Used Tesla Model S Ultimate Buyers Guide - Problems / History / Options explained.

hi everyone welcome to another video so this is going to be an episode about buying a tesla model s a complete buyer's guide i've been a professional car dealer for over 10 years and i've been a tesla owner myself personally since 2015 as well as buying and selling hundreds of them thousands in fact so in this video i want to talk to you about where you can buy a tesla model s from what to look out for what problems the cars can have and things to check but also um i want to cover briefly the topic of free supercharging it's a question that always gets asked does this guy have transferable free supercharging or not and i'll run through some of the different kind of versions over the years the different optional extras and try to explain to you everything you should need to know if you're buying a tesla model s okay so where do you buy or use tester from first port call might be tesla themselves so they sometimes have pre-owned stock sometimes they actually don't now the main downside of the test is you can't actually view the cars before you buy you have to buy them online it's a fairly anonymous buying process and you don't get to look at different examples or sit in the car that you're trying to check it's nice and smells good and all that kind of thing on the plus side sometimes they can have an extended more comprehensive warranty but on a negative note if the car originally had free supercharging they'll remove that so that will not transfer to the next owner whereas if you buy a car either privately or for an independent dealer like ourselves it will have any free supercharging allocated that car can carry over to the next owner but we'll talk about free supercharging a little bit more further on in this program okay second option might be to buy privately again pros and cons really buy them privately you can get a great car at a great price sometimes on the negative side i think you've just got to be really careful they you've got to make sure you do all your checks on the car very thoroughly inspect it because you probably won't have any real comeback after buying the car if there was any kind of issue you've also got to tackle the subject if the car has existing finance on it you won't be able to take out finance on the car you're buying because to do that that has to be sold from an fca registered dealer with a full license you've also got to expect the car probably won't be prepared to the standards that a professional dealer would have it prepared so we refurbish all the cars make sure they're really great condition refurbished wheels but buying privately the seller probably wouldn't be doing that kind of work necessarily so again pros and cons it can work be really careful and make sure that it is a good deal you'd be surprised sometimes it's not always a better price than you can negotiate with a dealer for okay so of course the other option is to buy your tester from an independent dealer um so my advice here is probably to say well make sure they're professional dealer in a professional company because there's a lot of car dealers out there now but are they professional company registered professional premises you want to see they've got good long-term and honest reviews on places like autotrader and google you want to check that they're perhaps a member of a trade body or maybe also members of trading standards we support the trading standards by the confidence scheme and these are all signs that you really want to look for so that if there was any issue or any dispute you know that you're with a company that will act professionally and handle that as it should be and ultimately you've got confidence as a buyer that you had recourse if there was any serious issue or dispute you want to really also make sure that the cars undergo some kind of inspection process as a dealer you should do so we run through 125 point checklist on every car checking mechanical components tires and all the lights and items like that and that should be available and it's certainly available from us for a buyer to see and you also want to expect when you're buying from a dealer like ourselves that the car is presented well i mean we go through each car and refurbish them we make sure there's no scuffs on the wheels the body works nice and shiny the interior is perfectly clean if there are any items to address them we always do that as part of the preparation process and i'd also say if you're looking to buy with finance and you will need a company again a professional company registered with a full fca consumer credit license so they can handle finance many companies including ourselves may have a finance company that they can recommend and quote for but we can also work with any finance company if you have a preference out there and then it's down to really experience there's a lot of dealers that are now selling testers a lot of testers on the market but it is that dealer going to give you the experience and advice you will need during the buying process and after i think especially if it's your first ev or first tesla the ability to ask questions and get accurate and good answers is really important it also counts a lot towards just making sure you get in the car that you're expecting i've seen loads of false adverts saying that this car's got free supercharging and it won't for the next owner so there's a there's a few areas that can catch the inexperienced out so independent