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What is the typical new delivery process?

Packing-Tape-Man | 2026-02-17 13:34 | 9 views

Had my first new Tesla delivery and curious what is typical. To be clear, I'm not complaining, just curious if our experience was the norm. Happy to have the vehicle. Our appointment time was 11a, a time we picked. Day before they sent an email rescheduling it for 5p. Delivery location was an hour away. Once we arrived (15 minutes early) it was hard to get any employees attention but once we did they said our car wouldn't be ready at 5. They directed us to a waiting room where "we could get snacks and drinks." But there there were none -- not a single piece of food or drink; just an empty refrigerator, empty place where coffee pods could have been. Eventually they made it clear it would be a while so we left to find food and return. Still wasn't ready. Eventually they were ready after 6pm. By then it was dark outside so hard to inspect. We tried most of the mechanical features like doors, windows, seats, etc. Second row seat wouldn't fold flat (7 seater). Several Tesla employees tried; took a while because none of them were confident they knew the correct procedure since, as they said, "they rarely delivery Xs" so they were just trying different things. Eventually decided it was defective (exact same lever worked on the other side). Suggested we take delivery and schedule service to fix it later in the app. App later indicated of the nearest 3 locations that the soonest appointment was 35 days away. Still waiting to hear back on our service request. One of our hesitations with Rivian and Lucid as options had been time to get service, based on buzz from owners on Reddit. I had not heard that Tesla was similar but is what it is -- FSD was the decisive factor so there were no alternatives anyway.

Comments (10)
[deleted] 2026-02-17 13:42

30+ days for a service appointment sounds about right for Tesla. It is much worse when your car cannot be driven due to something that is a quick fix but you end up without a car for a month.

Packing-Tape-Man 2026-02-17 13:46

On a related note, I asked the Tesla delivery person if we would be offered free loaners if the service required more than a couple hours and he said yes. Is that always the case?

boka_ko_masu 2026-02-17 13:51

Delivery of my M3P (a week ago) was a very easy process. As soon as we walked in, we were greeted by the front desk staff. He asked us about our trade-in and did a quick inspection of it. Once done, he had me go through the app to eSign. Once done, and before confirming final step, he walked us to our car so that we could do a quick inspection of the exterior. Once satisfied, I completed the steps and paired the phone with the car. We continued the interior inspection. While doing so, we had two other employees come talk to us about the car/features, etc. Once everything was setup/done, we drove it out of the warehouse. Also, our appointment was at 6pm but received a text earlier in the day that we could come in at any time. We got there at 4pm…lol.

[deleted] 2026-02-17 13:57

I was given a loaner when I took my car in the first time to fix things from delivery but never have since. Multiple visits even for things under warranty and no loaner. Last time I evn had to argue to get uber credits. Horrible experience overall.

Possible-Landscape72 2026-02-17 14:14

It sounds like your service center is having issues. I picked up our second new Tesla last week and it took less than 10 minutes. We live three hours away and it took longer to use their restroom than it did to have the car turned over to us. We’ve never needed a loaner (owned various Teslas over almost ten years) so I can’t address that, but we have had to “shop” service centers. We have two that are almost equidistant so if one can’t get to us quickly, the other usually can.

Packing-Tape-Man 2026-02-17 14:19

That is a serious bummer. Even Kia always supplied an EV loaner when we brought it in for anything including standard maintenance. I'd have to dig all the way back to when we owned Hondas and Toyotas to recall the last time any of our car brands didn't offer that. Volvo even has a free "concierge" service that picks up our car in our driveway and drops off a loaner then reverses the process when they are done with our car. I'll be annoyed if they don't at least do it for this delivery defect since they said they would since it sounds like they likely need to replace the entire seat from what they said.

Packing-Tape-Man 2026-02-17 14:22

Nice. I imagine this may vary substantially by region or area. I apparently didn't win the region lottery when it comes to Tesla service which probably just means they are super popular here.

LoneStarGut 2026-02-17 16:14

It usually takes us 1-2 weeks to get an appointment. We once just rolled to ask if they could see us sooner - a charge port issue was preventing FSD from engaging, and the took us right in and were were out about an hour later. This past Saturday, drove in to ask some questions about if a noise would be covered on my 2020's motor warranty, they suggested it wouldn't because of the type of noise. From the description they said it sounded like a pebble in the wheel. Sure enough, we too kit off and there was a pebble scraping the inside rim. While there they setup a mobile service for this week to get our front camera area cleaned.

Usual-Royal4560 2026-02-17 17:03

I had similar experience, car was not in the best condition and was brand new.

tayl428 2026-02-17 23:50

Never, never, never take delivery of a faulty car. There's zero rush to get you taken care of. Welcome to Tesla!

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