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Post by Roadrunner on May 21, 2024 18:08:38 GMT
Couple of thoughts on the dealership / test drive experiences. BMW - Worst by a margin. Loads of questions ahead of booking the test drives and their main interest when we arrived was what we wanted to spend / what the monthly budget ways. I could excuse that if it was asked once and he listened and took in the answer, but it was asked again a couple of times. The test drive was accompanied, a real squeeze in a 2 series coupe and not a huge amount better in the i4 (as I sat in the back for part of the drive, as we had the little lad in the car) and you don't feel comfortable to drive as you'd want plus you miss out on some of the valuable discussion you'd have if someone wasn't sitting next to you. No follow up since. Hyundai - Much better than BMW. They wanted quite a bit of information when making the booking, but no questions or discussion about monthly payments just the offer to come back in and sit down to look at options if we were interested in progressing that were made after the test drive. It was accompanied as well and pretty short, no more than 20mins in total, but on this occasion we weren't bothered. No follow up since. Tesla - Super easy and how it should be. Booked online, selected a date/time then entered my name, phone and email details followed by a picture of our driving licences. Unaccompanied test drive so the guy ran us through the controls and said we could have longer than the 30mins booked as there were two of us and he didn't need the car back for 90mins. When we got back, just asked us if we had any questions and if it was OK to send a follow up email. I received that this morning, a thank you for visiting along with links to the stock list and configurator along with the standard if you have any questions etc. I replied, thanking him and letting him know we'd ordered one through an employers green car scheme and has a nice reply back including an offer to help with the order and maybe find a car sooner if we share the order number with him. The standard generally being so low, it is not difficult to be the best in town when it comes to sales, whether cars or houses (my old trade, if you remember, from many, many years ago). Just bothering to listen, match your offer to what the customer asked for and then offer to make it easy for them. It really isn't that difficult, but many seem to be incapable of even the good manners of a follow up call.
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Post by PG on May 21, 2024 20:14:49 GMT
I'm sure the Tesla 3 will do exactly what you're getting it for. And you even both seem to like it into the bargain which is even better!
People can bash Tesla all they like, but the key thing is that they are the first EV only company that has no baggage from years of building ICE cars. So they came at it from a completely different perspective. Assuming that you can learn to like (or at least not dislike) the styling and quirks (like no stalks and the huge screen for everything), they just do the rest better it seems. The efficiency of the power-train, software, Supercharge network, pre-sale and buying experience etc.
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Post by Tim on May 22, 2024 7:34:34 GMT
I had the exact opposite experience at my local BMW dealer last week although they knew my car was in for a service so possibly assumed I was wasting their time with the test drive.
Enjoy the Tesla, I'm not a fan of their styling although the updates to the 3 help. The one I like the most (dislike the least?) is the X!
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Post by Alex on May 23, 2024 18:25:04 GMT
I had a test drive in a model 3 last year and found it to be incredibly easy to drive and I can see how their approach to selling them has made them ubiquitous. They're the iPhone of cars really in that they might do things a bit differently and have their own infrastructure but they're just so easy to live with even if they're not exactly a petrol heads choice.
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Post by bryan on May 27, 2024 7:32:16 GMT
That is a good colour and the facelift has improved the looks - it sounds perfect for what you need it to do and allows you to get a weekend toy, then ithas to be a good thing.
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Post by Martin on Jun 4, 2024 7:31:31 GMT
The order has gone through internal approval which took a little longer than it should as they had the salary wrong, so the first order had to be cancelled, wait 24hrs then re-raise. Lindsay received the RN (reservation number) yesterday and entered it into the Tesla App, estimated delivery date is between the 14th-28th June. Due to payroll cut offs that means it will be on or around the 1st July.
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Post by Martin on Jun 9, 2024 16:57:00 GMT
Delivery date is the 19th June, although Lindsay is pretty busy that day so she is going to try and move it to the Friday. She’s excited about getting ‘the space ship’ and I have to admit that I’m looking forward to getting it and not just because it’s a shiny new car….a good example of ‘don’t knock it until you’ve tried it’ as I’ve been quite unkind about them. Although in my defence it looks a lot better than it used to and having been a passenger in one a couple of times, they really have improved both the way it drives / rides and the interior quality.
I’ll partially disagree with Alex as two petrolheads have chosen one, but we wouldn’t have (any EV) if it was our only car
I need to start thinking about selling the Golf.
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Post by Martin on Jun 10, 2024 14:15:27 GMT
Nice little bonus ![](https://i.ibb.co/Vp0P8n8/7013-BF10-E0-F5-42-F1-9-D5-E-03-CBF26-A8-FAD.jpg)
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Post by PetrolEd on Jun 10, 2024 14:46:27 GMT
You probably don't get that with anyone else.
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Post by johnc on Jun 10, 2024 17:36:37 GMT
I am sure you will enjoy the EV experience. We certainly have even though a lot of the initial motivation was the tax relief. However the i-Pace has exceeded our expectations by a considerable margin and for 99% of journeys it is perfect.
