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What were your out-of-warranty Tesla issues?
Model 3 SR+ about to go out of warranty. Wondering what others have had to fix out-of-pocket since their warranties expired?
Under warranty, I’ve had service for:
- replace front passenger control arm
- replace both rear upper suspension links
- replace touchscreen
- replace metal tips that are on the charging port
- replace front passenger seat adjustment switch
- replace front passenger seat (yes the whole thing)
- replace the front driver lower camera (twice)
- resealed both front upper control arm ball joints with urethane
- replaced rear passenger door trim panel
- wipers made contact with the hood causing a small gouge in the hood
- replaced front passenger door handle
Mind you this was one of the first batch of 2019s so, yeah they had to remediate quite a bit.
My warranty's still valid, but so far we've had fixed under warranty:
Other than that, it's been plain sailing. 2019 SR+. The mobile service facility is great.
I don’t have a Tesla, so unfortunately I can’t answer your question, but I did test-drive a Tesla for the first time last Saturday. Really nice car.
Have you enjoyed yours so far? If you had to buy again, would you? How do you think the 2023 model compares to your 2019? It seems like you’ve had many repairs done, do you feel that’s normal for Teslas or just your year?
I would 100,000% buy a Tesla again. Not because of Elon, not because of politics, ethics, or etc.
Strictly as a consumer, it's compelling. The car costs 1/4th to operate (incl. tires, electricity, in my own experience etc), has 1/100th the number of moving parts, looks cool, does 0-60 in some ridiculously short amount of time, drives amazingly well, and has storage in the front AND the back. You can drive across the country and the car tells you where to stop to charge. And realistically, you're going to make pitstops along the way anyway so charging isn't the hassle that you might think it is.
Never mind also that Tesla was the first in my experience to adopt a philosophy of "let's give them new features without having to buy a new car". Traditionally, if you wanted new features, you had to buy the next model year. That was the business.
Since I bought the Tesla, I received a plethora of new features and functionality. Because the technology IS the platform, they can enable things and leverage the hardware in ways they didn't think of originally. The newer owners don't get as much of this simply because the car has it already now (they still do). But in the early days it was like Christmas every 6 weeks.
There are other EVs but are slow and lack the pizzaz or don't have the continent-wide charging infrastructure.
Also in the current climate, driving an EV is a bit of a life hack. You are driving on the roads but not paying the public infrastructure taxes that they build into the cost of gasoline at the pump that help pay for the roads. You can get all sorts of incentives from the government that help pay for the car. If you work from home in some capacity, the EV charging cost is deducted (because who's keeping track of how much electricity is used for the car vs. their day-to-day home use?). Etc.
But is it possible to buy a Tesla at this point and just wave away Elon, politics, ethics, etc? Everyone knows who he is, you know what you're supporting. Does your conscience feel at peace with that choice? Do you feel comfortable being seen as someone who supports him, his politics, ethics, etc?
I wrote and rewrote several versions of a reply to this. Weighing also how to have this kind of conversation on a new platform with someone who's been on it for much longer. A visitor in someone else's home if that makes sense, and that made NOT replying feel seem even worse.
So the short answer is my conscience feels at peace, yes, and I don't actually know too-too much about what you are alluding to (which clearly must be a thing that people have strong feelings towards). I DO know Elon is a polarizing figure but for what specific reasons I am not well familiar. Also, it seems that for me particularly, even if I had some cognitive dissonance with respect to my dollars going into products that might be contrary to my values, I definitely have bigger fish to fry.
Hope that answers your question...
Thank you, I appreciate the honest response. Elon's been at the center of enough controversies (labor abuses in his factories, pressuring people to work even during COVID shutdowns, the purchase and degradation of Twitter as a platform, the slander of that diver, the stock manipulation and refusal to obey the SEC, etc,) that he's certainly a polarizing figure. If those issues aren't issues for you, that's totally fine, but it sounds like they didn't cross your radar. But I definitely get the need to choose what is and is not worth caring about, and that's fine by me. I was mostly just curious because you specifically called out the moral, political, etc. in your comment, and so figured you were making a conscious choice to support Tesla because of or despite his actions, as opposed to in ignorance of them.