Service Center Nightmares

[LoL Rick]

Documenting my experience here so people will know just how bad these service centers are. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone from Tesla will see it.

I took delivery of my Cybertruck on March 21 after a delay from the original date of March 9 because of a failed PCS. Within hours of delivery I created a service request with 5 issues.
1. Rail Dust
2. Adhesive smudged all over the center tail light
3. Scuff on the plastic trim at the top of the tailgate
4. Left rear seat belt is twisted
5. Glove drawer linkage falls off and the drawer itself will fall out on hard acceleration

I received an appointment in Tampa for about 2 weeks after delivery. In the meantime I took care of the first two issues myself and posted a note to that effect in the service chat.

On the appointed day I went to the service center, dropped the truck off and left in a loaner Model S. The estimated time of completion was the same day.
Late that afternoon I checked the app and found that the completion time had been moved to 3 days later without telling me. I needed to tow my boat the next day so I sent a message that I needed to pick up the truck the next morning. At 9am the next day I picked it up, no work had been done, and they rescheduled the appointment for the next week.

The day before the next appointment, they sent a message saying that they did not have the parts and were rescheduling the appointment again. The day before the third appointment I checked the app to confirm the time and noticed that the appointment was in St. Petersburg, 40 miles away, at 7am. I did not make that choice, Tesla did. But I honored the appointment because Tampa had been so bad. I arrived at 7am on the appointed day, April 23, and dropped off the truck. This time the estimated completion was 3 days out. I had stated in the app chat and reiterated in person that I was leaving on April 27 for a week out of the country, so the truck had to be done and picked up or their loaner Model X would sit at my house until I returned. I sent another reminder to that effect on the afternoon of April 25. The next morning I received a message stating that the work would not be finished so I said to prepare the truck for pickup. I arrived at the St. Petersburg service center an hour later to pick up the truck and discovered that no work had been done!

The truck has spent 4 full days sitting in 2 different service centers and none of these 3 simple repairs has even been started. At that point I asked for the contact information for the regional director so that I could report this issue. They called out Matt, the manager for St. Petersburg and he flatly refused to provide any information. He took another 10 minutes of my time, saying thing like he didn't want to keep my car and he wanted me to be driving it. But he had no explanation for why it sat for 3 days without work even starting and was not even aware of that fact before I called for him. I got nowhere with him so I simply left.

Upon checking the app later in the day, I discovered that almost all of the history of these two visits is gone from the app. Everything from the St. Petersburg visit is gone and only the invoice from the Tampa visit remains. The chat history is gone and the invoice states "Customer did not authorize repairs."

This morning I opened a new service request and found the next appointment in Tampa is 21 days out. So I scheduled for Sarasota, 53 miles away, for 8 days out. Maybe the third service center will be the charm.

 

[israndy]

Don't worry, it get's better. And now some Monty Python

Man: (Michael Palin) I want to complain.

Complainer: (Eric Idle) You want to complain! Look at these shoes. I've only had them three weeks and the heels are worn right through.

Man: No, I want to complain about...

Complainer: If you complain nothing happens, you might as well not bother.

Man: Oh!

Complainer: Oh my back hurts, it's not a very fine day and I'm sick and tired of this office.

 

[zoomer0056]

Use the app to schedule work as you've done before. However, do not bring it in until confirming parts earmarked for your specific vehicle are on site.

Good you did #1 and #2.

Can you fix #4 and #5? Is the scuff really bad? I suggest these because, as you see, they've not been able to fix your vehicle. You can say they should fix it all because of what you paid. But can you be a DIY self advocate on some things?

 

[outdoors]

I tend to do some of the other stuff one my own. A couple of those things appear to be somewhat trivial. Almost petty.

The only issue I had with mine was a little piece of the molding caused some wind to buckle in the back passenger side.

I guess I could have set a service appointment, made someone drive all the way out to my home or set up a service appointment and bring it in to have it sit there for 2 days.

