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Repairing My Tesla Model S Has Been a Nightmare

283 points by Corrado 10y ago

youngtaff 10y ago
A friend in the UK has a Tesla and his front screen cracked - took Tesla over two months to replace it :-(
pascalxus 10y ago
My initial impression of this brand was that they take customers very seriously. Everything from the design of the vehicle to their website appears customer centric. This article is making me reconsider a future purchase of a Tesla vehicle.
hogrammer 10y ago
I'd start by filing a civil suit against the uninsured driver that hit him.
vkou 10y ago
A few observations: 1. This is precisely why it's important to legislate right-to-repair. This is why auto manufacturers are required, by law, to continue to manufacture replacement parts for their cars, long after they have stopped being sold. Hopefully, Tesla can get this figured out. 2. Soviet auto manufacturers had this exact same problem. They were incentivized to sell cars, not spare parts - so finding parts for repairing your broken Lada (Which was just as likely as not to be broken as it rolled off the assembly line) took a breads-and-fishes miracle. 3. What does this have to do with stock picks... Oh.
- k__ 10y ago
  Why didn't people just make a business of buying ladas and and selling the parts?
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Soviet Russia didn't exactly support the entrepreneurial spirit.
    - k__ 10y ago
      fair enough :\
    - fisherjeff 10y ago
      Maybe not in a traditional sense, but they did have a pretty robust black market
      - Bartweiss 10y ago
        And as I hear the stories, this did happen. Cars are tough because you can't do a mechanic's job without tools and some obvious space, but there are at least stories of people getting cars and parting them out at a profit. (Similarly, there are stories of tank "repair" in WWII happening by taking finished tanks meant for service and stripping them for parts to repair multiple other tanks.)
        M_Grey 10y ago
        One of my favorite anecdotes is from an old episode of Car Talk. A woman called in to ask if the following was ok (I'm paraphrasing from memory): "So my neighbor, who's from a former Soviet Bloc country is a great guy who helps me out when my car breaks down. One time my battery is dead, so he offers to jump start my car. While I look on baffled, then shocked, he unscrews his car's battery from the mounting, then flips it over and presses the contacts directly to my car's battery. It started though! So is that safe?" To further paraphrase the guys' responses... "Oh god no!!!" They further went on to point out though, that at some point when your life is dangerous and hard as a kind of background state, the little things stop even grabbing your notice. The degree of black marketeering in the USSR was just... staggering. Systemic. Understood to be "how the system works". Sometimes though you get tragedies like Vladimir Komarov. The space vehicle is shoddily constructed, running dangerously low on fuel; its parachutes — though no one knows this — won't work and the cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, is about to, literally, crash full speed into Earth, his body turning molten on impact. As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, "cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship." http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/co...
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    You would have had trouble finding the parts or finding parts for the machines to build the parts. Or finding the parts to build the machines to build the parts to build the machines to build the parts. I hope you get the idea.
  - andosa 10y ago
    Because you couldnt just walk into a shop and buy a car. You literally had to have a car buying permit, which might take years to get. Because of this, used cars could cost singificantly more than a brand new one from a shop.
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    Old Soviet joke: "I want to sign up for the waiting list for a car. How long is it?" / "Precisely ten years from today." / "Morning or evening?" / "Why, what difference does it make?" / "The plumber's due in the morning". The easiest way to get spare parts was simply to steal them. Cars were frequently stolen off the street and stripped. Factory workers would smuggle in old parts, fit them to cars on the production line and smuggle out the new parts. The spares that were available invariably ended up being funnelled off into the black market. See also the Soviet black market for blown light bulbs: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/02/markets-in-everything-hardly-anything.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/02/mar...
    - burntrelish1273 10y ago
      This, sir, is hilarious btw. Also, a friend of mine from Moscow IRL 90's once said the electricity went out because the power lines were stolen.
      - tacon 10y ago
        I think 2000s Iraq had thieves steal the power lines, too.
      - walshemj 10y ago
        In the UK cable thieves thieves are a problem for telecoms and rail industry attaching a 4x4 to one end and dragging the cable out is one popular technique. This some times all messes up the power for trains
  - vkou 10y ago
    Because, just like concert tickets, there weren't enough cars, and they were sold at below-market price. This meant that people would pre-order vehicles years in advance - and had to get extremely 'creative' when it came to keeping them running. (As jdietrich alluded to.) The other problem with cars is that given 10 broken vehicles, there is high likelihood that 4 of them have the same broken part.
    - elboru 10y ago
      This is still a problem in Cuba, Ladas are still really common over there, I just can't imagine all the hacks they must do on a daily basis just to keep them running. I spent my last vacations in Cuba, one day I met a really nice taxi driver who owned a Lada, he asked for my E-Mail and asked me to let him know of any Lada parts seller.
- mikeash 10y ago
  As far as I can tell, it's a myth that manufacturers are required to continue making replacement parts for any particular period of time. A manufacturer needs to be able to fulfill its warranty obligations, which they usually do by manufacturing spare parts for at least as long as their customers have warranties, but that's it. This is definitely something Tesla needs to fix and soon. It shouldn't be hard, so either I'm missing something or they're doing as you describe in (2) and prioritizing new production over spares.
  - revelation 10y ago
    A particular problem for Tesla seems to be that basically every quarter now they desperately focus on producing new cars to hit their production targets, which then just grow exponentially for next quarter..
    - mikeash 10y ago
      They seem to have been doing this since they started, or at least since the Model S came out. They don't seem to have much trouble generating orders, so they're running flat out all the time. Seems like they ought to reserve a few percent of their production capacity for repair parts, even if it hurts the delivery numbers a bit.
      - greenhatman 10y ago
        I guess when demand way outstrips supply, they don't have much incentive to, unfortunately.
        sangnoir 10y ago
        Their attitude towards repairs will lead to a drop in demand when Tesla's get a reputation of getting stuck in the shop for long spells. By then, it will be far too late to do anything - (see Jaguar)
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Then again manufacturers drive down costs by reusing parts across models, so often you can find the part even though the model you are driving is no longer being sold (never mind warranty). And at least with mechanical parts, there is always the option of third parties making parts. Its quite a different story when talking custom chips and firmware. Consider the humble window wiper. More often than not these days it is not mechanical, but a electric motor driven by a chip hooked up to the CAN bus. Similarly the central door locking and electric windows are likely to be on a single card pr door hooked up to CAN and an electric wire (the one in the driver side door being a bit more elaborate as it has controls for all the doors).
- falcolas 10y ago
  Having the right to repair won't help when there are no parts with which to conduct repairs. I'm a fan of the right to repair my own gadgets and cars, but that wasn't the underlying cause of this delay (unless, of course, you are a skilled sheet aluminum worker who could produce the appropriate pieces).
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    Having specs, and dimensions, allow 3rd party or diy replacement. As is, we are flailing in the dark.
  - deleted 10y ago
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- jezclaremurugan 10y ago
  But the availability of spare parts influences the resale value of the car (at least in India) which in turn influences the buyers of new cars to buy from manufacturers who provide spares at a reasonable price (Ex. Maruti in India). But I guess people who buy Teslas wouldn't focus too much on the resale value though.
- r00fus 10y ago
