My Biggest Problem With Tesla - Service & Parts

hello everyone and welcome i have owned my tesla model 3 for about two years now and so we're going to be going into what the biggest problem i've been facing with tesla during these two years and if you want to know how i feel about the car overall i'd recommend checking out my one year video review after owning this car for a year um i still agree with absolutely everything i said in that video and i think this is pretty much the best daily driver out there and i think it's crazy that two years later there's still really not anything that's a direct competitor to this maybe the pole star 2 but i feel like that's kind of this more luxury sedan it doesn't have quite the range it doesn't have the speed it's not really you know electric sport sedan in the same price bracket as this model 3. but look this is the internet right we're not trying to just like gush over tesla and talk about how fantastic we think the company is the internet wants to hear the bad news so that's what we're here for let's let's do a little trash talking and so the biggest problem i've had with tesla consistently has been service service is a pretty challenging thing the good news with electric cars is you don't need service all that often the bad news is that it can be kind of difficult when you do so i've had five experiences thus far with tesla service two of those were actually pretty fantastic that was with their mobile service which i think is an awesome thing they come to your house they do the service you don't even have to be there if you don't want to so for the first thing that i had done when i got the card actually didn't come with the rear spoiler it wasn't on it yet so mobile service came and put the rear spoiler on great well that spoiler eventually started to detach from the car and i think the problem here is that carbon fiber is very rigid and so you're trying to shape this carbon fiber piece to the back of the car and if it's not an exact perfect fit you know they're just using 3m like double-sided tape basically to stick this on and so if it's not an exact fit it wants to pop up off of those corners and so that's what happened to the first spoiler and so tesla mobile service once again under warranty thankfully came and replaced that spoiler put a new one on well the new one's already becoming detached you can see there on the corner it's already coming up um so you know not great there but not my problem with the service that's just kind of a fitment issue right there now my third experience with tesla service was running over a pothole getting two flat tires and destroying two wheels uh and overall you know the service experience i can't really blame tesla for as it was an unexpected visit it's not like i had an appointment i showed up i was like look i've got two destroyed wheels i need these replaced and six and a half hours later i was back on the road i think the challenge that i had there was that they were very uncertain whether or not they would actually have wheels in stock and that to me seemed a little crazy that they wouldn't have the wheels in stock to replace them but they did i got them on off i went six and a half hours later so not a huge deal there now fourth experience with tesla service again going to wheels so when i bought this car in 2018 they had a referral program where if you got enough referrals i think it was like three or four referrals you could get a set of performance wheels well i got that said number of referrals and so i got the performance wheels and see how to set up an appointment with tesla service to get them installed and so what i thought while i'm in there while i'm you know getting this thing with the wheels put on i'll just have them service the brakes they recommend that if you live in an area with salted roads that you should have the brakes serviced if you come in you know once a year so so i scheduled the appointment i think it was like 10 15 in the morning that i had my appointment to get on wheels and then just lubricating and cleaning the brakes very simple task well they gave me a loaner and said you know you can take off it's probably going to take us a little bit so i was like okay drove home uh the whole day goes by it's three o'clock and i gave them a call so this is like five hours later i gave them a call and i'm like hey am i going to be able to pick up my car today and they were uncertain they were like i'm not sure we're hoping to get it done a little bit later today and i'm like will you guys close in an hour like what's the deal are we going to get this done or not and again i'm not putting the blame on the employees they're like they're working their butts off they've got so much work they're scheduled out well a month in advance so the amount of work put onto these employees hands is more that they can actually deal with so i don't blame them for being behind and being slow but i had an appointment right like if you schedule appointment there should be scheduled time to take care of your car so anyways i drive to the place i get there right when they close and thankfully they were just finishing it up and i was able to pick up the wheels and tires so quick simple job ends up taking the entire day i finally get the car back now my fifth experience with tesla service and this is perhaps the most annoying is that once i had these wheels and these are the zero g wheels they're part of tesla's track package for the model 3 well i was actually planning on taking my model 3 to the track and i thought well you know maybe i should do a test with tesla's actual track package with my model 3 since i already have the wheels so if you look at their track package online it comes with wheels it comes with uh they've got different brake pads and they put on some michelin cup twos which are off the shelf tires so i wasn't worried about getting those i could get those tires i've got the wheels all i needed to get was these track pads so i contacted my local tesla service center and i said hey you know i've already got the wheels is there a way that i can just order the track pads so that i can kind of complete this track package on my own for my car and then take it on a track and see how it does well well well seems like a very easy question hey can i get some track pads uh but not an easy answer so tesla service the service center that i called said hey i'm not sure how you order these without the wheels you need to email this email and ask them about how to get these track pads so that's what i did i sent the email to tesla and i said hello i have the track package wheels on my car but i'm curious if i can order just the track package pads are the pads for the model 3 track package different from the pads that come on the model 3 performance if so is there a way to order these separately i only see them listed with the wheels and tires which i already have also do you have a shipping eta on track package pads okay so their response a week later again i was trying to get this thing on a track i thought i could get all the parts in time but that did not happen personal things came up so i didn't actually end up doing the track day but they got back to me a week later and they said hello jason thank you for contacting tesla support i am sorry for the delay in my response we do not have a separate item on the tesla shop for upgrading your brakes there is a track package but this is not sold a la cart my recommendation would be to reach out to your service center for options okay so to summarize here a week after contacting my service center who told me to contact an email the email tells me to contact my service center to figure out how to get these brake pads so two contacts at tesla neither of them can tell me how i can order these brake pads and that to me is just kind of ridiculous and so i'm thinking how in the world do you actually order parts from these guys it's like you can't you have to order it with the track package so you know presumably there is someone out there who bought the track package doesn't need anything except for pads because they've gone through the pads and needs to buy them and you can't find them so i went on you know tesla's website epc.tesla.com you can find the parts number uh but it's just like this impossible task just to order brake pads and that's so bizarre to me because literally any other company any other car company you can call their dealer and they will happily overcharge you for any performance part you could ever imagine they'll be like yeah we'll buy that for you we'll get you whatever you need and they'll get it for you they might even have it in stock already and they'll happily overcharge you for it but with tesla it's this thing that's on their shop website but you can't order it individually and calling a service center they just tell you to email someone and the email tells you to call the service center and you never end up getting the parts now part of me thought okay i'm just like crazy and just having bad luck with this so i contacted my friend rich of rich rebuilds and i was like rich how do you get tesla parts and he just kind of laughed at me and he was like dude you don't and so you know this is this is a legitimate problem like if you're just trying to get something for your car it should not be nearly this difficult you should just have a number that you call these are the parts i need here's my money like i'm trying to give a company money and they're making it too difficult to do that to me is bizarre and i hate that about this experience everything else about the car i mean it's genuinely fantastic i love it and there are sacrifices like that service nonsense that i'm willing to put up with because i like this car so much but i don't think that makes it excusable i still feel like it should be simple that if you want something if you want to pay for something with your own money you should be able to do so so there's my rant on my biggest problem with tesla and that's just the experiences with service i've had this car for two years honestly i didn't expect to keep it this long i kind of thought you know i'd try out something different but i've been very impressed with the vehicle overall it's super fun i haven't had any issues as far as reliability to this point so that's nice it's just genuinely a fantastic daily driver thank you all so much for watching if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave them below

