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Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

dmitryzavyalov.livejournal.com

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Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#81

Post by mulmen »

sk5t wrote: post #70
mulmen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A franchised BMW dealership tried to charge me $15,000.00 for a new engine. It turns out the problem was two spark plus that they installed improperly. Their diagnosis turned out to be entirely manufactured. The idea that franchised dealerships somehow improve customer service is laughable.

For an out-of-warranty German car, your best bet is the independent mechanics that the local car club members like. For a BMW, maybe start with the BMWCCA-approved safety inspection shops on the track day prep list.

Yes this is great advice, I have since found an independent shop that I trust. They are actually the place I went for a second opinion on the engine replacement. I also found a third-party warranty company that does not require service at the dealership.

Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#84

Post by overcast »

sk5t wrote: post #70
mulmen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A franchised BMW dealership tried to charge me $15,000.00 for a new engine. It turns out the problem was two spark plus that they installed improperly. Their diagnosis turned out to be entirely manufactured. The idea that franchised dealerships somehow improve customer service is laughable.

For an out-of-warranty German car, your best bet is the independent mechanics that the local car club members like. For a BMW, maybe start with the BMWCCA-approved safety inspection shops on the track day prep list.

Yep, been taking mine to the local mom and pop BMW racing club guy shop since day one. The ONE and ONLY time I took my car to the dealer for a free oil change. They didn't put the oil cap back on, sprayed everywhere in the engine as I was leaving, and months later I found out they didn't replace the drain plug access panel underneath. Can't handle oil changes, I sure as shit am not bringing it there for something serious.

Oh, forgot one more thing. They didn't tighten down the coolant cap fully, so that eventually seeped out enough to set off the coolant level alarms.

Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#85

Post by CamperBob2 »

stcredzero wrote: post #32
eridius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The car being returned to Tesla was, at that time, in good working order. Tesla had repaired it after the last issue. Now of course given the car's history it's possible that there were still other things wrong with it, but to the best of Tesla's knowledge, at the time the letter was signed, the car was defect-free.

to the best of Tesla's knowledge, at the time the letter was signed, the car was defect-free. This is what happens when there is in fact an intermittent defect, but the technical staff does not believe the user/customer. Basically, this is poor epistemology on the part of the Tesla staff. If this is an exceptionally difficult intermittent problem, their choice is between replacing the unit, or losing a customer. They…

The defect is on the engineering side. Someone at Tesla thought it was a good idea to display a failure message but not to log the nature and origin of the failure. That person needs to be identified and put on a performance improvement plan.

Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#86

Post by S_A_P »

Animats wrote: post #77
S_A_P wrote: post #9

If those are the facts of the case, I would say that looks pretty bad. Normally, a new car replacement under warranty is done in an effort to salvage repeat business after extreme duress. This Tesla was a lemon, and it should have been replaced with an equal spec model. This is where Tesla could have gotten tons of goodwill from the press, and I can promise that even the most fervent Tesla haters at the truth about c…

It's not the manufacturers' decision. In California, you can demand a new car replacement under warranty if, after a number of attempts, the manufacturer can't fix it successfully.[1] Most states have "lemon laws". Here are California's rules: In California, a vehicle is presumed to be a “lemon" if, within 18 months of the vehicle's delivery to the buyer (or 18,000 miles on the odometer): - 2 attempts or more have be…

I understand the law part. I understand why they may even say please sign this California appropriate legalese so we can all move on. The truth of the matter is that they should fix the problem and delight the customer unless they can prove that someone had an ax to grind.

Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#87

Post by mulmen »

overcast wrote: post #84
sk5t wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an out-of-warranty German car, your best bet is the independent mechanics that the local car club members like. For a BMW, maybe start with the BMWCCA-approved safety inspection shops on the track day prep list.

Yep, been taking mine to the local mom and pop BMW racing club guy shop since day one. The ONE and ONLY time I took my car to the dealer for a free oil change. They didn't put the oil cap back on, sprayed everywhere in the engine as I was leaving, and months later I found out they didn't replace the drain plug access panel underneath. Can't handle oil changes, I sure as shit am not bringing it there for something ser…

I took mine in for an oil change and they also removed that drain plug panel. In addition they broke the plastic cover for the cabin air filter by over-tightening the bolt that holds it on.

It's a staggering level of incompetence.

Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#88

Post by sp0rk »

taneq wrote: post #49
kylec wrote: post #43

In my opinion the most damning sentence in the article is this: This was the day of first bitter truth of Tesla: even you have a new car covered by warranty, you will need to wait in line for a few days to get it checked up. This says one of two things to me, both of them bad. Either there are so many Teslas with issues that the technicians are constantly booked up days in advance, or Tesla doesn't care about providi…

The overall picture I'm getting of Tesla is that they have great tech, are very innovative, but they have a hell of an attitude problem. It's not like the guy was making it up, they had clearly-detailed logs of the problems and the car was provably misbehaving. Even though in the end they did do the right thing, it would have been far better handled if they'd simply offered a replacement the moment the (just freshly…

> It's not like the guy was making it up, they had clearly-detailed logs of the problems and the car was provably misbehaving.

The fact that problems exist says nothing of what caused them. I don't imagine it would be difficult for a competitor to intentionally damage a Tesla in a way that they could make a blog post like this about it. I'm not generally conspiracy-minded, but I feel like this is something worth considering when you're reading an article that seems to be put up on a throwaway LiveJournal account by somebody that doesn't link to any of their other social media accounts or websites.

Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#89

Post by chc »

edude03 wrote: post #59
chc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great EVs are starting to appear from other manufacturers? I know of the Chevy Bolt and nothing else. Are there others you're thinking of? I mean, that's one car, which generally seems to be reviewed along the lines of "not as good as a Tesla, but hey, at least it's not a Leaf" — so although it is great that somebody else is doing it too, it seems pretty fair to say that Tesla is still leading the charge here (pun no…

How about the BMW i3? The 2017 gets 120 miles to a charge and for a bit more money you can get an onboard generator to bring that up to 300 miles IIRC. The driver assist capabilities aren't as great but otherwise can't think of much to complain about.

I wouldn't consider it to be in the same class. 120 miles is much closer to the Leaf (which is widely dinged for its paltry range) than the Bolt or any of Tesla's cars.

And the range when burning gas seems kind of beside the point to me since we're talking about battery electric vehicles here, not cars that run on gas. (Like, my 2010 Prius gets 450 miles, but that's because it isn't relying on its battery and instead mostly uses an ICE, and for that reason it isn't usually considered in the same category as the Bolt.)

Re: Tesla Model S: the story of a very short happiness and excitement

#90

Post by overcast »

mulmen wrote: post #87
overcast wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, been taking mine to the local mom and pop BMW racing club guy shop since day one. The ONE and ONLY time I took my car to the dealer for a free oil change. They didn't put the oil cap back on, sprayed everywhere in the engine as I was leaving, and months later I found out they didn't replace the drain plug access panel underneath. Can't handle oil changes, I sure as shit am not bringing it there for something ser…

I took mine in for an oil change and they also removed that drain plug panel. In addition they broke the plastic cover for the cabin air filter by over-tightening the bolt that holds it on. It's a staggering level of incompetence.

Yeh it's crazy, and you reminded me about the coolant cap they didn't fully tighten as well! All things you find out about six months later, when alarms go off. No way to every hold anyone accountable.
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