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Tracking Model S 85D Delivery Thread

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It's now been a week since I took delivery, and after my 1,300 mile trip home I'm a very happy camper! For those of you on the brink of taking delivery, the wait is TOTALLY worth it!


The trip south was pretty much flawless! After delivery I took the car to Delaware to get her registered. Very funny going in for the emissions test. Needless to say, the 85D drew the attention of just about every technician in the place. Peppered with all sorts of questions about range, top speed and charging time. I don't think any of them had seen a Tesla go through. All in all the process of emissions and title/tag took less than an hour. Easy peasy!

I then embarked on my trip back to FL the following day. After doing a full range charge at a local Plugshare in town, I headed off for the Glen Allen, VA supercharger in a moderate snowfall. When I punched in the destination to the nav system, it told me to drive gently as it was going to be quite close to using the entire charge. It was 24 degrees when I left Delaware, and I opted to not use the heat. Just the seat heater and steering wheel heater. Thank goodness for the Cold Weather Package!! There were a few times during the trip I felt the need to turn on the heat, but not for very long. As I began my southward journey, snow turned to freezing rain at times, but the 85D was solid as a rock. My biggest fear were the other cars on the road and the possibility of stone chips. Freezing rain eventually turned to rain, and my beautiful brand new 85D became a salty mess!! I arrived at Glen Allen with just 32 miles of range left! Quite the nail biter near the end, but it all worked out without incident.

The rest of the way was uneventful. Stopped at every supercharger along the way before stopping for the night in Santee, SC. At that point I had been on the road 14 hours! Believe it or not, I wasn't fatigued at all! Actually I felt quite energized, but I slept like a baby until 6:00 the next morning. I did go in search of a touchless car wash, but none were nearby. The drive from Santee to Florida was great. Started of with thick fog @ 7:00AM, but by 8:15 or so, the fog had burned away to a beautiful sunny drive. Again, I stopped at every supercharger along the way. I tried to bypass St. Augustine as when I began my trip it said I would make it the entire way to Port Orange, but as I got closer, I realized I needed about a 15 minute charge to get to Port Orange where I met some family and friends for lunch. The rest of the ride home went well.

Now, the TACC was phenomenal the whole trip down! Even on the two lane sections of highway where there were traffic lights, it performed as designed every time. Also the Automatic Hi-Beam headlights worked amazingly well. It took me a while to figure out the single wipe feature of the windshield wipers is a single press on the end of the wiper stalk, but that along with a few of the other features were a learning experience. I even played around with the different steering settings. For interstate driving putting it into Sport mode was the way to go for me. Steering response became so crisp, along with the planted to the road feel, I felt like the car and I became one. Off the highway, I switched to Comfort setting, and steering was much, much more loose.

She's had a nice bath and complete detailing and looks like the day I took delivery!

I LOVE this car!!

KennyB
 
It's now been a week since I took delivery, and after my 1,300 mile trip home I'm a very happy camper! For those of you on the brink of taking delivery, the wait is TOTALLY worth it!


The trip south was pretty much flawless! After delivery I took the car to Delaware to get her registered. Very funny going in for the emissions test. Needless to say, the 85D drew the attention of just about every technician in the place. Peppered with all sorts of questions about range, top speed and charging time. I don't think any of them had seen a Tesla go through. All in all the process of emissions and title/tag took less than an hour. Easy peasy!

I then embarked on my trip back to FL the following day. After doing a full range charge at a local Plugshare in town, I headed off for the Glen Allen, VA supercharger in a moderate snowfall. When I punched in the destination to the nav system, it told me to drive gently as it was going to be quite close to using the entire charge. It was 24 degrees when I left Delaware, and I opted to not use the heat. Just the seat heater and steering wheel heater. Thank goodness for the Cold Weather Package!! There were a few times during the trip I felt the need to turn on the heat, but not for very long. As I began my southward journey, snow turned to freezing rain at times, but the 85D was solid as a rock. My biggest fear were the other cars on the road and the possibility of stone chips. Freezing rain eventually turned to rain, and my beautiful brand new 85D became a salty mess!! I arrived at Glen Allen with just 32 miles of range left! Quite the nail biter near the end, but it all worked out without incident.