  You do realize that the recently discussed Nebraska bill has a carve-out for automotive sector, right [1]? Large industries with well-established lobbying efforts will always find a way to exempt themselves from even sensible sounding legislation (possibly because of unintended consequences that could cripple their business model). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676324
- neurotech1 10y ago
  1. I support right-to-repair. 2. A friend is a huge Telsa fan, and the body repair service use written-off Telsas for spares to fix damaged cars regularly. The parts required for the OPs repair would almost certainly have to be pulled from a new chassis on the line, or a written off chassis. 3. The stock price is volatile, and the "market" reacts to negative stories all the time.
alistairSH 10y ago
One would think repair-parts supply chain was a solved problem. But, not even Daimler-Chrysler can get it right. In 2014, my then-new Jeep Wrangler was rear-ended to the tune of $10,000 damage. It took nearly 2 months for the body panels to be available. And about 3 months for the repairs to be completed.
- vanattab 10y ago
  I have a question about this. I just bought a new jeep wrangler unlimited and a coworker recommended that I remove the spare wheel on the back of the jeep and store it in the cargo space. He said that in the advent of a rear-end collision the wheel gets rammed through the back door panels causing much more damage then otherwise would occur. Did this happen in your case?
  - macintux 10y ago
    I would recommend dropping by wranglerforum.com and asking that question. I've not heard that concern before.
  - alistairSH 10y ago
    That's a great, big "Maybe?" If the collision might have otherwise hit the bumper instead of the spare AND was slow enough to not damage the bumper, I suppose that could happen. More likely to be true if you back into a stationary object than somebody rear-ending you. Most cars are going to be below the spare wheel of a Jeep. This is definitely an issue on smaller SUVs (RAV4, etc) because they are low enough that the spare gets hit by any full size truck/SUV. In my case, I had a bike rack installed in the hitch. The rack (and bike) got bent up into the tailgate. The collision was bad enough to push my parked Jeep a full car length, bend the frame, twist the rollcage, damage the exhaust, tailgate, floorpan, both tail-lights, left-rear quarter, spare wheel, and rear window (soft-top). I was amazed the car wasn't totaled (probably would have been had it not been well-optioned and basically new). In addition to the car, a $5000 bicycle and $600 rack were destroyed. And I hurt my ankle. All by a freaking Smart Car with a driver to busy checking text messages. Grrrrr.
- 10y ago
funkdified 10y ago
What a royal pain in the ass.
grandalf 10y ago
Not sure how often this happens, but if it is frequent, Tesla should simply offer to take the damaged vehicle as a trade-in toward a new model, and allow the owner to stop making payments until the new car is ready for delivery. Not a scalable strategy, but surely a blog post like this one does tremendous harm to Tesla's brand reputation and so it's worth having a good (if costly) solution in place.
- khedoros1 10y ago
  There was another Tesla repair story, where the guy had bought the floor model, or something. It was basically a lemon, and Tesla's solution was to offer to sell him a new car at the difference between the sales prices ($20-$30k, I think). The people in this story also bought a discounted car. Personally, I'd be loath to spend a car's worth of money to trade "up" to another vehicle from the same manufacturer.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > Personally, I'd be loath to spend a car's worth of money to trade "up" I completely agree. But they are put into a position where the car is completely illiquid as an asset and also offers no transportation value for an indeterminate amount of time, which limits the owner's ability to plan or pursue a reasonable plan B. If the parts scarcity was expected to last 12 months and the cost of renting a loaner was $200/month, perhaps the owner would turn out to be better off trading it in and taking delivery of a new Tesla. Another way to handle it would be for insurers to bake in the possibility of a year long wait for parts into the price of collision coverage loaner options. If the scenario is rare this insurance would be cheap.
transfire 10y ago
How hard is it really? 1. Stock spare parts based on accident actuaries. 2. When stock runs out, license parts manufacturing to 3rd party. 3. Offer trade-in incentives for crashed cars, lowing the overall "totaling" value, and use those cars for parts.
- macintux 10y ago
  Tesla seems to have fallen into the same trap that many software companies do: chasing new customers at the expense of those who've already bought in.
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  The manufacturing seems to be quite problematic. On the one hand they have very specific requirements, and for the past three or four years have had a significant number of small issues that have held up production. On the other hand, both the massive amount of custom electronics and the aluminum unibody are uncommon, so few manufacturers will have experience with them. The other thing is.... very few of them crash. So there isn't a big incentive to invest the massive amount of time and money it would take to replicate and certify all the manufacturing with 3rd parties. It makes more sense to just let a few customers get fucked over.
city41 10y ago
I'm in a similar situation with SolarCity. Although mine is far less dire. There's been a billing snafu on our solar panels ever since we bought our house and took over their lease. We bought it in October. It's now March and they still have not resolved the problem and have no ETA on when it will be fixed. When I researched this issue, I found other customers who said it took 10 months for SolarCity to right the problem. I get the impression these companies aren't putting as much resources into customer service as they should.
Pigo 10y ago
I've been waiting to hear what repair and even general maintenance is like on these cars before I'd consider buying one myself. These cars are amazing, but I can't afford to buy a luxury car that I can't work on myself. Even if it's the fault of the infrastructure needing to be built up before cost of owning goes down, I'm forced to wait.
- 8draco8 10y ago
  You will not be able to work on virtually any new luxury car. They are so technically advance that usually anything outside putting in fuel have to be done by authorised service.
  - Pigo 10y ago
    That is true, but I always figured Tesla was out of my reach until I heard about the Model 3, and it's non-luxury price tag.
- chrisper 10y ago
  Is it really a luxury car? A lot of people say you pay the price for the tech and not for the quality (luxury). Maybe it is a luxury car from the buyers perspective just based on the price. Either way, the quality in a Tesla is not luxury. Many people say that and I agree with them.
  - Pigo 10y ago
    By luxury I simply mean the 'drop it like it's hot' factor. I have a feeling people will look past a lambo to scope someone driving a Tesla.
    - DavidMcLaughlin 10y ago
      You know there are places where they use Teslas as taxis right? I was picked up in a Tesla at the standard Schipol Airport taxi line.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
> After three months had passed and the body shop had still not received all the necessary parts, we began reaching out to Tesla directly through their customer service channels, which serves as a liaison to the internal parts department. That's the body shop's job (and failure), not yours. It's one downside of having "authorized" shops with only one in the author's area. In theory, the body shop should have a dedicated representative at Tesla they can talk to directly, and should escalate enough to get the parts long before the 45-day rental period available through the author's insurance limit was up. > There were still a few outstanding parts, including bulb rivets. Bulb rivets are common parts. You might not be able to buy the right ones at the local hardware store, but they're readily available from McMaster, Fastenal, Grainger, etc. And I guarantee that Tesla has buckets of them on hand. Again, the body shop should have taken care of this. > It turns out that the 12V battery is also now in need of replacement, as it will no longer hold a charge (perhaps related to how long the car has been sitting idle?). Did the body shop not know to recharge it occasionally? As far as I know as a non-Tesla owner, this 12V battery is always on, listening for the remote fob, monitoring the main battery, and so on. Of course it would become discharged after sitting for half a year, and apparently so deeply discharged as to damage itself. And as an ICE-car owner, there are other things that must be done to any car that sits for a long time. Perhaps the body shop is better at taking care of conventional cars and lead acid batteries, and just needs a little experience and education about lithium-ion systems? > It also calls into question Tesla's ability to support its existing customer base, which is of critical relevance to whether or not Tesla can support a massively larger customer base. The company is still targeting 500,000 units in 2018. As many analysts and pundits point out, the mainstream is far less forgiving for this sort of thing compared to enthusiastic early adopters. A massively larger customer base is probably easier to support, per customer. There are junkyards full of my exact car, and non-OEM manufacturers and parts stores with huge inventories of parts for it, and people who have repaired hundreds of cars just like mine. When thousands of mechanics have a half-used bag of Tesla panel bulb rivets in a toolbox drawer, things won't be held up waiting for the part. This is something that will probably get better with time, not worse.