Channel: Engineering Explained

Views: 440,427

Rating: 4.8778224 out of 5

Keywords: Tesla, tesla service, tesla model 3, model 3 performance, model 3, track package, tesla track package, tesla model 3 track package, model s, model x, tesla model y, engineering explained

Id: A1M2OvvNT5U

Length: 9min 2sec (542 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Bezant]

You'd think that a pretty huge car youtuber would get whatever brake pads he wanted and a handjob to go with it.

[u/yhsong1116]

Personally haven't had bad experience yet, but bad is putting it lightly from what I've heard.

[u/Zealousideal-Wall471]

As somebody who details a lot of vehicles, Tesla’s have quality control issues, albeit they have gotten better. Very common to see unacceptable factory paint defects, panels gaps, etc. when you talk to owners, they are often understandably frustrated when told replacement parts are 6-9 months out.

[u/NoahAsha]

It is the right to repair that is the breaker for me. Tesla and Apple have the grip over their products and that makes consumers depend too much on official service providers. Who can come up with all sorta excuses that will go round and round and round.

[u/EV_Track_Day]

Who orders "track pads" from an OEM anyway? Go with Carbotech or EBC. My XP8s are good dual use pads.

[u/404merrinessnotfound]

Dave Grohl called it the worst car he's ever owned

[u/7Sans]

This is one of the biggest reason why I'm holding back from Tesla. Tesla have updated models now from 2021 so it's not a bad time to buy but I'm in MI and I have seen videos how it takes forever to get the parts to get it serviced.

sure if nothing goes wrong and you don't need parts, you will enjoy the car but off chance, I do need to go in for the service with Tesla model cars... oof IDK.

I do hear that I can always get a loaner and just let them hold onto my car for couple months but eh

[u/UnpopularOpinion1278]

It's only gonna get worse as everything gets more and more tied to software.

You'll own nothing, and you'll like it

[u/losteye_enthusiast]

Hey, more proof that Tesla isn't a good choice for your next car.

But I've learned that when something is a true pile, the owners start to justify it as if the car defines their self-worth.