New Model 3 Collected (Many Questions?)

[w8pmc]

Firstly, the handover on Friday was woeful & quality of the paintwork/preparation the worst I've seen an any car, let alone a brand new one, but I'll come back to that.

My first question & I just know it's a stupid one, but this is our first EV so got some learning to do. Is the either accelerating/braking just something all EV's have to do, specific to Tesla Model 3 LR's or something I'm doing wrong? It's somewhat un-nerving that as soon as you lift off the throttle, the car starts braking & engages the brake lights. If this is normal then I guess I'll just have to get used to it?

Although the tech is fairly cool, I'm finding some obvious omissions & not sure if they're just not available or I need to further setup something?

1. POI's on the Sat-Nav?
2. Speed Cameras on the Sat-Nav?
3. Speed Limit recognition (does display but doesn't change for contraflows etc.)
4. Car seems to brake for no reason (in contraflows).
5. Setting a Primary driver? I setup a profile for myself & my wife, but when we both get in the car at the same time & I'm driving, the profile defaults to the Wife (my iPhone is setup correctly I think as the preferred mobile device).

I'm sure I have many more questions, as the delta between what I'm used to in my car/s & this Tesla is clearly quite a steep learning curve.

Back to the Handover on Friday, basically we were given 2 keycards & sent outside to drive off. No instruction of how to open the car & nothing about how to start the car & engage Drive. For someone who has a passion for cars, I was of course embarrassed & started hating this car within minutes as nothing was intuitive.

The quality of the paintwork was worse than the 5yr old with 53k miles Volvo we dropped off in part exchange. Took the Tesla to my local Detailer as I'd booked it in to have a new car prep & 5yr Ceramic coating the day after collection. Once he put the car under the detailing lights, he was shocked to see so many swirl marks & scratches & would swear whoever washed it used a brillo pad. Ended up needing a full day of machine polishing, just to get the paintwork into a condition where the ceramic coating could be applied. Really not something I'd expect with any new car, let alone a premium vehicle.

[annodomini2]

w8pmc said:

Firstly, the handover on Friday was woeful & quality of the paintwork/preparation the worst I've seen an any car, let alone a brand new one, but I'll come back to that.

My first question & I just know it's a stupid one, but this is our first EV so got some learning to do. Is the either accelerating/braking just something all EV's have to do, specific to Tesla Model 3 LR's or something I'm doing wrong? It's somewhat un-nerving that as soon as you lift off the throttle, the car starts braking & engages the brake lights. If this is normal then I guess I'll just have to get used to it?

Called one pedal driving, you can turn it off in the menu, change the mode from "hold" to "roll", although the car is less efficient without it.

I would recommend getting used to it, I personally find it much easier to drive this way.

w8pmc said:

Although the tech is fairly cool, I'm finding some obvious omissions & not sure if they're just not available or I need to further setup something?

1. POI's on the Sat-Nav?
2. Speed Cameras on the Sat-Nav?
3. Speed Limit recognition (does display but doesn't change for contraflows etc.)
4. Car seems to brake for no reason (in contraflows).
5. Setting a Primary driver? I setup a profile for myself & my wife, but when we both get in the car at the same time & I'm driving, the profile defaults to the Wife (my iPhone is setup correctly I think as the preferred mobile device).

There are limitations for the UK, some of this is due to functionality yet to be implemented, some is restricted due to local legislation.

Read the manual.

Shadow braking is a common issue on many adaptive cruise control systems, some more than others.

There are also lots of YouTube videos on how to operate the car.

w8pmc said:

I'm sure I have many more questions, as the delta between what I'm used to in my car/s & this Tesla is clearly quite a steep learning curve.

Back to the Handover on Friday, basically we were given 2 keycards & sent outside to drive off. No instruction of how to open the car & nothing about how to start the car & engage Drive. For someone who has a passion for cars, I was of course embarrassed & started hating this car within minutes as nothing was intuitive.

The emails ask you to watch the videos on how to use the car.

w8pmc said:

The quality of the paintwork was worse than the 5yr old with 53k miles Volvo we dropped off in part exchange. Took the Tesla to my local Detailer as I'd booked it in to have a new car prep & 5yr Ceramic coating the day after collection. Once he put the car under the detailing lights, he was shocked to see so many swirl marks & scratches & would swear whoever washed it used a brillo pad. Ended up needing a full day of machine polishing, just to get the paintwork into a condition where the ceramic coating could be applied. Really not something I'd expect with any new car, let alone a premium vehicle.

A detailer will be extremely picky, it's their job.

They are a mass manufactured car, they are not going to spend a day polishing a car. This is not unique to Tesla, their paint may require improvement, but go sit in a VW dealership and look at the the ID3 it's covered in orange peel.

