Staggering amount of issues found at/after delivery. Considering returning the car.

[TSLA Pilot]

Ok so I drove to Cleveland today to pick up the black RWD LR model 3, and right off the bat noticed some issues that they noted on the due bill. Then I found a ton more back home. I'm just gonna let the photos speak for themselves. The amount of issues seem too numerous to be coincidence, and suggest major prior rework. Do you think I should ask for a replacement car or return the car altogether?

1. Hairline crack of the front glass roof (sorry no pic for this one; they are going to replace the roof)
2. Crooked front hood leaving a 1/2" gap
3. Grossly misaligned charge port door and rear headlight, even to the point of showing a gap behind the seal (they said it's "within spec" ????)
4. Scratches all over the hood and body.
5. Smudges and fingerprints under the clear coat. Too many to count.
6. Clear signs of prior over buffing/paint oxidation
7. Something's loose in the left door panels and was making noises when driving.

I'm only allowed 10 pictures but the issues are too many to count. Is this a lemon, contaminated paint area, or a prior reject? The delivery 'agent' actually said this (his very words): This ain't a model X. You gotta live with them. Really? Are you kidding me?? I'm going to follow up with the senior delivery manager and see what should we do from here. What do you guys think? Have them rework the entire car over? Get a new car? Return it?

TWO WORDS: Service Loaner.

That's where your car belongs, and soon.

Request another VIN, STAT, so that you can capture the 2018 full tax credit.

This was an unacceptable delivery.

 

[ACA Man]

Its not our job as customers to worry or fret about the wellbeing of a $35B company - our focus is on making sure the product we bought with our hard earned money meets some minimum reasonable standard of quality. This is not the Roadster. It's not the Model S or X. This is a 500,000 unit per year mass market vehicle and it's time for the company to start acting appropriately.

When I bought my first Fisker, they had all sorts of issues with the car not being ready or needing a fix of this or that. I expected some of those customer pains because it was a low volume, brand new car from a brand new company (ala Tesla's first Roadster). But I'll say that their customer service through most of that was superb (e.g. arranging black car airport pickups, paying for lunch while car was being serviced, tossing in freebies like 3M Crystalline tint and a premium outdoor car cover etc).

If Tesla is going to make the transition to a real non-niche mass market automaker they've got to go above and beyond with service for the M3. They need to have a customer service czar for situations just like this one so that the customer doesn't have to deal with hours and hours of headache and stress (I think that was Jerome for Model S as I have friends who escalated things directly to Jerome). Never have I had any hours long issues or stress dealing with Lexus or Audi or BMW or Honda with past cars.

I can’t say any better.

 

[ACA Man]

Actually I do own two Fiskers.


Huh? Not sure what you're getting at here.


Um, people are settling for their imperfect Model 3s now because they come with a $3750 discount in the way of a federal tax credit. I would have been happy to wait until Q1 if the price were the same.



Actually I just went shopping with an uncle of mine for a new car for him and his wife. They've narrowed it down to the Audi Q5 and the Lexus RX funny enough. Model X was too bulky for the interior passenger space it offers and from what I've heard from one of our family friends who has an X, still some finicky issues with doors.

And not that it's particularly relevant to the OP but since you asked, I currently own and regularly use 3 cars and the M3 will be my fourth. So I may b*tch as you so eloquently put it in one hand, but there's only a 1/4 chance I'll be driving a Tesla when I do it.

I find the variety of fanboyism that you exhibit destructive to the Tesla brand. Good friends tell each other when they go astray, good customers use whatever means necessary to get their warrantied product fixed, and good companies are wise to go above and beyond to do right by their customers quickly ESPECIALLY when there are the shorts and competitors cheering for their demise and failure.

Your last paragraph said it all.

 

[notAnExpert]

[...]
You are acting as if they don’t care when it’s completely obvious one is going to have issues when scaling deliveries from 5000 a year to 5000 per week.

Tesla has known its Model 3 production targets for quite a while. Tesla could have scaled the delivery and service organizations to match those production targets if they cared to. They didn't.

I can see why they didn't. They want to achieve immediate profitability. Delivery and service organizations are overheads. Why spend money if we can get away with customers who don't demand anything better? Unless customers demand better by rejecting sub-standard cars, escalate issues to Tesla management, tweet, blog, post on forums, talk to the media, etc. Tesla has no incentive to improve its service levels.

As much as I'm grateful to Tesla's early customers and investors to keep the company afloat and help its mission, I'm also grateful to customers who complain. They are helping Tesla become a better company. I disagree with the thought that public complaining is only helping the "shorters" and weakening Tesla.

