Tesla "Doing the Right Thing" - new car delivery gone wrong

[Tam]

...universal approaches to everything. United Airlines has learned that...

I still think it's management who sets the tone of a company, not just because an individual flight attendant has way more decision making than I think.

I think United Airlines's CEO first response seemed to say way to go employees, good job on escalating to a head concussion, broken nose, and loss of two teeth.

This was not the first time that it bullied its customers because the company might have believed that violence or threat of violence seemed to keep the company's operation more smoothly and it has gotten away with it in the past.

The CEO now has toned down and promised not to beat up customers anymore.

I don't think he changed on his own but because of the global outrage.

Although Tesla does not experience a global outrage, I do think that Tesla needs to do a better job in fixing problems prior to leaving the factory and it should not shift the burden of shock and anxiety to its customers by presenting them a blemished car.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

My main point is: sometimes local problems require local solutions. Appeasing a disgruntled customer should have sufficient leeway in policies to make it subjectively right.

Giving everyone the same service voucher and no othet remedy available is very infexible and bureucratic. Rough overall value relative to the issue should be similar, but flexibility to find fitting solutions should be there.

Reality is, those mats don't cost Tesla much anything. Such freebies could easily be a tool the delivery people can use to make customers whole. They are a normal part of appeasements in car dealerships.

To a guy struggling with the thought of taking a brand new car in for repairs, the idea of free accessories can certainly help the thinking and emotional process. For some others free service can do the trick.

 

[Ocelot]

The ususal, mass defence of Tesla. Sorry but the dude asked for floormats. Hardly even close to unreasonable. The manager should of tossed in the mats. its a no -brainer. even if OP is completely an unreasonable person,..to lose a sale over floor mats? crazy.

 

[rjdoc74]

@Ocelot completely agree with you. Tesla fanboys are so annoying.

 

[jeffro01]

The ususal, mass defence of Tesla. Sorry but the dude asked for floormats. Hardly even close to unreasonable. The manager should of tossed in the mats. its a no -brainer. even if OP is completely an unreasonable person,..to lose a sale over floor mats? crazy.

You're totally missing the larger point here... Tesla is not flush with cash, they are still in a very vulnerable state overall and starting to hand out freebies like they are candy just because X customer has a gripe isn't smart business. I realize that's harsh but that's the reality. Look at what happened with "Debaser" (or whatever the dudes handle here is)... He was having issues with his X, decided enough was enough, Tesla didn't kiss his posterior like he thought they should so he starts posting here, double posting, triple posting, just constantly posting the same "grievance" and what did Tesla do? They caved to his demands which of course have now changed so he's back trying to extort even more out of Tesla... Why not? It worked the first time...

Once you open that pandora's box it can't be closed again...

Jeff

 

[jeffro01]

@Ocelot completely agree with you. Tesla fanboys are so annoying.

As are people that label others as fanboys simply because they disagree with their point...

Jeff

 

[geddon_jt]

Quick update everyone. First let me say i appreciate everyones input. Waking up this morning i decided to try to turn over a new leaf on this. Couple things, first off i really had a rough day at work yesterday with basically zero time to deal with car stuff and thought perhaps my reaction to just cancel may have been a bit extreme. For that i take responsibility. This morning i asked my wife to make the hour drive to the service center to see the car. I basically said do what you want, if you want it as is with the blemish thats cool, if you want it fixed thats cool too. I texted our DS in the wee hours to let her know she was coming and she very promptly and professionally responded, no problem, look forward to meeting her. They treated my wife very well and even permitted her to drive the car which i think is somewhat unorthodox. Both my wife and i felt better after she was able to see it in person. She identified another small nick in the paint which is also being addressed. They assured her that once the car is fixed up there wont be issues with the wimdshield and not to worry. It eased our minds substantially.

Bottom line is i needed a cool off period greater than 24 hours to get used to the idea that our brand new custom car needed all this work to be ready. I still believe under these circumstances a reasonable discount should be offered up front when the flaw or issue is identified. In my case, our delivery is back a week which is no biggie and im not pressing the issue further. Im going to give tesla the opportunity to deliver a perfect car and feel excited once again. Kudos to the tesla team for making my wife feel comfortable and at home during the visit tosay. Delivery (post repair) is next saturday. Thank you all again for reading and ill keep you posted.

 

[rjdoc74]

As are people that label others as fanboys simply because they disagree with their point...

Jeff

Problem is fanboy's opinion is always the same irrespective of circumstances.

