Tesla Model 3 - Impressions from a new owner

[vision33r]

Originally Posted by Tall Traveler

Good review. I rented a Model 3 LRDM for a weekend and really liked it. The car is extremely quick, agile, efficient, and high tech that is the best or near the best of any car made and the sound system is also excellent. On the other hand, the quality control and materials aren't up to German car standards and it's also not as quiet at high way speeds as the German cars.

I was impressed enough to order a LRDM Model Y that I'm still waiting on and a tri motor Cybertruck which I may or may not keep depending on how much I like the Model Y. We currently have a Jeep Grand Cherokee and BMW 228I and we love both and most likely will keep both along with the Y.

I'm not gonna get a Cybertruck because I think they will have a lot of initial QC problems, brand new model. When you get the car make sure you buy another mobile charger. Don't buy their expensive at home charger, that is a ripoff. The mobile charger is good enough to charge at 90% of the charge rate of the at home charger. I keep one in the car and one at home and I don't even have a 220v charger and I can charge just fine at 115v. The superchargers are definitely great, I charged 70% range in just 30mins for about $8.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by vision33r

I just picked up used Model 3 LRDM with 10k, a month ago. Got it used for $45k with FSD. No taxes at all. Good thing about the car is I don't have to go to gas station anymore and just charge it at home even with the slow charging it's fine.

There's a lot of pluses with the car but there are numerous negatives that I'm still trying to get adjusted too. It seems Tesla studied BMW a lot because the signal and wiper controls are similar to BMW and which I hate.
Making something simple to use difficult. For example like majority of cars out there, you signal by tapping down or up. On both BMW and Tesla, you have to cancel the signal by tapping down the same direction. The wiper situation is worse on the Tesla, the wiper controls should be a simple knob but since it is onscreen it requires you to be familiar with the placement of the icons. On BMWs there are much finer delay settings for the automatic wiper controls. The Tesla wiper controls are erratic and not enough levels of control.

As for the acceleration, it is faster than just about anything I've driven from 0-60 without much effort. If you frequently accelerate it has a huge impact on range. I have never gotten anywhere close to the advertise range until I really baby it and it is quite hard to drive slow. When FSD is enabled, it speeds up pretty rapidly on it's own.

For FSD, unless you are driving on some empty roads in the country Sunday morning I would not use it in traffic. It's way too risky. It can handle bumper to bumper traffic but it's more of a nuisance to manage it.

Fit and finish it is not quite there yet, I have to put the interior quality that it's inferior to even a loaded Honda Accord. The materials used inside are prone to scratch and scuffs very easily compared to what's used in a late model Honda or Toyota. It's not even close to a 3 series or even Volvo.

For $45k I could've gotten a loaded 3 series after taxes but BMW resale value plummets after 3 years. So it's still a good buy for this price range consider the total cost of ownership of Tesla is much cheaper than even a Prius.

What year was the Model 3 you picked up? Did you end up doing a lot of research on what build version (not sure what else to call it) it was since Tesla seems to keep introducing various changes at random intervals?

[vision33r]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

What year was the Model 3 you picked up? Did you end up doing a lot of research on what build version (not sure what else to call it) it was since Tesla seems to keep introducing various changes at random intervals?

Ok, my used M3 LRDM is a August 2018 build. I compared it to the 2019 and now 2020, I don't think there's any serious differences between 2018 - 2020, you actually lose some but get some back on the 2020 so it's wash but not worth paying the $48k sticker when my used one is only $42k with 10k mi on it.

It was used for $42k with FSD on Tesla website. Gave me a 1.5% loan. I intend to keep this car for a long time as I can kept my Prius for over 10 years and I see no reason why EVs can't last even longer than Hybrids. There are no stupid services like water pumps or oil changes.

Check out the list of changes: https://tinkertry.com/differences-be...-tesla-model-3