 

[MXWing]

Actually I do own two Fiskers.


Huh? Not sure what you're getting at here.


Um, people are settling for their imperfect Model 3s now because they come with a $3750 discount in the way of a federal tax credit. I would have been happy to wait until Q1 if the price were the same.



Actually I just went shopping with an uncle of mine for a new car for him and his wife. They've narrowed it down to the Audi Q5 and the Lexus RX funny enough. Model X was too bulky for the interior passenger space it offers and from what I've heard from one of our family friends who has an X, still some finicky issues with doors.

And not that it's particularly relevant to the OP but since you asked, I currently own and regularly use 3 cars and the M3 will be my fourth. So I may b*tch as you so eloquently put it in one hand, but there's only a 1/4 chance I'll be driving a Tesla when I do it.

I find the variety of fanboyism that you exhibit destructive to the Tesla brand. Good friends tell each other when they go astray, good customers use whatever means necessary to get their warrantied product fixed, and good companies are wise to go above and beyond to do right by their customers quickly ESPECIALLY when there are the shorts and competitors cheering for their demise and failure.

Then you can buy a 3rd Fisker and collect more free lunches. Not sure why you even bothered to get a Tesla with how awesome Fisker is?

Production hell and delivery hell is a demand problem. Not Tesla making stuff no one wants.

Yes it’s obvious the tax credit is bigger now than next year but it still doesn’t force anyone’s hands. My car wasn’t perfect either but it gets fixed and life goes on.

People can vote with their dollars how they wish. I dumped my Q5 - transmission problem and all for a Model X. I had creaky falcon wing doors too. Guess what I did l? I took it in and got it fixed. Audi did nothing with the transmission despite 3 dealers and video evidence.

Captain obvious says it would have been better if my Model X came "perfect". It didn't, life goes on. Still wasn’t going back to another Q5.

I have the experience of owning both a Model X that was one of the first AP2 cars off the line as well as a Model 3 that was built in a tent. With the amount of ramp up they have to do, its impossible for them not to have issues.

You work through the issues because the car is WORTH IT.

Point to where I have not been helpful to the OP? I said he needed to return the car and pointed to him where he can get faster responses. I did not excuse this delivery in any way whatsoever and giving him the same advice I myself would follow in his situation.

Fanboys argue over if Thor can beat Superman. Pragmatic realists understand perspective and the big picture.

We demand numerous amounts of Tesla's to be built and we want them all to be perfect.

Knowing all this, Tesla for shits and giggles decided to make less cars and made them with intentional defects just to piss people off.

 

[MXWing]

Tesla has known its Model 3 production targets for quite a while. Tesla could have scaled the delivery and service organizations to match those production targets if they cared to. They didn't.

I can see why they didn't. They want to achieve immediate profitability. Delivery and service organizations are overheads. Why spend money if we can get away with customers who don't demand anything better? Unless customers demand better by rejecting sub-standard cars, escalate issues to Tesla management, tweet, blog, post on forums, talk to the media, etc. Tesla has no incentive to improve its service levels.

As much as I'm grateful to Tesla's early customers and investors to keep the company afloat and help its mission, I'm also grateful to customers who complain. They are helping Tesla become a better company. I disagree with the thought that public complaining is only helping the "shorters" and weakening Tesla.

Tesla wanted to go private so it wouldn't need to achieve immediate profitability. It is what it is. Tesla has to shove out as many cars as they possibly can Q3 and Q4 not only for their sake but those who want the maximum credit.

Tesla already burns $9,000 per minute. I am sure if they want to burn $12,000 they can get more people, more centers, and better quality people. Where does the extra $3,000 per minute come from? You can complain.. but can you offer a solution?

 

[SoCalGuy]

Then you can buy a 3rd Fisker and collect more free lunches. Not sure why you even bothered to get a Tesla with how awesome Fisker is?

Captain obvious says it would have been better if my Model X came "perfect". It didn't, life goes on. Still wasn’t going back to another Q5.

You work through the issues because the car is WORTH IT.


We demand numerous amounts of Tesla's to be built and we want them all to be perfect.

Knowing all this, Tesla for shits and giggles decided to make less cars and made them with intentional defects just to piss people off.

LOL. No sense arguing with someone who uses unnecessarily colorful language and illogical throwaway comments like yours re:Fisker. This forum needs no more Trumps . But I digress.

