What is your beef with Tesla?

[BigNick]

I'm seeing a lot of threads about issues people are having with Tesla, so I figured I'd create this.
Multiple choices are available and I think there's going to be a lot of people who select both 1 and 2 here based on a thread that is approaching 5000 comments.

Edit: it looks like I left off a "none of the above" choice. Voting isn't required to see results.

If you have no beef, I suppose you can choose none of the options and state you have no beef in the comments.

 

[dannycamps]

Just for fairness sake, I would add a "I have no beef/issues with Tesla" option to this.

 

[Patrick W]

Just for fairness sake, I would add a "I have no beef/issues with Tesla" option to this.

Or, for that matter, other section listing all the great things folks have experienced with Tesla.

 

[75Shappyt]

No Beef Here!!

 

[A-Wimoweh]

For those that don't eat beef, can pork be an option?

 

[Xenius]

I picked "they screwed something else up"

Tesla has made is so that instead of buying 20k econo-boxes (sorry Honda) I now have to spend at least twice that much whenever I get a new car. Also they've taken up much more of my time driving because I actually enjoy it now.

Also because I've taken a position as Treasurer in the offical owners club I'm in, I have less time for that driving that I enjoy. I also have to do lots more hanging out with people at all the events we hold.

I used to say I was an introvert and every since getting my S I've been moonlighting as an extrovert. It's really taken a lot of my time that I didn't realize I'd be spending.

Damn you Tesla!

 

[Lasairfion]

You forgot options like Rare, or Well Done.

 

[Ostrichsak]

FWIW the current #1 and #2 can be combined to make the fact that you can't talk to anyone to schedule service even more glaring. They need to start by tripling their customer service staff. That's the starting point. They also need some sort of customer service software to better track & log customer issues. I believe that they need even more staff than that but based on the recent growth their staff hasn't come anywhere near keeping up with the # of cars they've sold in the last year or two and once these Model 3's start having more issues over time it's going to get unmanageable if it isn't already. Depending on what area you live in (mine for instance) it may already be impossible to speak with a human even in urgent matters so how does one define worse in these cases? If you started a new pole and combined those into a single option since they're basically the same (unless someone wants to call Tesla just to chat?) I have a feeling it would be the overwhelming choice for most.

HIRE MORE STAFF TESLA! CUSTOMER SERVICE WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL! -Ostrichsak, 11/2019

 

[Uncle Paul]

Great first posts!

Thought this would turn out to be just a self indulgent pity party.

Tesla is doing great. They have lots of items that need working on, but for what they have accomplished it is understandable.

If a delivery center is handling over 100 cars a day, it is totally understandable that a few new owners would not have a good experience.

Seems like everybody is so self focused, that a little blip in their lives causes them to run for their keyboards.

Tesla is a disrupter. They are doing things differently (sorry Apple). They do not encourage chit chat while orders are being processed. They work like crazy behind the scenes to make their cars and get them delivered with a minimum of drama.

The same people that complain about incompetent sales people are now complaining that they have no sales people to talk to. Those conversations might be a feel good perk, but in reality they are not all that helpful in getting as many cars into the hands of as many customers as possible.

Overal the cars are pretty great. Tesla is disrupting the polluting and money grubbing auto industry. That is the basic good thing. They are doing this for the first time, and learning as they go. Elon said they will always be a little behind in providing service centers because they do not have the money to set them up in advance of need and have lots of people standing around with nothing productive to do.

Sorry about my own rant, but it seems like people sometimes can get so full of themselves and overly critical. Act like a slightly misaligned panel gap is the end of the world.

 

[BigNick]

Just so everyone knows, I am not impacted by the battery reduction issues.
I bought a used Tesla and took delivery on 4/26 of this year.
Four and a half months and 9K miles later, I have yet to receive any DMV stuff (like a permanent registration) or any response from Tesla other than an e-mail with a useless link to my case number (I can't access the internal Tesla tools that have the case notes). Subsequent replies to the e-mail have not generated a response.

Other than the DMV issues, the car itself has been great. Just sick of running the dumb paper tags. This one is good until 10/22, so they have just under 6 weeks to get it done or they'll have to give me yet another one.

Edit: Big thanks to the moderator/admin who added the "I have no beef" option and fixed my earlier screw-up.

 

[SilverGS]

I've had my CPO 2016 75D for 2.5 months now and zero issues. Just a ton of fun to report! Yaaay!

 

[maximizese]

My beef is "Their communication." While I'm not happy about reduced range and reduced SuC, I'm understanding and hopeful that there will subsequent improvements in the future. However, we're all left to speculate why and how these changes occurred which leads to the poor communication. I find myself reliant on this web forum to learn more about the happenings of other Tesla owners to learn from their experiences rather than hearing from Tesla themselves. It really softens the blow after your expectations have been lowered from reading other people's discoveries rather than to discover them firsthand.

