Hi Mike, please provide some detailed feedback of both your car and the collection experience. Im picking up next Wednesday at 9am from Brent Cross so your experience is of interest to me. Hope all is well with your pick up tomorrow, good luck!
For anyone collecting from Brent Cross here's my experience of the day.
I took the tube to Brent Cross station. While it is apparently possible to walk from there but it looks like an awkward and not very pleasant route with the shopping centre being the other side of a large junction on the north circular. (Who the hell builds a shopping centre without decent walking access from the tube?). Instead I took the 210 bus from outside the station which is a couple of stops to the shopping centre.
From where you get off the bus walk due west, over the zebra crossing, along the side of John Lewis and across a car park. When you get to a road cross it and turn left. Then when you get to a roundabout turn right and take the little uphill road next to the river. At this point you should see Tesla signs, and queue markers. follow the road round and you come to a big carpark with hundreds of Tesla and a big marquee at the end on your left.
As I had a 9am collection I was the only customer there. (Apparently by 12 it's absolute chaos.) I was greeted by a nice Scottish lady who checked my driving licence then activated my account somehow. I had to sign out of the app and back in and the app started fully working. Then she got the keys and we walked to the car. Once at the car we set up my phone as a key. I admitted that I'd driven a model 3 before so didn't need a demo. I was invited to check over the car and drive off when ready. Must have been less than 10 minutes tops.
In the boot were the extended mudguards, a granny charger in a square zip case, a type 2 cable and a red zip case with a warning triangle, yellow vest and copious first aid kit.
Hanging from the mirror was a Tesla lanyard (thanks but I'll never use it)
USB stick in the glove box.
All the seats and steering wheel had heaters and everything appeared to work.
6 miles on the clock (I'm guessing working backwards as I genuinely forgot to check at the time).
The car was under a tent so the light wasn't particularly good. The car was very dusty so it was hard to tell what was dust and what wasn't but I did find some shallow wavy scratches on the offside doors - like someone had carelessly wiped along the side with a gritty rag. After 5 minutes further looking everything else I could think of was fine so I walked back to the tent to complain. After a quick look I was asked to move the car into the light and they got a guy with a machine to polish it out. Took less than a minute and it did look fine. I was going to argue that after polishing it would need re-waxing but I started to get the feeling that they wouldn't understand and anyway I'll give it a good detail myself in a few days. Wish I'd stopped and had another really good look in the light but I felt like I'd already checked everything and I was anxious to get going.
I drove off and found a clear spot the other side of the car park to take some photos, stick on the screen protector (no dust trapped under it - yay) and distribute all the other accessories I'd brought along.
On the way out I spotted a team of people cleaning cars, actually rubbing them with plasticly looking yellow chamois cloths. Not a microfibre in sight. This really made me start to worry. I wish I'd parked up and taken some photos as evidence - Elon this is really not the way you wash a new £60k car.
On the way home the blue autopilot circle slowly filled in and completed after about 30 minutes. 30s later passing a truck I had my first phantom breaking. Fortunately having read about it I knew what it was and it was much less violent than I'd feared. Tapping the accelerator pushed through it with a bit of jerkiness. Also later had a lane departure warning when I was going round some parked cars with plenty of room all round. Going to have to work out exactly which settings make that go away - it's far too loud.
Later the same day I added the AB, and OMG it's good. It turns a very quick car into something that's truly shocking. First time I put my foot down on the open road it genuinley made my sinuses hurt! Obviously you're rarely going to be doing a 0-60 from a standing start, but the difference in the 40-70mph range is really noticeable. Reminds me of when I used to ride a 600 motorcycle - you don't have to build up to overtaking at speed you just effortlessly go around the car in front. Only thing is I find most of the time even when I want to go quick I have to hold off from putting the pedal right to the floor in case it goes too quick.
However it's not all smiles unfortunately
Once home I had another look at the paintwork and I have to say I'm really not happy. In cloudy light it looks ok but a bit dull - as if it could do with re-waxing, but with the sun on it it's a mess of swirls and micro scratches everywhere. It looks like a 2 year old car that's not been particularly cared for. Considering what I paid I'm actually furious. And to think that the damage had probably been done the day before by that same team of people. I'd have been much happier to have a dirty car than a scratched one. Seriously Tesla, charge an extra fiver per car and train your guys to wash cars properly. Anyway I've complained but it doesn't seem to have got anywhere yet - and I'm not sure if I want Tesla to fix it or if I want to get someone a bit more trustworthy to fix the paintwork. I might just eat the cost myself and get it ceramic coated at the same time. I hate it but I just want a good looking car and to know it's done properly.
Please anyone who goes to Brent Cross see if you can see what the car washing team are actually doing up close and get some photos. Something we can send to Tesla and explain what they're doing wrong.
I never liked the frisky rear-wheel drive, so that's a big plus for me. It also gives me a lot more confidence to be playful on windy roads, which I drive a lot on.