- obsurveyor 10y ago
  > Perhaps the body shop is better at taking care of conventional cars and lead acid batteries, and just needs a little experience and education about lithium-ion systems? Lithium-ion batteries are much less subject to drain over time if they're not being used. The Model S uses a 12V lead-acid battery though(and subject to the drain and upkeep you mentioned), so I'm not sure why they author has been waiting on this bespoke, single manufacturer one. Unless maybe the connectors are non-standard?
M_Grey 10y ago
For me, this is just more evidence that this a highly promising technology that isn't ready for me to invest in yet, as an owner of a Tesla vehicle. That said, even this guy who's had a nightmarish experience is essentially crying out for help, and still considering another Tesla purchase so... that says something too. I'll wait and see, as I suspect many other people will, and hopefully Tesla can work these issues out before they come to define them.
- ebbv 10y ago
  There's nothing here about "technology" not being ready. There's no EV specific parts involved. This is just bad customer service and parts delivery.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    You're right, I should have said "product" or something similar and made it clear that I wasn't referring to EV tech on the whole.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  In the meantime, Toyota has plug-in hybrids.
  - giarc 10y ago
    And Chevy has all electric... and Nissan
  - lb1lf 10y ago
    And, while arguably not the sexiest of marques, their service organization is brilliant. Even here (Way out in the boonies, a small island off the west coast of Norway), anything and everything I have ever needed to keep my nigh on 20 year old Toyota running has arrived the morning after ordering at 8AM. Granted, I haven't needed any really exotic parts - but they still impress me. Heck, the body panels are even available pre-painted as they only imported a few paint codes in that model year! I can see a number of valid reasons not to become a Toyota owner. Their service organization is not one of them!
known 10y ago
Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879869
- timdorr 10y ago
  Different article.
aluminussoma 10y ago
The "Auto Dealer Lobby" in Texas has been saying this would happen for a while: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/05/20/texas-auto-dealers-receive-tesla-sized-dent-from-state-gop http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/05/20/texas-aut... I assumed it was just the usual political grandstanding to keep Tesla out. Here we have an example of this happening.
- mikeash 10y ago
  That's not quite the same. The dealers there are talking about regular maintenance and repair, not post-accident body work. Tesla already allows third parties to do body work, and in fact won't do it themselves. Getting dealers involved wouldn't help in any case, since the problem is getting parts from the manufacturer.
  - dawnerd 10y ago
    And what's funny is I've been to a lot of dealers that refuse to touch body work too. They might say they do but they end up passing it off to a local company behind the scenes.
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      My experience as well. I tend to praise Toyota as Tesla Lite, but I've had one Toyota dealer just refer me to a body shop (although another did take over some work themselves).
methodin 10y ago
A little reminiscent to me of experiences at restaurants. An otherwise excellent restaurant can be completely ruined experience-wise by a bad server. Ultimately your opinion is attached to the institution even though its liaisons are (perhaps) more at fault. It's a shame really but ultimately Tesla has to own customer experiences, especially if they are working through third-parties unfamiliar with their product. Do they have plans to create electric-specific body shops or incentives to do so? It's certainly be warranted in areas where their vehicles are widespread.
- protomyth 10y ago
  > especially if they are working through third-parties unfamiliar with their product. Why would Tesla say a third-party is certified if the third-party is "unfamiliar" with Tesla's product?
prepend 10y ago
This is really unpleasant for the owner, but is fairly typical of boutique cars. If you drive a rare car, parts will be delayed and repairs will be expensive and take a long time. Only having one repair shop is a problem, but is also due to Tesla being a low volume, rare car. With the Model E, this should be a little better, but I expect these stories for the next few years. Similar to if you owned a Fisker or Koenigsegg or something, although those are much lower volume than Tesla.
- plg 10y ago
  I don't know how low volume or rare they are but for about the same $$ as a Tesla I could buy a brand new Mercedes S-class. Likely best service experience one can ever have, not to mention arguably the most luxe car ever
  - skykooler 10y ago
    Mercedes has also had a hundred years to build up supply lines.
    - mikestew 10y ago
      From the customer viewpoint, for the same amount of money, one has superior service and one doesn't. History as a rationalization is not a factor when my money is on the line.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      No one is arguing as to why these issues emerge, they're just arguing that they don't want to subsidize them.
- mywittyname 10y ago
  Exactly, had this been a Lotus or even a seemingly pedestrian Chevy SS, he's probably be in the same situation. Getting parts for my Australian-built Pontiac was often a frustration for the same reasons: rare cars are very difficult to source parts for.
- 10y ago
peterwwillis 10y ago
When I was 20 I owned a 1993 Toyota MR-2 that had a front clip from a foreign MR-2 Turbo. Loved that car. When the hose from hell blew and the turbo's springed rubber oil gasket needed replacing, it took me months to discover a single Toyota dealership in Australia (seriously) that had the part. When it wasn't broken it was great, though. Owning a Tesla is all well and good while it's running. But you're limited by how you can refuel it and only one company can make the parts. Much like the exotic sports car, you simply cannot depend on being able to repair it yourself, so it should not be considered a daily driver. You should probably keep a $2,000 1998 Honda Civic in the garage just in case.
- vanattab 10y ago
  I recommend a 1990's era Honda Civic Del Sol. It's a great car and uses almost all the same parts as the Civic's and Accords of the era. It's a little 2 door sports car with a removable hard top, and the manual transmission version is supper fun to drive and gets like 33mpg. I got a 1994 with 89,000 miles on it a few years back for $2500 put another 50,000 miles on it and just sold it for $2500. Best car I have ever owned. I would be willing to bet the true carbon footprint of buying and driving an old del sol for another 100k is less then buying a new tesla and driving it for 100k.
  - peterwwillis 10y ago
    I'm familiar with the Del Sol; I destroyed one's rear end when it stopped short in the middle of an intersection (my car's bumper was scratched) so for practical and safety reasons I recommend the 4-door Civic. But it's impressive that yours never lost value! If I wanted a fun sporty cheap 2-seater, the only choice for me would be the Mazda MX-5. For $2.5k you can cruise over to the autocross track with the top down, beat a Corvette's lap times, and then cruise home all without breaking 30mpg. (Okay, so maybe you'll need either amazing driving skills or race tires to beat the Corvette, but it's doable ;))
  - macintux 10y ago
    I drove my del Sol for 14 years; most of that time, it was my only vehicle. Fantastic car until it tried to kill me. (Lesson learned: don't ignore noises from the front end.)
tracker1 10y ago
Seems like a classic negligence law suit for loss of access waiting to happen.
Para2016 10y ago
Without finding evidence myself, I'd like to know more about other instances of Tesla vehicle repairs. Right now I just have this sample size of 1, so it's hard to make a judgement about how Tesla deals with other customer's repair jobs. Is this just an anecdote of a rare occurrence and a customer service failure, or an example of a more pervasive problem? Would be good to know more.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  I ran into someone (early Tesla, no automatic braking) and it took 6 weeks to get repaired by a 3rd party body shop. One week was wasted because the repair shop and the insurance company were failing to connect about getting the estimate approved. Two weeks were wasted with the car sitting at Tesla to get new airbags. The 3 weeks of actual body shop work could probably have been shorter, but obviously they didn't have a long wait for parts.
kwisatzh 10y ago