deal is a good option with then the backup and buyer consumer rights well prepared vehicles with a full professional service and certainly here we've got a really great experienced team behind us to help people all the way through and always a great selection of cars you can actually come and view different colors different trims different options and have everything explained to you all through the whole buying process and afterwards okay let's run through a little bit of the sort of brief history of time of the model s hasn't changed too much over the years but there's a few things to know this particular example here next to me which has just come in this is a 2014 car we first saw them in this country in june and one of the main notable differences with the very early cars is there's no option for autopilot there's no cameras in the windscreen and there's no radar in the grille here and this one here is a 2015 car it has the cameras in the windscreen and the radar down here so this car is auto pilot capable and i'll go through the different options and how auto pilot works on different areas of cars separately and section in a moment so these cars are both from 2015 but this car has the earlier version of the seats and this car has what they call the next-gen seats and to basically got some slightly bigger bolsters i'm perfectly comfortable in the earlier seats but some people prefer the bigger bolstered seats what they call the next gen seats so during 2016 we saw the introduction of the facelift and it really is kind of that so we've got different headlights different bumper the bonnet's actually different you can't just change the headlights and bumper to make it look like a facelift um that's the main difference that came with the model s in 2016 and with the facelift also came a center console section as well so let me get to late 2016 and one of the main changes there is that they started fitting some extra cameras to the car so this is a facelift car but earlier where it doesn't have any camera here this car here from the beginning of 2017 onwards a few in december 16 had the extra cameras here and cameras in the b pillars here and then when we get to 2018 cars made after march were fitted with what they call mcu-2 so a faster processor in here so it made all the screen a little bit faster and enables some features like netflix and youtube and some extra functions but actually earlier cars can be fitted with mcu-2 and that can be installed by tesla as an upgrade so in 2019 we had another slight revision to the model s which was sometimes referred to as the raven cars it was a code name at the time but they basically changed some of the badging and a couple of the mechanical components of the car so they became dual motors rather than 100ds but they dropped the smaller battery sizes retained 100 pack in those dual motor cars and they included most of the optional extras as a standard on those plus the main difference that you notice to drive is they have adaptive damping which you've got the option to soften the ride a little bit um there's not a vast amount of change but they're a little bit more efficient certainly capable of over 300 miles in the model s by then and the adaptive damping does make a nice bit of extra comfort to the ride so they're quite good but that's going to be it now until we see the revised model sometime in 2022. since i haven't offered too many colors over the years this one you won't see too often this is an original dark blue all the newer cars are what they call deep blue metallic which is actually lighter than this color this one's multi-coat red this gray color is called midnight silver metallic and i really like this color when you see this in the right light it actually sparkles with lots of different colors like blues and greens in the kind of metallic part of the paintwork this is a popular color and i do like it myself okay so there's black which is solid black but there's also a metallic black called obsidian black and you can see the difference up close now black is a little bit of a harder color to keep it always shows the dirt straight away and you have to wash it very carefully not get those swells but i do like them in black this is metallic silver and i think it looks great in silver but they're really rare i think i've had more of the green ones there's actually a green color available and there's also titanium i haven't got either of those colors here at the moment the silver is just as rare and i think it suits them really well okay so you see them in white as well but they can be a solid white or pearl white metallic finish white is probably the easiest color to look after it doesn't show the stone chips at the front anywhere near as easily this is the deep blue metallic and that's certainly one of my favorites i've already given too many opinions on my favorite colors but this one looks really good so this is the bigger 21 inch turbine wheel commonly found in grey can be silver and we've refinished quite a few into satin black as well they make the car look more sporty but they're kind of less practical you have to keep an eye out for any damage due to potholes they're a little bit easier to curb the tires obviously smaller profiles so you'll feel that the ride is a little bit more fidgety than with the smaller 19-inch wheels but all the times i've had a model s my preference has been the turbines to be honest so a standard model s comes with a 19 inch wheel this car here has the original version