Hell, detailers complain about the finish on Bentley's and Lamborghini's.

I get the impression that either this is a company car or you didn't test drive before purchasing.

[RobDickinson]

annodomini2 said:

Called one pedal driving, you can turn it off in the menu, change the mode from "hold" to "roll", although the car is less efficient without it.

You cant switch regen braking off any more. you can switch between roll, hold or creep but this only affects how the car handles < 5kph speeds, regen is now set to on with no ability to remove it.

annodomini2 said:

I would recommend getting used to it, I personally find it much easier to drive this way.

This. Takes a couple days to get used to then you wont want to go back. Set it to hold and enjoy driving the future. Brake pedal isnt used unless you are driving hard or need to stop quickly.

[Heres Johnny]

annodomini2 said:

There are limitations for the UK, some of this is due to functionality yet to be implemented, some is restricted due to local legislation
.

None of the things mentioned are restricted due to local legislation, it's all down to Tesla favouring entertainment features over driving features, I'm not sure how else you could explain thinking in car karaoke, fart noises and being able to turn the picture of the car into a submarine is more imprtant than reliably adapting the cruise control to the speed limit (no dount Rob will now leap to Teslas defence).

OP, your post sounds like you did no research and didn't test drive one before buying and yet you describe yourself as a car enthusiast. Seems like an own goal to me and not one I'd then highlight to the world on an internet forum.

But as a freebee.. points of interest? What are you expecting? An old fashioned database of petrol stations? Just ask it for anything and if it's in google then the car will find it and you can navigate there (althought he nav itself doesn't use google maps)

[page3]

Heres Johnny said:

…being able to turn the picture of the car into a submarine

You can do that? How?

Tesla Infotainment and Sat Nav looks cool, but is pretty feature starved. While every review praises it to the hilt it isn’t going to improve.

To be fair, most cars have pretty lousy systems, but these days they also support CarPlay/AA so it doesn’t really matter.

For clarity, I’d like:

• Apple maps
• Google maps (full)
• Waze
• Alternative navigation routes
• Speed camera alerts
• Ability to zoom in further on route
• Ability for navigation to quieten music during instructions
• Ability for navigation to pause audiobooks during instructions
• Speed aware dynamic volume adjustment
• Spotify (full resolution)
• Other streaming services
• PlexAmp
• Audible
• Prologue (audiobooks from Plex)
• Siri voice recognition
• iMessage/sms reading and dictation

Still, great car

Edited by page3 on Tuesday 7th December 07:59

[SWoll]

As above sounds like you did very little research/reading before getting the car OP which I do find odd as they've been around for 2+ years now and plenty of information out there?

Will definitely take time to get used to the quirks and features but most of what you mention is just how Tesla does things and widely documented.

[w8pmc]

Heres Johnny said:

None of the things mentioned are restricted due to local legislation, it's all down to Tesla favouring entertainment features over driving features, I'm not sure how else you could explain thinking in car karaoke, fart noises and being able to turn the picture of the car into a submarine is more imprtant than reliably adapting the cruise control to the speed limit (no dount Rob will now leap to Teslas defence).

OP, your post sounds like you did no research and didn't test drive one before buying and yet you describe yourself as a car enthusiast. Seems like an own goal to me and not one I'd then highlight to the world on an internet forum.

But as a freebee.. points of interest? What are you expecting? An old fashioned database of petrol stations? Just ask it for anything and if it's in google then the car will find it and you can navigate there (althought he nav itself doesn't use google maps)

I'll take some of that on the chin, but at the end of the day it's a car & I've had many cars & yet have never needed to watch YouTube to work out how to drive it. Some specific features might require a quick RTFM or similar, but not how to get in it, switch it on & drive it.

That said (this isn't my car it's the Wife's), it does appear she received comms from Tesla a prior to collection advising she watch i think it was 9 YouTube videos. However she replayed to me as being suggested we watch YouTube vids of how to drive the car, to which i replied 'i know how to drive a car'. Clearly this was a d1ck move & i should have paid more attention, however in fairness, she could have watched them

I'll always admit to my failings & this appears to have been one.

[w8pmc]

annodomini2 said:

A detailer will be extremely picky, it's their job.

They are a mass manufactured car, they are not going to spend a day polishing a car. This is not unique to Tesla, their paint may require improvement, but go sit in a VW dealership and look at the the ID3 it's covered in orange peel.

Hell, detailers complain about the finish on Bentley's and Lamborghini's.

I get the impression that either this is a company car or you didn't test drive before purchasing.

Thanks, some useful info.

As above, this is not a Company car, but is my Wife's car. Turns out she did get a notification from Tesla about watching a selection of YouTube clips, to which i laughed & explained we're not teenagers. This was clearly not my smartest move & had we watched them, last Friday's handover would have been considerably less stressful/embarrassing.

