So I am a long time Tesla admirer but I just tried buying a lightly used Model S this weekend. I started working with the sales advisor on Tuesday and she found me a car and I put my deposit down with trepidation because I have never purchased a used car sight unseen before. I doubt many people in my shoes ever have done the same. But nevertheless, I was excited to be the owner of a Tesla. I expressed my fears to the sales advisor at the time, and her answer was the “thousands of people have purchased their car this way.” So I just went with it. The MS was in Fremont. I told them the only day I could come up to pick it up was yesterday. They pulled some strings and made it possible. I was stoked.



I woke up yesterday morning and whisked my family into the X5 to make the six hour drive to Fremont. Driving to Fremont with a four-year old for six hours isn’t pleasant by the way. When I get there it was all smiles. I checked in and waited for a delivery specialist to become available. We waited for a while and my wife gets up and asks if there’s any way we can inspect the car while we wait. The person at the front desk looks at her dumbly and says, “we thought you’d be doing that already.” Strike one.



We go take a look at the car. It looks in decent shape. It was raining and I couldn’t see the paint very clearly. What I did see was a dent in the nose come about an inch by two inches that I did not see in the pictures that were sent over. It’s not desireabld but I could live with it. Still strike two.



We get into the car and start messing around with the settings and getting familiar with the user interface. We get a text from ‘Dan’ our delivery specialist, who by the way looks like he’s twelve, to come inside to meet him but we were already in the parking lot. He comes out to meet us at the car. His first main sentence after introductions was along the lines of, “I have this car too and I love it and you’re going to love it too.” I start thinking in my head that ‘great a prepubescent boy has a car that I’ve wanted for the last six years... awesome.’ Nothing against his age but definitely know your audience before speaking. We start looking through the car again and I said, “great, let’s take her for a spin to verify how she handles.” This is where things go south. Up until this point, no one had told me that there were no test drives on the vehicles at the delivery center. I had no reason to research this because it is common sense to want to drive a vehicle before you purchase it to make sure it handles like it should. Obviously his answer was, “oh we don’t do that here.” This was strike three.



What I planned my first post to be on this forum was one of joy to finally be a Model S owner has turned into one of sorrow and anger. They tried to find a middle ground and let me drive it within their parking lot, which for some might be sufficient, but honestly it was adding insult to injury. How can you open the car up at speed when there are speed bumps every 200 feet? How do you hear squeaks and rattles?



Supervisors were called at both the delivery center and with my sales advisor that was based in San Diego. No supervisor ever bothered to approach me directly. My delivery specialist seemed uninterested and unphased by my concerns. My sales advisor feverishly tried telling me that she told me there were no test drives. (I checked my emails and nope nothing mentioned about this)



I walked away from delivery. And I am bitter. I am angry. Even though the car was missing the two features that I wanted, I was willing to accept the delivery if I was able to drive it to verify that it handled correctly. I don’t think that was too much to ask. Had I been given five minutes of time with the car on the road, it would be sitting in my driveway right now. But due to sales advisor incompetence, my expectations were not managed and now I think Tesla was trying to hide something from me about not only that vehicle, but ALL of their used vehicles.



In my 33 years of life, I have purchased probably 15 brand new vehicles. I am not new to spending money on cars or the sales process. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to drive the car you are wanting to drive for the next couple of years as a daily driver before you sign your name to take it off the lot, especially with the amount of money at stake. I held Tesla on a pedestal for many years. They were my halo brand. But you know what? Their customer service leaves something to be desired.

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