I recently had a very similar experience with my Model S, although it was a month as opposed to multiple months that the author faced. I had a front bumper issue, and by all accounts it was a minor collision (car was moving at around 4mph). Needed the bumper replaced, along with parts that sit behind the bumper. Tesla handed it over to a body-shop who (a) sat on it due to needed parts, authorized by Tesla, (b) took time to repair/assemble as only certified (by Tesla) technicians can work on the car, (c) the certification is apparently expensive and time-consuming so most body shops can only afford to have one technician at best to be certified, (d) this leads to large delays I can't think of an easy solution here -- as an owner I'd like the car back in a shape that's as good as before, and certified by the maker. But the bottlenecks here seem to be with Tesla.
jijojv 10y ago
This really sucks and these type of repair delays are very common as my other colleague/owners have experienced. I can't imagine going back to enduring the 1 hr stop and go commute without Autopilot.
Animats 10y ago
Well, what did this guy expect? He bought a low-volume car, used, and then it was rear-ended. Getting body parts was slow. Tesla's only failure here is that they're not stocking a lot of sheet metal parts.
- mynameisvlad 10y ago
  > Tesla's only failure here is that they're not stocking a lot of sheet metal parts. That's a pretty big failure for a car manufacturer. I don't really understand why you're underplaying their issues and trying to blame the victim. It's all Tesla's and the body shop's faults. Entirely.
timdorr 10y ago
Copying my post from the reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/5y3fwe/a_very_well_written_story_on_what_i_consider_to/denafgc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/5y3fwe/a_very_... Can confirm. I was in an accident 5 months ago [1] and still don't have my car back. The body shop finally got all the parts a couple weeks ago and finished up the build, but because it's all newer revisions of those parts, the car is refusing to boot up. It's been sent up to Tesla to get it serviced by them. Honestly, I don't know when I'll get it back at this point. Good thing I got a P90D... I love the Tesla service folks. They're some of the best. They are just ridiculously overwhelmed. And my follow up comment today: Actually, as a follow up, it appears Tesla Decatur (here in Georgia) has gotten to my car today. I have been getting notifications of software update failures from the app over the past few weeks. I just got some failure notifications now and the car says it's at the service center. And I just got a successful update notification, so I guess they've fixed it. Still, it took about 4 months to go through all the hardware work and end up with this software problem. Tesla Parts was the big choke point in the whole process. Looks like the Tesla Decatur team is down to a 1 week response time, which bodes well for Elon's claims. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/55oibb/welp_i_guess_im_getting_a_new_car/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/55oibb/welp_i_...
- peteboyd 10y ago
  I did not know this existed until recently, but you and the article poster probably have a very good claim for diminished value and loss of use. Basically non use of your high-end car for many months. I recently created a short online quiz for a law firm in Florida that checks to see if you have a claim. It was a completely new area of law that I did not even know about. It does email your contact info at the end - in case you want to be contacted. Anyways if anyone is interested it is at http://www.diminishedvalue.law/quiz/ http://www.diminishedvalue.law/quiz/ and is based on Florida law. I am not trying to hype the firm. There are other firms that do the same thing. I just happen to know about this one.
  - quasse 10y ago
    I think you might have wanted to do some input validation: http://imgur.com/a/510dc http://imgur.com/a/510dc
JaggerFoo 10y ago
"To say that this whole experience has been traumatizing would be an understatement." "We are now questioning our Model 3 reservation." Just "Questioning" the next product purchase? Does this mean that Tesla is the new Apple?
nye2k 10y ago
There will be more horror stories like this as Teslas are not maintainable by their owners, making them throw away vehicles. Last I read, Tesla service manuals are only provided as a subscription service to the public... and only in Massachusetts as the state has "right-to-repair" legislature forcing it.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  What does this article about body work have to do with routine repairs?
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    Parts availability, right to repair, etc. A lot actually.
deelowe 10y ago
I was considering getting a Tesla next year when my leaf is paid off, but had reservations about not being near a service center. This more or less solidifies for me that I shouldn't get one.
coding123 10y ago
To the author, it was lawsuit time after 1 month. Sell your shares and sue immediately and cancel your Model 3 reservation.
psy-q 10y ago
What kind of country is this where insurance is not mandatory for owning a vehicle? He wrote that the other driver wasn't insured. So in the US, it's legal to drive a car without having insurance? My mind is blown. This kind of thing would have cost me a maximum of exactly zero if it had happened here (Switzerland, but I'm guessing it's similar in the EU). Insurance is mandatory and the insurer of whoever caused the accident pays. Unless they flee the scene, but that's its own crime, so most people don't. That said: We had two larger issues with our Model S so far, one time it had to be repaired in an Italian body shop while on holiday, but that was done in less than 48 hours. It wasn't even a Tesla service center, just one of their partners. The other issue involved the drive train, it started making whining noises after two years. They fixed that for free (new motor and drive train) and gave us a free loaner for a week. One time it didn't recover from a software update and had to be towed -- again, a free loaner, Tesla paid for the towing and even had the vehicle brought back to our door because I was sick with a high fever and couldn't go pick it up. They usually make you pick it up. Another time I snapped off the windshield wiper by accident because I'm an idiot, it was on our way to France. The service center in Geneva made room to fix this (had to replace the whole wiper assembly) and we were back on our trip less than 30 minutes after arriving at their shop unannounced. So I guess it all depends on what's broken and where you are. Disclaimer (do we need to have disclaimers for this now or is that just on Motley Fool?): I have Tesla shares and used to have Solar City shares as well, but the damn thieves switched my Solar City for Tesla at USD 290, so now I'm short 50 Dollars per share. Serious first world problems, eh?
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  So in the US, it's legal to drive a car without having insurance? No, of course not.[1] The exact details by state. But there are many problems. Here are some off the top of my head: 1) maximum penalties for allowing insurance to lapse might be light, and if you're a bad driver insurance might be expensive to purchase. Even for much worse than a simple accident, the penalties might be light. For example, for quite a while a nearby city, Portland Oregon, was doing "catch and release" for actual car thieves (I neither know nor care if they still do it). What that meant is if they caught you driving a stolen car the police would write you a citation on the spot and then let you go. You would "promise" to appear in court some number of months later! The argument was that they didn't have enough jail space for such petty criminals. 2) you might be "judgement proof". If you have no assets, even if you are sued, then you just don't pay. People rarely if ever get put in jail if they can't pay a civil judgement. So why bother to continue to pay for insurance if you're driving a crappy car and you don't care what happens to anyone you hit? 3) You might not even have a license, or it might have been suspended for previous bad behavior. (And it's probably difficult to purchase insurance under those circumstances). So, what can the government do, suspend your already suspended license? That probably works about as well as "double secret probation" worked in Animal House. 4) I can think of many similar scenarios, but you get the point In short, the USA is not at all as homogeneous a country as Switzerland. There are plenty of lowlifes around who just don't give a shit. And very little is ever done by the government to persuade them to change their behavior. To protect themselves from such situations, many people add "uninsured motorist" coverage to their insurance policy. This means your insurer pays you even if the other guy doesn't have insurance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_insurance_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_insurance_in_the_Unite...
brokenmachine 10y ago
https://syonyk.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/is-tesla-building-throwaway-cars.html https://syonyk.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/is-tesla-building-thr... I read that blogpost and decided I would never buy a Tesla unless there are massive changes.

