We were heading to La Plagne for a week of snow for the first week of the Easter holidays... it was an incredibly wet drive. Apart from a brief interval at Reims, it was hammering down for about 7 hours.
As we were heading towards Lyon we received a message saying there was an issue with the front engine and it had been disabled. The message was surprisingly calm - it basically said, no worries, this will probably resolve itself and carry on as normal, so we did. We then stopped to charge at approximately 15:30, and as soon as we stopped we received a "Pull Over Immediately" error. We tried rebooting everything to no avail, so we called Tesla roadside assistance.
We were fortunately only 4km from a Tesla Service Centre, unfortunately we were in France. Even though we were in an Aire charging bay, roadside eventually got back to us and said they weren't allowed to recover from the autoroutes as it's too dangerous, so we'd have to call 112 for an emergency recovery that would dump us off the autoroute and Tesla could recover us from there. By the time we'd been through this faff, we'd driven past the now closed Tesla Service Centre twice, which also meant we were unable to borrow a car and being Easter, would hear nothing until Tuesday.
Stuck in a recovery depot with two young children at 8pm, we were left with no real choice other than to pay for a very expensive taxi for us and our stuff up the mountain.
On Tuesday we were told that the front motor inverter had failed and were given a fix date on 22nd April, nearly 3 weeks away. After some chasing they said the part would be arriving on the 10th and they should have it fixed by the 12th.
I spoke to our travel insurance (Virgin Money), who said they wouldn't cover anything directly related to the car, which is fair enough and expected, but they also have nothing in their T&C covering self drive holidays. They said we could put in a claim and they might cover things like the taxi, but refused to commit to anything over the phone. When I asked with options they'd be most likely to cover, they said "the cheapest".
If we got a car from Tesla, we weren't allowed to take it to the UK, so I eventually managed to arrange a convoluted and cheapest possible return journey involving dumping most of our stuff in the car in Chambery, hiring a car from Chambery airport to drive to Calais (we couldn't take the car across the channel), a pickup from Calais by my dad, hiring a car in Dover and eventually getting back to Oxford.
Next weekend (13th/14th) is the last weekend of commercial flights to Chambery for the ski season, so the planes flying out are all empty and we could get a ticket for £31, which wouldn't have been too bad, but I've now been informed that the car won't be fixed until 25th April, which makes Chambery a pain in the arse to get to. I've had quotes to ship the car back for £~1500.
Tesla have been very little assistance, they've offered zero compensation other that saying they'll pay for the emergency recovery, but I'm still chasing that and we're already approximately £1500 out of pocket for a breakdown of a car that's under warranty.
Anyway, I'm one very unhappy Tesla customer. I have no idea what I can do other than sit tight and wait.
Any advice, suggestions, sympathy appreciated!
As we were heading towards Lyon we received a message saying there was an issue with the front engine and it had been disabled. The message was surprisingly calm - it basically said, no worries, this will probably resolve itself and carry on as normal, so we did. We then stopped to charge at approximately 15:30, and as soon as we stopped we received a "Pull Over Immediately" error. We tried rebooting everything to no avail, so we called Tesla roadside assistance.
We were fortunately only 4km from a Tesla Service Centre, unfortunately we were in France. Even though we were in an Aire charging bay, roadside eventually got back to us and said they weren't allowed to recover from the autoroutes as it's too dangerous, so we'd have to call 112 for an emergency recovery that would dump us off the autoroute and Tesla could recover us from there. By the time we'd been through this faff, we'd driven past the now closed Tesla Service Centre twice, which also meant we were unable to borrow a car and being Easter, would hear nothing until Tuesday.
Stuck in a recovery depot with two young children at 8pm, we were left with no real choice other than to pay for a very expensive taxi for us and our stuff up the mountain.
On Tuesday we were told that the front motor inverter had failed and were given a fix date on 22nd April, nearly 3 weeks away. After some chasing they said the part would be arriving on the 10th and they should have it fixed by the 12th.
I spoke to our travel insurance (Virgin Money), who said they wouldn't cover anything directly related to the car, which is fair enough and expected, but they also have nothing in their T&C covering self drive holidays. They said we could put in a claim and they might cover things like the taxi, but refused to commit to anything over the phone. When I asked with options they'd be most likely to cover, they said "the cheapest".
If we got a car from Tesla, we weren't allowed to take it to the UK, so I eventually managed to arrange a convoluted and cheapest possible return journey involving dumping most of our stuff in the car in Chambery, hiring a car from Chambery airport to drive to Calais (we couldn't take the car across the channel), a pickup from Calais by my dad, hiring a car in Dover and eventually getting back to Oxford.
Next weekend (13th/14th) is the last weekend of commercial flights to Chambery for the ski season, so the planes flying out are all empty and we could get a ticket for £31, which wouldn't have been too bad, but I've now been informed that the car won't be fixed until 25th April, which makes Chambery a pain in the arse to get to. I've had quotes to ship the car back for £~1500.
Tesla have been very little assistance, they've offered zero compensation other that saying they'll pay for the emergency recovery, but I'm still chasing that and we're already approximately £1500 out of pocket for a breakdown of a car that's under warranty.
Anyway, I'm one very unhappy Tesla customer. I have no idea what I can do other than sit tight and wait.
Any advice, suggestions, sympathy appreciated!
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