Tesla banned me from purchasing another Tesla after vehicle buyback

[whitex]

Even though your review is short , it's great feedback on another great EV.

Wasn't meant to be a review. There are some very nice things about the Taycan, and other annoying things, which would make for a more complete review. I just mentioned the 2 biggest reasons why I didn't put an order in.

What I find strange though is how the Taycan is not as smooth as a Tesla. I just assumed an electric motor applied in any car would just be very smooth, period.

I think there are 3 things at play here:

1. Throttle pedal to output power mapping. For example barely touching the throttle on a taycan made it jolt forward, why? I get you want this when the pedal hits the floor, but no need for such jarring change early in the pedal travel. Maybe that let them shave off a fraction of a second for 0-60 (which should be launch mode job, not for every day driving). Tesla has had a lot of experience tuning that. I suspect Taycan can tune that via software too, though updates are not over the air today, but through a dealer (which is both good and bad, but that is a whole different topic).
2. The power electronics software - I only had the car for an hour, and it started raining part way through, so I can't be certain, but it seems the power application is not very smooth. Even when full throttle accelerating on the highway, the power seemed to modulate somewhat, rather than a smooth acceleration. Maybe the car was losing traction and throttling down too much, I don't know. Again, this may be something Porsche could fix via software updates, not sure.
3. The 2 speed transmission. There is no avoiding the shift jolt when in the middle of high acceleration. I'm not sure why the transmission is there. If it's for top speed, maybe they could keep it in first gear under 100 mph, which would make it a non-issue for every day driving. If it's for efficiency, well, there isn't much you can do.

What did you think of the lack of regen (videos I've watched show it does some some adjustable regen, but it's not as great as in a Tesla) and the resulting no concept of one-pedal driving? I cannot imagine buying an EV without that .

It has regen, just works differently - when you press the brake the computer decides between regen and physical brakes. There is a setting to enable regen when you just let the accelerator go, which makes it more familiar to Tesla drivers (I didn't find that setting until the second half of my test drive, but it's there). Once I enabled that setting (sorry, don't remember what it was called) regen was not an issue for me, though it might have been slightly overshadowed by the twitchy accelerator profile.

I have high hopes for the eTron GT. There was noticable improvement between the eTron SUV and Taycan, so VW is catching up. Hopefully the GT will not have the multi-speed transmission, maybe solve efficiency via cruising front motor and rear motor sleeping on the highway or something like that (rear motor can wake up in milliseconds and it doesn't reduce the acceleration from front motor while waking up, like shifting does). Maybe some other alternative will show up in the meantime, like Rivan or Faraday Future - though those are also newcomers, and after Tesla I am a little weary of those. Or, dear I say it, Hummer EV?

 

[whitex]

Could always by a "used" Tesla if you really wanted one. There are many places that have near new Tesla's for sale with minimal mileage. And at a discounted price. Just an option. They Taycan is a cool car, it's a Porsche'. But, obviously more expensive and less practical as your "only" car with the current charging infrastructure and limited range capability of the Taycan. If your Tesla was a second car and you didn't use it for road trips, then the Taycan can be good replacement. If it's your only car and you to travel with it, the Taycan, or any other EV besides Tesla, are still a few years away from have a reliable and practical long distance charging network of high-speed chargers across the country. Plus, so far, of the cars released, none of them come close to the real world range of Tesla. If those cars could use Tesla chargers, then their shorter range wouldn't be an issue as Tesla's superchargers are laid out across the country to satisfy most trips under 150 miles, meaning you can find a charger in 150 miles or less from most places. And they've proven mostly reliable. The charge america and other EV charging providers are still building and learning and there are many reports of failures along the way. When there's only one or two charges within 200 miles and that one goes done, it can put you in a bad way and leave you stranded on your trip. Highly unlikely to happen in a Tesla with the Supercharger network CURRENTLY IN PLACE.

In a couple of years, this won't be an issue. But, two years is still a long time. There are several EV's I'm desperately looking forward to owning, but won't purchase any of them until the EV AMERICA network is fully up and running with multiple chargers at each location.

You are correct about the other guys playing catchup to Tesla in the range and supercharger network. However, most people out there don't need 400 miles range cars, or superchargers everywhere. It's like offroad capabilities, many people who buy the cars will never go offroad, and the one time they do was only because they could. Sure there are people who do need those capabilities, but not everybody. My wife's had a S75D since Dec 2016, she has never been to a charger outside the house (not once), even the one year when she put on over 24K miles on the car. Now that she drives less, she doesn't even plug the car in except at night (when she did a lot of driving, she'd plug it in mid-day between errands, nowadays she says she doesn't like to have to unplug it every time she leaves the house).