of a 19 inch wheel and this facelift car has the what they call slipstream wheels the sizes and the tyres are the same just different styling these ones are usually on the facelift cars so in 2015 we also saw the addition of this d to the badging the d isn't for diesel it's for dual motor one motor on front axle one on the back so these cars are four wheel drive the number on the badge that relates to the battery size so this particular example is an 85 kilowatt hour battery the small list that has ever been available is a 60 and the largest today is a 100 kilowatt hour battery so this car here has the tan leather interior they stopped doing the tan later on and it became lighter but most of the early cars 2015 2016 had the version of tan which is this shade and these are actually leather so you do tend to get a little bit of patina on the seat bolster here so you've got to look for that sometimes they can wear a little bit on the seam here and on this section of the car you also want to look for some fraying on this piece of trim here and here where people get in and out so this car here is 42 000 miles the seat is in good condition just a little bit of really patina on this bolster so this is the earlier version of the seat which is a sort of flatter seat with less of a bolster here than the newer next generation seats this is finished with a grey interior and the gray interior is actually fairly rare and i like it one of my models i'd ran for over a year had the grey interior and i thought it was great okay one little change which must have happened in 2018 is the seat material so the newer csn leather was no longer used it's this um pleather fake leather it's very good i have to say black a lighter tan or white became available now white might seem scary but actually it wears really well they always clean up brilliantly so you might keep some wet wipes in the car but they're a really nice addition to the interior so most of the tesla model s have this section on the dashboard here finished in alcantara which i really liked changed you will find some that don't have that they just have the kind of leather top and that isn't necessarily related to if it's a premium interior non-premium my own first tester had the premium interior package but it didn't have the alcantara top so this bit of trim here is different on different models this is the piano black which is just a glossy black looks smart but you can see your fingerprints there's also a couple of different variants of the trim here in wood so this one has a non-glossy finish but you'll see also a glossy finish wood as well and this one here has the carbon fiber trim here here and on the center armrest here as well okay so on the model s there's three different types of roof you can have a solid metal roof the newer cars have a solid glass roof a lot of them have this opening sunroof now the open sunroof was removed from the options more recently but it was a popular option at the time it can till or slide back notably you need to have the opening sunroof if you want to fit roof bars they're the only one with the mounting points for roof bars here what we do like to do is refurbish the wheels this wheel looks perfect now occasionally cars will have chips unavoidable but we'll always get those repaired if we can another one of the options the model s is air suspension now this car is in its raised position this is in a low position so you can see it moves a couple of centimeters interestingly the air suspension if you to raise it if you're going down a road with some really big speed bumps or something it does remember that location so next time you go there automatically raises how do they feel like to drive well it's not night and day difference i think at higher speeds in the motorway you'll notice the air suspension absorbs a little bit more but actually around town colin air feels very much the same all model s have heated front seats but there's an option called a sub-zero weather package that gives you heated rear seats and a heated steering wheel but on some cars they have ventilated seats so cool air can also blow up and cool you down on a warm day a lot of the performance cars have this very nice carbon fiber spoiler it looks good you just look for any damages on the edge here because it's easy to lift it up and bump the roof of the garage some model s even have two extra rare seats under this boot floor this one doesn't so there's loads of storage instead another option is high fidelity sound upgrade so it gives you some extra speakers and a subwoofer the easiest way to tell if a car has that is this box here there's a box here which means it has a subwoofer in this car has high fidelity sound premium interior package was an option that most of the model s have gives you some ambient lighting and gives you a power tailgate that's the easiest way to spot if the car has that option but it is possible to retrofit a power tailgate afterwards and we've done plenty of those so another way to spot if a car has premium interior package or not are front fog lights they all look much the same but you can see this one actually doesn't have fog lights in there it looks like it but it doesn't this one does no premium interior package premium interior package okay so i need to talk to you about autopilot and i'll try and keep this fairly brief there's a bit to cover and i'll try and explain it as best as i can but do check in if you have specific questions in short you've got to check really carefully