Is this reasonable? Model X in SC for 3+ months.

[james80]

Hello from London, UK

I wonder if you guys can offer me some advice as there aren't nearly as many Model X owners over here to get a clearer picture of what i should do about my situation.

I reserved my Model X in 2016 as soon as it was released in the UK and it arrived in April 2017.

I had some relatively forgivable issues when they delivered it (curbed alloy, issues with the leather on the passenger seat, dent in the frame near FWD, misaligned main front camera, crunching door mechanism and maybe a few other little ones)

I didn't really moan, despite it requiring a number of trips to the SC in the first few months of ownership and other than the inconvenience and the frustration of having to rock around in a smokey diesel jag X type loaner for a while and that the car came back twice without a fix for the door mechanism issues, which persisted until it finally crunched itself to death completely and required a full replacement. I just got on with it and forgot about the troubles, I was so in love with how great the Model X was.

Then about a year and a bit later the airbag light came on and stayed on. After numerous attempts with the call centres it was looking like it would have to go back in to the dreaded service centre as soon as I had the time to get it there, then after a software update in early Dec the main heater unit burned itself out (as did hundreds of others around the world apparently). So, I shivered my way in to the service centre.

So, a quick update… it’s almost April and it’s still in the service centre

In my 23 months of Tesla ownership, my model X has spent about 4 months in the service centre.

A week or two ago, missing my car and in a fit of madness, I enquired about buying a newer performance model and asked them for a price for trading in my existing one in. To my surprise Tesla came back to me and said that my less than 2 year old car that cost nearly £95k has a trade in value of £44k. (That’s an official figure from the sales centre.)

So.. my car is depreciating at about £500 per week. (I say again.. 4 months in the service centre)

A pretty brutal figure once you calculate the tax (income not road obviously), insurance, other costs etc

So, the hit of having my car in service for about 4 months is starting to look pretty unreasonable.

I just want to say that I love my model X and I've only ever given a glowing recommendation of the car itself.

As a car, it's excellent. fast, fun, clean, awesome.

But as a company, a luxury car company, Tesla has so much catching up to do.

We shouldn’t have to drive around wondering when something small is going to snap, crunch or go pop and it cost thousands and take months. That’s just not cool.

The reason for this rant, is that I would like to hear (privately) from any other owners that have had a similarly ridiculous experience and what resolution you came to with Tesla.

The (very nice guy) that leads the service centre team suggested that he had a £100 max authorisation last week when it came to restoring goodwill to customers. I'm not sure if he realised that my car lost 5 times more than that in a days it took him to get back to my email asking if Tesla thought it was reasonable) I should have suggested he puts on some new wipers as it eats them pretty quickly.

I'm also annoyed that they most likely will have let my battery run down to zero over the freezing months in Jan/Feb (it’s been totally dead on the app since Dec other than one single alert saying that charging was interrupted in Jan).

I'm sure I will attract enough fire just asking a question like this (I used to convince myself when reading so many similar stories that it probably wouldn’t happen to me) and I'm not asking for anyone to publish their experience and resolutions publicly, please email me privately on [email protected].

Before you criticise my exasperated rant on here.. ask yourself how you would feel in the same position.

It’s really not reasonable at all. I personally feel fortunate to be able to buy and own a car like the model X, but that doesn’t mean we should suffer with such utterly appalling customer service / experience and the lamentable handling of such matters by Tesla.

 

[Tam]

...4 months in the service centre...

I personally do not mind as long as I got a loaner while waiting.

I might take a 4 month vacation with the loaner to drive all over Europe racking up thousands of miles while my car's odometer stays young in the Service Center.

 

[james80]

Except that in the UK they are so short of Tesla loaners that in most cases they give you a crappy diesel ‘exec’ car.

My X is a 6 seat (if remember correctly, it’s been so long) and although I managed to squeeze a model S out of them... it’s meant that’s we have been travelling around illegally with one of our 4 kids on an adults lap in back.

Not ideal and not what I bought to do the job.

 

[DustWindDude]

Yikes. I hope you at least get a four month extension on the warranty when all is said and done. And if they killed the battery by letting it sit at naught for so long, I imagine they will be replacing that, as well.

 

[dethman]

Sorry for your experience. Inevitably will come the tesla apologists, saying you are the exception, not the rule, however there are just far too many of these stories out there...

 

[MXWing]

Sorry for your experience. Inevitably will come the tesla apologists, saying you are the exception, not the rule, however there are just far too many of these stories out there...

Don’t recall OP ordering a white knight but here you are!

Not sure why you assume people already made up their minds on every issue in advance?

Sorry @james80 - that is not a brilliant experience.

Tesla owes you big here. They are damned foolish for not giving you a great deal on a new car.

I don’t think a buyback is unreasonable here.

 

[gangzoom]

To my surprise Tesla came back to me and said that my less than 2 year old car that cost nearly £95k has a trade in value of £44k. (That’s an official figure from the sales centre.)

So.. my car is depreciating at about £500 per week. (I say again.. 4 months in the service centre)

Tesla clearly make some lemons, sadly plenty of stories of cars constantly going wrong like yours. Luckily ours has been pretty good, with not much wrong.

If Tesla are willing to buy back than that would be the best thing? Or stick up on Auto-trader. The cheapest X in the UK for sale is over £60K, that's for a 75D. If you put your loaded (presume P90D?) for 54K, so £10K more than what Tesla offered you it'll sell by the end of the week. Ignore Tesla trade in value, they simply don't want used stock hence the crazy price.

Good luck, if I had a lemon car like yours I would be wanting to get rid, especially as it approaches the 50K millage warranty.[/QUOTE]

 

[james80]

Thanks people, appreciate your support. It’s really annoying that such a brilliant product is so let down by the after sales support.

P.s. If it was anywhere near 50k miles I’d half understand. But it’s only done 20k or so and not even 2 yrs old.

 

[sacelectric]

Thank you for giving me some perspective on the relatively minor issues we're having. You sound remarkably composed considering the circumstances. If I were in your shoes, there's no way I'd be thinking about buying another Tesla. I hope that in a few years, we can all look back and be grateful that the old days of Tesla offering unreliable cars and unacceptably slow service are long behind us. Until then, best of luck.

 

[gnuarm]

I watched a youtube video where Rich of Rich Rebuilds bought a used Tesla and then had to fight with them for months to get it. After driving an hour to pick up a loner which ended up not being available (in fact no one knew anything about it) he made the comment that this is a "first world problem". That helps to put it all in perspective.

 

[gangzoom]

he made the comment that this is a "first world problem". That helps to put it all in perspective.

99% of problems faced by any of us in the western world can be classed as a 'first world problem' to the majority of other human beings who often have no access to food/water.

I love our X, but its pretty clear Tesla build quality varies massively. The fact the S/X requires alot of hand finishing is enough to explain the variation.

On the whole Tesla does seem to be able to sort the issue out, but it doesnt make owing a lemon any more easy.

Still the cars overall are good, the OP has done 20k in under 2 years, despite not having the car for months at a time. The average annual mileage in the UK is about 7K, so clearly when the OP has the car they are using it plenty.

 

[banned-66611]

I guess part of the massive depreciation is that the recent price cut. A lot of people lost a lot of money because of that.

The bad news is that with a car of that era you are probably going to have more problems. The motor unit will eventually fail and start juddering under acceleration, which requires replacement.

You can use something like TeslaSpy to check the battery state. Unfortunately the 90kWh ones from that time tend to die prematurely.

If you intend to keep the car then I'd push for an extended warranty. In the UK you have better rights in that regard anyway, but I'd still push Tesla to stand behind the car.

Good luck.