283 points by Corrado 10y ago

A friend in the UK has a Tesla and his front screen cracked - took Tesla over two months to replace it :-(

My initial impression of this brand was that they take customers very seriously. Everything from the design of the vehicle to their website appears customer centric. This article is making me reconsider a future purchase of a Tesla vehicle.

hogrammer 10y ago

I'd start by filing a civil suit against the uninsured driver that hit him.

vkou 10y ago

A few observations: 1. This is precisely why it's important to legislate right-to-repair. This is why auto manufacturers are required, by law, to continue to manufacture replacement parts for their cars, long after they have stopped being sold. Hopefully, Tesla can get this figured out. 2. Soviet auto manufacturers had this exact same problem. They were incentivized to sell cars, not spare parts - so finding parts for repairing your broken Lada (Which was just as likely as not to be broken as it rolled off the assembly line) took a breads-and-fishes miracle. 3. What does this have to do with stock picks... Oh.

k__ 10y ago
Why didn't people just make a business of buying ladas and and selling the parts?
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Soviet Russia didn't exactly support the entrepreneurial spirit.
  - k__ 10y ago
    fair enough :\
  - fisherjeff 10y ago
    Maybe not in a traditional sense, but they did have a pretty robust black market
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      And as I hear the stories, this did happen. Cars are tough because you can't do a mechanic's job without tools and some obvious space, but there are at least stories of people getting cars and parting them out at a profit. (Similarly, there are stories of tank "repair" in WWII happening by taking finished tanks meant for service and stripping them for parts to repair multiple other tanks.)
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        One of my favorite anecdotes is from an old episode of Car Talk. A woman called in to ask if the following was ok (I'm paraphrasing from memory): "So my neighbor, who's from a former Soviet Bloc country is a great guy who helps me out when my car breaks down. One time my battery is dead, so he offers to jump start my car. While I look on baffled, then shocked, he unscrews his car's battery from the mounting, then flips it over and presses the contacts directly to my car's battery. It started though! So is that safe?" To further paraphrase the guys' responses... "Oh god no!!!" They further went on to point out though, that at some point when your life is dangerous and hard as a kind of background state, the little things stop even grabbing your notice. The degree of black marketeering in the USSR was just... staggering. Systemic. Understood to be "how the system works". Sometimes though you get tragedies like Vladimir Komarov. The space vehicle is shoddily constructed, running dangerously low on fuel; its parachutes — though no one knows this — won't work and the cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, is about to, literally, crash full speed into Earth, his body turning molten on impact. As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, "cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship." http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/co...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  You would have had trouble finding the parts or finding parts for the machines to build the parts. Or finding the parts to build the machines to build the parts to build the machines to build the parts. I hope you get the idea.
- andosa 10y ago
  Because you couldnt just walk into a shop and buy a car. You literally had to have a car buying permit, which might take years to get. Because of this, used cars could cost singificantly more than a brand new one from a shop.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  Old Soviet joke: "I want to sign up for the waiting list for a car. How long is it?" / "Precisely ten years from today." / "Morning or evening?" / "Why, what difference does it make?" / "The plumber's due in the morning". The easiest way to get spare parts was simply to steal them. Cars were frequently stolen off the street and stripped. Factory workers would smuggle in old parts, fit them to cars on the production line and smuggle out the new parts. The spares that were available invariably ended up being funnelled off into the black market. See also the Soviet black market for blown light bulbs: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/02/markets-in-everything-hardly-anything.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/02/mar...
  - burntrelish1273 10y ago
    This, sir, is hilarious btw. Also, a friend of mine from Moscow IRL 90's once said the electricity went out because the power lines were stolen.
    - tacon 10y ago
      I think 2000s Iraq had thieves steal the power lines, too.
    - walshemj 10y ago
      In the UK cable thieves thieves are a problem for telecoms and rail industry attaching a 4x4 to one end and dragging the cable out is one popular technique. This some times all messes up the power for trains
- vkou 10y ago
  Because, just like concert tickets, there weren't enough cars, and they were sold at below-market price. This meant that people would pre-order vehicles years in advance - and had to get extremely 'creative' when it came to keeping them running. (As jdietrich alluded to.) The other problem with cars is that given 10 broken vehicles, there is high likelihood that 4 of them have the same broken part.
  - elboru 10y ago
    This is still a problem in Cuba, Ladas are still really common over there, I just can't imagine all the hacks they must do on a daily basis just to keep them running. I spent my last vacations in Cuba, one day I met a really nice taxi driver who owned a Lada, he asked for my E-Mail and asked me to let him know of any Lada parts seller.
mikeash 10y ago
As far as I can tell, it's a myth that manufacturers are required to continue making replacement parts for any particular period of time. A manufacturer needs to be able to fulfill its warranty obligations, which they usually do by manufacturing spare parts for at least as long as their customers have warranties, but that's it. This is definitely something Tesla needs to fix and soon. It shouldn't be hard, so either I'm missing something or they're doing as you describe in (2) and prioritizing new production over spares.
- revelation 10y ago
  A particular problem for Tesla seems to be that basically every quarter now they desperately focus on producing new cars to hit their production targets, which then just grow exponentially for next quarter..
  - mikeash 10y ago
    They seem to have been doing this since they started, or at least since the Model S came out. They don't seem to have much trouble generating orders, so they're running flat out all the time. Seems like they ought to reserve a few percent of their production capacity for repair parts, even if it hurts the delivery numbers a bit.
    - greenhatman 10y ago
      I guess when demand way outstrips supply, they don't have much incentive to, unfortunately.
      - sangnoir 10y ago
        Their attitude towards repairs will lead to a drop in demand when Tesla's get a reputation of getting stuck in the shop for long spells. By then, it will be far too late to do anything - (see Jaguar)
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Then again manufacturers drive down costs by reusing parts across models, so often you can find the part even though the model you are driving is no longer being sold (never mind warranty). And at least with mechanical parts, there is always the option of third parties making parts. Its quite a different story when talking custom chips and firmware. Consider the humble window wiper. More often than not these days it is not mechanical, but a electric motor driven by a chip hooked up to the CAN bus. Similarly the central door locking and electric windows are likely to be on a single card pr door hooked up to CAN and an electric wire (the one in the driver side door being a bit more elaborate as it has controls for all the doors).
falcolas 10y ago
Having the right to repair won't help when there are no parts with which to conduct repairs. I'm a fan of the right to repair my own gadgets and cars, but that wasn't the underlying cause of this delay (unless, of course, you are a skilled sheet aluminum worker who could produce the appropriate pieces).
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Having specs, and dimensions, allow 3rd party or diy replacement. As is, we are flailing in the dark.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
jezclaremurugan 10y ago
But the availability of spare parts influences the resale value of the car (at least in India) which in turn influences the buyers of new cars to buy from manufacturers who provide spares at a reasonable price (Ex. Maruti in India). But I guess people who buy Teslas wouldn't focus too much on the resale value though.
r00fus 10y ago
You do realize that the recently discussed Nebraska bill has a carve-out for automotive sector, right [1]? Large industries with well-established lobbying efforts will always find a way to exempt themselves from even sensible sounding legislation (possibly because of unintended consequences that could cripple their business model). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676324
neurotech1 10y ago
1. I support right-to-repair. 2. A friend is a huge Telsa fan, and the body repair service use written-off Telsas for spares to fix damaged cars regularly. The parts required for the OPs repair would almost certainly have to be pulled from a new chassis on the line, or a written off chassis. 3. The stock price is volatile, and the "market" reacts to negative stories all the time.

