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Model 3 lease return

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Finally, the lease company collected the car yesterday. It was non stop rain and dark. There was not much he could inspect. But said he will update. Will wait to hear from the lease company. But car looked good - no major dents or scratches or scuffs. I have done around 21,000 miles in the last 3 years. We have been to Europe twice, one was around 1800miles journey. We have also done short trips to Cornwall, the lakes, the peak district and Scotland. All great except charging in Scotland in 2021. We may stick to the Model Y for all european trips in the future given the convenience and green way of transport.

I have mentioned this before the total maintenance expense I had from the car over the last 3 years was less than £130 (service) and that doesn’t include the one tyre replacement (£210) or the alloy protection I took when I bought the car (£200). And the alloy protection did help to do all 4 wheels as that had scuffs all over because of the Rimetrix. Still thinking about whether to buy alloy protection for the new Model Y. Any thoughts appreciated.

I was lucky to have the car without any major issue for so long. I know that is not the usual scenario we see on this forum. But also that was the least amount of money I spent servicing/maintaining any cars I had. That was also my first lease car as I always believed in the long held wisdom of buying an used car and not losing lots of money in depreciation. This current one does challenge that widely held belief - given that times are changing and electric cars are not very expensive to maintain and sometimes even used cars depreciate a lot when selling.

The Model 3 at that time was around £44000 (given that the old model 3 didn’t have lots of stuff the highland has for 39,900) and there were very few used cars when I bought. It was a relatively rare car in early 2021 in Cambridge and even deliveroo drivers and take away guys used to use that as a sign post to confirm the house. Not now anyway, every other car I see is a Model 3 or a Y.

It is really a great car with/without stalks (can’t stop winding up those guys) and no sensors/sensors. Though I prefer my Model Y’s scarless face/back without any sensors.

Last December I mentioned I’ll do a list for lease cars what needs to be done when you hand over the car. I haven’t managed to do that till now. But there is a little list I went thro’ others might find this helpful.

Finance/lease:
- Check youv’e crossed all the i’s and t’s as you don’t want to pay a lot if you are terminating your contract early.
- Get them to confirm the date of collection and the form you need to send to the finance/lease agents.
- Inform them regarding the app and your credit card stored in for payment. If you are buying another Tesla, tell them you can’t remove your card from the app. They have to remove your access a day earlier or on the collection day. Make sure you follow up on this and arrange to remove yourself from the app so that they can’t use your card details for Super charging.
- Arrange collection a week in advance as they may move the date to their convenience. I was doing the hand over and collecting a Model Y during the Christmas break - though I had lots of time as I took some time off it can be stressful.
- Of course, do the numbers and terminate if you are benefitting from handing over early or taking a delivery early with discounts etc.,Also calculate 3-4 months less (if Tesla lease) as they will be willing to swap a bit early. So you pay for 32 months instead of 36 months lease and you can calculate using those numbers for your own back of the envelope calculation.

Car:
- We can’t do factory reset because you don’t own the lease car.
- You may have to delete your home/work and other navigation details and profiles manually if you don’t want those details. Also make sure some of the profiles are carried over to your new Tesla if you are planning to buy another. However, I couldn’t do it - not sure what the glitch was.
- Delete BT/Wifi connections.
- Try and delete the dashcam footage/or format as you wish. (Factory reset if you own the car)
- Remove all the extras you've invested in and some of them you can use for your new Tesla. I’ve bought only the 19 Tessories hubcaps all the other stuff I am using from my Model 3. I know some of them don’t fit perfectly in a Model Y but it will do.
- Delete the phone keys, ring or any other devices you use as key.
- If you have alloy wheel insurance or smart care - do the repair works a week or two early. And remember they all do the work only if the scratches/scuffs has happened within the last 30 days. Bit difficult for hubcaps scuffs etc., I’ll leave it to you the excuse you give them.
- Sort out your insurance, if you get a new Tesla - you can try and move your current one to the new one for some extra. I paid £45 on top of my current one. But that leaves your old Tesla without an insurance - so make sure you get some cheap day insurance - i found Cuvva very helpful. They are app based service (app download) and provide insurance for an hour to a week or month. They charged me around £9 for a day.
- Wash and clean the car.
- And probably do your maths at the end how much it all will cost and decide whether this is what you want to do.
 
