True, it is actually very lucky for Tesla that many states blocked Tesla dealerships and or selling through dealerships as this gave Tesla the opportunity to create online sales, cutting out the greedy middleman= Dealerships

 

I don't know if you've tried to make an appointment at your local dealership lately, around here it's two weeks to make a service appointment

 

I don't know the dealership model is broken as much as the behavior of some dealers is unethical and it is compounded by the unwillingness of the manufacturers themselves to enforce acceptable minimum standard of behavior - which provides air cover and tacit approval for the dealerships.

Manufacturers hide behind the "dealerships are independently owned" platitude when dealers do squirrelly stuff that reflects just as badly on the brand as a whole and not just the dealership.

With the great supply chain reset going on at the minute and the likelihood that the buying experience, inventory models and transaction economics are likely changed for the foreseeable future, there's an opportunity for manufacturers to clamp down on the shenanigans.

Chances are they won't, but it's a missed opportunity IMO

 

Isn't this backwards? Tesla has always had the direct sales model they didn't do it because of state law, that law is preventing them from freely doing direct sales.

 

No, they did it because some states banned Tesla dealership's as well as selling through existing dealerships. Texas is one one of those states, which is ironic they setup their headquarters in Austin. You can Google it

 

Here's an article from 2014...seems like almost a lifetime ago:

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...ng-tesla-sales

 

Well after a month of waiting for my new door panel, it was finally installed today. The service tech was the same one I used last time and was great as usual. Fortunately for me the door panel alignment was fixed and I wasn't really sure it could be done just by replacing the panel but it was and now it lines up as it should have been from the factory. Very happy about this.

What I am not happy about is that the carbon fiber trim wasn't able to be reused because of the way it snaps on and the tabs broke so now that part has to be ordered. He also wasn't able to reuse the rubber seal where the window meets the door panel so now when I close the door the window rattles like a cheap 300k mile car. The other issue is that the haptic door button to open the door from the inside doesn't work now so I have to use the manual door handle to open the door. So basically the tech has to order an entire new door panel, carbon fiber trim and rubber window seal and who knows how long that will take since it took a month to get this door panel.

So basically I wanted one thing fixed and now have three things that are broken.

 

I can't believe you need a new door panel. Never had a problem like this in the multiple decades of car buying.

 

Tesla should have known that these other parts would need to be replaced, but it seems cheaped out and hoped the old parts would work. The very example of penny pinching. I used to do IT consulting for this insurance broker, the guy's company made a ton of money but he cheaped out on everything. I would tell him to buy business systems from Dell or HP, but he would cheap out and buy crap computers on sale at Best Buy. Yeah, he was saving money by only paying $300 for a system, but paying me $150 an hour to rebuild them with the proper version of Windows so they could join his network. Even though I was making money, as his consultant I would advise him to just buy the business system because in the end the cost my time was negating all his "savings". He didn't seem to get it

 

Because those companies (probably Toyota in your case) were around decades before you bought your first car from them and all the manufacturing kinks were all worked out. Tesla didn't start mass manufacturing until the Model 3. Look how long it took Hyundai/Kia to finally start getting thing right

 

Tesla has had enough time to figure out how to manufacture the Tesla S.

 

How? They was no mass manufacturing of the Model S, it was a totally niche product. Only a hand full of rich techie people bought them.Toyota, Honda, Nissan have been building cars for the world market since the 1960's. Tesla only recently started mass manufacturing, and also remember that there are supply chain restraints, labor shortages due to COVID etc

 

There is no excuse for quality problems like this at this point. Tesla has plenty of money to add an extra step at the factory where the car is looked over properly they are simply not doing it. Car comes off the line and straight onto the transport.

 

True, that's why I mentioned the penny pinching. I know they are supply constrained and have a lot of backorders, but yes, this should not have gone past quality inspection

 

Edited my post to include pics. Unfortunately this is what I get to look at until I get a new panel.