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Post by Martin on Jun 12, 2024 9:45:42 GMT
Might be missing out on the free miles which is super annoying. Due to payroll cut offs cars can only be delivered between the 1st and 14th. I’ve tried to switch delivery on the 19th to collection this Friday but the car hasn’t arrived yet so the 19th is the earliest. Lindsay is going to try and get an exception, but isn’t hopeful.
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Post by PetrolEd on Jun 19, 2024 17:34:26 GMT
Test drove a Model Y LR today, I have to say I'm very impressed. It goes like stink, which isn't a suprise but the relaxing nature and quality was. It rides very stiffly but it handles well. Can't beat it for the money. A boggo RWD is £399 a month and 15,000 miles of superchargerness if registered this month. I'm trying to convince the missus this makes sense.
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Post by Martin on Jun 19, 2024 18:14:36 GMT
Test drove a Model Y LR today, I have to say I'm very impressed. It goes like stink, which isn't a suprise but the relaxing nature and quality was. It rides very stiffly but it handles well. Can't beat it for the money. A boggo RWD is £399 a month and 15,000 miles of superchargerness if registered this month. I'm trying to convince the missus this makes sense. They are easy to knock/criticise (I’ve done it!), but they are surprisingly good. The dilemma is whether you take the cheap deal or wait for the new model. If the changes are in line with the Model 3, it will be quite a step forward. Lindsay has had some fun and games over the last week. To cut a long story short, she has found a way to sort out the payroll challenge (who you know and all that) and has had another car allocated to her order (original was sold as delivery couldn’t be made in June). Delivery is the 25th, so she will get the free 15,000 supercharger miles.
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Post by bryan on Jun 19, 2024 18:52:53 GMT
Test drove a Model Y LR today, I have to say I'm very impressed. It goes like stink, which isn't a suprise but the relaxing nature and quality was. It rides very stiffly but it handles well. Can't beat it for the money. A boggo RWD is £399 a month and 15,000 miles of superchargerness if registered this month. I'm trying to convince the missus this makes sense. They are easy to knock/criticise (I’ve done it!), but they are surprisingly good. The dilemma is whether you take the cheap deal or wait for the new model. If the changes are in line with the Model 3, it will be quite a step forward. Lindsay has had some fun and games over the last week. To cut a long story short, she has found a way to sort out the payroll challenge (who you know and all that) and has had another car allocated to her order (original was sold as delivery couldn’t be made in June). Delivery is the 25th, so she will get the free 15,000 supercharger miles. Good news, it's not what you know but who knows!
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Post by Martin on Jun 25, 2024 11:43:04 GMT
It arrived this morning, on a trailer towed by a Discovery. The colour looks great in the sunshine, will be even better in a couple of days. ![](https://i.ibb.co/Tb1bJ6p/IMG-8232.jpg)
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Post by Alex on Jun 26, 2024 3:43:39 GMT
My one big issue with Teslas is that they hardly do any colours and most are black or white so I'm glad you've gone with the red which actually looks pretty smart.
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Post by bryan on Jun 26, 2024 6:33:28 GMT
It is a good colour, reminiscent of nightfire red from Rover
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Post by PG on Jun 28, 2024 16:08:54 GMT
Metallic red, no chrome, silver wheels, no privacy glass. Nice.
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Post by Martin on Jul 1, 2024 9:50:58 GMT
We only went out on Sunday as my youngest was ill Fri/Sat. EV bit first…. As we have 15k free Supercharger miles we haven’t plugged it in at home so first stop was the Kettering Supercharger which was only a small diversion. It’s one of the sites which has been open to non Teslas, but had 2 of the 6 chargers available and a Model X was pulling out when we arrived. So easy to charge, the button on the charge handle opens the flap, plug it in and away you go. We’d entered the Supercharger as a destination in the navigation so it had pre heated the battery and it quickly went up to 180kw. It didn’t stay that high for long, dropping to 80kw as it got close to 80%, but it added 43kwh (189 miles) in 21 minutes. Not bad at all, even better as it was free, although the cost would only have been 33p / kWh which is cheap for a fast charger.
Interestingly, it used 134 mile credits, so the 15k free miles will be more like 20-22k based on the expected efficiency. We did just under 100 miles, mix of country roads, town driving and the A1 and didn’t try and drive economically, but it achieved 222 watt hours per mile which is 4.5 miles per kWh. Really impressive efficiency, especially with the aircon and cooled seats on.
It’s really nice to drive, super quiet and the ride is very good, better than the Golf in comfort but still feels firm with not much roll which we both like. I haven’t pushed it on a decent road yet, but it has a ‘sporty’ feel in normal driving and is comfortable, so even if it all falls apart when really pushed it doesn’t matter. It’s no surprise that it’s quick, even in ‘chill’ mode it’s as quick as you need, but in standard (only the performance has insane mode) it’s a quick car and feels even quicker with it being instant but even more than that it’s because the only sensation you get is the acceleration rather than noise to go with it. I’ve got the Autocar road test and the 30-50/40-60/50-70 times match the in gear performance of a 992 GTS to within a tenth.
