I recently bought a used Model S from Tesla (not private party or dealer). Because I had read these forums I was pretty much prepared for what to expect, but I thought it might be helpful to make a thread of suggestions for other potential buyers. While this info won't remain relevant forever, it's likely to be helpful to some.
I am very happy with my car. I'm glad we made the purchase and I would do it again. That said, there's room for improvement.
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SUGGESTIONS FOR BUYING A USED/CPO FROM TESLA
1. Use EV-CPO.com to find a car that fits your needs. The search function on the Tesla website will only search a radius from your location, it won't let you set a radius distance or limit to search to your state. So for me in Las Vegas, NV it showed me Vegas cars and SoCal cars but none in Reno. If I were determined to avoid paying California taxes then I might have preferred to only look in my own state, which can easily be done in the EV-CPO Hunter "advanced options" search. Using this website can also help you determine if Tesla is asking a fair price for the car you're interested in buying or if that price is inflated.
2. Request photos and inspect them carefully. One thing I did was to use my TV Chromecast to cast the images from my laptop onto my much larger TV screen and then zoom in and carefully examine the photos.
3. If you're going to do a trade-in shop around to get the best deal. It's very likely that CarMax will give you more for your old car than Tesla will, unless your old car was a Tesla.
4. If you're driving your car home after taking delivery and you have a long ways to go, ask them explicitly to charge your car 100% full. We told them multiple times that we were driving home from San Diego but they didn't connect the dots and charge our car for us. They didn't even charge it to 90%. It was at about 80% when we got it, which meant we had to stop twice on the way home to charge instead of just once. They still might not charge it to 100% but at least you can try to get them to do it. On this note, double check the trunk to make sure you have your mobile charging kit.
5. Verify that the delivery specialists have all the correct info that will be needed and try to counter any assumptions they may make. In our case, they were very confused by the fact that we have two different addresses - one physical address and one mailing address. All the paperwork they had ready for us was wrong and so we had to wait longer to get new paperwork. This could have easily been done correctly in advance if they'd just asked us about our addresses instead of making assumptions.
6. Learn as much about the car before taking delivery. Do not count on the staff to know what they're talking about. For instance, my delivery specialist who handled the face-to-face delivery said that our car only had AP1 hardware and that the software was not enabled. He claimed it would cost $$$ enable it. But in reality, the car had it enabled and we just didn't realize it until days later when I emailed about it. The guy in charge of our delivery was mainly there to handle paperwork and take our money, not to try to sell us upgrades (he never even offered to sell us a service package or any accessories).
For those who have been through the process, what else would you add?
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Also, PROS AND CONS OF BUYING USED FROM TESLA
PROS
- Used Teslas from Tesla come with a Tesla warranty. The length of the warranty varies on the age/mileage of the car
- I think that Tesla only sells used Teslas that have fewer than 100,000 miles on them
- Tesla used inventory is currently the largest
- Currently, prices from Tesla are lowest
CONS
- You cannot test drive used Teslas
- In order to even see the car you must put down a 'nonrefundable'* deposit (currently $2500)
(*You can often transfer the deposit to another car if you don't like the first one and there are stories of people getting refunds... this is likely a case by case issue)
- Because Tesla no longer transfer the used cars to their new owners, buyers will have to pay the taxes of whatever state they take delivery in regardless of where they live or where the car will be registered
I am very happy with my car. I'm glad we made the purchase and I would do it again. That said, there's room for improvement.
---
SUGGESTIONS FOR BUYING A USED/CPO FROM TESLA
1. Use EV-CPO.com to find a car that fits your needs. The search function on the Tesla website will only search a radius from your location, it won't let you set a radius distance or limit to search to your state. So for me in Las Vegas, NV it showed me Vegas cars and SoCal cars but none in Reno. If I were determined to avoid paying California taxes then I might have preferred to only look in my own state, which can easily be done in the EV-CPO Hunter "advanced options" search. Using this website can also help you determine if Tesla is asking a fair price for the car you're interested in buying or if that price is inflated.
2. Request photos and inspect them carefully. One thing I did was to use my TV Chromecast to cast the images from my laptop onto my much larger TV screen and then zoom in and carefully examine the photos.
3. If you're going to do a trade-in shop around to get the best deal. It's very likely that CarMax will give you more for your old car than Tesla will, unless your old car was a Tesla.
4. If you're driving your car home after taking delivery and you have a long ways to go, ask them explicitly to charge your car 100% full. We told them multiple times that we were driving home from San Diego but they didn't connect the dots and charge our car for us. They didn't even charge it to 90%. It was at about 80% when we got it, which meant we had to stop twice on the way home to charge instead of just once. They still might not charge it to 100% but at least you can try to get them to do it. On this note, double check the trunk to make sure you have your mobile charging kit.
5. Verify that the delivery specialists have all the correct info that will be needed and try to counter any assumptions they may make. In our case, they were very confused by the fact that we have two different addresses - one physical address and one mailing address. All the paperwork they had ready for us was wrong and so we had to wait longer to get new paperwork. This could have easily been done correctly in advance if they'd just asked us about our addresses instead of making assumptions.
6. Learn as much about the car before taking delivery. Do not count on the staff to know what they're talking about. For instance, my delivery specialist who handled the face-to-face delivery said that our car only had AP1 hardware and that the software was not enabled. He claimed it would cost $$$ enable it. But in reality, the car had it enabled and we just didn't realize it until days later when I emailed about it. The guy in charge of our delivery was mainly there to handle paperwork and take our money, not to try to sell us upgrades (he never even offered to sell us a service package or any accessories).
For those who have been through the process, what else would you add?
---
Also, PROS AND CONS OF BUYING USED FROM TESLA
PROS
- Used Teslas from Tesla come with a Tesla warranty. The length of the warranty varies on the age/mileage of the car
- I think that Tesla only sells used Teslas that have fewer than 100,000 miles on them
- Tesla used inventory is currently the largest
- Currently, prices from Tesla are lowest
CONS
- You cannot test drive used Teslas
- In order to even see the car you must put down a 'nonrefundable'* deposit (currently $2500)
(*You can often transfer the deposit to another car if you don't like the first one and there are stories of people getting refunds... this is likely a case by case issue)
- Because Tesla no longer transfer the used cars to their new owners, buyers will have to pay the taxes of whatever state they take delivery in regardless of where they live or where the car will be registered
