Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Took delivery of VIN 24xx P90DL in Fremont on 2016/05/23

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I took delivery yesterday of our MX at the Fremont factory. I don't have a lot of time to do a full write up at the moment, but I thought I would share some of the major points.

-- specific to our car --

* Sunshade was included in the frunk. The delivery orientation person said it was the first he had seen, but I know umeshunni also received one on Saturday.

* I ordered the towing option, but I am still very unclear on what I really got for my money over the accessory hitch for $550 less. It seems to be the same removable receiver and I really doubt that they are actually doing anything different in terms of bracing for the mounting hole. For some reason I though that Tesla was integrating some sort of trailer brake controller into the car for this price, but all you get is a pigtail wiring harness which you would use to wire to your controller and then add your own 7-pin or other trailer connector. Not the clean solution I would expect from Tesla. I could be wrong on this - the rep who was helping me seemed to know very little in this area. Perhaps this pigtail is for wiring between the 7-pin and the car. I will be ordering the service manual soon...
LCubV90.jpg

* Overall, the surfaces of the body, windows, and interior were very clean and unscathed. A few scratch-like marks on the paint turned out to be glue-like stuff that came off.

* The glass sealant and black rubber sealing trim does look a bit sloppy in various spots. I think some of this is from design and material choices that were made, but some of it is from application and assembly.

* The aligment of the four side doors to each other and the fixed body panels was rather poor in many axes - gaps between panels are very different on the driver and passenger side.
+ The driver door sticks out laterally about a 1/8"
+ The passenger door is about 3/16" in relative to the FWD.
+ The driver door to FWD door gap is almost non-existent at the start of the window, and about normal at the bottom.
+ The lateral offset of the rear quarter panel window chrome trim to the FWD is on the order of 1/4" on both sides, which is pretty huge. The glass sections themselves are better aligned. I'm not sure how this can be so far off.
hTiNOmz.jpg
eZZn4l3.jpg

* The biggest issue at the moment is that the driver's side door does not self close properly unless it is manually or automatically closed from a full swing. If you let the door do the soft-draw latch routine it will draw the door to flush, then move it out about a half inch again and stop. At that point the car warns you that the door is open. You need to swing it open and re-close it hard in order to have it latch initially with out using the draw-tighten functionality. The rep tried resetting the door calibration many times, but it did not help at all. He then took the car to service and they looked at it for an hour or so and were not sure what was wrong, and said they would probably need to take the door off to figure out what was wrong. Ultimately, I was given the choice to accept the car or leave it there. I chose to take the car and they made a priority appointment for me at the Burlingame SC to get the issues fixed. I was told that the backlog was much less at Burlingame than at the factory SC, so this would be the quickest way to get everything taken care of.
TNTZOuQ.jpg


-- comments general to all MXs --

* I have seen it posted here somewhere before, but there is definitely something funky going on when the second row seats move wherein the front seats get moved forward (normal), but do not return to their original positions (not normal). The rep did something from the passenger seat on the touchscreen to open the FWD or move the second row seat behind him and I saw his seat go forward but then never return later. He claimed he had never seen that happen before. I'm a little baffled at how SpaceX can land a rocket stage on a barge at sea perfectly but someone at Tesla can't get what should be a weekend microcontroller project right.

* I thought it would be nice if the rear hatch height memory settings could be location-specific. The rep said they would forward that on.

* I think it would also be useful if the Bluetooth device affinities were dependent on whose user preferences are loaded in the car. If I'm the driver, I want my phone to be linked to the car. If my wife is driving, it should be her phone. Seems pretty logical to me.

* I was listening to Slacker for the first time on the ride back from Fremont to San Francisco. I definitely heard the audio glitch several times even though the LTE signal as was always 4-5 bars. I also noticed the touchscreen UI animations when pushing buttons were getting laggy and had a low frame rate sometimes. My guess is that the CPU is busy doing something, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps it is downloading a bunch of stuff initially OTA?

* I didn't have time to bring any lossless music on USB, but listening to music I know on Slacker at least I wasn't very wowed by the HiFi audio in this car yet. I'm not sure if the car does any speed-dependent equalization, but it would probably help considerably. The road noise (tires, wind) in this car is about average to me. I feel like my friend's Audi Q5 might be quieter, for example. If you have enough road noise, it is hard to ever appreciate good audio, IMHO. I am on 20" wheels with Michelin Latitude Sport tires.

* I drove back to San Francisco around 6pm or so and the sun was directly in the driver's side of the windshield most of the way home, a bit above where the tinting gradient begins. I think they struck a good balance with the windshield tint, but I will definitely be keeping sunglasses in this car - I did not bring them this time, and the small shade wasn't able to block the sun in this case.

* The sun made me notice another issue - the chrome "wings" which support the side view mirrors are dead flat on top and when aligned with the sun correctly make for a very intense reflection. I will definitely be putting some sort of black film on the top of these.

* The mesh that covers the forward half of the top of the dash has a quite visible reflection onto the windshield on sunny days. The rest of the dash is far less noticeable since it does not have the mesh texture. Very hard to do anything about this since it appears that vents and speakers lie below parts of this mesh, which would prevent covering it with something less reflective.
 