alistairSH 10y ago

One would think repair-parts supply chain was a solved problem. But, not even Daimler-Chrysler can get it right. In 2014, my then-new Jeep Wrangler was rear-ended to the tune of $10,000 damage. It took nearly 2 months for the body panels to be available. And about 3 months for the repairs to be completed.

vanattab 10y ago
I have a question about this. I just bought a new jeep wrangler unlimited and a coworker recommended that I remove the spare wheel on the back of the jeep and store it in the cargo space. He said that in the advent of a rear-end collision the wheel gets rammed through the back door panels causing much more damage then otherwise would occur. Did this happen in your case?
- macintux 10y ago
  I would recommend dropping by wranglerforum.com and asking that question. I've not heard that concern before.
- alistairSH 10y ago
  That's a great, big "Maybe?" If the collision might have otherwise hit the bumper instead of the spare AND was slow enough to not damage the bumper, I suppose that could happen. More likely to be true if you back into a stationary object than somebody rear-ending you. Most cars are going to be below the spare wheel of a Jeep. This is definitely an issue on smaller SUVs (RAV4, etc) because they are low enough that the spare gets hit by any full size truck/SUV. In my case, I had a bike rack installed in the hitch. The rack (and bike) got bent up into the tailgate. The collision was bad enough to push my parked Jeep a full car length, bend the frame, twist the rollcage, damage the exhaust, tailgate, floorpan, both tail-lights, left-rear quarter, spare wheel, and rear window (soft-top). I was amazed the car wasn't totaled (probably would have been had it not been well-optioned and basically new). In addition to the car, a $5000 bicycle and $600 rack were destroyed. And I hurt my ankle. All by a freaking Smart Car with a driver to busy checking text messages. Grrrrr.
10y ago

funkdified 10y ago

What a royal pain in the ass.

grandalf 10y ago

Not sure how often this happens, but if it is frequent, Tesla should simply offer to take the damaged vehicle as a trade-in toward a new model, and allow the owner to stop making payments until the new car is ready for delivery. Not a scalable strategy, but surely a blog post like this one does tremendous harm to Tesla's brand reputation and so it's worth having a good (if costly) solution in place.

khedoros1 10y ago
There was another Tesla repair story, where the guy had bought the floor model, or something. It was basically a lemon, and Tesla's solution was to offer to sell him a new car at the difference between the sales prices ($20-$30k, I think). The people in this story also bought a discounted car. Personally, I'd be loath to spend a car's worth of money to trade "up" to another vehicle from the same manufacturer.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > Personally, I'd be loath to spend a car's worth of money to trade "up" I completely agree. But they are put into a position where the car is completely illiquid as an asset and also offers no transportation value for an indeterminate amount of time, which limits the owner's ability to plan or pursue a reasonable plan B. If the parts scarcity was expected to last 12 months and the cost of renting a loaner was $200/month, perhaps the owner would turn out to be better off trading it in and taking delivery of a new Tesla. Another way to handle it would be for insurers to bake in the possibility of a year long wait for parts into the price of collision coverage loaner options. If the scenario is rare this insurance would be cheap.

transfire 10y ago

How hard is it really? 1. Stock spare parts based on accident actuaries. 2. When stock runs out, license parts manufacturing to 3rd party. 3. Offer trade-in incentives for crashed cars, lowing the overall "totaling" value, and use those cars for parts.

macintux 10y ago
Tesla seems to have fallen into the same trap that many software companies do: chasing new customers at the expense of those who've already bought in.
peterwwillis 10y ago
The manufacturing seems to be quite problematic. On the one hand they have very specific requirements, and for the past three or four years have had a significant number of small issues that have held up production. On the other hand, both the massive amount of custom electronics and the aluminum unibody are uncommon, so few manufacturers will have experience with them. The other thing is.... very few of them crash. So there isn't a big incentive to invest the massive amount of time and money it would take to replicate and certify all the manufacturing with 3rd parties. It makes more sense to just let a few customers get fucked over.

city41 10y ago

I'm in a similar situation with SolarCity. Although mine is far less dire. There's been a billing snafu on our solar panels ever since we bought our house and took over their lease. We bought it in October. It's now March and they still have not resolved the problem and have no ETA on when it will be fixed. When I researched this issue, I found other customers who said it took 10 months for SolarCity to right the problem. I get the impression these companies aren't putting as much resources into customer service as they should.

Pigo 10y ago

I've been waiting to hear what repair and even general maintenance is like on these cars before I'd consider buying one myself. These cars are amazing, but I can't afford to buy a luxury car that I can't work on myself. Even if it's the fault of the infrastructure needing to be built up before cost of owning goes down, I'm forced to wait.

8draco8 10y ago
You will not be able to work on virtually any new luxury car. They are so technically advance that usually anything outside putting in fuel have to be done by authorised service.
- Pigo 10y ago
  That is true, but I always figured Tesla was out of my reach until I heard about the Model 3, and it's non-luxury price tag.
chrisper 10y ago
Is it really a luxury car? A lot of people say you pay the price for the tech and not for the quality (luxury). Maybe it is a luxury car from the buyers perspective just based on the price. Either way, the quality in a Tesla is not luxury. Many people say that and I agree with them.
- Pigo 10y ago
  By luxury I simply mean the 'drop it like it's hot' factor. I have a feeling people will look past a lambo to scope someone driving a Tesla.
  - DavidMcLaughlin 10y ago
    You know there are places where they use Teslas as taxis right? I was picked up in a Tesla at the standard Schipol Airport taxi line.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

> After three months had passed and the body shop had still not received all the necessary parts, we began reaching out to Tesla directly through their customer service channels, which serves as a liaison to the internal parts department. That's the body shop's job (and failure), not yours. It's one downside of having "authorized" shops with only one in the author's area. In theory, the body shop should have a dedicated representative at Tesla they can talk to directly, and should escalate enough to get the parts long before the 45-day rental period available through the author's insurance limit was up. > There were still a few outstanding parts, including bulb rivets. Bulb rivets are common parts. You might not be able to buy the right ones at the local hardware store, but they're readily available from McMaster, Fastenal, Grainger, etc. And I guarantee that Tesla has buckets of them on hand. Again, the body shop should have taken care of this. > It turns out that the 12V battery is also now in need of replacement, as it will no longer hold a charge (perhaps related to how long the car has been sitting idle?). Did the body shop not know to recharge it occasionally? As far as I know as a non-Tesla owner, this 12V battery is always on, listening for the remote fob, monitoring the main battery, and so on. Of course it would become discharged after sitting for half a year, and apparently so deeply discharged as to damage itself. And as an ICE-car owner, there are other things that must be done to any car that sits for a long time. Perhaps the body shop is better at taking care of conventional cars and lead acid batteries, and just needs a little experience and education about lithium-ion systems? > It also calls into question Tesla's ability to support its existing customer base, which is of critical relevance to whether or not Tesla can support a massively larger customer base. The company is still targeting 500,000 units in 2018. As many analysts and pundits point out, the mainstream is far less forgiving for this sort of thing compared to enthusiastic early adopters. A massively larger customer base is probably easier to support, per customer. There are junkyards full of my exact car, and non-OEM manufacturers and parts stores with huge inventories of parts for it, and people who have repaired hundreds of cars just like mine. When thousands of mechanics have a half-used bag of Tesla panel bulb rivets in a toolbox drawer, things won't be held up waiting for the part. This is something that will probably get better with time, not worse.

obsurveyor 10y ago
> Perhaps the body shop is better at taking care of conventional cars and lead acid batteries, and just needs a little experience and education about lithium-ion systems? Lithium-ion batteries are much less subject to drain over time if they're not being used. The Model S uses a 12V lead-acid battery though(and subject to the drain and upkeep you mentioned), so I'm not sure why they author has been waiting on this bespoke, single manufacturer one. Unless maybe the connectors are non-standard?

