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Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

tesloop.com

131–140 of 143 posts

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#131
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO there's no excuse to buy an unreliable car these days and complain about it not being reliable. We're literally drowning in information and reliability information is perhaps 5-30 seconds away from any human on the planet. Anybody who buys an unreliable car in the modern age either did it knowing the car was unreliable but wanted something else from it (usually some kind of image) or is trying to be ignorant. On…

When I bought mine the problem was that there is no reliability data for that specific model(not surprising,considering that in 3 years it's been available only about 1000 have been sold in this country) so I had to go with the general reliability rating of the brand, but that's telling me very little. Sometimes you just have to take the plunge and hope for the best, very happy with the purchase so far.

Sure, reliability is not the only reason people buy cars. If you're after something specific, you're probably going to buy it even if you have to tape the fenders on to get it off the dealer's lot.

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#132
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO there's no excuse to buy an unreliable car these days and complain about it not being reliable. We're literally drowning in information and reliability information is perhaps 5-30 seconds away from any human on the planet. Anybody who buys an unreliable car in the modern age either did it knowing the car was unreliable but wanted something else from it (usually some kind of image) or is trying to be ignorant. On…

When I bought mine the problem was that there is no reliability data for that specific model(not surprising,considering that in 3 years it's been available only about 1000 have been sold in this country) so I had to go with the general reliability rating of the brand, but that's telling me very little. Sometimes you just have to take the plunge and hope for the best, very happy with the purchase so far.

Why would you not use reliability data from other countries?

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#133
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is shocking to me. Do you have any insight? Mercedeses newer than 2010 are considered incredibly reliable here in Europe. They had a rough decade before that, but since the introduction of W212 E-Klasse, they're back on track. Is that different for USA models?

How can you call any car newer than 2010 "incredibly reliable"? There's not nearly enough data on it. I would certainly expect a car less than 10 years old to be reliable, incredibly reliable to me implies at least 20 years of reliable operation. I own 2 Japanese cars that are both over 20 years old and have over 250K miles/400K km each, one of which is a Corolla, and they still run fine.

I'm of course talking about high-mileage applications. These newer Mercedeses (specifically W212 E-Klasse) are popular among taxi drivers and often have more than 800000 km on them - and still going strong. I'm going to buy this car for this exact reason - because taxi drivers are so happy with it.

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#134
post #55

So they saved a bunch of money by putting a ton of miles on before age related problems started showing up. In other news the sky is blue. It's component deterioration from age that really gets you on a luxury car. Seat motors fail, wiring harnesses deteriorate, etc. It's also worth mentioning that they didn't crash one. With enough road hours eventually it will happen. The vehicles that can be serviced by a normal s…

Components are much more likely to fail from being used consistently than due to the sheer passage of time. I would take a car that has been kept untouched in a garage over many years before I would take its equivalent model year that had been driven 300,000 miles.

Plastics and rubbers degrade over time.

For example, rear and side window motors tend to fail first because the mechanical components are used the least, become more full of dust, the rubber tracks harden, motors work harder and burn out.

The garage will help a lot but when a vehicle is on the road for 10-20yr issues specific to it's service that can't easily be foreseen or simulated in tested pop up.

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I bought mine the problem was that there is no reliability data for that specific model(not surprising,considering that in 3 years it's been available only about 1000 have been sold in this country) so I had to go with the general reliability rating of the brand, but that's telling me very little. Sometimes you just have to take the plunge and hope for the best, very happy with the purchase so far.

Why would you not use reliability data from other countries?

Mostly because I wasn't able to find any. The best I could do was sign up to the forum for enthusiasts and ask, but I only got a few replies saying "yeah I had it for 2-3 years and it's fine, no problems so far" - that's not exactly statistically significant in any way. They all might develop a catastrophic failure after 3 years, but there's no way to know that.

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#136
post #91
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a model s for 3 years now and spent a total of 2 hours at a service center for 1 maintenance appointment. Compare that to previous bmw or range rover for which I owned for around the same time and would have been at a service center for at least 2 or 3 times yearly - sometimes needing a temporary car for longer service visits... I'm sure this is not everyone's experience... but I'll never even consider any o…

> Compare that to previous bmw or range rover Congratulations you've managed to buy two of the most unreliable brands before buying your Tesla. Both are generally known as tremendously unreliable cars (with the exception of BMW 3-series). The Range Rover in particular being known as one of those "buy two of them, one for the shop one for the garage" brands. BMW owners hide behind pre-purchased repairs being covered f…

What about Consumer Reports?

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-leveling and washing are required by law for lights beyond a certain brightness. Older tech halogen headlights aren't as bright and don't require the fancy actuators and wipers. Brighter lights, of any source, require both.

So the problem being solved is "I'd really like to see oncoming traffic go blind and crash as I pass by"? Use dimmer lights.

The problem being solved there is being able to see further in the dark.

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-leveling and washing are required by law for lights beyond a certain brightness. Older tech halogen headlights aren't as bright and don't require the fancy actuators and wipers. Brighter lights, of any source, require both.

So the problem being solved is "I'd really like to see oncoming traffic go blind and crash as I pass by"? Use dimmer lights.

Full dynamic LED headlights are actually a pretty cool innovation. They're brighter, they can illuminate corners, and they can avoid blinding opposing traffic by selectively deactivating or dimming parts of the light field. (I don't know if the Model S specifically has that latter feature though, but it's one of the big selling points of the technology.)

Keep in mind that these are high-end luxury cars we're talking about. Folks don't buy a new Mercedes to get halogen headlights. They know it's expensive and are okay with that.

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#139
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the fuel costs. They used subsidized electricity costs through Tesla charging network at 0$ cost. That would be like saying MB giving 0$ gas if u fill up at their designated gas stations. Tesla still comes out on top, but I have never heard of that lengthy repairs for MB. General maintenance a few hours, big issues a few days max. U can take it to any MB dealership or authorized repair shop, or local shop. Cou…

If MB gave gas for free, Tesloop could have removed the fuel costs from the S-Class total. But MB doesn't give gas for free. On the other hand, Tesloop have benefited massively from Tesla's subsidized charging. I'm curious why you think it should be ignored.

For tesloop specific results, it shouldn't be ignored, but if u are taking the results and applying to general public buying model s today, you only get a estimated 1000 miles of energy for free.

There are costs to new general consumer for fuel on Tesla network, no unlimited free charging

Re: Tesla Model S Hits 300k Miles with less than $11k maintenance costs

#140
post #113
post #86

I am surprised people are trying to poke holes in this article. You're arguing with data. This isn't an extrapolation or a estimate, this is numbers based on actual use. You can say you don't think it will work like this for you, or you don't think Tesla has good service, but clearly for at least one set of people they are getting a massive ROI by buying Tesla's.

It's not about poking holes, is about showing the ones that exist. It's only one data point (with unusual circumstances, like paying $0 for charging all the time).

Its not unusual at all. Anyone could have had these same circumstances.
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