Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Tesla Service/warrantee costs

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

jaguar36

Active Member
Apr 10, 2014
2,165
1,981
NJ
I'm looking into the cost to own a Model S, and have been mulling over the Service/warrantee costs.

Tesla claims that because the Model S is so much simpler than a typical BMW its service costs are significantly less. However, having owned two BMWs for a combined 200k miles, it looks to me like the Tesla service costs are far higher. The problem comes from Tesla not selling parts and requiring their service centers to do all of the work. That means that even something minor and easy to fix is going to have a high cost.

The annual service particularly bugs me, $600 for a service visit where they seem to really only do an inspection? My BMW only needs service once a year or so, and its included in for the first 4 years. Granted you aren't required to have the annual inspection, but seems like almost everyone does.


So is there any way to get parts? Is anyone actually skipping the annual service, or doing their own inspections?
 
Tesla sells their parts. You can walk into any service center and buy any part/assembly you want. Finding 3rd party shops for service/3rd party parts suppliers is simply a matter of time. Both the brand and car are new. Even high-volume cars take awhile before you start seeing aftermarket parts.

Tesla's also been long-rumored to be overhauling the yearly service structure. They've put in press releases in the past that they play to "revolutionize service," and some investor presentations have hinted that the cars may require no yearly maintenance at all. So maybe we'll see something happen there, but for now, it's $600 yearly.

A lot of people here have skipped their services. It's not a requirement. I'll do mine until told otherwise, though. It's an extremely expensive car, early in its production, from a relatively new brand, with fairly young technology. I'd prefer to let them take a look at it if they think they need to.
 
Can anyone else confirm this? This would be fantastic, I assume they don't have a parts catalog publicly available though?

I've purchased a number of small parts, others have bought whole suspension subassemblies (lolachampcar), nose ones and bumpers, a full compliment of seats (check out the Tesla parts forum), etc. I suspect you might have trouble if you walked in and asked to buy a battery pack, but short of that buying parts has been possible.

No catalog that I'm aware of. I tell them what I want, they look up the part number, and I pick it up.
 
Can anyone else confirm this? This would be fantastic, I assume they don't have a parts catalog publicly available though?

Knowing that I was going to skip my first annual service (I'm a low mileage driver, so I figure I'll go in at year two), I bought a replacement cabin air filter from the local service center to swap out myself. Easy enough to buy over the counter.