The Tesla Purchase Experience: Week 5

Wednesday

Monday was the Labor Day holiday. Not much going on so far this week. Truthfully, I expected some sort of information, as I consider the "very beginning of September" to be the first week of September. But maybe that's just me.

My daughter started high school today. I was hoping I could drop her off in the Tesla, but I guess that will have to wait now. She was dropped off with my Prius. All her friends say Prius drivers are horrible and she has made it quite clear that when she starts driving, she does not want a Prius for a car. She may change her mind once she has to start paying for gas.

Delivery Scheduled!

Well, that was serendipitous! Forty-five minutes after writing that first paragraph, I got a call from Tesla to set up my delivery appointment. I get my car Sunday at 12:30 PM!

Things Start Moving Really Fast

The Delivery Scheduler who called confirmed my car color and wheel type (which seem to be random things to confirm out of all the options on the car, but OK) then said my Delivery Advisor will be contacting me to go through the loan and trade-in paperwork. Minutes later, I got an email confirming my delivery appointment.

I logged in to my Tesla account and filled out the online loan application. It's a bit confusing when a married couple is applying for the loan. It asks each person what their mortgage payment is. Should I split the amount between me and my wife? Enter the full amount for each of us? The full amount for one and zero for the other? I don't know. I entered the full amount for both, figuring if they did an automated check with a credit bureau that would be the most likely match.

The application also lists the price of the car and asks what percentage I will be putting down. This defaults to 10%. The price does not include tax, license and delivery, so you'll need to keep that in mind when figuring out how much you want to put down. Honestly, it would be easier if they let you enter a dollar amount for a down payment.

The first time filling out the application, I hit Submit and got a spinning wheel that said "Processing" for 10 minutes. A Google search indicated this is a common occurrence for many Tesla buyers. I guessed it may or may not have been related to my ad blocker, so I disabled that and filled the application out again. This time it submitted successfully and told me I should have a response in 24 hours.

I also entered my trade-in details. Just as I finished that, my Delivery Advisor called me. She confirmed my loan application was received and it had a status of "Manual review," which is normal. They are in the process of matching me up with a lender. She said not to worry about the mortgage amount thing. If there is a question, the mortgage specialist will give me a call.

For the trade-in, she said I needed to complete a self-inspection. I told her I was good looking but was carrying a few extra pounds. J/K! The self-inspection is for my trade-in and involves taking several pictures of the car. She suggested it be done during daylight hours. There's a couple of hours of daylight left, so I'm off to the car wash to make the car all shiny.

While at the car wash, I get an email from Tesla financing. Our loan has been approved! (It's been a total of maybe 1.5 hours since I submitted the application.) The email includes the bank who is providing the loan (Wells Fargo), the interest rate (1.74%, as quoted the day I placed the order), my estimated monthly payment, and the amount I need to bring when I pick up the car.

The amount we have to pay at signing is a bit higher than I expected. Turns out, taxes and fees are not included in the loan amount. That's not what I remember being told when I put my deposit down, but it seems like that's how it's been with other car loans I have gotten. Thinking back on the application process, that kinda makes sense too. However, it would be nice if they gave you an estimated tax amount during the loan application process so you can figure that in when determining your down payment percentage. Luckily, I have some funds in reserve that can cover it. This also means my monthly loan payment will be lower than I planned. And the amount quoted does not yet take into account my trade-in.

Timing-wise, it's going to be tight. I have to sell some stock to get the additional funds, The market has already closed today, so my order won't get executed until tomorrow, Thursday. The trade has to settle, then I have to transfer the funds to my checking account. If I need to provide a cashier's check, I'm screwed. But since I'm picking the car up on a Sunday, I don't think they will ask for that, considering banks will be closed. Monday is also a payday for my wife, so I should be OK riding the float for a day or two.