To move this back on topic, no one expected the car to be perfect but I think when a brand new car is being delivered with the level of paint defects, panel gaps/alignment, cracked window etc, that is not only imperfect, it's horrendous. There are no major automakers who deliver cars like this on the regular and in this instance, with such a company rep who exhibited flagrant disregard for the OP's inconvenience. As others with more reasonable heads have commented, Tesla simply needs to do better - much better, and fast. There are only so many fanboys out there who can buy cars and after those 5-10,000 are full up, Tesla only has one shot at making a first impression to the other 500,000 newcomers to EV land.

 

[MXWing]

LOL. No sense arguing with someone who uses unnecessarily colorful language and illogical throwaway comments like yours re:Fisker. This forum needs no more Trumps . But I digress.

To move this back on topic, no one expected the car to be perfect but I think when a brand new car is being delivered with the level of paint defects, panel gaps/alignment, cracked window etc, that is not only imperfect, it's horrendous. There are no major automakers who deliver cars like this on the regular and in this instance, with such a company rep who exhibited flagrant disregard for the OP's inconvenience. As others with more reasonable heads have commented, Tesla simply needs to do better - much better, and fast. There are only so many fanboys out there who can buy cars and after those 5-10,000 are full up, Tesla only has one shot at making a first impression to the other 500,000 newcomers to EV land.

What part of

1 - My advice to return the car.
2 - Who to email right away as being more responsive than the DSA
3 - Thinking the delivery rep should be fired

did you miss?

There's 5000 cars being delivered in a week... define regular. 1% of 5,000 would crash the internet if every car was as bad as OPs.

I guess 90% of Tesla owners are unreasonable..?

 

[alloverx]

Why Elon keeps spouting weekly targets is insane. Tesla should aim to increase volume whilst maintain quality. Also should not have changed the original M3 timeline. I do see M3s around here everyday so they are getting delivered.

 

[SoCalGuy]

I guess 90% of Tesla owners are unreasonable..?

View attachment 335083

That's what some might call a non sequitur. But if you want to play, there are literally orders of magnitude more owners of the other brands than Tesla. Porsche has well over 10x as many owners as Tesla and if you care about (or are even aware of) sampling bias, the pool of Tesla owners given the niche market in which it operates are likely to be more tolerant of issues than your typical luxury buyer. To date, ca. 200K cars have been delivered and nearly all are Roadster, S/X - hardly targeting a mainstream luxury customer base.

 

[MXWing]

That's what some might call a non sequitur. But if you want to play, there are literally orders of magnitude more owners of the other brands than Tesla. Porsche has well over 10x as many owners as Tesla and if you care about (or are even aware of) sampling bias, the pool of Tesla owners given the niche market in which it operates are likely to be more tolerant of issues than your typical luxury buyer. To date, ca. 200K cars have been delivered and nearly all are Roadster, S/X - hardly targeting a mainstream luxury customer base.

So what’s your rationale for getting a car from a company you hate so much and refuse to acknowledge their scaling difficulties?

Apparently I’m not allowed to have a positive experience. Only fanboys have positive experiences?

Tesla will sell 10X as many cars this year as Porsche sold in the US.

The satisfaction could distort but I believe you will come off as foolish when Tesla still stands at the top when everything is said and done when the survey is revisited in 2019.

People are forgiving not because of the name but it is the only game in town for what it does. It will be the only game in town for the foreseeable future. Still a great company even if the recent 20’s something are messing up shop for SOME people.

As I said even people who fight Tesla to the point of getting their car bought back.. buy another Tesla.

You never addressed why your family friend didn’t take their Tesla in to have the fwd fixed. Mine was creaky and I got it fixed. Just like my misaligned charge door. I got it fixed and life goes on.

OP case is very unique out of the 5000 deliveries per week. Don’t push your narrative that you think all 4,999 other deliveries are exactly the same.

When you take delivery of your 3, 99 other cars are going to get delivered on the same day. Name any dealer that moves 100 or more cars in a SINGLE day?

My main point is this. You have two options:

1.) Take delivery in 2018 with a potential chance your car *might* need a week in the shop for rework.

2.) Take delivery Jan 2nd 2019 and your car will be FLAWLESS.

Who wants option 2? Or do people want to just throw a fit and insist on a flawless car in 2018?

Everything carries opportunity cost and this is a zero sum game.

It’s completely obvious to me that if Tesla “slowed it down” and just delivered 2500 cars per week those 2500 owners will be thrilled.

The 35,000 (subtracting 2500 per week for rest of 2018)who missed out on the full tax credit.. not as thrilled.

TSLA obviously gets hammered. For those who don’t care about TSLA - no TSLA means no warranty or supercharger network for your 50K+ purchase.

Tesla is damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Who doesn’t support great service? Who doesn’t support world peace?