Last edited:
me either. I'm not leaving the place if my car looks like that.

I hear what you are saying. We have been waiting for a long time for this car and it should have been delivered months ago. The car was paid for months ago (we were supposedly days from delivery back then and wanted to get the purchase in before CA tax rebate eligibility changed).

Supposedly the last holdup to getting the car was the BMP seats, after which there is supposed to be a lengthy new QC process in place now. This car has supposedly completed that process which from the looks of it is not very thorough or stringent.

My thinking was as follows:

  • It is clear that the factory has or had problems building these cars to the tolerances that we all have come to expect from even inexpensive production cars. I walked down the street to lunch today and every car I passed from $2k to $100k+ looked to have very even panel spacings with no offsets. Even some that had been in accidents. It is reasonable to expect body fit as good as a Hyundai on a $150k out the door car.
  • My car is in a lower VIN range where they may have had more build problems, but unfortunately they don't seem to be willing to scrap early problem cars and only giving customers newer builds. They seem very attached to assigning you a VIN and delivering you that specific car.
  • I don't trust the Fremont factory location to get this right as it supposedly had gone through their own rigorous QC process. It's been almost five months since I ordered this car. They had a lot of time in there to correct these details.
  • The local SC seems to be less backlogged on repair work and more customer friendly. I have greater confidence that they will work harder and quicker make things right.
  • Ultimately I am confident that Tesla is interested making everything right for each customer. Otherwise we will make sure we get every penny back. This car is far too expensive to at least hold it to the standard of the cheapest cars you can buy today.
 
I was going to congratulate you on yiur delivery @Colby Boles, but with all those alignment issues I'm not sure that's appropriate. Sorry to hear.

So, how did it drive? Did you at least enjoy that bit?
The car drives great. Autopilot is amazing The work in the interior also appears to be first rate. I feel like Tesla has excelled at doing all of the hard stuff well, but the things that every other car manufacturer seems to be able to do in their sleep are still eluding them. A friend in the industry who used to do contract work for Tesla intimated to me that they were reluctant to hire engineers from the auto industry in the early days, which makes good sense from an innovation standpoint perhaps, but later on they weren't able to build on the expertise of people who had been working with auto manufacturing lines for decades. Eventually they did bring them in, but they were behind where they could be.
 
Last edited:
The question I am really asking myself is: Aren't they supposed to QC this cars at the dealership before delivery? Did this door just stop working between the dealer QC and your delivery? Or do they see this and just don't care, because they know people will take the car home anyways?

My DS says it can take up to two weeks for them to do their "internal quality control" once the car gets to their hands and I am expecting things like this get resolved before they tell me to stop by and pick up the car...
 
By dealership I assume you are referring to the stores / service centers. One difference is that I picked mine up at the factory service center, which might lack some of additional "dealer prep" and inspection that you might get at any other SC. I don't know that for sure though.

The question I am really asking myself is: Aren't they supposed to QC this cars at the dealership before delivery? Did this door just stop working between the dealer QC and your delivery? Or do they see this and just don't care, because they know people will take the car home anyways?

My DS says it can take up to two weeks for them to do their "internal quality control" once the car gets to their hands and I am expecting things like this get resolved before they tell me to stop by and pick up the car...
 
By dealership I assume you are referring to the stores / service centers. One difference is that I picked mine up at the factory service center, which might lack some of additional "dealer prep" and inspection that you might get at any other SC. I don't know that for sure though.

I guess I am not yet fully fluent on Teslaspeak! Yes, I meant the SC.

I would imagine the factory service center would be in an even better position to take care of quality issues as they are closer to the source.

My point is: The door must have been malfunctioning/malaligned when the Tesla employee drove the car for the last time. When the person parked the car in the spot where you found it at the time of delivery, when that person left the car, the door was likely defective when he/she tried to close it. This is way more likely than the door malfunctioning for the very first time when you tried to close it for the first time. Odds are that more than one employee knew the door was malfunctioning, and they chose to delivery the car to you.

As I said, I expect my car to be fully functional at least at the time of delivery. If something breaks later, I can live with that. But I am not driving off with a defective car, especially one that costs more than $100k.

Having said that, people have different thresholds and this is what you decided to do. I hope they make it right for you soon so you can enjoy your X fully.
 
In terms of the door not closing properly, I think they may not be testing all of the scenarios. I had probably already spent an hour with the orientation person in which they (and I) had demonstrated the door opening and closing several time with no issues. It was only when that person left briefly to get some paperwork when I first closed the door in a different way - a soft manual close from being partially open - that I saw the problem occur. After knowing how to make it happen, it was completely repeatable and I showed it to him when he returned. My guess is that they were not checking this in the QC, only other forms of door closure.

This doesn't however excuse some of the other alignment issues which are visually quite obvious. It's also possible that the driver door closure issue is actually related to the alignment issues.