There are a few things that will take some getting used to. The steering is very direct, even in the middle of the 3 settings which is not a problem but I might try the comfort setting on the motorway. Regen braking is great, but for the first 10mins it was difficult not to get a level equivalent to braking when all you wanted to do was start slowing down, I haven’t fully adjusted to it yet but was much smoother in the last 10mins so nearly there. The indicators on the wheel is another one, it works fine most of the time but exiting large roundabouts takes some thought when it wouldn’t with a stalk, we’ll see whether that gets easier with time. The lack of buttons in general isn’t a bad thing, you can add shortcuts to the bottom of the screen in addition to the climates ones that are already there and the voice control works really well.
The tech is super easy to use, you don’t need to read a manual. Going through all the settings is much easier than in any other car I’ve had as there aren’t sub menus / multiple options menus to go through. Just work down the list on the left, set it up how you want and everything is linked to your profile, from the obvious things like seat/wheels/mirrors through locks/lights/security etc to the position of the vents. It even uses a different Spotify (or whatever service you use) login in for each profile (can be the same) which will save locking Lindsay out when I use the car. There are loads of thoughtful / useful features as well, from being able to set exactly where you want the seat/wheel to move to for ‘easy entry’ to being able to set the child locks individually on each side and/or just lock the door rather than door and window. I don’t know how they’ve got away with it, but turn off the speed limit change chime and it stays off for good, no submenus to do it either you just touch the current speed limit in the display to turn it off/on. Approach the car with your phone in your pocket and it unlocks when you touch the handle, it auto locks when you walk away and stand at the back for a couple of seconds and the boot opens, no waving of your foot under the bumper. You phone and/or key car links to your profile, so when the car unlocks all the settings change to how you want them, not just the seat/wheel/mirrors.
The interior quality is surprisingly good. The vegan leather (pleather / polyurethane) is nice and soft and covers everything, there aren’t any areas of plastic at all, even the steering wheel centre, door bins etc are covered it in. It makes a big difference. The cooled seats are to American spec, similar to the Mustangs I’ve rented and more powerful than BMW/JLR/Porsche. The stereo is superb, it had 17 speakers which includes 2 x subwoofers although that means the bass was way too much initially, but once turned down and the rest of the settings adjusted, it sounded great.
in summary, all good so far and Lindsay loves it, which is the main thing.
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Post by PG on Jul 1, 2024 18:49:49 GMT
Good initial impressions there. Whether you like the man / company / styling / EV-thing or hate them all. Teslas just seem to work. And for comparison, in other news Volvo has had to remove the EX30 from sale due to multiple software issues.
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Post by Martin on Jul 16, 2024 16:31:37 GMT
First trip on the motorway today, from the centre of Northampton to the outskirts of Birmingham.
There’s a fair bit of 50mph roadworks, but even so, 4.92 miles per KWH is really impressive, especially as I had the aircon and cooled seats running plus wasn’t trying to be economical.
Just stopped at Rugby for a quick top up while I have a comfort break. Superchargers are so quick and easy to use, you don’t even have to press the flap to open it was the charger does that.
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Post by Andy C on Jul 26, 2024 22:24:18 GMT
My brother picked this up today to replace a 71 plate GLB. Gone are the days of going to a dealer. I think he ordered it online, and went to the ‘collection centre’ in Birmingham (Longbridge funnily enough) today. He was looking at the electric version of the GLB (EQB), Skoda Enyaq, iX3, but I happened to notice Tesla offering 0% on the Model Y , so I sent him the link. He test drove one, put an order in , sold the GLB to motorway and collected it all within a few weeks. It’s fair to say I’m no fan of Tesla’s , but if you love tech (he does) then I can see the appeal. It’s hugely spacious, the glass roof is great, the interior on the whole seems well put together (the plastic around the cupholders and storage bin is pretty shitty and let’s it down) , but the stereo is mega - 2 huge speakers on the inside of the boot, and the whole top of the dash is a wrap around speaker. Everything is done through the screen , but the choices and options are off the scale. I was sat watching Rick Shiels in 4K on YouTube while he was in Tesco, and you even have things like camping and dog setting where it will auto adjust the climate so the dog doesn’t get too hot I drove it back and it felt pretty good (this is the entry level RWD) . It’s not rapid off the line, but floor it at 20,30 and it feels very quick thanks to the instant torque. The steering is pretty poor, but felt more natural in light mode weirdly. He loves it, and when you add in 0% finance , £200 cheaper a year to insure, and cheap leccy (Tesla home charger and an EV leccy tariff) it was a no brainer really ![](https://i.ibb.co/JQCBmGS/IMG-2687.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/HFKRprZ/IMG-2689.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/zQsz7BG/IMG-2719.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/XZXxwz7/IMG-2703.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/tqv85pc/IMG-2707.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/926q1mP/IMG-2713.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/N1bP3Wr/IMG-2715.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/T8Qwnc0/IMG-2717.jpg)
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