 

[Merrill]

Quick update everyone. First let me say i appreciate everyones input. Waking up this morning i decided to try to turn over a new leaf on this. Couple things, first off i really had a rough day at work yesterday with basically zero time to deal with car stuff and thought perhaps my reaction to just cancel may have been a bit extreme. For that i take responsibility. This morning i asked my wife to make the hour drive to the service center to see the car. I basically said do what you want, if you want it as is with the blemish thats cool, if you want it fixed thats cool too. I texted our DS in the wee hours to let her know she was coming and she very promptly and professionally responded, no problem, look forward to meeting her. They treated my wife very well and even permitted her to drive the car which i think is somewhat unorthodox. Both my wife and i felt better after she was able to see it in person. She identified another small nick in the paint which is also being addressed. They assured her that once the car is fixed up there wont be issues with the wimdshield and not to worry. It eased our minds substantially.

Bottom line is i needed a cool off period greater than 24 hours to get used to the idea that our brand new custom car needed all this work to be ready. I still believe under these circumstances a reasonable discount should be offered up front when the flaw or issue is identified. In my case, our delivery is back a week which is no biggie and im not pressing the issue further. Im going to give tesla the opportunity to deliver a perfect car and feel excited once again. Kudos to the tesla team for making my wife feel comfortable and at home during the visit tosay. Delivery (post repair) is next saturday. Thank you all again for reading and ill keep you posted.

I guarantee you will love it, glad,you decided to take delivery. We have a 4 year old Model S and I love that as well but miss the latest technology. Enjoy.

 

[karupspc]

Be sure to make them honor the $300 service discount & get the floor mats too.

Quick update everyone. First let me say i appreciate everyones input. Waking up this morning i decided to try to turn over a new leaf on this. Couple things, first off i really had a rough day at work yesterday with basically zero time to deal with car stuff and thought perhaps my reaction to just cancel may have been a bit extreme. For that i take responsibility. This morning i asked my wife to make the hour drive to the service center to see the car. I basically said do what you want, if you want it as is with the blemish thats cool, if you want it fixed thats cool too. I texted our DS in the wee hours to let her know she was coming and she very promptly and professionally responded, no problem, look forward to meeting her. They treated my wife very well and even permitted her to drive the car which i think is somewhat unorthodox. Both my wife and i felt better after she was able to see it in person. She identified another small nick in the paint which is also being addressed. They assured her that once the car is fixed up there wont be issues with the wimdshield and not to worry. It eased our minds substantially.

Bottom line is i needed a cool off period greater than 24 hours to get used to the idea that our brand new custom car needed all this work to be ready. I still believe under these circumstances a reasonable discount should be offered up front when the flaw or issue is identified. In my case, our delivery is back a week which is no biggie and im not pressing the issue further. Im going to give tesla the opportunity to deliver a perfect car and feel excited once again. Kudos to the tesla team for making my wife feel comfortable and at home during the visit tosay. Delivery (post repair) is next saturday. Thank you all again for reading and ill keep you posted.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Congratulations, and hope this all works out to your satisfaction.

Everybody here can understand how frustrated you must have been when you had that flaw pointed out. Everybody hopes for a perfect car, but sometimes a glitch happens and it puts everybody on edge.

Especially when you had a tough day at work and had not as much patience as normal.

Hope you get the floor mats

 

[GreenT]

What's all this talk about a $300 service credit?
For the first 50,000 miles I never paid a penny for service, did I?

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Tesla would be super-wise to just quietly throw in the mats now. Make it a front pair to keep cost at minimum. That would make for one happy customer.

Congrats on the car @geddon_jt and thank you once more on highlighting the issue for us!

 

[AnxietyRanger]

You're totally missing the larger point here... Tesla is not flush with cash, they are still in a very vulnerable state overall and starting to hand out freebies like they are candy just because X customer has a gripe isn't smart business. I realize that's harsh but that's the reality. Look at what happened with "Debaser" (or whatever the dudes handle here is)... He was having issues with his X, decided enough was enough, Tesla didn't kiss his posterior like he thought they should so he starts posting here, double posting, triple posting, just constantly posting the same "grievance" and what did Tesla do? They caved to his demands which of course have now changed so he's back trying to extort even more out of Tesla... Why not? It worked the first time...

Once you open that pandora's box it can't be closed again...

Jeff

Here is another look at this: Tesla has been witnessed to having very centralized and rigid policies in how to handle customer issues. Sometimes they make dealerships looks like places of superior customer experience...

What if those policies simply are too tight and leave too little leeway and options to the local level for solving issues? What if Debaser's etc. issues would have been originally addressed with such better policies in place and they would have never escalated to this level?

