I picked up SWMBOs Model 3 LR in Blue last Monday and I've held off posting much detail until now as I was unsure if I would need to use the 1 week/1000 mile rejection period on the car, something I never thought I would need to consider.
Collection experience, best described as poor. Didn't help I was collecting on last day of the quarter and that the delivery centres were pushing out 100s of cars a day each, I heard that West Drayton was doing 200-250 cars/day, not something that most Dealers would ever have to cope with. Collecting from Dartford, expectation was a group walk around of a car followed by walking out to 8 cars sat on Superchargers for a top up (in all fairness, all cars were at close to 80%) they would spend 10-20 minutes with you setting up the car and then on your way. Rinse and repeat every 30 minutes.
I walked out on a nice sunny day to find what I can only describe as a bright blue Orange, the Orange Peel finish on the paint was really bad and that was only the starter, I quickly found about 20 paint defects which is a huge shame as the interior is perfect. Problem isn't so much the defects as the attitude of the staff who just wanted me out of there, as I was complaining the chap in the car next to me asked me what the problem was and when I told him, his response was that his car was fine (it wasn't) and that I must be a "car person". Reality is that 90% of owners just want an iPad on wheels and can't/won't see the defects. Handover staff initially refused to log about half of the defects as they are "within tolerance", a phrase that will kill Tesla once the other manufacturers catch up on battery tech. After 30 minutes a phone was shoved in front of my face and I was told to sign for the car, I refused. After 10 more minutes it became clear they weren't going to move me on and agreed to log most of the defects on paint and I took the car on the understanding that I could reject it within the 1 week/1000 mile policy.
I could go into all the forums, owners groups and cars that I've looked at over the last week at Superchargers, but tl:dr is that Tesla paint process is just rubbish across all of their cars. I ended up taking the car to the Service Centre on Friday at Milton Keynes to talk to the staff there and saw a huge range of cars all with bad Orange Peel effect. I was also able to talk to the paint guy there who was really good and gave me the confidence that the defects will be fixed to a high standard when it goes in at the end of the month and the team there were happy to spend time with me going over the car and adding a couple of panel gap issues on to the job sheet.
I'd also spoken with the chap who is doing paint correction work on a lot of Model 3s at the moment, his comments matched what I've found out in the last week, Tesla paint processes are poor and anyone who claims to have a great finish is either blind, doesn't know what they are looking for, lying or very very very lucky. I will be booking the car in with him some time in November to get the quality of finish that should have come from the factory.
Now I will just say that now my eyes are tuned in to looking, this is not unique to Tesla, I was walking past a nearly new A7 on Saturday and it was as bad, talking to the Dealer who wants to buy our Zoe he frequently refuses Jaguar/Land Rover cars due to the Orange Peel effect on the paint.
So on to the car itself, firstly SWMBO absolutely loves it, coming from a Zoe she was worried that it would be too big and that just the touchscreen would be hard to use but after 30 mins running through it she was fine and did say that if I rejected it based on paint (that she doesn't care about) I would be in troubleAs she's just gone on holiday for a week I've used it a lot over the weekend doing about 400 miles including a journey where I intentionally set off without enough charge knowing I could use a Supercharger without a 2nd thought, something in the Zoe that always required planning (do I have the right card) and worry (will it actually work!). The screen works incredibly well and the positioning of the speedo takes about 2 minutes to get used to and sits in our peripheral vision. Talking of vision, forward vision is excellent, car feels really open at the front though rear visibility is poor, not really a problem as the reversing camera and sensors are excellent.
Performance has to be experiences to be understood, it's instant, makes and NA petrol car feel like a turbo car in comparison and despite ‘only’ being the LR car, it's about a 10 second car 0-100mph!!! 50-70mph is done in the blink of an eye, is really is astonishing. If this is the future then I'm in. Steering is artificial but confidence inspiring, it's easy to place on the road and the ride is very good.
I'll admit that I have utterly fallen for the car, the interior is really nice and feels well put together, the giant iPad "just works", the performance is astonishing and it makes an EV a real world single car option for us. It's just such a shame that they don't paint/finish the cars properly and that the staff that are really helpful are hidden behind a wall of phone lines as once you get to deal with them in person they are for the most part hugely enthusiastic and helpful.
