Maybe third party dealerships are a good idea after all

[Laconian]

I've been doing some research for EV chargers, and as a result I've lurked quite a bit on the Tesla Motors Club forum. Lots of good info on there.

But one of the things that really jumped out at me is just how traumatized everybody is at the prospect of interacting with Tesla's service department. Horror stories about inexplicable delays, random pushback/rejection ("this is within spec"), botched repairs, just out and out terrible service. Forum members coach each other to inspect cars with a crowdsourced checklist and a magnifying glass before daring to accept their delivered cars (https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/mega-consolidated-delivery-quality-issues-thread-and-checklist.236802/), because clicking "accept" on a car with issues means you have to deal with Tesla Service and everyone agrees it is a recipe for prolonged misery.

Everyone seems to love the cars and hate the company. If that's the take from a self selecting group of Tesla fans... well, that is a pretty sorry situation. Imagine how average people must feel.

After thinking about it for a couple weeks I've come to the conclusion that third party dealerships make a lot of sense for a healthy car company. Managing the dealer relationships and part supply logistics imposes a minimum bar for process maturity. A car company which passes that bar is much more likely to deliver a higher quality, more maintainable product. And the independent service centers act as a form of collective bargaining unit against the car manufacturer.

Tesla's vertical integration seems disempowering for the buyer, provides far fewer financial incentives or other checks for good performance (everything is vacuumed into shareholder profit), and also enables the company to recklessly "wing it" with weird ad hoc manufacturing bodges. Great for $TSLA as a corporate entity, but bad for quality, bad for customer experience.

I hope that the independent dealership and servicing model sticks around, and I can't believe I'm saying that.

[r0tor]

Meh... A typical dealer these days has a 1-2 week wait to get your car to be diagnosed plus a lol wait if you need any parts.

...it's not just a Tesla thing....

[Laconian]

Meh... A typical dealer these days has a 1-2 week wait to get your car to be diagnosed plus a lol wait if you need any parts.

...it's not just a Tesla thing....

Yeah, but the default assumption with Teslas is that you're going to be on a first name basis with a service advisor unless you're absolutely vigilant when taking delivery of a car. Leaning so heavily on after-sales service as a crutch for poor initial quality would be unsustainable if the dealer and service centers were independent. It's not just about the quality of the service itself that I'm thinking about, more about raising the cost to the manufacturer of warrantied service events.

[r0tor]

For small issues Tesla comes to my coworkers driveway to work on the car.  I never had that luxury.  Large issues are problematic but not much different then the 90th percentile dealership these days.

[AutobahnSHO]

The biggest issue, like many others in our country, is that the lobbying has pushed the laws too far in favor of the dealerships.

[AutobahnSHO]

If there were no dealerships, car companies are free to set the rules and prices and customer has no recourse. People are willing to buy into Tesla because of the hype and really, the maintenance needs are probably much lower for a solidly built example than for ICE cars...

[afty]

FWIW I've only had good experiences with Tesla service. I don't feel like they are trying to cheat/upsell me like a dealer service department. Last two times they've come to me for the repair. Also they replaced my 12V battery for free, when I assumed they would treat it as a consumable.

[Laconian]

It seems like there are a lot of stories of recently-delivered Teslas which have had quality issues that put people in touch with their SA much sooner than expected.

[veeman]

Although I haven't owned a Tesla, I think right now I prefer the no dealership model.  Tesla just happens to be, for the most part outside of a few other niche brands, the only manufacturer in the U.S. that sells direct to customer without an intervening 3rd party.  And Tesla has bad reliability and few service centers because they focused much more on sales and tech rather than quality and after sales customer care.

My brother in law who owns a Model S and has had it for several years has had his car at the service center (which is located 1 hour drive away) for probably in total about 6 months.  They don't have enough technicians and service centers and parts are delayed.  He's also on his third battery.  But most things have been covered by Tesla and they've often given him a Tesla loaner.  I often rib him about it and tell him Tesla is a great toy car for people who don't actually "need" a car to daily get to work.  (My brother in law mostly works from home). 

Every dealership I've been to I feel like they're inherently trying to scam me.  Their recommended service intervals are always shorter than and have more stuff that needs to be done than what the manufacturer specifies.  Always.  They'll try to sell me new wiper blades every time I go there.  Every time I switch out tires for the winter season, they want to do a wheel alignment.  Engine filters and cabin filters are apparently habitually dirty and need to be replaced.  The only service I trust them on is when they say my brakes need to be replaced and maybe I shouldn't trust them on that.  Plus I hate nebulous pricing, nebulous delivery fees, and nebulous other fees.  A price listed on autotrader is probably half the time not the real price for a used car.  What's with the punnett square crap when buying a car? 

[MrH]

The parts are delayed because they run their entire supply chain on spreadsheets and literally didn't have a spare part plan at all.  They were taking parts from the production line and sending them out to service centers.  The whole operation is a clown show.

[r0tor]

My coworkers 6 months old Genesis has been out of operation now for a good month with something messed up with the sunroof waiting on parts for Korea.  Any issue on my Alfa is always 1-2 weeks out for parts and diagnostics.

The entire industry is a clown show.