 

[chilman408]

Sounds like Tesla understands how to conduct business.

 

[Mjezzi]

Many of you know me from this thread: Yellow screen? Force Tesla to Replace it!. In the thread I state very clearly and factually the process I went though to get Tesla to replace my yellowing Model S screen. Nothing I posted was covered under any NDAs. I simply wanted to make sure everyone was aware what the NCDS process looked like as an option to combat warranty denials over the screen. The NCDS procedure I documented there has been invaluable to many customers both on these forums and off.

It turns out, Tesla has banned me from purchasing another vehicle for posting online.

How I found out:

Several months after the yellow screen incident, I contacted the lawyer from Tesla I had been working with.(I will not state his name here, others have stated it in the linked thread) The Model S had a worsening problem with reduced battery life. Averaging ~330KW/h we were only getting about 70-80% of what we should have. On a full 100% charge we would get somewhere in the range of 170-200 miles.

The service centers would not acknowledge the problem. In fact, I could not even get them to write up a service ticket. So, I went to the lawyer at Tesla. I informed him of the problem, and he referred it to an internal engineering department. I was contacted back a couple weeks later (after having to prod for a response)

The engineer informed me that I had an API requesting tool (TeslaFi) constantly hitting my car, and that was the reason for reduced capacity. He recommended changing my password to block the API requests. I thought this sounded odd, but figured it did not hurt to try.

This did not make a difference. I reached back out to the lawyer and got a response of "What do you want me to do?". I informed him I just wanted it fixed. The response I got back was asking me if I wanted to just do a buyback on the vehicle. At first, I baulked at this. I really did love that car, aside from the screen issue (which was ultimately fixed), and now the battery problem.

Ultimately, I decided that this was a good idea. It would allow me to get out of the battery problem, and get a brand new Model S Performance. The offer was at $68,024.75. This is 60-70% over KBB value, it was calculated by the the full price I paid including taxes, fees, etc ($99,563.63) - mileage deduction (-$31,538.88 calculated as $96750 x 39,118miles/120,000).

We placed a deposit on a brand new Performance S to replace it with about two weeks before we had to surrender the car to the Burlingame service center. The day after we provided the car to them and signed all of the documentation we received a phone call from the sales manager at Burlingame. I was told that they would refuse to sell me another vehicle and he refused to provide any more information and simply cancelled the order.

I emailed the lawyer, sure that this was a mistake. I thought that maybe the manager saw there was a buyback and decided that I should not buy another vehicle. The response I got back from Telsa's lawyer was:

"
We aren’t obligated to sell you a car and we don’t believe selling you another car is in either of our interests. You’ve been repeatedly frustrated despite our best efforts and we are not inclined to continue doing business with someone we don’t believe we can satisfy such that they resort to threats repeatedly and/or disparaging us publicly. You ought to consider another EV or other vehicle and perhaps you’ll have a better relationship with their service team. "

This came as quite a shock. I can only assume that the "threats" he was referring to was being willing to file another arbitration case to get the battery issues fixed and that the "disparaging" them publicly was the yellow screen NCDS thread.

During the process, he said they hoped I would go with a different manufacturer for my next vehicle, but never said I could not purchase from them. It turns out, the "hope" was more of a "it will not be possible to buy another vehicle from us".

I tried a few more times to place the order, but it was always ultimately cancelled. We finally gave up on trying to purchase another Tesla, and opted to place an order for a Porsche Taycan.

After this situation I reached out to a few contacts and found that I am not the only one that Tesla has banned for having arbitration / lemon claims. I can't speak for those other (former) owners but It seems that this is a strategy that Tesla legal employs with at least some regular cadence.



I've attached the buy-back paperwork for my vehicle (VIN: 5YJSA1E14HF193196) for any that would like to see what it looks like

Many of you know me from this thread: Yellow screen? Force Tesla to Replace it!. In the thread I state very clearly and factually the process I went though to get Tesla to replace my yellowing Model S screen. Nothing I posted was covered under any NDAs. I simply wanted to make sure everyone was aware what the NCDS process looked like as an option to combat warranty denials over the screen. The NCDS procedure I documented there has been invaluable to many customers both on these forums and off.

It turns out, Tesla has banned me from purchasing another vehicle for posting online.

How I found out:

Several months after the yellow screen incident, I contacted the lawyer from Tesla I had been working with.(I will not state his name here, others have stated it in the linked thread) The Model S had a worsening problem with reduced battery life. Averaging ~330KW/h we were only getting about 70-80% of what we should have. On a full 100% charge we would get somewhere in the range of 170-200 miles.