I picked up SWMBOs Model 3 LR in Blue last Monday and I've held off posting much detail until now as I was unsure if I would need to use the 1 week/1000 mile rejection period on the car, something I never thought I would need to consider.
Collection experience, best described as poor. Didn't help I was collecting on last day of the quarter and that the delivery centres were pushing out 100s of cars a day each, I heard that West Drayton was doing 200-250 cars/day, not something that most Dealers would ever have to cope with. Collecting from Dartford, expectation was a group walk around of a car followed by walking out to 8 cars sat on Superchargers for a top up (in all fairness, all cars were at close to 80%) they would spend 10-20 minutes with you setting up the car and then on your way. Rinse and repeat every 30 minutes.
I walked out on a nice sunny day to find what I can only describe as a bright blue Orange, the Orange Peel finish on the paint was really bad and that was only the starter, I quickly found about 20 paint defects which is a huge shame as the interior is perfect. Problem isn't so much the defects as the attitude of the staff who just wanted me out of there, as I was complaining the chap in the car next to me asked me what the problem was and when I told him, his response was that his car was fine (it wasn't) and that I must be a "car person". Reality is that 90% of owners just want an iPad on wheels and can't/won't see the defects. Handover staff initially refused to log about half of the defects as they are "within tolerance", a phrase that will kill Tesla once the other manufacturers catch up on battery tech. After 30 minutes a phone was shoved in front of my face and I was told to sign for the car, I refused. After 10 more minutes it became clear they weren't going to move me on and agreed to log most of the defects on paint and I took the car on the understanding that I could reject it within the 1 week/1000 mile policy.
I could go into all the forums, owners groups and cars that I've looked at over the last week at Superchargers, but tl:dr is that Tesla paint process is just rubbish across all of their cars. I ended up taking the car to the Service Centre on Friday at Milton Keynes to talk to the staff there and saw a huge range of cars all with bad Orange Peel effect. I was also able to talk to the paint guy there who was really good and gave me the confidence that the defects will be fixed to a high standard when it goes in at the end of the month and the team there were happy to spend time with me going over the car and adding a couple of panel gap issues on to the job sheet.
I'd also spoken with the chap who is doing paint correction work on a lot of Model 3s at the moment, his comments matched what I've found out in the last week, Tesla paint processes are poor and anyone who claims to have a great finish is either blind, doesn't know what they are looking for, lying or very very very lucky. I will be booking the car in with him some time in November to get the quality of finish that should have come from the factory.
Now I will just say that now my eyes are tuned in to looking, this is not unique to Tesla, I was walking past a nearly new A7 on Saturday and it was as bad, talking to the Dealer who wants to buy our Zoe he frequently refuses Jaguar/Land Rover cars due to the Orange Peel effect on the paint.
So on to the car itself, firstly SWMBO absolutely loves it, coming from a Zoe she was worried that it would be too big and that just the touchscreen would be hard to use but after 30 mins running through it she was fine and did say that if I rejected it based on paint (that she doesn't care about) I would be in troubleAs she's just gone on holiday for a week I've used it a lot over the weekend doing about 400 miles including a journey where I intentionally set off without enough charge knowing I could use a Supercharger without a 2nd thought, something in the Zoe that always required planning (do I have the right card) and worry (will it actually work!). The screen works incredibly well and the positioning of the speedo takes about 2 minutes to get used to and sits in our peripheral vision. Talking of vision, forward vision is excellent, car feels really open at the front though rear visibility is poor, not really a problem as the reversing camera and sensors are excellent.
Performance has to be experiences to be understood, it's instant, makes and NA petrol car feel like a turbo car in comparison and despite ‘only’ being the LR car, it's about a 10 second car 0-100mph!!! 50-70mph is done in the blink of an eye, is really is astonishing. If this is the future then I'm in. Steering is artificial but confidence inspiring, it's easy to place on the road and the ride is very good.
I'll admit that I have utterly fallen for the car, the interior is really nice and feels well put together, the giant iPad "just works", the performance is astonishing and it makes an EV a real world single car option for us. It's just such a shame that they don't paint/finish the cars properly and that the staff that are really helpful are hidden behind a wall of phone lines as once you get to deal with them in person they are for the most part hugely enthusiastic and helpful.
