I took delivery of my car in late September so I've actually had it now for about two months.
I like the car better now than I did at delivery but there are still a laundry list of items Tesla needs to attend to. I'm too nervous about the shoddy quality and questionable competence of Tesla service to get any of the outstanding issues fixed right at the moment.
When I'm driving the car and it's dialed in just right (no buzzing or rattles, no limited regeneration, etc.) I really feel like I'm in the zone in a way I never did with my previous two BMWs. I went and picked up our Thanksgiving day turkey from a smokehouse joint and it was about a 45 minute roundtrip drive. There was very light traffic, temps were favorable and since I was really blasting the stereo I wasn't irritated by the car's many noise issues. It was euphoric.
On a regular day to day basis though I'm plagued with a number of problems. Some Tesla will be able to fix, some (areas of the car not painted) they won't.
Outstanding issues;
- There is an obnoxious wind noise that manifests at speeds over about 60mph that is much more evident from the passenger side. It almost sounds like driving with a window cracked open. From reviewing threads it appears that this could be caused by the trim cap above the passenger side mirror bowing out substantially more than on the driver's side. I have not brought this one to Tesla because nobody in the large thread around the issue have reported that they've gotten the problem fixed.
- There are a number of buzzes and rattles in the cabin (mostly on passenger side) but the one that is most noticeable, by far, is the rattle coming from the passenger side seat-belt anchor point in the B pillar. A thread on this issue exists and like the one above nobody has reported that Tesla really has a handle on resolving this issue.
- I have continued low pressure TPMS alarms in cooler temps from the sensors where the tires are actually at 42-43 PSI but the car is alarming because the TPMS sensors are not adjusting for altitude and report the tires are at 38-39 PSI. Tesla doesn't seem to give a f& about this problem.
- I get occasional collision alarms in my neighborhood when I turn onto the main street, am driving at about 15 mph and there is an SUV parked on the right side of the road. I am nowhere near an angle where I would impact this vehicle but the car alarms anyway, it's pretty jarring.
- There are large unpainted sections just behind the front doors where you can see the body primer. Now that I've seen it I can't unsee it. I notice it everytime I get in or out of my car now.
- I find the media system to be terrible. I feel like I have to divert my attention from the road far too much to do something as trivial as changing the station. Swipe up, get the 1/2 height UI, select the media I want, swipe back down, blah blah blah.
- I fold and unfold my mirrors when I enter or exit my garage. I have to similarly peck through menus to do something that was done in my last car with an easily reached switch in the door. It's especially irritating because there's no reason this couldn't be tied to the Homelink open/close action that works pretty well.
- Autopilot. Autopilot just sucks. I regret paying $5,000 for it. It scares my wife enough that she doesn't want me using it when she and my son are in the car. It drives worse than a 13 year old driving farm equipment on a dairy farm in rural Vermont (ask me how I know). Was using it to get a break while driving yesterday and, possibly due to the road salt that was down from a small amount of snow the previous night it kept complaining it couldn't execute lane changes. I must have seen "lane change aborted" 20 times during a 30 minute drive. If I needed to change lanes to prepare for an exit that was a good couple of miles up it would slow down dangerously to speeds of around 40-50 mph on a 75 mph highway infuriating drivers behind me and potentially putting my life in danger from someone rear ending me at high speed.
- Vampire drain sometimes as much as 10 miles over night in my attached garage. I charge at work so this is quite noticeable, and annoying.
- The frunk. I hate closing it. It is screaming for an auto open/close function or at least an auto latching feature.
- Tesla service is a joke. I had a squealing noise coming from the front right side of the car shortly after taking delivery. The mobile tech was baffled as what was causing it. Tesla service diagnosed it from a video I made as being a bad hub bearing, seemed reasonable. They made an appointment with me to get it in. When I brought it in they sprung it on me that they would need to keep the car 3-4 days. I said "well, I'll just bring it in at the 3-4 day mark when you're ready to work on it". Nope, the only way to hold my car's position in the work queue was to leave it there, at risk for damage or abuse, for 3-4 DAYS until they finally had time to work on it. When I was perplexed at this state of affairs the service manager helpfully piped up that "Elon tweeted he's going to fix service" like that meant a magic wand was going to be waved and everything was going to be solved. Give me a break. If they want to see how a service operation is supposed to be run all they have to do is go hang out at my local BMW mega-dealer and watch as customers bring cars in to a huge, well lit service bay, hand the car off to a valet.... have the service advisor go over the work that's going to be done, and then whisk away in a brand new complimentary BMW loaner. By comparison Tesla feels like getting service at an understaffed, overworked and marginally competent independent shop that's trying to figure out how to deliver service...
In a way I'm glad that I didn't go any higher optioned on this car than I did. Tesla will continue to improve but some of those improvements will include new hardware. It's also entirely possible that BMW, Audi or Merc (you know, companies that know how to build luxury cars and provide real service) will have a real competitor available in 3-4 years that solves some of these issues.