The service centers would not acknowledge the problem. In fact, I could not even get them to write up a service ticket. So, I went to the lawyer at Tesla. I informed him of the problem, and he referred it to an internal engineering department. I was contacted back a couple weeks later (after having to prod for a response)

The engineer informed me that I had an API requesting tool (TeslaFi) constantly hitting my car, and that was the reason for reduced capacity. He recommended changing my password to block the API requests. I thought this sounded odd, but figured it did not hurt to try.

This did not make a difference. I reached back out to the lawyer and got a response of "What do you want me to do?". I informed him I just wanted it fixed. The response I got back was asking me if I wanted to just do a buyback on the vehicle. At first, I baulked at this. I really did love that car, aside from the screen issue (which was ultimately fixed), and now the battery problem.

Ultimately, I decided that this was a good idea. It would allow me to get out of the battery problem, and get a brand new Model S Performance. The offer was at $68,024.75. This is 60-70% over KBB value, it was calculated by the the full price I paid including taxes, fees, etc ($99,563.63) - mileage deduction (-$31,538.88 calculated as $96750 x 39,118miles/120,000).

We placed a deposit on a brand new Performance S to replace it with about two weeks before we had to surrender the car to the Burlingame service center. The day after we provided the car to them and signed all of the documentation we received a phone call from the sales manager at Burlingame. I was told that they would refuse to sell me another vehicle and he refused to provide any more information and simply cancelled the order.

I emailed the lawyer, sure that this was a mistake. I thought that maybe the manager saw there was a buyback and decided that I should not buy another vehicle. The response I got back from Telsa's lawyer was:

"
We aren’t obligated to sell you a car and we don’t believe selling you another car is in either of our interests. You’ve been repeatedly frustrated despite our best efforts and we are not inclined to continue doing business with someone we don’t believe we can satisfy such that they resort to threats repeatedly and/or disparaging us publicly. You ought to consider another EV or other vehicle and perhaps you’ll have a better relationship with their service team. "

This came as quite a shock. I can only assume that the "threats" he was referring to was being willing to file another arbitration case to get the battery issues fixed and that the "disparaging" them publicly was the yellow screen NCDS thread.

During the process, he said they hoped I would go with a different manufacturer for my next vehicle, but never said I could not purchase from them. It turns out, the "hope" was more of a "it will not be possible to buy another vehicle from us".

I tried a few more times to place the order, but it was always ultimately cancelled. We finally gave up on trying to purchase another Tesla, and opted to place an order for a Porsche Taycan.

After this situation I reached out to a few contacts and found that I am not the only one that Tesla has banned for having arbitration / lemon claims. I can't speak for those other (former) owners but It seems that this is a strategy that Tesla legal employs with at least some regular cadence.



I've attached the buy-back paperwork for my vehicle (VIN: 5YJSA1E14HF193196) for any that would like to see what it looks like

If the car had 70-80% capacity left, the car was within spec of the warranty, no? If so, you wanted special treatment outside of your agreement, and apparently were forceful about it and you make your issues public. I would banned you as well.

You would have been better off waiting for it to get worse and then submitting a valid warranty claim. You’re fortunate they bought it back at that price.

I can only imagine how frustrated you’re going to be with Porsche’s range and battery longevity.

In the end, it would have been cheaper to trade your S in for a P S.

All that said, thanks for sharing. Good to know to not push Tesla unreasonably. I would hate to be banned.

 

[Merrill]

When I was working I had a few customers that I had to “divorce” because I could never make them happy and asked them to go elsewhere.

 

[Beltsbear]

Just a point of reference - all of this predates internet and social media. In 1993, my father-in-law purchased a new Mercury Topaz from a local Ford dealership. The car had an alignment problem from the first day of ownership. After several unsuccessful attempts by the dealer to fix, and a lemon law refusal, he took the dealership to court and won the case (and a monetary award) plus a guarantee to either fix or replace the car.

The car was eventually fixed but he received a lifetime ban (still in effect) from purchasing another Ford. Not a big deal to him as he never even looked at another one but still - some pretty sour grapes by the dealership in question.

There is zero way Ford could enforce that. With a dealership system it’s basically impossible. Tesla can enforce it, though it would be hard if your name was very common. Are they going to do a background check on every John Smith ?

 

[Beltsbear]

The exact situation you describe is not legal. It’s fraud.

It’s not really fraud if done right. Like setting the pricing correctly. OP is probably not party to a contract that he signed agreeing NOT to buy a Tesla. It might not end well, but it’s not fraud.

