First of all, what you need to know is that I have owned a Model S for almost EIGHT years (yes, I was one of Tesla's very early customers -- Note my join date to the left). I have been so thrilled with that car, that there was never any question that my next car would be another Tesla.
My experience so far with my week-old Model 3 LR has been a very different story. For starters, the delivery time-frame was way off — In August I was told November, and got it in September. That would normally be a good thing, except for the fact that I only had a few days notice that the car was coming far earlier than expected, and was unable to get the new NEMA 6-50 outlet installed, or the additional other accessories that I wanted before the car arrived, some of which are now out-of-stock.
When I picked up the car, the dealer spent almost no time helping me with the features of the car (many of which were new to me), or setting things up. They helped me enable the feature that unlocks the car with my phone, and then turned me loose. That is completely unacceptable for a car of this complexity.
I had an inordinate amount of trouble setting up the profiles for my wife and myself. Still not convinced everything is function as it should.
When using the screen (sitting in the garage, not driving), it frequently suddenly dims, and then freezes, requiring one of those double thumbwheel resets. THIS IS MAJOR BUG!
The online manual is poorly written, and, worst of all, is hopelessly out of date, and apparently describes an earlier model. For example, my center console looks and operates very differently then the one described in the manual. The “dashcam” section is joke — More on this below.
The car’s onscreen manual either appears to be only a small subset of the online one, or the search feature simply doesn’t work, not sure which is the case, and not wasting any more time on it.
My first call to your tech support line was answered by someone who apparently knew almost nothing about the car, and was clearly referring to the user manual while on the phone. I am well aware of online manuals, and know how to download and use them. If the answer was in the manual, I wouldn’t have been calling.
The 2nd day, I noticed an annoying “whining” sound when my wife was backing out of the garage. Had no idea this is an audible warning, which prompted another call to tech support. Another shortcoming of the dealer delivery experience.
The car also frequently makes odd buzzing/grinding noises while just sitting in the garage. Maybe this has to do with “preconditioning”, whatever that is, or perhaps cooling/heating the battery while charging. Still not sure what’s going on here, and never got a satisfying answer from phone tech support on this subject.
The so-called “dashcam” feature in this car is either not working, or it simply doesn’t function like virtually every other 3rd-party dashcam on the market, several of which I have owned. I have already wasted NUMEROUS hours on this problem, either on the phone, or posting online, trying to figure this out. At this time, it looks like it’s not working properly, but still not really sure.
And last, but most certainly not least, NO BUILT-IN GARAGE DOOR OPENER? SERIOUSLY??? My 2-year old Subaru, which cost FAR LESS than this car, came with one. We’re talking about a five-dollar (at most) piece of silicon here. C’mon you guys, that’s ridiculous.
Needless to say, unlike my old MS, this is not a car I would be likely to recommend to anyone. If this had been an Amazon purchase, there is a good chance it would already be on it’s way back to Amazon.
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