fremont.
- Constant EDD updates. EDD Does not matter, it doesn't mean anything. Look at it only for fun, it means nothing. You can count it moving up, moving down, shrinking, moving back a month, it doesn't matter.
- Waited for about 1.5 months, and started checking forums. Personally for my mental health this was rough, watching people order after me get VIN's daily was hard! I stopped checking so frequently.
- EDD would shift, and for a long time stayed in end-of-September.
- Again, EDD means nothing.
- On 8/3, 63 days after ordering, at noon I received the TV prompt and got a VIN. EDD shifted to 8/5-8/9
- 8/5, I got the Final Payment prompt, and Tesla automatically scheduled my HOME DELIVERY for 8/7, 9am-6pm.
- So I initially selected Fremont pickup, then the SA said I'll be picking up in a center closer to my house, then Tesla automatically scheduled me for home delivery. I never had a choice here, and that's frustrating. I didn't really want to do home delivery, but with a three month old at home it was the most convenient option
- 8/6 I get a call from Delivery confirming the 8/7 delivery. I ask "hey, can I Just pick it up today from the center, since it's already there?" and the delivery rep says "oh, we can just drop it off today." "today?" "yea! We'll drop it off before 6pm".
- I get an email asking to sign the car documents.
- I waited from 11:30am after the initial call until 5:30pm, still no car. Call the center and they say "We're still just waiting on a driver, no worries, if it's after 6 you're still getting the car today".
- 6:50pm the Model 3 drives up to my driveway. 15 miles on the ODO.
- Wife and I do the walkthrough, and find that one of the tail lights is slightly misaligned, and both "key cards" are very bent. We'll get this fixed in service. earliest mobile service appointment is late August.
- Inside the white interior, the delivery guy did a pretty bad job. There were smudges everywhere. Granted it's a white interior, but I was a bit disappointed he didn't wipe it down.
- Screen still has the plastic screen cover on it, so this will be perfect for installing our Matte screen protector.
- Took the car for a drive, immediately forgot all my issues with EDD and the delivery experience.
All in all, this was one of the worst delivery experiences I've had, but somehow the car is incredible! If they can just stop jerking people around with constant EDD updates, and have some actual communication I really wouldn't have had a problem. But waking up to "hey next week", to "end of next month" is incredibly disheartening & discouraging.
- EDD is meaningless. The day before I got my VIN, my EDD was mid August. Day of the VIN it jumped to late September. Then noon that day, I got the VIN. Soo... why is it like this? Who knows.
- Just look at your initial estimate, you'll likely get the car within that time frame.
- If you're in CA, you'll likely get the car closer to end of quarter, since that's just how it is. Tesla doesn't do first come first serve it seems, and east coats gets them first.
- They sold 200k cars last quarter. That's like, 2000 cars delivered a day. Theres lot of us.
- When you get your delivery appointment, it's also not necessarily a fixed date. When they Delivery Center gets the car, they inspect it very late in the process (at least in the Bay Area, it's high volume) and they can push it back the night before / day of if they find an issue.
- Day of delivery, be ready to sweat buckets. I had a 9am-6pm "delivery appointment", and the car came almost at 7pm!
But seriously, driving this car is amazing, and I'm looking forward to the future of owning this car.
Good luck to everyone, I hope you all get out of purgatory soon, and don't be discouraged by seeing the EDD push back.