what the car has and that it meets your expectations because some people are misled by this when you specify a new test on their website today it's different to how it was before basically before 2019 when you specify uh when you get a new tester today it has a very basic version of autopilot and then you have to pay nearly seven thousand pounds extra for full self drive package and that will bring with it self parking summon lane change it's certainly not full self driving i think we've got a long way to go for that but previously to that the package was slightly different so let's start from beginning 2014 cars didn't have it couldn't have it not until very late in 2014 when they were fitted with the radars and the extra cameras up here for the autopilot one system and autopilot one i had for ages loved it worked really well keeps a distance keeps the kind of lane you indicate it changes lane now when you bought that software then you've also got self parking and summon which is where you can pull it out the garage using your phone great gadget although to be honest i've really used it when you get to 2017 we have the autopilot two cars and i mentioned earlier that they then have the extra cameras in the wings and the b pillars but it's much the same the cars can have the hardware but you do have to check the software has been bought and enabled now you can check that offer specification sheet and also you can get in the car control software and it should tell you that it's got autopilot enabled it's often called enhanced autopilot autopilot 2. and again part of that package then was the radar cruise control lane keeping you indicate it changes lane for you and it also has summon it was only later on that those items were removed and put into the full self-driving package but earlier cars could still have full self-driving too that was an extra bit of money to pay this particular car has it and i know that because i've come into the vehicle here and it says full self-driving capability in essence it doesn't add too much i don't really have much at all over autopilot two right now but it kind of future-proofs the car going forward as these cars update their software which they do all the time over the air parked outside your house at night it will update and more and more functionality will become available so it can be a bit of a minefield be careful because the car has cameras that doesn't necessarily have the software board so do check with the dealer exactly what you're getting and that it meets what you expect to get okay so let's get to some of the problems that you can get with the model s we've got to cover this ground a lot of stuff's easy to fix but a lot of stuff can be a bit more expensive too so door handles probably one of the most common faults on the model s very nice how they come out and go back in so if i put this this door handle opens which is how it should be you will see on some cars when you push the door handle it doesn't open now with that fault where you prod it the whole handle mechanism does need to be replaced tesla reduced the price of that and actually come out to you and change that handle i think it's under 300 pounds now so it's not too bad but if you have four handles to change it can up and be a bit more expensive slightly separate issue with the handles is when they just don't retract or don't come out at all even when you unlock it with the key now that's actually down to a sort of wiring or cog fault inside now companies out there can repair that we can repair that issue that's 150 pounds plus to that so that can be fairly cost efficiently repaired but you do need to check all the handles are operating what we do tend to find however is once the handles have been changed in the model s the newer versions are more reliable and hopefully you don't get recurrence of the problem on the pre-facelift car those headlights are normally okay but on the facelift you have to be really careful this section here daytime running light is always lit up and it can fail exactly like this now it's not only a bit annoying but they can be really expensive it's a really common for this and it's an expensive fix at the moment when i'm recording this i think it's about 1200 pounds to replace a headlight i think there's a bit of a push on tesla to say you know okay they should accept extended warranty liability on these headlights but you have to be really careful this is an issue and if it's out of warranty over 50 000 miles it's an expensive one okay on the test drive this is something that usually affects the performance dual motors on occasion you need to accelerate hard between 20 miles an hour and 60 miles an hour it's a good excuse to see what the car drives like and you're going to laugh you're going to smile you might feel sick but you need to feel for any vibration from the drivetrain if you feel a vibration it's probably going to need to be looked at by tesla again a couple more things to look out for on your test drive firstly get the car down a bumpy road you want to listen for any clunks or rattles from the suspension like any car there will be maintenance on bushes required and you can see that on some of the higher mileage cars now so listen carefully don't be distracted by somebody talking or the radio on or only on a very smooth road get the car down a bumpy road the second thing if the car you're driving is uh especially an older s85 rear-wheel drive we've seen quite a few of those they have too much motor sort of