Saw some of them this last week........Mostly the Model X.

Yes, the Model 3 I drove had a nice finish, but it was a very recent-production one, and brand-new, without any time for the paint to prematurely fade, crack, or deteriorate.


I'd also add my recommendation to do that. Signdetres is correct.

 

Which one? I took a quick look there are quite a few.

 

I shared a link in my post above. All of the search results are threads found on TeslaMotorsClub (the best Tesla forum out there, in my opinion).

 

I did a search for Toyota got over 10,000 results (Tesla had 6,000) on a famous Toyota forum. My take: Tesla definitely has paint quality issues but they are not unique the paint on a new Toyota is awful it scratches and chips very easily, same for Lexus. At least with Tesla there is no orange peel not the ones I've seen. Was picking up parts at Toyota recently the paint quality on a Camry is poor, orange peel like crazy in some spots.

I don't know what the deal is but Toyota paint 20 years ago was incredibly durable some say the eco friendly paints are not as good don't know if that's true or auto makers are trying to save money. BTW I know a Toyota Highlander owner that has rust pits embedded in the paint all over the vehicle, it's less than 2 years old.

 

you can add me to the list too. the car is not perfect (just like any other cars i have owned) but for what i expected on this car, it really exceeds my expectation by quite some margin.

build and paint quality on tesla is just bad (on average), period. yes some cars come out better but there are a lot of them with horrible paint finish and fitment. in fact almost all model 3 i have seen, including mine, don't have all the panels aligned well. but at the same time, this is already part of my expectation when i got my car so i didn't even do any paint inspection when i picked it up, and all the panel gaps / misalignment never bother me. if these qualities were high up on my list then tesla wouldn't be on my radar at all.

my range in reality is also less than advertised, worse in summer (coz' i turn on cabin cooling) than winter. not as bad as 25% but more than 10%. again not a big deal since i drive 50-60 miles a day and charging is done overnight when i am sleeping.

some people just focus on body repair and paint work, but one big reason for tesla approved shops (they don't really have their own shops as far as i know) is handling / inspecting / repairing / replacing battery and related components. making sure the battery pack is not impacted or damaged during an accident is far more crucial than body work

 

having soft paint is more of a minor problem imho. toyota (and other manufacturers) used to have much more durable oil based paint, but like you said they were forced to water paint and paint became much softer. i do notice japanese manufacturers have much softer paint than euros, though euros tend to have more orange peel effect.

coming back to tesla, the paint quality problems are much worse than toyota in general. there are a lot of cases i read where panels have dripping marks, dust particles INSIDE the paint, areas with missing paint, overspray, and on my car in one area i found paint where the clear coat (or underneath) was not cured correctly so it's a dull spot (polishing doesn't help).

i have detailed quite a few lexus and the main problem i saw was orange peel, none of the issues above

 

Non approved shops can get parts, but the approved shops have priority...and they still take 1-2 months to get parts

 

Thanks! The best part is the incredibly low operating cost, so far in three+ months driving 6600 km cost me about $80 !! It will be very hard to go back to an ICE. We hardly even use the UX anymore besides my wife's commute to work.



Glad you really like it too. I mentioned I see no visible paint quality issues though if we count orange-peel finish, my Model 3 has quite a bit - around the mirrors, rear trunk, and several other spots.




Range is dropping I'd say I'm 35-40% worse now as the temps are at freezing and heater is on. Though I will be swapping to the OEM aero wheels on slimmer winter rubber and I expect a slight improvement.
Still, going from a summer 200 mile range to now "only" 130 or so miles is a non-issue for my use case of daily city-driving and daily overnight charging in my garage.

 

It is refreshing to see some owner criticism about the Tesla 3. Dropping 35/40% is not great. Does your UX drop as well in cold? My CT when I had it seem to never auto shut off when the weather was closer to zero degrees.

 

It's the heater. It's extremely energy intensive. If you turned off the heat, the loss would be less than 20% difference in the cold. Of course it would be pretty uncomfortable

 

On our Highlander Hybrid, our gas mileage drops in the winter time by about 4 mpg, even though our winters are not that cold here in the Seattle area. 4 mpg would equate to a drop in range of about 60 miles. Just for reference...

 

The Tesla's don't have heat from an ICE so heating the car takes a ton of energy. There are other EVs with more efficient heat pumps so something Tesla can improve upon for sure.

 

Absolutely.

 

I remember my CT dropped about 20% in the winter from about 4.5L/100 km in summer to about 5.5L/100 km. The drop in the UX is similar. Part of it is of course the ICE staying on longer to reach operating temps.


Yeah, makes sense. My car is say at a 40% efficiency loss now, about 15-20% is from my 20" rims and staggered non-LRR tires, and the other half is mostly the heater and rest is Sentry Mode when parked and video recording while driving which I recently enabled.


Yeah that's about a 16-18% drop (from the EPA ~29-30 MPG) which is in line with our past CT and current UXh.

 

in my first year of ownership, i actually paid close to $0 for operating cost. free supercharging + referrals put me almost never charging at home. rotated tires myself and no maintenance required on the car. that's one aspect i love, no need for gas station run or dealership maintenance.

yup i have some mild orange peel as well but again not really bothering me

yeah i am in CA so it never gets "cold" here to see any range drop. my range does drop more in summer because of cabin cooling