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I was lucky to have the car without any major issue for so long. I know that is not the usual scenario we see on this forum.
I think it is "usual" for a large majority of us to have no major issues. Software annoyances aside, the number of actual issues with the physical cars seem to be quite minimal.

It's certainly a positive point in Tesla's favour that the requirement and therefore the cost of maintenance is so low. It still baffles me why the likes of VW, BMW etc still seem to insist on a full price annual/biannual service for their BEVs.
 
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It's certainly a positive point in Tesla's favour that the requirement and therefore the cost of maintenance is so low. It still baffles me why the likes of VW, BMW etc still seem to insist on a full price annual/biannual service for their BEVs.
The dealership network survival. The service departments have traditionally been the main source of revenue and with rare exceptions the profits generated on new car sales is not nearly enough to even cover the operating costs of a dealership. My suspicion is that many car brands are requiring annual maintenance to help the dealer network stay alive. I could be very wrong.
 
It still baffles me why the likes of VW, BMW etc still seem to insist on a full price annual/biannual service for their BEVs.

Tesla did too, in the early days. The suspicion, back then, was that they wanted to "see" the cars, so they could monitor how they were aging, and have that influence design changes on later models and so on.

But @KennethS "dealership survival" more likely
 
Check youv’e crossed all the i’s and t’s as you don’t want to pay a lot if you are terminating your contract early.

The pedantic in me says It's crossed all the T's and doted all the i's ;)


My suspicion is that many car brands are requiring annual maintenance to help the dealer network stay alive. I could be very wrong.

You are not wrong :)
 
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the number of actual issues with the physical cars seem to be quite minimal.
About that, here are the number of times the MY has had to “go in” for something

IMG_0557.png
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And this is the M3

IMG_0559.png


To say the physical issues are a bit low is quite the stretch
 
I hope you feast on those screen shots because you will never get those time frames from normal dealers or mobile service or low waiting times on the phone from any other dealer :)
Why would I feast on having to book so many appointments?

Pretty certain all my other cars combined have been taken into a dealer for some kind of repair or service less than the two Teslas have in the last 2 years
 

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I guess it's the luck of the draw? I'm on 107k miles with M3LR. Only used service for boot alignment and rear tail lights foging up.

Its for sure an abnormal rate for @Zilla91 but even then and not knowing their nature...


  • 17 service requests
  • 8 done by a ranger
  • 4 resolved remotely
  • 5 trips to the "dealer"

They sure have allot of time (and probably patience) available just for him :)
 
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If it was just one car, I could buy that but between 2 cars built 6 months apart? Not so sure you can pass that off as just “luck”


I am 👍
It is possible your experience is not necessarily representative. On our two Tesla we have had a single warranty service issue: condensation in one rear taillight assembly on our 2019 M3P. Replaced quickly and efficiently on our driveway within a week of reporting the issue. The mobile service was also a very welcome alternative to a dealership visit from our prior cars.

I've probably gone and jinxed it if we have just been lucky but we know many Tesla owners and all have had similar reliability.
 
If it was just one car, I could buy that but between 2 cars built 6 months apart? Not so sure you can pass that off as just “luck”

That actually improves the score if its a 50/50 split between 2 🤷‍♂️

I bought one, sold it and bought two a year later. If with the first one I had major issues, I wouldn't have got the other two.

Just over 3 years in and I cant say there have not been issue (maybe 2 or 3) but all have been dealt with very well and beyond my expectations. The Toyota we once had from new as well not so much but that was down to the way we were treated and not the car itself.

Even what are considered the best products out there will have a lemon here and there and none will have 100% satisfaction. You just always have to hope you dont end up in the that bad lower percentage..