Tesla owners worry about service delays

As Tesla ramps up its Fremont factory to escape what Elon Musk calls "the hell of production" with its new Model 3 electric sedan, some customers experience their own suffering by trying to have Teslas repaired.

Repair delays and routing problems on service lines have caused conflicts at Tesla service centers.

Recently, at the entrance to central Dublin, a restless Model X owner was trying to drop his utility vehicle. . A Tesla agent said that he could not leave the car because the establishment was too busy. He could make an appointment to bring it to another time, maybe in a few weeks.

"But I do not want to drive him!" Said Kaushal Bhaskar, a software engineer from San Ramon who was complaining sometimes did not open the pbadenger door, while other times the door would open on his own – including once on the door. Interstate at highway speeds. "It's a security problem for me!"

Another service representative was badisting Mike, the owner of a red model 3 with door lock issues who refused to give his last name. He locked the car, moved away and unlocked electronically. This led him to change his vacation plans. "I could not carry it to Yosemite like this," he said.

The agent said that Mike should leave the car a while: "The amount of cases that I have right now is amazing." [19659003Lesplaintesdeservicesontcouranteschezlesconcessionnairesd'automobilestraditionnelsbiensûrmêmepourlesvoituresneuvesMaislestempsd'attentepourlesréparationsdebasesontraresetlesdélaisd'attentepourlespiècesdecarrosseriesontpratiquementinexistantspourtouslesvéhiculessauflesplubadotiquescarlespiècesderechangedesconstructeursautomobilesetdesfabricantsdepiècesdétachéessontstockées

spare body parts are almost always made by the manufacturer & # 39; origin, said Bill Hampton, editor of the trade publication Auto Beat Daily .

But, he said, it's not surprising that these coins do not have priority Tesla.

"When you make spectacular efforts to make 5000 (Model 3s) in a week, you certainly can not say," Hey, a guy in Topeka needs a new hood. "said Hampton.

The shortage of parts goes far beyond California. In Norway, the third largest market for Tesla cars after the United States and China, some customers told the Norwegian media that they had been waiting for months for body parts for their damaged Teslas. Musk tackled Norway's problem on Twitter on July 5, saying that "Norwegians are right to get angry at Tesla, we have trouble developing our service facilities in Oslo in particular." Can solve quickly with service vans Tesla's mobile, but pending permission from the government to do so. "

Tesla refuses to make a department head available to talk about what the company does to improve customer service.

According to Jeffrey Klein, director of Southern California Publishing, Jeff said that his wife 's S model had been damaged in an accident in March. The car is still waiting for parts, while Klein makes monthly payments on the lease.

"The general manager said that it could take several months, that Tesla did not seem to realize that their cars were likely to have accidents – no inventory of parts," Klein said. "On their Tesla online forums, customers complain about long retention times on the customer service phone line and sometimes wait a few hours to check the status of a delivery or a repair from car, or ask for a refund on a deposit Some say Tesla does not answer them at all

Tesla's service issues are not new.In August, Jon McNeill, President of Sales, Marketing, delivery and service, said on the Tesla Motors Club forum that customer service had been streamlined to facilitate contact with Tesla Six months later, McNeill left Tesla In June, Karim Bousta, vice president of global service and Tesla's customer experience, is gone, as is David Erhart, senior director of reliability and testing.

Tesla's sales and service approach differs greatly from most builders a who sell their cars to franchised dealers. Tesla owns and manages retail sales and service operations on its own.

The company's 74 service centers in the United States are complemented by Tesla Rangers, a mobile service program that sends workers to the field. has also been pioneering software updates that are pbaded on to the car without having to bring it to the dealership.

A wide variety of Model 3 quality issues are reported on Tesla customer forums, including broken glbad, bad paint, dead batteries, wind noise, dents, scratches, and software issues including door locks and touch screens behaving oddly.

But the same forums are peppered with praise for cars and Tesla's service. Automotive critics are almost unanimous in their praise of driving the Model 3.

At the Dublin Service Center, the representative of Bhaskar said that a review of the operational data of his vehicle captured on the storage system in Tesla cloud by itself. "But I saw it with my own eyes," insisted Bhaskar. (The Times called the center of Dublin three times to ask the service manager for comments.)

Bhaskar told the representative that he would take the car to make an appointment, but that he wanted a written acknowledgment of the security of the door. problem. "We do not put that on paper," he was told. "Here it is not so that things are happening."

The problem worsened, and after 45 minutes, Bhaskar was allowed to leave his car. He left in a loan of Mercedes-Benz SUV.