I would have been steamed to find out Tesla would sit on my car for 12 days at the Service Center doing absolutely nothing (it sat in their auxiliary lot) before spending 4hr fixing the rear window defroster. But I was prepared to wait based on the warnings from others.

 

[rayfound]

Its communication plus their inability to respond in meaningful ways when they do communicate. No one has any agency to make decisions, so the communication you do get is hollow and pointless.

 

[Sparrow]

They keep making it harder and harder to play music in the car using a USB drive. First and second they changed the way that the media player sorts the music. Had to spend hours appending numbers to the music so that it played in the order it was suppose to. A year or so later, they changed it again and a few more hours were spent correcting that problem too.

Right now I have to open the door, close it again (make sure all the screens go dark) and then open the door a second time before my USB music will play. That method for getting the USB music playing again works probably 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time I have to reinitialize the USB player and remember where it left off.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Costa Mesa service center is horrific. Its always CRAZY busy, appointments take a month to get and each time I bring my vehicle in for warranty service (which has been multiple times for various items), they damage something in my vehicle that subsequently needs to be repaired/replaced. If mobile service performs the repair, its typically done correctly the first time, if I have to bring it back to the SC, they damage something else in the process. I know that the Teslaratti don't like to hear these things and for them everything is PERFECT, but Tesla is no longer a startup and needs to staff and train appropriately. I have never had such poor service for ANY vehicle I have ever purchased (and I've had quite a few)!

 

[TrevTremaine]

For those that don't eat beef, can pork be an option?

Sorry, beef sold out so it's either turkey or tofu.

 

[SteveBaker]

Great first posts!
If a delivery center is handling over 100 cars a day, it is totally understandable that a few new owners would not have a good experience.

Generally, almost all online businesses have a roughly 5% problem rate - it more or less doesn't matter what you're selling or how.

Go to almost any product selling on Amazon and look at the 1-star reviews. Nearly every product has at least a couple of them. Doesn't mean that the product is bad - it just means that it's typical of anyone doing business at a distance.

My wife and I ran an online business (selling little model buildings to people who play table-top games!) - and we were INSANELY careful about having good customers. We had 95% 5-stars and 5% 1-star reviews - just like everyone else. Problems occur at every step - and many of them aren't yours.

We had a package we sent from Texas to Malaysia - we did everything right - but the customer ignored the requests to go to their post office an pay customs/import duty...so the entire package got returned to us about 6 months later. The cardboard box was COVERED with stickers from a dozen different customs, shippers and post offices - it had 3" rips in the cardboard and was so battered, that it looked more like a football than a shipping box! The product inside was smashed to hell - so we had to re-manufacture and re-ship the entire bundle - we put a couple of 'freebie' extra models in for him with a note explaining and apologizing for the delay. It finally got to the end customer in perfect condition - but 6 months late...and the bastard gave us a 1-star review for slow shipping!

Now - that said - we did make genuine mistakes - but still, 5% is a good number for how many transactions will go sufficiently wrong to get you a 1-star.

We never once got a 2, 3 or 4 star review. It was either "You guys are GODS and CAN DO NO WRONG!!!" or "Your product is total and utter *sugar* and your customer service is horrible!"...never anything in between.

So - I figure that if a delivery center handles 100 cars a day - there are going to be somewhere around 5 "oopsies" per day. Those people will blast social media with grief...presuming that their experience is typical.

 

[BerTX]

Probably instead of "No problems", it should have been worded "No problems, YET".

I would have checked "No problems" until they reduced my charging rate, didn't say why, never said my behavior might cause this to happen, and are still encouraging Supercharging, and even increasing the rate -- at least until you reach the limit they arbitrarily and secretly set at which point it gets reduced.

That got them a check- mark from me for the rate reduction and the lack of communication.

 

[democappy]

I put a vote in for the parts process issues. My experience was documented here, but assuming a small percentage of folks will ever be in a crash where they need parts, a 10% complaint rate still seems high. I also selected communicate is horrible because getting an actual person to talk to for my parts issues was not possible.

8 months ago I would have been in the no issues category.

 

[Chaserr]

All of the problems sum up with poor communication. Stealing battery capacity, reducing horsepower, not fixing warranty issues... all of it is Tesla being mute instead of telling owners "we need time to sort this out" or "we need to design a part that works." They're creating an environment that seems like a cold shoulder attempt to shirk their responsibilities, and owners are naturally reacting to being treated with what feels like hostility.

The root of all of this was Elon not replacing Tesla's head of customer service and taking on that role himself. Elon has no customer service skills and created this problem - as was predicted from the start.