For those who have gone through this, do previous NCDS cases carry any weight? Like setting a precedence? Seems strange that each arbitrator might be left to their own impressions. I have one previously successful case #. I'm not aware of any cases settled in Tesla's favor.
Anyone actually have the car inspected? My face-to-face Wednesday says specifically to "bring the car". I hope they do look at it - turned the display back to "daytime" today and it is really bad. I will make the offer if they don't ask. Got the hi-res color photos.
I just hope I don't have to be Perry Mason - that's not my skillset. Wish me luck.
I didn't bring up the fact that others have had success using arbitration, because we don't know the stats from Tesla's side. They may have won more cases than we can prove that they lost.
I havn't received the results of my arbitration case yet, but I felt like my argument in favor of classifying this as a warranty issue went well. Basic points were....
1) There's a specific clause on page 5 of the warranty about covering manufacturer defects. And Tesla couldn't point to any "out clause" for the screen. There are other out clauses for tires, brakes etc. So I argued that there's no out clause, because it was never conceived that a screen is a wear part - because it isn't a wear part. And therefore it should be covered by the warranty.
2) There's no way a consumer could ever guess, and no Tesla customers were informed, that the screen is considered a wear part. There's not technical service bulletin (TSB) - and no indication in the manuals or other notices that point out that the screen is susceptible to sunlight damage.
3) There are millions of other cars on the road with screens, and this is not a common issue amongst other vendors or models. The model 3 for example does not suffer from the issue.
I did ok arguing that tesla should be repairing or replacing these screens immediately.
1) Tesla produces 1k+ Model S and Model X cars per week. They are now being produced with a new screen part that Tesla says does not suffer this issue. We know this, because Tesla wants us to buy that part for $1,300
2) We have been waiting for months. We have been given multiple stories (replacement screen, software update, uv fix, buy your own) - and there's no reason to believe that Tesla's current promises will be met. (Even the Tesla lawyer admitted this to be true in his arguments).
3) Tesla was previously replacing these screens without question. They suddenly changed their process and started this shenanigans. They could simply revert back to the proper policy of replacing the screens.
I probably failed to argue that the screens should be replaced and not repaired. I don't have hard evidence - but very strongly believe the UV fix to be temporary. I'm not sure any of my arguments there worked.
Hope that helps.
