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Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by beambot on Sunday July 12, 2020 @03:33PM (#23814091)
You call it vendor lock-in, I call it avoiding dealships, eliminating shady warrantee programs, and eliminating the hassle of finding reputable 3rd party servicers
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by tempsy on Sunday July 12, 2020 @03:41PM (#23814159)
if you don’t live close to a Tesla service center it’s a massive hassle...and even then the backlog can be quite large and take much longer to service
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by bryanlarsen on Sunday July 12, 2020 @04:35PM (#23814541)
There are advantages to not being close to a Tesla service center. It means that you're more likely to be serviced by a mobile technician, which is amazingly convenient. Just leave your car parked in your driveway and it gets fixed without any inconvenience to you. It would be more annoying for big things, but for little things it's awesome.
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by jasonv on Sunday July 12, 2020 @03:51PM (#23814236)
why would you own a tesla if you didn't leave near a tesla service center?

anticipating the reasonable response to this question -- i'm guessing if you own a tesla and you don't live near a service center you know what you're getting yourself into.

reno only recently got theirs, for instance, and they're just a few miles down the road from the gigafactory. but reno was full of tesla's even before the service center opened.

EDIT, cause downvoting: my point is, i wouldn't lease a toyota, with its free/included oil changes, if i didn't live near enough to the toyota dealership to show up every 10K miles easily. i may, however, buy an older used toyota if i was happy enough going to jiffy lube (or similar). applying same criteria to tesla and proximity to their repair locations.

Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by b-team on Sunday July 12, 2020 @10:41PM (#23816679)
I own a Tesla and live 200 miles from the closest service center. If you have a problem, chances are that it can and will be fixed by mobile tech. I had a problem with my door handle (a typical problem in early Model Ss). Mobile tech came to my work and swapped out the handle in the parking lot. I never saw the tech. When I got an upgrade to the latest autopilot computer, a Tesla tech came to my house and did the install, which took a couple of hours, in my garage. I just left the garage door open so he could get in. And no oil so oil changes aren’t an issue. I get the occasional tire rotation at a local tire shop and that’s it for maintenance.
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by A4ET8a8uTh0 on Monday July 13, 2020 @12:03AM (#23817032)
I think this is the main reason I cannot justify Tesla for myself. It feels like I am purchasing a piece of software I have to call Tesla support for. No one else can help. And it is not a cheap toy. The support may be quick and it may even be convenient.. I don't know if it is just me being old or general weariness with the recent efforts to subscribe to me various 'features' ( Tesla is certainly not the only one trying to get that market ). I do want to be able to either do it myself or pay someone other than Tesla to do it if need be ( I hopefully won't, but I want the option ).
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by kortilla on Sunday July 12, 2020 @03:55PM (#23814256)
Well because you want a Tesla and you assume it will be as reliable as other modern cars. I own a Mazda and the nearest Mazda dealer is about 170 miles away. I’ve only had to go there once for airbag recall (I change my own oil).
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by CydeWeys on Sunday July 12, 2020 @03:57PM (#23814271)
And even if you didn't change your own oil, you wouldn't need to drive 170 miles to have someone do it for you.
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by jjeaff on Sunday July 12, 2020 @04:46PM (#23814611)
Not sure why all the traditional car makers haven't caught on and put DRM on the oil system. They could take cues from both the inkjet printer industry and Tesla.
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by close04 on Sunday July 12, 2020 @05:29PM (#23814911)
The classic auto industry and the ecosystem were formed around the current rules and changing them is hard. But when reinventing the car (electrifying for example) it's an opportunity to start over.

To take an example from the IT world, PCs and their OSes stayed so open because that's how they evolved when the industry first appeared. But phones and tablets offered the opportunity to lock down everything.

So I'd say that the future path of the connected smart car is closer to that of phones today.

Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by A4ET8a8uTh0 on Monday July 13, 2020 @12:12AM (#23817097)
Oh, I am sure there are people working on it.

But I think you may be onto something. Tesla is setting a bad example for other car makers. They can point to it and say, why can they do it and we can't?

Brief jump into the future. I get to see my new BMW default skin package expire and car turn dull grey, lights losing its exclusive green sheen, and warmed leather seats fold in to be replaced by, the horror, standard seats with warmers firmly shut off. They may as well brand me cheap.

Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by osamagirl69 on Sunday July 12, 2020 @05:08PM (#23814776)
My main complaint with their service model is that it is basically impossible to do service on your own car. I have never taken one of my vehicles to a dealer, or a third party service shop, aside from getting tires mounted and smog checks done. This is made possible because I only buy cars which have parts and service documentation available, but as time goes on it is harder and harder to get this information. Tesla is actively working to make this impossible, and this in combination with the required always on telemetry is why I ended up purchasing a Fiat instead of Tesla--despite it being a quantitatively and subjectively worse car.
Re:Tesla may call warranty repairs goodwill due to lemon lau... by b-team on Sunday July 12, 2020 @10:32PM (#23816634)
To be fair, a Fiat is a qualitatively worse car than pretty much any other car.