Clearly even in this thread Tesla tried to appease the customer with a faulty delivery, but were limited to service discounts because apparently that is all they could offer. No discounts or free accessories were allowed by the policy.

What if that leeway had been available? So the customer says mats would make him happy. Would it really have been a slippery slope to throw in the front mats for example? They already offered more in service voucher value...

Tesla should give the Service Centers and Stores the tools to make their customers happy before things escalate. Premium customers are right to expect that at such price levels some individually customized remedies are available for grievances.

It is one thing to promote a "same price for all" policy, quite another to refuse to recognize loss of value and loss of experience when issues occur.

Were OP's mat request really unreasonable? I do not think so. He felt something was needed to compensate for the bummer in the process. It would have cost Tesla a few tenners to throw in the front mats for example. But rigid policies made that impossible and things were made more irritated when they were solvable then and there.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Problem is fanboy's opinion is always the same irrespective of circumstances.

For me the problem is that some people consider Tesla's offer automatically the fairness baseline. In a negotiation with two parties, it is hardly ever the case that either party has the optimally fair solution on the table, yet a lot of people automatically assume that Tesla offers the univerally fair offer and thus should be accepted as is.

Personally I do not agree, Tesla is just on party with its own interests.

 

[spentan]

Kudos to the tesla team for making my wife feel comfortable and at home during the visit tosay. Delivery (post repair) is next saturday. Thank you all again for reading and ill keep you posted.

Really hope that everything works out to your satisfaction, and make sure you get as much free stuff as you can get! My objection was just to the cancellation. Happy that you're still gonna get the car. It's so amazing.

What do you currently drive? If you don't mind me asking.

 

[Sawyer8888]

The OP has a right to be upset for anything less than perfection. Many of us did not get to the point of affording a Tesla because we settled for things in life.

Tesla has a ways to go with their apparent lack of QC out of the factory.

After placing our February order for a MS, I read many similar threads like this with great interest, and I still do even after delivery.

My wife and I quickly became aware of the fit and finish issues Tesla struggles with, so we hoped for the best and prepared ourselves for the worst for our delivery. Should we have to do that when spending this kind of money? Maybe not, but Tesla is very unique, so it required us to adjust our expectations accordingly.

Unfortunately there were several cosmetic issues with our MS, all of which Tesla is currently addressing without any pushback. I did not ask for free stuff, but I certainly thought about doing so.

The service manager at my local SC is exceptional. It is obvious that he truly cares about making everything right. IMO, Tesla is going above and beyond in correcting the numerous minor defects.

 

[geddon_jt]

Really hope that everything works out to your satisfaction, and make sure you get as much free stuff as you can get! My objection was just to the cancellation. Happy that you're still gonna get the car. It's so amazing.

What do you currently drive? If you don't mind me asking.

Sure, for the family car we have a 2016 Volvo XC90 that we've had about a year and a half, 22000 miles. It's been a very nice car but we have had some pretty serious issues with it at bad times - AC totally went out and was blowing hot air in our face the day before we left for a road trip from Florida to the blue ridge mountains, I left town for business in January and the "modules weren't syncing" when my wife was alone with the kids, causing everything to short out where she couldn't drive the car more than 5 mph. Just been kind of unreliable.

After all that went down we started looking at other options, including the new LR Discovery, but when my wife test drove the X she was all in.

Our other car is a 2016 Tacoma that I plan on giving to my kids when they're old enough (4 and 5 now )

 

[qwk]

You're totally missing the larger point here... Tesla is not flush with cash, they are still in a very vulnerable state overall and starting to hand out freebies like they are candy just because X customer has a gripe isn't smart business. I realize that's harsh but that's the reality. Look at what happened with "Debaser" (or whatever the dudes handle here is)... He was having issues with his X, decided enough was enough, Tesla didn't kiss his posterior like he thought they should so he starts posting here, double posting, triple posting, just constantly posting the same "grievance" and what did Tesla do? They caved to his demands which of course have now changed so he's back trying to extort even more out of Tesla... Why not? It worked the first time...

Once you open that pandora's box it can't be closed again...

Jeff

Tesla isn't flush with cash because of constant bad decisions that Elon and management make. It would be one thing if the $100k car was delivered in perfect condition and he asked for free shiiiit, but that was not the case.

 

[qwk]

What's all this talk about a $300 service credit?
For the first 50,000 miles I never paid a penny for service, did I?

That's the point. It's a worthless gesture to anyone that pays attention.