Texas Hold Up!

[jdirik]

Choose your favorite adjective. I'm sure it applies. You know it because you have either experienced it or have read others' account of it here and elsewhere. It's just not fair how cool it is being behind the wheel of this car.

One quick follow-up note on a recent topic, they indeed are open on Mondays. But that's a recent change. They used to be Tuesday thru Saturday only. Rumor also has it, if laws will permit, they may be open seven days a week.

But you know how those pesky dealership laws... oh, right. A little bit of payback here. Hey, Texas, you say Tesla can't sell cars in this state because they don't play your dealership franchise game? Fine, then you can stick your flipin' blue laws where the sun doesn't shine. They don't apply here.

Sorry, back to today. We walked in and were greeted by someone (I didn't catch her name) who confirmed we were listed on the agenda. She asked if we already downloaded the app (yes) and said we could sit in the waiting area of the showroom. There were two families ahead of us. That gave me a minute to sit down and scan my registration docs. I forgot to do it earlier.

As I was holding my phone over one doc after the other (pretty cool feature of iOS 12 for those who haven't used it yet) another nice lady comes over and sits down in the four-seat area with my son, daughter, and myself. Seemingly interested in Lucy's (my daughter) coloring, I could tell she had something to unload on us. She was dressed in Tesla garb. "Oh, no," I thought to myself. She's going to try and break it to us gently that something is wrong with the car.

Nope. She's pitching Tesla's solar roof and Powerwalls. And that turned out to be the theme of visit. More so than the car. It took all but five minutes to go over the M3. Paint? fine. Panel gaps? None that I could tell. "Sign here... and here... and do you have the keys to that old worn out MINI you drove in today? Thanks. You're all set."

The next 30 minutes were devoted to the config options and historical trends of my home. One solar roof and two Powerwalls later, I'm driving off with a Tesla car and an appointment for a roof survey next weekend.

Getting a Tesla roof has been something I've wanted to do. But I just put it out of mind because it wasn't currently offered. And I knew they were dedicating all of their resources to Puerto Rico. But apparently that too just changed. Lucky me.

The car. I only have two complaints right now:

1. Rain sensing windshield wipers. It gets awfully blurry before they kick in. I had to manually turn them on a couple of times driving home.
2. Floor mats. I could feel them sliding around under my feet. But this isn't a problem because I was planning on getting some WeatherTechs or Tuxmats.

I knew just about everything else. I've done enough reading to know how to work it all. It was just a matter of experiencing it.

Now... all I want for Christmas are these wheels (on the red car) which I hear might be available soon.

And this. I'm a software guy. I just learned about Tesla's programmable API this morning. So I'm going to write an app. Maybe sell it in the app store for a buck or two. Free, of course, to my M3 mates in the Texas Hold Up Rail Jail survivors group.

Very cool dude! Congrats!

 

[ℬête Noire]

I've tried to search this thread, by board feature and manually, but I've not located the details on "United Roads" and how I'd locate my vehicle.

I did try this website Delivery Receipts - United Road but entering my VINs last 8 digits the resulting message was:

The VIN you entered was not found.
Please double check your VIN and try again or contact us for assistance.

What am I missing? Is it possible my vehicle is simply coming via some other channel?

 

[gravastar]

I've tried to search this thread, by board feature and manually, but I've not located the details on "United Roads" and how I'd locate my vehicle.

I did try this website Delivery Receipts - United Road but entering my VINs last 8 digits the resulting message was:

The VIN you entered was not found.
Please double check your VIN and try again or contact us for assistance.

What am I missing? Is it possible my vehicle is simply coming via some other channel?

You aren't missing anything. That's where you would check it.

The working theory is they are not the only transport. I took delivery today and my VIN never showed up on their site.

 

[libra89]

You aren't missing anything. That's where you would check it.

The working theory is they are not the only transport. I took delivery today and my VIN never showed up on their site.

Congrats on the successful delivery! Too bad the weather wasnt better but I suppose who cares when it’s Model 3 day

Any chance you eye-spied the lot to see if a certain obsidian black M3 was hanging out waiting for its new owner to claim it? I feel tortured watching the truck assigned to my car moving along a route to possibly Denver. Trying to keep the faith and hoping tomorrow brings a positive change in my car’s stay in rail jail. Not much time left if I’m going to take delivery Wednesday morning. Hoping that truck comes right back, or they assign a new one tomorrow.

Cool on the solar roof. I gotta say though, I’m pretty turned off by how aggressively they have chased me for that. I had one dude call me no less than 7 times. One day I think he called 3 times. I finally answered, and he was like...so you have a model 3? Sore subject dude, sore subject. How about you guys figure out how to get me a car before you push something else toward my wallet.