M_Grey 10y ago

For me, this is just more evidence that this a highly promising technology that isn't ready for me to invest in yet, as an owner of a Tesla vehicle. That said, even this guy who's had a nightmarish experience is essentially crying out for help, and still considering another Tesla purchase so... that says something too. I'll wait and see, as I suspect many other people will, and hopefully Tesla can work these issues out before they come to define them.

ebbv 10y ago
There's nothing here about "technology" not being ready. There's no EV specific parts involved. This is just bad customer service and parts delivery.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  You're right, I should have said "product" or something similar and made it clear that I wasn't referring to EV tech on the whole.
clock_tower 10y ago
In the meantime, Toyota has plug-in hybrids.
- giarc 10y ago
  And Chevy has all electric... and Nissan
- lb1lf 10y ago
  And, while arguably not the sexiest of marques, their service organization is brilliant. Even here (Way out in the boonies, a small island off the west coast of Norway), anything and everything I have ever needed to keep my nigh on 20 year old Toyota running has arrived the morning after ordering at 8AM. Granted, I haven't needed any really exotic parts - but they still impress me. Heck, the body panels are even available pre-painted as they only imported a few paint codes in that model year! I can see a number of valid reasons not to become a Toyota owner. Their service organization is not one of them!

known 10y ago

Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879869

timdorr 10y ago
Different article.

aluminussoma 10y ago

The "Auto Dealer Lobby" in Texas has been saying this would happen for a while: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/05/20/texas-auto-dealers-receive-tesla-sized-dent-from-state-gop http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/05/20/texas-aut... I assumed it was just the usual political grandstanding to keep Tesla out. Here we have an example of this happening.

mikeash 10y ago
That's not quite the same. The dealers there are talking about regular maintenance and repair, not post-accident body work. Tesla already allows third parties to do body work, and in fact won't do it themselves. Getting dealers involved wouldn't help in any case, since the problem is getting parts from the manufacturer.
- dawnerd 10y ago
  And what's funny is I've been to a lot of dealers that refuse to touch body work too. They might say they do but they end up passing it off to a local company behind the scenes.
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    My experience as well. I tend to praise Toyota as Tesla Lite, but I've had one Toyota dealer just refer me to a body shop (although another did take over some work themselves).

methodin 10y ago

A little reminiscent to me of experiences at restaurants. An otherwise excellent restaurant can be completely ruined experience-wise by a bad server. Ultimately your opinion is attached to the institution even though its liaisons are (perhaps) more at fault. It's a shame really but ultimately Tesla has to own customer experiences, especially if they are working through third-parties unfamiliar with their product. Do they have plans to create electric-specific body shops or incentives to do so? It's certainly be warranted in areas where their vehicles are widespread.

protomyth 10y ago
> especially if they are working through third-parties unfamiliar with their product. Why would Tesla say a third-party is certified if the third-party is "unfamiliar" with Tesla's product?

prepend 10y ago

This is really unpleasant for the owner, but is fairly typical of boutique cars. If you drive a rare car, parts will be delayed and repairs will be expensive and take a long time. Only having one repair shop is a problem, but is also due to Tesla being a low volume, rare car. With the Model E, this should be a little better, but I expect these stories for the next few years. Similar to if you owned a Fisker or Koenigsegg or something, although those are much lower volume than Tesla.

plg 10y ago
I don't know how low volume or rare they are but for about the same $$ as a Tesla I could buy a brand new Mercedes S-class. Likely best service experience one can ever have, not to mention arguably the most luxe car ever
- skykooler 10y ago
  Mercedes has also had a hundred years to build up supply lines.
  - mikestew 10y ago
    From the customer viewpoint, for the same amount of money, one has superior service and one doesn't. History as a rationalization is not a factor when my money is on the line.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    No one is arguing as to why these issues emerge, they're just arguing that they don't want to subsidize them.
mywittyname 10y ago
Exactly, had this been a Lotus or even a seemingly pedestrian Chevy SS, he's probably be in the same situation. Getting parts for my Australian-built Pontiac was often a frustration for the same reasons: rare cars are very difficult to source parts for.
10y ago

peterwwillis 10y ago

When I was 20 I owned a 1993 Toyota MR-2 that had a front clip from a foreign MR-2 Turbo. Loved that car. When the hose from hell blew and the turbo's springed rubber oil gasket needed replacing, it took me months to discover a single Toyota dealership in Australia (seriously) that had the part. When it wasn't broken it was great, though. Owning a Tesla is all well and good while it's running. But you're limited by how you can refuel it and only one company can make the parts. Much like the exotic sports car, you simply cannot depend on being able to repair it yourself, so it should not be considered a daily driver. You should probably keep a $2,000 1998 Honda Civic in the garage just in case.

vanattab 10y ago
I recommend a 1990's era Honda Civic Del Sol. It's a great car and uses almost all the same parts as the Civic's and Accords of the era. It's a little 2 door sports car with a removable hard top, and the manual transmission version is supper fun to drive and gets like 33mpg. I got a 1994 with 89,000 miles on it a few years back for $2500 put another 50,000 miles on it and just sold it for $2500. Best car I have ever owned. I would be willing to bet the true carbon footprint of buying and driving an old del sol for another 100k is less then buying a new tesla and driving it for 100k.
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  I'm familiar with the Del Sol; I destroyed one's rear end when it stopped short in the middle of an intersection (my car's bumper was scratched) so for practical and safety reasons I recommend the 4-door Civic. But it's impressive that yours never lost value! If I wanted a fun sporty cheap 2-seater, the only choice for me would be the Mazda MX-5. For $2.5k you can cruise over to the autocross track with the top down, beat a Corvette's lap times, and then cruise home all without breaking 30mpg. (Okay, so maybe you'll need either amazing driving skills or race tires to beat the Corvette, but it's doable ;))
- macintux 10y ago
  I drove my del Sol for 14 years; most of that time, it was my only vehicle. Fantastic car until it tried to kill me. (Lesson learned: don't ignore noises from the front end.)

tracker1 10y ago

Seems like a classic negligence law suit for loss of access waiting to happen.