The rest of the way was uneventful. Stopped at every supercharger along the way before stopping for the night in Santee, SC. At that point I had been on the road 14 hours! Believe it or not, I wasn't fatigued at all! Actually I felt quite energized, but I slept like a baby until 6:00 the next morning. I did go in search of a touchless car wash, but none were nearby. The drive from Santee to Florida was great. Started of with thick fog @ 7:00AM, but by 8:15 or so, the fog had burned away to a beautiful sunny drive. Again, I stopped at every supercharger along the way. I tried to bypass St. Augustine as when I began my trip it said I would make it the entire way to Port Orange, but as I got closer, I realized I needed about a 15 minute charge to get to Port Orange where I met some family and friends for lunch. The rest of the ride home went well.

Now, the TACC was phenomenal the whole trip down! Even on the two lane sections of highway where there were traffic lights, it performed as designed every time. Also the Automatic Hi-Beam headlights worked amazingly well. It took me a while to figure out the single wipe feature of the windshield wipers is a single press on the end of the wiper stalk, but that along with a few of the other features were a learning experience. I even played around with the different steering settings. For interstate driving putting it into Sport mode was the way to go for me. Steering response became so crisp, along with the planted to the road feel, I felt like the car and I became one. Off the highway, I switched to Comfort setting, and steering was much, much more loose.

She's had a nice bath and complete detailing and looks like the day I took delivery!

I LOVE this car!!

KennyB

Thanks for the write up! I'm glad you guys enjoyed your first road trip!
I have a 200 mile trip planned when I get mine... Although it isn't anything close to yours!
 
Hi Breser,
Thanks for the information - I wouldn't be so concerned, but my wife and I have made plans to take the new car on a road trip at the end of March, and I also ordered Groupons for Huper Optic window tinting and paint protection film (PPF) for the front half of the car which were supposed to be installed right after delivery and before the trip. The Groupons expire at the end of March, and now it looks like the car won't be delivered in time to get these done.

It's hard to say if it will be delivered in time, but what I can say having gone through this delivery process twice in the last 6 months is that things have a tendency to happen fairly quickly towards the end. My first car entered production on September 16th, finished on September 19th and was delivered to me on September 24th. Given the way things are going with the 85D I wouldn't expect it to be quite that quick, but I wouldn't be surprised if things move fairly quickly still. So I wouldn't necessarily be alarmed that the car hasn't begun production. I'd tell you to let the DS know about your timing issues, but it seems that you've already done that.


Two follow-up questions:
1. How do you get your car configuration to display at the bottom of your post?
2. Did you have any surprises / problems with your MS when it was delivered?

Someone else has already answered the signature bit so I'll just skip that.

I posted quite a bit in this thread about what was happening leading up to the delivery and I posted my thoughts about the car and some issues with the car after delivery here:
85D First Impressions

But I can't say I've really had any significant problems.
 
Hi ethanr,
I hope your DS is right, and that is actually the case. The week before last my DS told me the same thing, but when it didn't actually happen last week, he admitted that his information was based on what his clients have experienced historically - he now claims he has no real information about when a car will enter production; once it does, he says he can then make fairly accurate predictions about the remainder of the delivery process.

BTW, breser suggested posting information about your order / delivery process on this Google Docs spreadsheet, which I have done. It provides a lot of very useful info to see what others have ordered and experienced once they placed their order. Wish I had known about it before I ordered the vehicle last October.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...BKxYjR5J-z5TPikra8gQ/edit?pli=1#gid=505619768


@carlg, I am 73316 and am in roughly the same boat as you. I mailed my DS today and was told that I would be in production late this week or early next.
 
This is a great thread - lots of useful information about the timeframes others have experienced! I added my order to the spreadsheet yesterday. Wish I had know about its existence before I actually ordered the 85D last October.
 
My 85D end-of-line-date just got pushed from 03-16-2015 to 03-30-2015 (that translates to delivery "late may". ouch).

DS quotes problems sourcing parts for the front motors, saying that they prioritize RWD cars instead.

If a vital part is scarce, being the same in the front and back motors of a 85D (say, the anchor or stator), and also used in the front motor of the P85D, they can build two P85Ds for every 85D the push back.
 
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After checking for only my 12th time today, my MyTesla Dashboard just changed to:
THE TESLA FACTORY IS BUILDING YOUR MODEL S.
Sorry about the yelling!

I would be yelling too!

I think I'm not going to get ANY productive work done for the next 2 months. I'm refreshing My Telsa page 4-5 times a day and I confirmed TWO days ago (you never know right?). Ridiculous.

You will be driving soon!