 

[libra89]

You aren't missing anything. That's where you would check it.

The working theory is they are not the only transport. I took delivery today and my VIN never showed up on their site.

By the way, I would be curious to see if your vin shows on the reports I’ve been able to access this weekend. If you’re willing to share. If you were in rail jail, then it may be on the one delivery report that completed Friday. Until I landed on the right combo of origin/destination, it looked like lots of deliveries weren’t done by UR. It might help us confirm if some cars really are going via another carrier. PM me if you like.

 

[pub cheese]

Inspired by @patoirish's approach, I went back to Pond Springs to check VINs. And I found my car! It seems fine, sitting out there on the paved part of the lot. I took pictures all the way around to analyze at home. Wonder if they really are going to make me wait till Saturday to get it.

I felt like a crazy person running around in the rain, till another guy came up looking for his car. . Had a brief discussion about the various holding pens (OK for me, FW for him).

I can't quite figure out one note - on the driver's side back window, the word "Front" was written. No idea what that means. Maybe its position in the carrier? Or something wrong with a body panel? "Front". Hm.

For some of the cars in the grassy knoll, I saw "dead" written. . Not sure if that means 0% charge or something worse.

 

[patoirish]

Inspired by @patoirish's approach, I went back to Pond Springs to check VINs. And I found my car! It seems fine, sitting out there on the paved part of the lot. I took pictures all the way around to analyze at home. Wonder if they really are going to make me wait till Saturday to get it.

I felt like a crazy person running around in the rain, till another guy came up looking for his car. . Had a brief discussion about the various holding pens (OK for me, FW for him).

I can't quite figure out one note - on the driver's side back window, the word "Front" was written. No idea what that means. Maybe its position in the carrier? Or something wrong with a body panel? "Front". Hm.

For some of the cars in the grassy knoll, I saw "dead" written. . Not sure if that means 0% charge or something worse.

Glad you found your car! I'm still scheduled for Wednesday and thinking mine isn't there since I couldn't find it, guess I'll find out more tomorrow. Front has to be something to do with the carrier, I did see writing on the windows. Did not see any that said "dead" though that's scary, isn't that terrible for the battery?

 

[libra89]

Well it looks like the truck my car has been attached to is probably camped out for the night (or at least a long sleep) in Fountain, CO. The address the United Road site says it's at is an Inn surrounded by truck stop type places. Given that it's a 10-11 hour drive back from there to Ft Worth, and making the huge assumption that the truck isn't continuing on even further, I'm not sure what to think. I really hope when the United Road staff comes back from the holiday weekend, perhaps some records get updated. I can't see how my car would make it to Dallas in time for Wednesday 11:30 delivery if it stays attached to that particular truck. With that, I'm off to veg out with some non-Tesla mindless TV watching.

 

[pub cheese]

Glad you found your car! I'm still scheduled for Wednesday and thinking mine isn't there since I couldn't find it, guess I'll find out more tomorrow. Front has to be something to do with the carrier, I did see writing on the windows. Did not see any that said "dead" though that's scary, isn't that terrible for the battery?

Thanks for the idea. I completely forgot you can look at VINs on the dashboard, duh.

Might be a good thing not to have found it outside. The grassy corner seemed to have contained cars with writing, plus some with QR codes on stickers on their windshields. A little less writing (or none) for cars on the paved area. I didn't check the back. Hopefully yours is inside.

I don't know if it can hurt the car to sit there with no charge. Interested if that can cause permanent damage.

 

[ThatOneGuy.Net]

I've been stalking this thread for a while, but now that I created an account over here I guess I'll join in the discussion. A quick about me as it relates to this thread: Fully funded on 8/13, delivery scheduled 8/25, car only shows as in Northrop on United Road site, next scheduled delivery 9/8.

The "dead" might refer to the 12V battery issues they had on some vehicles. At least, I hope that's the issue because yes, it's bad to have any battery fully depleted for any extended period of time.

 

[amietk]

Inspired by @patoirish's approach, I went back to Pond Springs to check VINs. And I found my car! It seems fine, sitting out there on the paved part of the lot. I took pictures all the way around to analyze at home. Wonder if they really are going to make me wait till Saturday to get it.

I felt like a crazy person running around in the rain, till another guy came up looking for his car. . Had a brief discussion about the various holding pens (OK for me, FW for him).

I can't quite figure out one note - on the driver's side back window, the word "Front" was written. No idea what that means. Maybe its position in the carrier? Or something wrong with a body panel? "Front". Hm.

For some of the cars in the grassy knoll, I saw "dead" written. . Not sure if that means 0% charge or something worse.

Yay, its here...heck yeah.

