aesculus
Still Trying to Figure This All Out
I purposely waited to make a reservation for my Model X until January 2015. I wanted about 10,000 (our res was around 15,000) cars to be delivered before my car because I knew that there would be quality issues and also features would appear to fix or enhance the user experience that could only be discovered or understood after a number of cars were produced and mileage accumulated. Of course this was my first Tesla and EV and that added to the trepidation too. The last car I bought was a 2001 Acura MDX that was in its first few months of production but the car has been essentially flawless, racking up 240,000 miles and I just turned it over to my daughter, who I expect will get at least another 60k out of it before it meets end of life. I still have the 1952 MGTD that my father bought brand new and we have some other 199x vintage trucks in the stable. We don't change out quickly and we commit to whatever we choose for the long haul, so we choose wisely.
We attended the reveal event on Sept 29th and I was totally disappointed by the lack of folding second row seats. I also thought the front of the car was kind of 'meh'. To me it either looks unfinished or like it's lips were sewn shut. Still debating that aspect. But about everything else about the car blew me away. I fought the hordes to sit in Elon's car for a few minutes (front passenger seat) because ingress/egress and seating comfort are my number 1 priority. While I was only in there for less than 5 minutes, I felt it would be OK.
This Xmas, before ordering but knowing it could be immenant, my wife and I went to the Rockin, CA store and tried out the seating in a Model S (a performance version with next gen seats). Both my wife and I love the look of the Model S but ones I sat in before, with first gen seats, just did not seem comfortable, were not easy to get in and out of and the visibility all around seemed confined. While we could make it work, it was not going to be ideal. I left a bit disappointed. We both really like the Model S a lot.
Bonnie invited us over to her house to see Sig 2 and give it the sniff test. In just a few minutes of quality time and a great feature demo by Bonnie, both my wife and I could tell the Model X was far and above a better car for me than the Model S, so that cinched it. At the reveal I noticed the windshield and felt it would be a great addition to the car but sitting in Sig 2 on a sunny day amongst the trees over at Bonnie's sealed it. It literally blows you away. The seating comfort seemed really good and even when I put my seat in a comfortable position (I have 36" inseams), I was able to get in the 2nd row behind it and still be comfortable there too. We opted for the 6 seat car to overcome the lack of folding second row seats as my biggest use case is running up to the Sierra's within an hour for skiing for the day. I literally drive up and park, throw my boots on and walk 20 feet to the trail for the ski run. Five minutes max prep time. So no racks for me.
We were invited to configure in early January and confirmed the normal week later. It was apparent to me that few decided to order cars (probably not being able to see and sit in one and all those early issues I knew were going to happen scared everyone off). Still I was shocked when our VIN was released and we were 1526, a non performance production car. My whole game plan for waiting until a significant number of cars were produced just blew up. Thanks team.
We picked up our car last Thursday at the factory. No way I was not going for the total emersion experience with a factory delivery and tour. I pulled down the checklist and along with my sister and brother in law, who joined my wife and I for the delivery experience, memorized everything to look out for. We left the list in the car (partially not to insult the Tesla employees, but also because we committed everything to memory and prioritized items that could be dealt with later verses deal breakers that would keep us from accepting the car that day.).
It took us an hour to get the briefing handoff because we wanted to know about every detail, feature and screen in the car. I think our product specialist was getting a bit antsy but he was saved by the fact that we had the tour set for the second hour so he knew he was going to get free. All in all we could not find any flaws in the car, and we looked pretty hard. I will tell you though that being in the tent could potentially hide some flaws so as others have mentioned, you might want to take it outside before you let the delivery specialist off the hook. Note they will want you to sign the transfer papers immediately because it is part of the process and it takes a few minutes for them to get them copied and their sign off to occur.
I left with no noticeable defects and even when I got home and poured over the car the next day in the sunlight after driving it 150 miles, I found very little to gripe about. This was the extent of the problems I discovered:
There were two other MX's being delivered the same time as mine and I did not see anyone point out anything major in their cars either. It looks like most of the issues have been resolved to just minor occurrences at this point. The quality of my paint was very good for a production car (I say this because I have painted many concours cars and won many shows so I know good painting when I see it). While a factory car can never compare to a show car finish, you can tell what's good and what's not. I am not going to do any additional finishing on my car. It's fine the way it is.
On the way home we averaged 316 Wh/mi which really surprised us. We have seen all the stories of people averaging in the high 400's. This was the biggest reason we did not go with the performance car. We want distance and the regular model has way more performance than we could even desire.
Another note is that we seem to have acquired two other features we did not expect or order. Our car has an fully active spoiler. It parks itself when off and moves to two positions based on speed. I really wanted that and was upset when I found out only the performance cars were going to get that. The other feature we have is a complete tow package including the harness and connector. It appears to be limited to 3500 lbs but I would never tow anything bigger than that with such a small car anyway.
We played with the autopilot, navigation, sound system (using FLAC files on the UHFS), and varied between an hour + of stop and go driving along with freeway crusing at 70 mph average. We even tried a pseudo launch from 0-60 and were blown away - note we don't have a performance car.
Along with the factory tour, the dedication and enthusiasm of all the Tesla employees we met or saw doing their job on the floor, the quality of the car we received and the mission to be more green, it turned out to be the whole package. We quickly forgot we just spent $125,000 on a car. In fact you were glad you did.