wind noise a lot of people just think that's perfectly normal it's an electric car it's probably their first tesla but actually if it makes a distinctive winding noise in the motor it shouldn't be like that the good news is tesla will change that motor for you it's under the drivetrain warranty okay let's talk about this screen in the car it's one of the most dominant features of a tesla so a couple of things to look out for here one is a faint yellow border that goes around the outside it can appear and it can appear on newer cars and older cars so you need to look out for that now if the car's outside of the full tesla warranty the good news is that it's actually quite a simple and cheap repair it goes to tesla and i think it's under 50 pounds to have that fixed so it's not too much of an issue you also want to check there's no cracks in the screen or anything like that but one of the main issues that's come to light is affecting cars built before march 2018 that run mcu-1 the original version of the processor behind this and that can slow down it can cause issues with the screen working properly rebooting and actually it can stop the screen working altogether now that if you have pin to drive enabled means you can't put your pin in and you can't drive the car so if the screen is very slow or unresponsive and not starting up properly those are the first symptoms of that mcu failure the good news is tesla have actually issued a recall and will repair that for free now cars built after march 2018 they're not affected by any issues like that certainly not yet at least they've got a much better processor and chip and we haven't seen any issues with those you can tell if a car has mcu-1 usually sorry mcu-2 because when you bring up the options here in the entertainment menu you'll have netflix and youtube now the cars built before march 18 can have the full upgrade which is a paid option to mcu-2 so you can have a car like this which is 2016 which does have mcu-2 so this is already sorted won't have the problem so it does vary but all the cars after march 18 will have mcu-2 and you shouldn't have a problem with that right the tesla's plug in on this back corner check your charging flap opens and closes shut um usually fine but sometimes the contact needs to clean but let's talk about free supercharging we see loads of cars advertised with free supercharging i see every day where actually they won't so i'll try to explain it and keep it fairly brief cars up until 2017 had to be ordered before the end of 2016 originally had free supercharging one of the selling points of a tesla and that can carry over to the next owner broadly speaking there's some cars that roll into 2017 that will then have that free supercharge and it's transferable but beyond the first couple of months of 2017 you need to assume the car does not have any free supercharging no matter what the advert says unless you see specific written evidence from tesla loads of people advertise free supercharger because the first owner does but it will not transfer to the new owner but there's also another catch say you're looking at a 2015 or 2016 car which normally would have free supercharging that can be inherited if that car has been retailed by tesla at any point maybe the second owner bought from tesla tesla could have removed free supercharging from that car so it's not necessarily just about how old the car is it's about whether tesla have retailed it since so be really careful with that and make sure you know exactly what it's got okay let's mention the brakes briefly not normally an issue but you want to just check that they're in good condition it's very rare to need to change brake pads or brake discs due to wear but actually because the brakes don't get used very often because of the motors when you lift off the brakes the region effect slows the car we just see the odd problem literally because the brakes aren't used enough so you need to have a look at the condition of the discs make sure they're okay and all the same so if you see one disc on the car is a bit rusty then maybe the caliper is sticking occasionally you can get cars whether the pedal is a bit soft and travels a long way down and you also want to make sure that when you're braking from a higher speed on your test drive that the brake is smooth no vibrations through the pedal so not commonly a problem but just something to be aware of and if you own a tesla just make a point to use the brake sometimes because it needs it keeps them clean keeps them working the tesla model s is aluminium which makes them a little bit soft so get a good look down the car look for a nice even reflection that it's all nice good quality paint but also look for those little dings that can very easily happen in car parks of course one of the first things you're going to do is just have a look at the condition of the bodywork it seems fairly obvious it's what you're going to do a couple of stone chips on the front that are small fairly unavoidable but it's really important to see the car in good lighting don't be fooled if it's outside in the rain or in poor lighting you need to have a really good look around the body work one of the main things you need to check for especially with silver cars and the red cars they're very hard colors to paint match so if this wing here has been painted and it hasn't been done really well and blended into the door you'll see a slight shade difference between here and here so look very carefully standing back for any