I don't think there is a right answer for anyone in dealing with issues like this at delivery. In my case the car had been languishing at the factory for many months in some incomplete state, and although the problems are somewhat serious, they are superficial in the sense that I think they can be fixed by the service center easily. Ideally the factory would have got this right the first time during assembly or the second or third time in various QC stages. Since they did not I have little trust that sending it back in to that process and possibly waiting another month or more is going to result in something that meets expectations. I want to give the local SC a shot at fixing it. If that doesn't work I can always take it back to Fremont.

I guess I am not yet fully fluent on Teslaspeak! Yes, I meant the SC.

I would imagine the factory service center would be in an even better position to take care of quality issues as they are closer to the source.

My point is: The door must have been malfunctioning/malaligned when the Tesla employee drove the car for the last time. When the person parked the car in the spot where you found it at the time of delivery, when that person left the car, the door was likely defective when he/she tried to close it. This is way more likely than the door malfunctioning for the very first time when you tried to close it for the first time. Odds are that more than one employee knew the door was malfunctioning, and they chose to delivery the car to you.

As I said, I expect my car to be fully functional at least at the time of delivery. If something breaks later, I can live with that. But I am not driving off with a defective car, especially one that costs more than $100k.

Having said that, people have different thresholds and this is what you decided to do. I hope they make it right for you soon so you can enjoy your X fully.
 
This is disappointing but thanks for posting this and for your honest answers, which seem perfectly reasonable to me. I can see how it would have been difficult to refuse delivery, despite your concerns. I do hope as someone with a much later VIN (83**) that these fit and finish issues will be much more minimal by the time I receive my car. I agree our passion for these vehicles shouldn't force us to accept less than we would if we had bought a Honda/Toyota/Ford for half the price.
 
I don't understand this. How could they even dare to deliver this car to you. These are in my opinion mayor issues even for a $15000 car. This mayor damage can be seen from meters away. The inspector guy at the end of the manufactures conveyour then the detailer then the sales person all saw this damage and didn't do anything about it. They should of fix it and delayed your delivery. Misleading conduct and very disappointing from Tesla. Also this has nothing to do with struggling to meet demand this has only to do with bad management.
 
Last edited:
From observation of early delivery outcomes I agree with the OPs decision to take delivery with these issues. It is not ideal or acceptable on Tesla's part, but by doing so, he starts the 30 service day clock which at least gives him the opportunity to get a replacement if these issues cannot be fixed to his satisfaction. I am guessing though that all these issues are fixable in much less than 30 days, and I hope for his sake this is proven accurate.
 
I hear what you are saying. We have been waiting for a long time for this car and it should have been delivered months ago. The car was paid for months ago (we were supposedly days from delivery back then and wanted to get the purchase in before CA tax rebate eligibility changed)

This is a big giant relief. I'm glad to hear your car was built quite a while ago.

My X is days away from being released for delivery from the SC (we will see), and as I read your post I was thinking, "wow, they still haven't solved the alignment issues." I am having bad dreams about the upcoming delivery. Last night, I took delivery and I got a shitty eBike that barely moved when you gave it throttle. The night before, Tesla sent me out back so that I could drive away, but the car was tied up to a telephone pole with some makeshift pulley, and I could get it loose. To say I am stressed about the upcoming delivery is an understatement.

I too, like you, now see old cheap cars and notice how perfectly the panels fit together. I dread any issues on mine that are noticeable and not solvable. I will see that each day, and I know they will make me hate the car. I will not accept delivery with visible issues.

Good luck to you. I hope they can resolve these issues for you.
 
  • It is clear that the factory has or had problems building these cars to the tolerances that we all have come to expect from even inexpensive production cars. I walked down the street to lunch today and every car I passed from $2k to $100k+ looked to have very even panel spacings with no offsets. Even some that had been in accidents. It is reasonable to expect body fit as good as a Hyundai on a $150k out the door car.

Perhaps in comparison what you saw on the street was 'better' than your vehicle - that I can believe. I've done the same type of walkabout in parking lots on several occasions and I've never seen perfect alignment of panels on anything, even really expensive vehicles. What I've seen is better general gapping and alignment on cars with much simpler panel shaping and simpler body design. And that's a big distinction that I never seen anybody talk about. Flat body panels without a lot of shaping are way easier to gap and align than those that have curves and points (especially when those curves and points go in opposite directions. Panels that are smaller, separated at certain points on the car, and don't have difficult cut outs are easier to gap and align. These are things that most people don't think about or take into consideration when looking at alignment and gapping.

Regardless, I hope your vehicle is fixed to your satisfaction asap.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: WABarb
Naive question - but can someone explain to me exactly what the benefits are of refusing delivery if you already paid for the car? Does it give you some kind of legal advantage or something?
I can think of four reasons:
(a) If you live far from the SC, it's more efficient to refuse delivery until it's all fixed. Otherwise, you'll need to make an additional round trip
(b) If you refuse delivery, it gives Tesla added incentive to get the car fixed quickly so that they can recognize the delivery
(c) If you refuse delivery and haven't paid yet, you get to keep your $100k+ a little longer. Or you don't start making loan payments as quickly or pay for insurance
(d) If you refuse delivery, the lemon law clock won't start ticking yet.