another hole in the Dealer cartel argument.

Sad but true.

I'm actually surprised by some of this because dealers make money doing warranty repairs, so why wouldn't they be eager to do these? In Texas the dealer franchise law requires that manufacturers use their dealers to do their warranty repairs, they can't contract it out to independent shops or set up their own service centers. It's one of the most important "protections" dealers have in the law, as service is where the money is.

TexasEV said:

I'm actually surprised by some of this because dealers make money doing warranty repairs, so why wouldn't they be eager to do these? In Texas the dealer franchise law requires that manufacturers use their dealers to do their warranty repairs, they can't contract it out to independent shops or set up their own service centers. It's one of the most important "protections" dealers have in the law, as service is where the money is.

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I think the parts are scarce.

EdA said:

I think the parts are scarce.

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That can't be the case. According to the dealers, they are necessary to facilitate large recalls like this and that Tesla would not be able to handle it when time comes. Because unlike Tesla, the dealers have magic wands that can make parts appear out of thin air!

honestly? I don't know how Tesla would fair in something this massive. However, I don't think it would have gotten this massive under Tesla's watch considering they knew the problem existed long, long ago and continued to make the faulty part and put it in new cars.

Beyond that, I still haven't a clue how well Tesla would fare if today, this very instant they had to perform a 100% recall of something life threatening about the car to every Model S they have already delivered. Rockville is pretty backed up as it is with about a 2 month wait time to get scheduled service completed. I would not like to see how Tesla would fare and I really hope we never have to. As long as Tesla maintains its continued high quality and constant improvement (they said they make 10 hardware changes a week) at any given point a faulty piece of hardware won't likely span across the entire fleet but just a handful of cars.

But at some point, it will catch up to them, we will have a real recall from NHTSA that impacts a large number of the fleet and I do not look forward to that day.

chickensevil said:

...(they said they make 10 hardware changes a week)...

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The number was 20.

Good article, thanks.

As a side note, Tesla service here where I am are struggeling to keep up. My car was in for several small fixes in September, among those upgrade to folding mirrors. After that I got an air leak from the small triangle window up front. They weren't able to schedule new service until January 2105 (!).

Johan said:

. They weren't able to schedule new service until January 2105 (!).

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yikes! 90 years for a service appointment DOES seem like a long time!

green1 said:

yikes! 90 years for a service appointment DOES seem like a long time!

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C'mon, you know Elon is a perfectionist. It may take 90 years but you know the service will be flawless and it will be worth the wait in the end!

The backups at the service centers are not a good sign. I've been experiencing very long repair times. In my 49 days of ownership, the car has been at the Service Center 16 days and I had one day where I couldn't use the car before the service center picked it up. In addition, I lost a couple of days while my detailer performed extra paint correction due to bad vehicle preparation. On this latest repair (car is at the SC now) I really had to press the Service Center to get me in because two of the issues were items that were not fully corrected from the previous Service Center visit.

The problems I have seen include: difficulty getting parts; difficulty diagnosing issues; having to wait a long time for engineering and other resources in California to respond to the Service Center; too much work for one smallish service center to handle.

The other thing that concerns me is that Tesla may have underestimated the amount of maintenance the Model S actually requires. From what I can see, the car is not exactly rock solid coming off the assembly line and Tesla Service Centers, therefore, spend a lot of time chasing down niggling issues.

We are a bit lucky in the DC area because another service center is on track to be built, but I just hope it isn't too little to late. And Chickensevil is right (as usual), that Tesla would be in dire straits, from a service capacity perspective, if it were hit with a major recall.

I think your car may be an exception. My wife's car, which we picked up in September, has only been in once to replace a wiper blade.
Older cars (like mine) have had issues (12V battery, HV battery, tire pressure sensors, etc.), but this is over nearly 2 years.

Agreed on the thought that yours might be the exception. While I have had my fair share of service, it has always been over little things and the only visit that was more than 24ish hours was from a paint issue I had at delivery (car came to me scratched). Everything else has been handled when they could "fit me in" minus one issue where somehow the bolts on the parking brakes got stripped (I was the first to ever see this issue) and was afraid to drive the car because it sounded worse than it actually was. But overall I have been happy enough with the car. But many people have never taken their car in for service... Like ever. Sorry you have had so many issues though

Most of the backup at Rockville is because they are servicing such a large number of people spread out in like a 200+ mile radius and that is a very large area. That will be alleviated as we get more service centers here on the east coast which will come more and more as the laws slowly get changed.

chickensevil said:

Agreed on the thought that yours might be the exception. While I have had my fair share of service, it has always been over little things and the only visit that was more than 24ish hours was from a paint issue I had at delivery (car came to me scratched). Everything else has been handled when they could "fit me in" minus one issue where somehow the bolts on the parking brakes got stripped (I was the first to ever see this issue) and was afraid to drive the car because it sounded worse than it actually was. But overall I have been happy enough with the car. But many people have never taken their car in for service... Like ever. Sorry you have had so many issues though

Most of the backup at Rockville is because they are servicing such a large number of people spread out in like a 200+ mile radius and that is a very large area. That will be alleviated as we get more service centers here on the east coast which will come more and more as the laws slowly get changed.

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Well, I've never been stranded though - except for a flat tire which was patched by AAA and later patched from the inside.

I have the impression that my long service woes might be an exception given all of the research that I did before buying the car. After all, there will always be a lemon or two when making so many cars. Still frustrating. In addition, I'm also a little annoyed that [email protected] never got back to me after I wrote a long, detailed email explaining my concerns. I also called and asked about the email, but still haven't heard back.

Regardless, I hopeful that this latest repair will have me all set to go and that I won't need to return until I need an annual service.

iadbound said:

I have the impression that my long service woes might be an exception given all of the research that I did before buying the car. After all, there will always be a lemon or two when making so many cars. Still frustrating. In addition, I'm also a little annoyed that [email protected] never got back to me after I wrote a long, detailed email explaining my concerns. I also called and asked about the email, but still haven't heard back.

Regardless, I hopeful that this latest repair will have me all set to go and that I won't need to return until I need an annual service.

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Don't know how long it was ago that you emailed them but it can take a while to get anything back sometimes. I have usually gotten some kind of acknowledgement from them even if it was to just say thanks for the email.

Also make sure you are filling out the service surveys that you get emailed to you after your visit (can take a couple days to get it sometimes) you won't get a response on that though, at least I never have...

Good luck!

Thanks. I do fill out the surveys.

Slightly OT, but I remember the old days, back in the fall of 2012, when calling the Ownership number got you a direct connection to a Tesla employee who could actually get answers to your questions by yelling across to someone at a nearby desk. :biggrin:

In a recent service survey, I flagged some gaps in communication. Two days later I got a very good note back from headquarters, and a message directly from the service center manager.

This isn't to say, however, that all dealerships provide a lower level of service then Tesla. Our BMW dealer here in Portland is excellent. The trouble is how uneven the quality is wwfrom town to town. I think that is the primary strength of teslas model, namely providing a uniformly high level of service with sure and that quality coming from the top down.