 

[ry-ballz]

This makes me more happy than it should.

 

[croman]

It’s not really fraud if done right.

 

[b team]

It’s not really fraud if done right. Like setting the pricing correctly. OP is probably not party to a contract that he signed agreeing NOT to buy a Tesla. It might not end well, but it’s not fraud.

It is fraud to transfer your assets at below market price with the understanding that you will be made whole in the future and the intent to defraud your creditors. That is the scenario he described.

 

[b team]

I'm sure he did it legally and paid any taxes or gift taxes. You can sell your car for whatever price you want and of course there are tax implications.

You cannot fraudulently transfer assets in order to hide them from creditors, including in bankruptcy. Tax is not the issue.

 

[outdoors]

There is zero way Ford could enforce that. With a dealership system it’s basically impossible. Tesla can enforce it, though it would be hard if your name was very common. Are they going to do a background check on every John Smith ?

No, but if you had a warranty claim. They would have grounds to dismiss your claim for the agreement you entered. Or if you tried a lemon law claim again. Your claim would be dismissed with maybe court costs awarded to the automaker. Yes I doubt they run you through a list, but would one buy a car knowing that could be used against them if they ever had an issue?

 

[Beltsbear]

It is fraud to transfer your assets at below market price with the understanding that you will be made whole in the future and the intent to defraud your creditors. That is the scenario he described.

I specifically said setting the price properly. I am not sure where creditors is coming from. This is about avoiding the a Tesla ban not financial fraud.

 

[ucmndd]

It is fraud to transfer your assets at below market price with the understanding that you will be made whole in the future and the intent to defraud your creditors. That is the scenario he described.

Who is the “creditor” in this hypothetical case?

 

[Kenz]

You can not satisfy some people. They are best sent to your competitors.
Too much wasted time, effort and money on customers that will never be satisfied.

 

[SucreTease]

I simply wanted to make sure everyone was aware what the NCDS process looked like as an option to combat warranty denials over the screen....

It turns out, Tesla has banned me from purchasing another vehicle for posting online....

I can only assume that the "threats" he was referring to was being willing to file another arbitration case to get the battery issues fixed and that the "disparaging" them publicly was the yellow screen NCDS thread.

I went back through your postings on the thread you cited. I note the following:

• You called them passive-agressive.
• You "reached out to multiple firms" regarding filing a class-action lawsuit, repeated again., and announced your willingness to join in on one.
• You acknowledged that "we have added quite a bit to the total volume of NCDS arbitration cases Tesla has had", and even excitement.

I am aware that this is just what you posted online and that expressed pleasure that you had caused pain for Tesla. I can only imagine what you might have done or said that you weren't willing to post. So, I don't buy your claim, "I simply wanted to make sure everyone was aware what the NCDS process looked like...."

I mean, for goodness sake, look at your username, @testhrowaway!

You wanted to get Tesla's attention; it looks like you did! If it's any consolation, I expect @whitex is next on the list.

 

[dannycamps]

There is zero way Ford could enforce that. With a dealership system it’s basically impossible. Tesla can enforce it, though it would be hard if your name was very common. Are they going to do a background check on every John Smith ?

Of course they couldn't enforce it. The issue was the dealer in question had a monopoly at the time in the city and neighboring areas where we lived. Obviously he could've taken the dealer to court (again) or went out of state to purchase but he had no interest in ever buying another Ford (and still hasn't to this day).

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla can enforce it, though it would be hard if your name was very common. Are they going to do a background check on every John Smith ?

Why would it be hard? You have to provide your driver's license, or a copy of it, as part of buying the car. They can just put a flag on that DL. I suppose if you moved to a different state you might be able to fly under the radar...

 

[zindro]

When I read that he was interacting with Tesla's lawyer, that was a huge red flag. Sounds like the interaction with Tesla wasn't as innocent as being presented here, perhaps he threatened to sue them.

 

[supratachophobia]

Musk has pretty famously personally banned individuals from purchasing a Tesla before, so I don't imagine he's got a problem with it.


OP Interesting story, can't say I'm particularly surprised. Though I think your thread title is a little misleading. Your "ban" seems directly related to the buyback (which you admitted was quite generous).

Though I agree it's particularly sheisty of them to not tell you this until after you surrendered your original car.

Just because you have a buyback, doesn't mean you automatically get blacklisted. There are tons of owners out there that did buybacks and just went right back into another Tesla.

Edit: Doesn't mean there isn't more to this story. It sounds like there was some friction there interacting with the lawyer.