shade differences between the panels you will sometimes see a difference between the bumper and the wing plastic and the metal that's quite normal it shouldn't be too much but a slight difference there is normal but stand back and a little tip i found is if you look at the car through a camera even on your phone sometimes that highlights that shade difference a little bit more so give the car good inspection in good lighting make sure you're happy with it okay so some of the cars as we mentioned have air suspension not a common problem with those but we have seen one or two cases where when the cars park for a few days it can start to sink maybe on one side maybe in one corner and that means you've got a leak and that means you might need another one of these and that starts getting a little bit expensive so it's not a common issue but if you do see a car sinking you do need to get it resolved if you leave it it means the compressor is working harder and that will eventually overheat and then you have a more serious issue on your hands okay so if the car has a opening sunroof you need to check that work smoothly it can be a case because there's no servicing routine for a tesla that these don't get lubricated as much as they should be so you need to check this opens okay run smoothly if it doesn't it normally just needs a bit of grease in in here the other thing to look out for not particularly common but we have seen it is any moisture on the top of the a-pillar here sometimes the drainage channels can block and then water that goes into the sunroof should go down the drainage channel can cause some moisture to come out and affect the line in there so do look for any dampness inside on the a-pillar and also a little bit on the boot as a nearly any tesla you want to look out for any moisture in the towel lights a little bit of fine misting on occasion is normal but if you can see actual kind of water running down the inside of this then obviously they're leaking and they need replacing so not particularly common but something to check for is any moisture that's gone into the boot here so give that carpet a really good feel for any dampness it doesn't happen very frequently but occasionally some water can come through from the tailgate the vehicle should have these newer version of the drain bungs in here but if it doesn't moisture can build up and then eventually with heavy rain come through to the boot now tesla trim along here and along here sometimes doesn't line up perfectly like some of the german brands but to be honest that's perfectly normal so again not particularly common but we have seen a few of these now when you release the frunk as it's called it should release and be able to lift up without undoing any catches there's actually two latches here sometimes one of those can seize up which means it was a secondary catch you can get your fingers in and open it if it's the first catch you've got a bit more of a problem on your hands but you have to use the emergency release cables from under the wheel arch so one thing you need to check especially on the air suspension cars is the tyre wear is it even now what often happens is they wear heavily on the inner edge especially if the car is frequently driven in its low suspension setting that affects the camber and so tyres may look okay here but can be quite heavily worn on the inner edge so i have a really good look of course with all our cars we measure the tread depth across all of them and make sure they're all excellent so let's wrap things up i hope that was useful we've also highlighted a few negative items but they're not too common really they're usually easily resolved so don't make it sound bad they're very good cars they've been more reliable than the diesels and such like i used to sell more of and they're really enjoyable vehicles to own and drive you've got to remember the expensive bits the motors and the batteries are under tesla warranty until the vehicles are eight years old with unlimited mileage they changed that warranty on the very recent cars but actually all these vehicles we see here have that warranty some of the smaller items are outside of warranty but they're usually fairly easily resolved now so let's wrap things up we're going to film some more videos about the model x and the model 3. it's too much to all include in one so those will be coming out soon please subscribe hit the bell icon or maybe you've missed a couple of little bits out but i think that's most of the things you need to be aware of with the cars with the dealer and what to do so for now i'll say goodbye [Music] thanks for watching so one of the next videos will be about model 3 buyer's guide and model x buyers guide we'll get those made out as soon as we can do let us know in the comments any questions you have any other videos you'd like to see and we'll do our best to fit that in amongst other busy day-to-day schedule that we have so lastly i would recommend following us on facebook instagram we post daily storyboards for all the general day-to-day stuff and the travels we're doing and efficiency comparisons and everything that we're up to here it's a busy place i'd also like to just make you aware of our chosen charity seesaw.org a great charity so if the opportunity arises please make a donation to seesaw

Channel: RSymons RSEV

Views: 398,659

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Id: mAV8jT5XS2Y

Length: 31min 39sec (1899 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2021