Instead I just got the hair dryer out warmed up the molding and put it where it belonged. I've said this other places. I've seen punch lists on Ferraris and Bentley's. Making a perfect car or truck is a tall task.

For some reason some people expect perfection. I am far from that. Why should my truck be any different?

Please no I spent all this money crap. Poor Matt from St. Pete he got himself a doozy the other day.

 

[LoL Rick]

Use the app to schedule work as you've done before. However, do not bring it in until confirming parts earmarked for your specific vehicle are on site.

Good you did #1 and #2.

Can you fix #4 and #5? Is the scuff really bad? I suggest these because, as you see, they've not been able to fix your vehicle. You can say they should fix it all because of what you paid. But can you be a DIY self advocate on some things?

I actually replaced the glove box linkage a couple times but after just one or two openings it falls apart again. I think it must be missing a fastener but can't be sure.
The lower bolt on the seat belt is hidden by a rather large piece of plastic trim. Without knowing exactly how to remove it I'm afraid I would break some clips. Then there's the fact that a seat belt is a critical safety component and I would be assuming liability if I modified it and it ever failed.

 

[walla2]

Tesla service is notorious for booking an appointment, not having parts at the appointment, not doing work for days, and then finishing rapidly and wanting the loaner back promptly. They will not notate about your plans for the vehicle or events in your personal life like important work or travel. This is normal behavior and has been for some time.

What I would advise is that you book time when you won't need it and won't be traveling alot. The estimates can be days earlier than anticipated and days later. If its the former, they may have done nothing and you need to carefully review your notes on the work. If its the latter, they failed to order your parts and it will sit until they come in as a rush shipment or you may pickup the car with some work unfinished and notes that you will have to bring it back as parts weren't available. Again this is all normal these days.

 

[Suns_PSD]

The good thing OP is that you still can sell your CT and get out unscathed.

If you choose to ride this out for a year or two, you'll lose >$40K.

Choose wisely my man (or woman).

 

[Unclepaul]

This is the Elon way. Produce the first batch and send it out into the field. Service will get reports of items that are imperfect. Make on the run improvements so that later customers will not have the same issues.
Over time, the product will get better and better.

Alternative is to delay your launch until testing and engineering goes over every possible area of concern. This system is also imperfect and slows down the development of new products.

 

[OxBrew]

This is the Elon way. Produce the first batch and send it out into the field. Service will get reports of items that are imperfect. Make on the run improvements so that later customers will not have the same issues.
Over time, the product will get better and better.

Alternative is to delay your launch until testing and engineering goes over every possible area of concern. This system is also imperfect and slows down the development of new products.

Actually the reverse is true. If you assume you're going to spend 2 years finding and fixing issues, better to do that before release, since the cost to repair is 100x or more than just fixing in the first place.

I work in product development, in an industry that demands compressed schedules (ship or lose the contract). We budget for the cost of poor quality, but never enough.

Our team's time is 100% taken up chasing issues in the field. If we could have spent another 6 months on an 18 month project, we would have almost no time spent chasing field issues, and could instead be working on the next ground up product, start of which is now delayed a year.

I've worked for about 6 major companies and dozens of consulting clients and I have Elon's number: he's really good at leading teams to build plausible prototypes really fast. It's exhilarating to get something working in a seemingly impossible timeframe. Without deep experience in scaling production, supported by a mature manufacturing culture, rapid prototyping has almost nothing to do with serial production.

Elon will always be in production hell, because he has literally no idea how to set up the right culture for it.

He hired an MIT Phd in ME with zero experience (literally their first job) to lead a team setting up production flow of a sub component line in Fremont (this was about 2015). My good friend worked under them. He's a mfg engineer with 2 decades leading set up of medical production lines. The new hire boss made command decisions that were catastrophic to the project, and entire lines had to be scrapped and re-worked, as my friend had predicted, vocally and in writing.

That was his 5th and last boss in the 10 months he worked there.