—Fanboy

 

[Dnssup]

As a Michigander picking up at Cleveland-Lyndhurst this afternoon, I’m finding this thread quite disturbing.

 

[iaflyer]

Man, that's a poor looking car. I think with the push to get deliveries up for the quarter, they are sending out any car that can drive. "We'll fix it in the field.."

I'd return it to the place to picked it up, TODAY. The email says "You can always RETURN it within two days for a full refund". Not, you must notify us within two days. I know you live in Michigan, and it's not a quick drive to Cleveland, but I think if you don't return the car today, you're going to be stuck with it.

I'd just drive to the Service Center, tell them you are unhappy with it and you are returning it within the two days for a full refund, or replacement with a different car, but that you are not taking this car back home.

Don't take whatever promises they say of "we'lll fix it.. we'll make it right.. we'll pay for the detailing." The car looks like *hit.

 

[Vince C.]

OP, sorry about your experience but thanks for sharing your story. I've got an Oct-Dec delivery estimate and chose Cleveland as my delivery location (closer to home) even though I ordered in Columbus (when visiting family and where my experience was great).

Based off everyone's comments, I'm thinking I should pick up in Columbus. Am I able to change location preference on the site? Or do I just notify tesla of my new preference when they contact me for delivery?

 

[Dnssup]

OP, sorry about your experience but thanks for sharing your story. I've got an Oct-Dec delivery estimate and chose Cleveland as my delivery location (closer to home) even though I ordered in Columbus (when visiting family and where my experience was great).

Based off everyone's comments, I'm thinking I should pick up in Columbus. Am I able to change location preference on the site? Or do I just notify tesla of my new preference when they contact me for delivery?

I was told when calling the 800 number to wait for the DA to change from Cleveland to Chicago (so we could take the train rather than drive two cars home). When the DA finally got to me, it would have delayed the car. I’ll report back on my delivery experience today...

 

[Vince C.]

I was told when calling the 800 number to wait for the DA to change from Cleveland to Chicago (so we could take the train rather than drive two cars home). When the DA finally got to me, it would have delayed the car. I’ll report back on my delivery experience today...

I see. Thanks for the info! I'll be anxiously waiting for your report.

 

[Dexterryu]

As a native Clevelander hoping to get a delivery date soon, this concerns me but I'm also greatful for the awareness. I'd greatly appriciate if you can PM me the names in case I run into them. I can also PM you the name of one of the guys that works there andhas been extremely helpful and responsive since I started looking at Tesla's in 2016.

 

[voip-ninja]

What part of

1 - My advice to return the car.
2 - Who to email right away as being more responsive than the DSA
3 - Thinking the delivery rep should be fired

did you miss?

There's 5000 cars being delivered in a week... define regular. 1% of 5,000 would crash the internet if every car was as bad as OPs.

I guess 90% of Tesla owners are unreasonable..?

View attachment 335083

In fairness I believe that chart pre-dates the current delivery crunch. I do expect Tesla owner satisfaction to trend down based on the sheer # of deliveries they are trying to get done right now, how overworked their delivery teams are, and how many cars are slipping through the cracks with paint problems, fit/finish problems, etc.

 

[fnce_prof]

So, they are gonna try to get a flatbed truck here today to pick up the car but that's not guaranteed. So I might end up having to drive 3hrs there today anyways and take their Toyota Corolla rental back. And right, it looks like the car does have to be PHYSICALLY returned within 2 days. However all the paperwork needs to be handled at the back end with business resolution. This is turning out to be a freak show of a delivery experience.

By the way, I haven't heard a peep from either of the email addresses that I sent my notification to. [email protected] and [email protected]. Not that I'm surprised. The lack of communication is truly shocking for ANY company, not to mention a premium auto maker. Again, if any of this happens at Mercedes or BMW (most of my cars are from them), heads will roll quickly, and I seriously, seriously doubt that many of Tesla's target customers (premium sedan/coupe buyers) would be willing to put up with this crap. I paid similar dollars (MSRP-8%) for an AMG C63 delivery in Germany and it's a truly amazing experience. Not because of the freebies (and there's a LOT of them) but because they genuinely care about their reputation and customer satisfaction. I paid MSRP on a $60000 Tesla and it's "mass produced and live with it". Truly mind boggling.

At this point my perception of the brand is quickly deteriorating and my only concern is to get this piece of junk back to them one way or another today so they can't say the car is not returned "on time". I certainly don't want them to forward the sales tax to MI or register the car in my name either.

 

[notAnExpert]

@fnce_prof
Thanks for keeping us informed. I hope they refund your full payment quickly, without another runaround.
Good luck!