Self-Inspection Process

The self-inspection asks for photos of the following:

• Title
• Tires (using penny to show tire depth, Lincoln's head pointing down)
• VIN Plate
• Left side of vehicle
• Right side of vehicle
• Front of vehicle
• Rear of vehicle
• Seats
• Dash
• Odometer

Shouldn't be too hard. They say I should have a quote back in 48 hours. That's cutting it close to the delivery date. I took pictures and uploaded everything in the evening. I had to resize all the images because the site (which was a third party site) cannot accept more than 25 MB of images. My phone defaults to image sizes of about 4 to 5 MB each and I had 18 to upload.

In addition to uploading pictures, you also have to answer questions about the condition of the car, provide the VIN, year, make, model, etc. They ask if any warning lights (check engine, tire pressure, oil change, etc.) are lit on the dash. They say the Tesla delivery person will verify that the condition you report matches the condition of the car when you turn it in. They also only asked for pictures of one tire, so if you bought your tires at different times, photograph the one with the most tread.

Wow.. It's 8:20 PM and I just got an email from my Delivery Advisor saying she got all my photos and information and they are just waiting for a price for the trade-in. She's based in Nevada, which is the same time zone as me, so she's working late!

Seriously, this has been a hectic last 6 hours. Things are changing literally as fast as I type them up here.

Thursday

After the commotion of yesterday, today seemed like nothing happened. I did not receive any calls or email. Just for the heck of it, I decided to log in to my account and see if anything had changed. It had!

The value of my trade-in came back at $5,050. As I discovered two weeks ago, that's near the middle of the Kelley Blue Book trade-in range of  $4,400 to $6,200, although a bit towards the low side. To be fair, I did specify (truthfully) that there are a couple spots of chipped paint on the hood, so that probably lowered the value. I'm comfortable with that amount. I could probably get a bit more selling it myself, but I'll go with the trade-in just to make things easier for me.

I had to accept the value and answer a couple more questions - was I making payments on the car, etc. They asked me to upload a copy of my registration and the title. This is now the third time I have had to upload a copy of my title. That's seems a little ridiculous to me and is the only place for improvement that I have found in the whole purchase experience.

After that, the final step was to indicate acceptance of the final details. I had to mark five check boxes confirming: I was trading in a car, I was getting Tesla financing, where I was picking up the car, who my insurance company is, and how I want the car to be titled. Once I did that, all the steps were complete! Now I just have to wait for Sunday to pick up the car!

Or not.

I got a call at 8 PM from my delivery advisor. She tells me my car will not be delivered on Sunday. The truck transporting it will not arrive until Monday afternoon. Then they have to charge it and detail it, so the soonest I can pick it up is Tuesday. Unfortunately, since my wife is on the loan and registration, she has to be there to pick it up with me and she is not available during the week. So the delivery has been moved back one week to the 16th. (If you haven't figured it out by now, these posts are not quite real time.)

The delivery advisor asked if I had received a confirmation of my delivery date. I checked my email and I did receive a confirmation - I received it yesterday. She said that, unfortunately, there is a second team handling the delivery schedules and, quite frankly, they don't quite know what they are doing. Gee, that's great to hear.

This raises a couple of issues. My trade-in quote is good for 2 weeks or 500 miles, or so I was told. That's what my documentation says. The delivery advisor says that has changed and it is actually good for 1 month or 1,000 miles. She claims "everyone" within Tesla knows this. Nevertheless, I asked her to put that in writing, which she said she would do. I shouldn't go over 500 miles in a week, but I want to cover myself just in case.

She tried to make me think this was no big deal and that if I went over the mileage, they would just re-do the trade-in estimate. That's all well and good except for the fact that I'm sure the value would drop and I'd end up paying more. She had no answer to that.

We also talked about payment, which no one has mentioned to me before this. She admitted that was her fault. Payment is made via automated clearing house (ACH) transfer - just like paying a bill online. If the amount due is $10,000 or less, they will accept a personal check.

So the delay actually makes things a bit easier for me. I don't have to worry about stock trades settling and funds being transferred in time. The extra week gives me time for all that to settle.

Still, I'm disappointed I have to wait another week. And didn't I just type that I only saw one place for improvement in this process? I see lots of room for improvement now!