Para2016 10y ago

Without finding evidence myself, I'd like to know more about other instances of Tesla vehicle repairs. Right now I just have this sample size of 1, so it's hard to make a judgement about how Tesla deals with other customer's repair jobs. Is this just an anecdote of a rare occurrence and a customer service failure, or an example of a more pervasive problem? Would be good to know more.

greglindahl 10y ago
I ran into someone (early Tesla, no automatic braking) and it took 6 weeks to get repaired by a 3rd party body shop. One week was wasted because the repair shop and the insurance company were failing to connect about getting the estimate approved. Two weeks were wasted with the car sitting at Tesla to get new airbags. The 3 weeks of actual body shop work could probably have been shorter, but obviously they didn't have a long wait for parts.

kwisatzh 10y ago

I recently had a very similar experience with my Model S, although it was a month as opposed to multiple months that the author faced. I had a front bumper issue, and by all accounts it was a minor collision (car was moving at around 4mph). Needed the bumper replaced, along with parts that sit behind the bumper. Tesla handed it over to a body-shop who (a) sat on it due to needed parts, authorized by Tesla, (b) took time to repair/assemble as only certified (by Tesla) technicians can work on the car, (c) the certification is apparently expensive and time-consuming so most body shops can only afford to have one technician at best to be certified, (d) this leads to large delays I can't think of an easy solution here -- as an owner I'd like the car back in a shape that's as good as before, and certified by the maker. But the bottlenecks here seem to be with Tesla.

jijojv 10y ago

This really sucks and these type of repair delays are very common as my other colleague/owners have experienced. I can't imagine going back to enduring the 1 hr stop and go commute without Autopilot.

Animats 10y ago

Well, what did this guy expect? He bought a low-volume car, used, and then it was rear-ended. Getting body parts was slow. Tesla's only failure here is that they're not stocking a lot of sheet metal parts.

mynameisvlad 10y ago
> Tesla's only failure here is that they're not stocking a lot of sheet metal parts. That's a pretty big failure for a car manufacturer. I don't really understand why you're underplaying their issues and trying to blame the victim. It's all Tesla's and the body shop's faults. Entirely.

timdorr 10y ago

Copying my post from the reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/5y3fwe/a_very_well_written_story_on_what_i_consider_to/denafgc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/5y3fwe/a_very_... Can confirm. I was in an accident 5 months ago [1] and still don't have my car back. The body shop finally got all the parts a couple weeks ago and finished up the build, but because it's all newer revisions of those parts, the car is refusing to boot up. It's been sent up to Tesla to get it serviced by them. Honestly, I don't know when I'll get it back at this point. Good thing I got a P90D... I love the Tesla service folks. They're some of the best. They are just ridiculously overwhelmed. And my follow up comment today: Actually, as a follow up, it appears Tesla Decatur (here in Georgia) has gotten to my car today. I have been getting notifications of software update failures from the app over the past few weeks. I just got some failure notifications now and the car says it's at the service center. And I just got a successful update notification, so I guess they've fixed it. Still, it took about 4 months to go through all the hardware work and end up with this software problem. Tesla Parts was the big choke point in the whole process. Looks like the Tesla Decatur team is down to a 1 week response time, which bodes well for Elon's claims. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/55oibb/welp_i_guess_im_getting_a_new_car/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/55oibb/welp_i_...

peteboyd 10y ago
I did not know this existed until recently, but you and the article poster probably have a very good claim for diminished value and loss of use. Basically non use of your high-end car for many months. I recently created a short online quiz for a law firm in Florida that checks to see if you have a claim. It was a completely new area of law that I did not even know about. It does email your contact info at the end - in case you want to be contacted. Anyways if anyone is interested it is at http://www.diminishedvalue.law/quiz/ http://www.diminishedvalue.law/quiz/ and is based on Florida law. I am not trying to hype the firm. There are other firms that do the same thing. I just happen to know about this one.
- quasse 10y ago
  I think you might have wanted to do some input validation: http://imgur.com/a/510dc http://imgur.com/a/510dc

JaggerFoo 10y ago

"To say that this whole experience has been traumatizing would be an understatement." "We are now questioning our Model 3 reservation." Just "Questioning" the next product purchase? Does this mean that Tesla is the new Apple?

nye2k 10y ago

There will be more horror stories like this as Teslas are not maintainable by their owners, making them throw away vehicles. Last I read, Tesla service manuals are only provided as a subscription service to the public... and only in Massachusetts as the state has "right-to-repair" legislature forcing it.

greglindahl 10y ago
What does this article about body work have to do with routine repairs?
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Parts availability, right to repair, etc. A lot actually.

deelowe 10y ago

I was considering getting a Tesla next year when my leaf is paid off, but had reservations about not being near a service center. This more or less solidifies for me that I shouldn't get one.

coding123 10y ago

To the author, it was lawsuit time after 1 month. Sell your shares and sue immediately and cancel your Model 3 reservation.

psy-q 10y ago

What kind of country is this where insurance is not mandatory for owning a vehicle? He wrote that the other driver wasn't insured. So in the US, it's legal to drive a car without having insurance? My mind is blown. This kind of thing would have cost me a maximum of exactly zero if it had happened here (Switzerland, but I'm guessing it's similar in the EU). Insurance is mandatory and the insurer of whoever caused the accident pays. Unless they flee the scene, but that's its own crime, so most people don't. That said: We had two larger issues with our Model S so far, one time it had to be repaired in an Italian body shop while on holiday, but that was done in less than 48 hours. It wasn't even a Tesla service center, just one of their partners. The other issue involved the drive train, it started making whining noises after two years. They fixed that for free (new motor and drive train) and gave us a free loaner for a week. One time it didn't recover from a software update and had to be towed -- again, a free loaner, Tesla paid for the towing and even had the vehicle brought back to our door because I was sick with a high fever and couldn't go pick it up. They usually make you pick it up. Another time I snapped off the windshield wiper by accident because I'm an idiot, it was on our way to France. The service center in Geneva made room to fix this (had to replace the whole wiper assembly) and we were back on our trip less than 30 minutes after arriving at their shop unannounced. So I guess it all depends on what's broken and where you are. Disclaimer (do we need to have disclaimers for this now or is that just on Motley Fool?): I have Tesla shares and used to have Solar City shares as well, but the damn thieves switched my Solar City for Tesla at USD 290, so now I'm short 50 Dollars per share. Serious first world problems, eh?

PhantomGremlin 10y ago
So in the US, it's legal to drive a car without having insurance? No, of course not.[1] The exact details by state. But there are many problems. Here are some off the top of my head: 1) maximum penalties for allowing insurance to lapse might be light, and if you're a bad driver insurance might be expensive to purchase. Even for much worse than a simple accident, the penalties might be light. For example, for quite a while a nearby city, Portland Oregon, was doing "catch and release" for actual car thieves (I neither know nor care if they still do it). What that meant is if they caught you driving a stolen car the police would write you a citation on the spot and then let you go. You would "promise" to appear in court some number of months later! The argument was that they didn't have enough jail space for such petty criminals. 2) you might be "judgement proof". If you have no assets, even if you are sued, then you just don't pay. People rarely if ever get put in jail if they can't pay a civil judgement. So why bother to continue to pay for insurance if you're driving a crappy car and you don't care what happens to anyone you hit? 3) You might not even have a license, or it might have been suspended for previous bad behavior. (And it's probably difficult to purchase insurance under those circumstances). So, what can the government do, suspend your already suspended license? That probably works about as well as "double secret probation" worked in Animal House. 4) I can think of many similar scenarios, but you get the point In short, the USA is not at all as homogeneous a country as Switzerland. There are plenty of lowlifes around who just don't give a shit. And very little is ever done by the government to persuade them to change their behavior. To protect themselves from such situations, many people add "uninsured motorist" coverage to their insurance policy. This means your insurer pays you even if the other guy doesn't have insurance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_insurance_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_insurance_in_the_Unite...

brokenmachine 10y ago

https://syonyk.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/is-tesla-building-throwaway-cars.html https://syonyk.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/is-tesla-building-thr... I read that blogpost and decided I would never buy a Tesla unless there are massive changes.