 

[gravastar]

Any chance you eye-spied the lot to see if a certain obsidian black M3 was hanging out waiting for its new owner to claim it?

I glanced around. Unfortunately, it was kind of a nasty day and didn't offer much of browsing. I'm not sure what I was expecting but aside from the two cars in the lobby I didn't see much of anything else except the guy who drove out before me and then my car.

Cool on the solar roof. I gotta say though, I’m pretty turned off by how aggressively they have chased me for that.

I normally would have rebuffed the sales pitch, too. It was a full court press. But since I was looking forward to getting one anyway, I probably rank as one of her easiest sales yet.

By the way, I would be curious to see if your vin shows on the reports I’ve been able to access this weekend.

Go for it, JF050338. I'm curious to know myself if it ever shows up.

For some of the cars in the grassy knoll, I saw "dead" written.

Grassy knoll? Dead? Dallas? Well, not Dallas, but Texas? Indeed there is something fishy going on. Don't drive on Elm Street!

 

[gravastar]

@SleepingLesson Honestly, this conversation happened today.

Mom: "You got your fancy car today. I get my new Horizon Memory Craft 15000 sewing machine tomorrow." (A $13,000 home sewing machine)
Me: "That's great, mom."
Mom: "You waited so long for that silly car. I'm going to stitch a new throw pillow for you and write 'Patience' across the front."
Me: "Could you write @SleepingLesson across the front instead?"
Mom: "Sleepy what?"
Me: "Never mind."

 

[libra89]

I glanced around. Unfortunately, it was kind of a nasty day and didn't offer much of browsing. I'm not sure what I was expecting but aside from the two cars in the lobby I didn't see much of anything else except the guy who drove out before me and then my car.


I normally would have rebuffed the sales pitch, too. It was a full court press. But since I was looking forward to getting one anyway, I probably rank as one of her easiest sales yet.


Go for it, JF050338. I'm curious to know myself if it ever shows up.


Grassy knoll? Dead? Dallas? Well, not Dallas, but Texas? Indeed there is something fishy going on. Don't drive on Elm Street!

Yeah, it was a really messy day out. If it had been nicer, I may have been tempted to drive over myself. I didn't know what to expect either, until that one Saturday I drove over there. The lot was lined with Tesla's that day, although the lot really wasn't very big. Mix of all three models, but seemed the 3 was dominating,

I don't see your VIN showing up at all. This is very interesting indeed. Of course, we've already proven that the OVISS United Road site is really flaky so who knows if it really means anything. UR can't be the sole provider of all things Tesla though, there must be other carriers. I tried googling to see who else is in the business, but didn't make any progress with that.

 

[SleepingLesson]

@miguelóy That is hilarious, thank you for that.

 

[hmerrill3]

My temp tags are from Collin Cty also, generated 10 days before my Aug 18th delivery. Delivery was delayed several days while they waited on seatbelt parts.....

@WayneGTX I looked at my temporary tag but couldn't determine the issue date. It does expire on Oct. 16th so does that mean it was issued on August 16th? An 8/16 issue date would align with about the time I would have expected the car to arrive in Texas. I just can't figure out why my car would sit in rail jail for 2 plus weeks.

 

[hmerrill3]

...Tesla really should have someone proactively reaching out and trying to rebuild bridges for those customers impacted by the Texas logistics logjam.

^^^ THIS for sure. I would really like to have all of us have the opportunity to bend someone's ear with the power to fix things.

 

[japhule]

FYI. For those of you that have picked up your M3, it took about 3.5 weeks to get my license plates and registration. Picked up car on 8/3. Received plates on 8/28.

Also drove my car today for the first time in the rain. I'm liking the look of the red/orange color coming from the roof when there's water on it. Unfortunately, it sounds like newer builds will only have this coloring over the front roof and not the rear roof. The change appears to have occurred sometime in July builds (my 34xxx was built in June).

 

[redhaute]

According to my earlier post, looks like there are about 8 M3s headed to Pond Springs with delivery date on (or near) Sept 14th.

Though the carrier website shows “pending pick up” with about 7 other model 3s in Fremont, talked to someone, who knows, that my car is in Eloy, AZ, just south of Phoenix. So I hope that some of these United orders that show “pickup/delivery etc, all roughly on the same day, are just bad time stamps. Here is to hope to those of us on the “pending pick up” have actually been picked up and are on there way.

Any others on that list with pending pick up, are y’all on here too? I think just one other?

 

[patoirish]

Just called about my scheduled delivery tomorrow and it's not there. No word on where it is or when it will arrive.....

Now they are saying they don't have visibility to where it is although last time they told me it was in Oklahoma... Frustrating but I'm not in as huge of a rush as others as this will be a 3rd car (trying to sublease the other one)