We attended the reveal event on Sept 29th and I was totally disappointed by the lack of folding second row seats. I also thought the front of the car was kind of 'meh'. To me it either looks unfinished or like it's lips were sewn shut. Still debating that aspect. But about everything else about the car blew me away. I fought the hordes to sit in Elon's car for a few minutes (front passenger seat) because ingress/egress and seating comfort are my number 1 priority. While I was only in there for less than 5 minutes, I felt it would be OK.
This Xmas, before ordering but knowing it could be immenant, my wife and I went to the Rockin, CA store and tried out the seating in a Model S (a performance version with next gen seats). Both my wife and I love the look of the Model S but ones I sat in before, with first gen seats, just did not seem comfortable, were not easy to get in and out of and the visibility all around seemed confined. While we could make it work, it was not going to be ideal. I left a bit disappointed. We both really like the Model S a lot.
Bonnie invited us over to her house to see Sig 2 and give it the sniff test. In just a few minutes of quality time and a great feature demo by Bonnie, both my wife and I could tell the Model X was far and above a better car for me than the Model S, so that cinched it. At the reveal I noticed the windshield and felt it would be a great addition to the car but sitting in Sig 2 on a sunny day amongst the trees over at Bonnie's sealed it. It literally blows you away. The seating comfort seemed really good and even when I put my seat in a comfortable position (I have 36" inseams), I was able to get in the 2nd row behind it and still be comfortable there too. We opted for the 6 seat car to overcome the lack of folding second row seats as my biggest use case is running up to the Sierra's within an hour for skiing for the day. I literally drive up and park, throw my boots on and walk 20 feet to the trail for the ski run. Five minutes max prep time. So no racks for me.
We were invited to configure in early January and confirmed the normal week later. It was apparent to me that few decided to order cars (probably not being able to see and sit in one and all those early issues I knew were going to happen scared everyone off). Still I was shocked when our VIN was released and we were 1526, a non performance production car. My whole game plan for waiting until a significant number of cars were produced just blew up. Thanks team.
We picked up our car last Thursday at the factory. No way I was not going for the total emersion experience with a factory delivery and tour. I pulled down the checklist and along with my sister and brother in law, who joined my wife and I for the delivery experience, memorized everything to look out for. We left the list in the car (partially not to insult the Tesla employees, but also because we committed everything to memory and prioritized items that could be dealt with later verses deal breakers that would keep us from accepting the car that day.).
It took us an hour to get the briefing handoff because we wanted to know about every detail, feature and screen in the car. I think our product specialist was getting a bit antsy but he was saved by the fact that we had the tour set for the second hour so he knew he was going to get free. All in all we could not find any flaws in the car, and we looked pretty hard. I will tell you though that being in the tent could potentially hide some flaws so as others have mentioned, you might want to take it outside before you let the delivery specialist off the hook. Note they will want you to sign the transfer papers immediately because it is part of the process and it takes a few minutes for them to get them copied and their sign off to occur.
I left with no noticeable defects and even when I got home and poured over the car the next day in the sunlight after driving it 150 miles, I found very little to gripe about. This was the extent of the problems I discovered:
- I have some clear glue that got spread in two places under the drivers side FWD threshold. I know it will come off with the proper solvent as I was able to use my fingernail and scrape a bit off exposing the good finish or the paint underneath.
- I have a tiny cut in the driver's side FWD gasket that should be replaced but is not affecting anything at the moment
- Inside both FWD door jams at the rear bottom corner the paint is not as nice as it should be. Not going to even address this as only I notice it and it can only be detected by certain lighting or running your hand over the area (about 4" square). The paint spray machine should have extended out a bit more than it does. I might mention it to Tesla just as a matter of record but they have probably already re-calibrated the paint machine by now.
- I have had a few quirks with the drivers door but fixed it quickly by forcing it all the way open and then closing it from the inside by using the brake. Only happened once. I suspect a firmware update will fix this at some point as it may be a bit too sensitive right now. Easily fixed and only required me to grab the door and give it a tweak a few times. All working fine now.
- I cannot get my Android phone to connect to the car but my wife's iPhone works fine. Also Tesla does not supply the new connectors for Androids so you cannot dock it in the cradle.
There were two other MX's being delivered the same time as mine and I did not see anyone point out anything major in their cars either. It looks like most of the issues have been resolved to just minor occurrences at this point. The quality of my paint was very good for a production car (I say this because I have painted many concours cars and won many shows so I know good painting when I see it). While a factory car can never compare to a show car finish, you can tell what's good and what's not. I am not going to do any additional finishing on my car. It's fine the way it is.
On the way home we averaged 316 Wh/mi which really surprised us. We have seen all the stories of people averaging in the high 400's. This was the biggest reason we did not go with the performance car. We want distance and the regular model has way more performance than we could even desire.
Another note is that we seem to have acquired two other features we did not expect or order. Our car has an fully active spoiler. It parks itself when off and moves to two positions based on speed. I really wanted that and was upset when I found out only the performance cars were going to get that. The other feature we have is a complete tow package including the harness and connector. It appears to be limited to 3500 lbs but I would never tow anything bigger than that with such a small car anyway.
We played with the autopilot, navigation, sound system (using FLAC files on the UHFS), and varied between an hour + of stop and go driving along with freeway crusing at 70 mph average. We even tried a pseudo launch from 0-60 and were blown away - note we don't have a performance car.
Along with the factory tour, the dedication and enthusiasm of all the Tesla employees we met or saw doing their job on the floor, the quality of the car we received and the mission to be more green, it turned out to be the whole package. We quickly forgot we just spent $125,000 on a car. In fact you were glad you did.
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