2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

2013 Tesla Model S Long-Term Road Test

Tesla's service center fixed the malfunctioning sunroof in our 2013 Tesla Model S in a matter of hours, and they came to us.

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alex4515

I don't recall what the other service experiences for this car have been so far (if any), but this one in particular was about as good as it gets.

fordson1

Pretty good, I must say. Some of it has to be taken with a grain of salt, i.e. most car owners are not Dan Edmunds, Director of Vehicle Testing at Edmunds, and they could post stuff like this on their personal Twitter accounts all day long and nobody from their car's manufacturer will call them up and ask to be allowed to come and take the car away and fix it. Even though they said they had to see the car to know if they had the part in stock at your dealer, I would bet they overnighted every part in that panoramic roof linkage to the dealer on Saturday from Tesla HQ. Most car owners don't live 5 minutes from one of the largest and best-equipped dealerships for their make of car, either. Generally seems VERY well-done, though - we will see if this stays fixed or if it is like the SLS episode. I would still be wondering why the piece broke in the first place before I called it done. So I would call this a very favorable episode, but also one that had "special handling" written all over it.

quadricycle

I'll second some of what fordson1 said, but still a great service. I would think that something like the sunroof breaking in the first year of ownership is going to be covered by the warranty of most automakers. I really like that concierge service though! I'm happy with a loaner car but if you're just going to come get it and fix the thing while I'm at work then that's just downright beautiful.

gearhead96

Even if Mr.Edmunds did receive special treatment, I'm willing to bet that for the average consumer, he/she would still get a response from Tesla fairly quickly and the part would have arrived in 3-5 days. Beyond that his or her experience would likely be the same as Mr.Edmunds, as the valet service and recall fixes/replacements are fairly standard for Tesla and consistent with most experiences I've read of online.

sweels

Hey Dan.. Out of curiousity, did they happen to charge the car while it was in their possession? that would have been the icing on the cake..

desmolicious

well, Simonson Santa Monica Mercedes Benz knew the Sls was an Edmunds car and still gave them abysmal service, so either way this one is a very positive experience.

noburgers

great service report. kind of creepy on the location tracker, though!

agentorange

I see one thing on that invoice that gives me pause. "Check and adjust tyre pressures- CA mandate". Really? Does the dealer have a means to ensure that while the car is at their facility that the correct "cold" conditions are reached? I would be checking my car every time I got it back in case I got the tech that thought the max pressure on the sidewall was the number to use. Some of them do here in NV, and you can guess how I know.

fordson1

And I'll second what you said, quadricycle - Dan sounds like he's surprised and gratified that this was all dealt with under warranty at no cost - ? Like with any other 6-month-old car with 6200 miles on it they wouldn't be - ? @gearhead96: the average owner would get a response fairly quickly - a response to posting on Twitter about their car? I'm pretty sure the average owner would have to contact the dealer, not be contacted by Tesla corporate with a repair offer.

duck87

@agentorange: Yes, correct tire pressure is a California law. If you read the service reports of any center in Cali, this line is included...

actualsize

I'm sure the twitter post from my @Edmunds_Test account helped speed up the initial call; they contacted me before I had a chance to contact them. A regular person with a Tesla may or may not have gotten the same response with a tweet with a #tesla hashtag and a @Teslamotors name drop--they do have a social media presence and their pool of owners isn't humungous. But the rest of it probably would have played out the same if I had called cold monday morning, twitter or not. The valet service is real, our office is 2 miles or less from the service center and, let's face it, they have a lot of high-roller customers they don't want to disappoint.

No, they didn't charge it up. Didn't need to, really. I don't know if it's a thing, but it seems like a good idea to refrain from charging an EV while you're working on it. I'm sure they would have "filled it up" if I'd left it with them overnight.

gearhead96

When i said a "fairly quick response", i meant that the consumer would call a tesla center and receive a call back about the issue within a few hours to a day at most. Obviously the average consumer wouldn't use twitter to contact Tesla about a broken part. However my point still stands - the average consumer would still have had a similar experience (valet service, free repair, loaner etc.)- he/she just wouldn't get an instantaneous reply on social media, but rather a call from Tesla service, and have to wait a few days for the part to arrive.

tokyorush

This is pretty standard service for my Tesla - minus the twitter feed catch of the problem. They come to you, take the car, fix it and return. Where we live they haven't rolled out the Tesla loaners yet, so they pay for an Enterprise car when you are waiting. The only thing we've had to wait for was when I somehow chipped the pano roof glass and had to have it replaced. It took 3 days and they gave me a car when I was waiting.