Regarding the paintwork, it is shocking & not only to the eyes of a Detailer. Under lighting it looked like it have been washed with a scourer rather than a sponge/cloth. Have now seen plenty of reports to back up both the quality of Tesla paint & the woeful prep they perform.

[w8pmc]

RobDickinson said:

This. Takes a couple days to get used to then you wont want to go back. Set it to hold and enjoy driving the future. Brake pedal isnt used unless you are driving hard or need to stop quickly.

Thank you. Am defo now getting used to it & clearly just need to adapt our (more me) style of driving

[w8pmc]

SWoll said:

As above sounds like you did very little research/reading before getting the car OP which I do find odd as they've been around for 2+ years now and plenty of information out there?

Will definitely take time to get used to the quirks and features but most of what you mention is just how Tesla does things and widely documented.

Thanks & as above. It's the wife's car, however she really doesn't like driving so i tend to chauffer whenever we both go out. I defo should have paid more attention, but i'm not in the YouTube age bracket so had assumed i didn't need hours of education to drive a different car, albeit an electric one.

I did test drive a P100D a few years ago, but wasn't for me so never paid any more attention to the Tesla brand until by good lady informed me she wanted a Model 3 LR in Blue a few months ago

[w8pmc]

page3 said:

You can do that? How?

Tesla Infotainment and Sat Nav looks cool, but is pretty feature starved. While every review praises it to the hilt it isn’t going to improve.

To be fair, most cars have pretty lousy systems, but these days they also support CarPlay/AA so it doesn’t really matter.

For clarity, I’d like:

• Apple maps
• Google maps (full)
• Waze
• Alternative navigation routes
• Speed camera alerts
• Ability to zoom in further on route
• Ability for navigation to quieten music during instructions
• Ability for navigation to pause audiobooks during instructions
• Speed aware dynamic volume adjustment
• Spotify (full resolution)
• Other streaming services
• PlexAmp
• Audible
• Prologue (audiobooks from Plex)
• Siri voice recognition
• iMessage/sms reading and dictation

Still, great car

Edited by page3 on Tuesday 7th December 07:59

I'd defo agree with the first few as Apple CarPlay has been a game changer & would satisfy quite a few shortcomings with the Tesla system & is now pretty much standard on much lower premium vehicles.

Not the end of the world, but I've been used to traffic sign recognition, speed camera alerts & adaptive cruise that doesn't try to kill you in most previous cars for the last decade, so I've become used to them.

[Gatsods]

w8pmc said:

Thanks & as above. It's the wife's car, however she really doesn't like driving so i tend to chauffer whenever we both go out. I defo should have paid more attention, but i'm not in the YouTube age bracket so had assumed i didn't need hours of education to drive a different car, albeit an electric one.

I did test drive a P100D a few years ago, but wasn't for me so never paid any more attention to the Tesla brand until by good lady informed me she wanted a Model 3 LR in Blue a few months ago

Damn.... was really hoping after reading further up in the thread yours wasn't blue........ just pulled the trigger on ordering one as a company car.

I must admit, I've heard a lot about the poor quality in the past but had also heard a lot about the improvements since the MY2021s (black window surrounds/door handles) started to be delivered.

What are your overall impressions of the build quality, excluding what clearly sounds like a poor paint finish? Furthermore - did you find the detailer was able to rectify the issues/get the paint to a good standard?

[w8pmc]

Gatsods said:

Damn.... was really hoping after reading further up in the thread yours wasn't blue........ just pulled the trigger on ordering one as a company car.

I must admit, I've heard a lot about the poor quality in the past but had also heard a lot about the improvements since the MY2021s (black window surrounds/door handles) started to be delivered.

What are your overall impressions of the build quality, excluding what clearly sounds like a poor paint finish? Furthermore - did you find the detailer was able to rectify the issues/get the paint to a good standard?

That made me chuckle

Yes ours is Blue & no it's not a Company Car.

Overall the build quality is very good & no complaints regarding that, only issue is the paintwork that was either poor from the factory or whoever gave it the pre collection preparation was using a scourer & was also blind or short sighted. Have heard since that this is fairly common place with Tesla's, however with most Model 3's being White, I'd assume many customers wouldn't spot the swirl marks & scratches unless under fluorescent lighting.

Car was already booked in straight from collection for a new car prep & 5yr ceramic coating as I'd heard Tesla paint is very thin & prone to scratches, however as soon as the Detailer took the car into his workshop under lights, the car was covered (he sent me photos & video) with scratches & swirl marks, so he had to spend the best part of a day machine polishing the car before he could apply the Ceramic coating.

Looks stunning now, but given he's had the wife's 5yr old & 50k mile Volvo in the week before for paint correction & so it looked good for the Part Ex, his exact words were the paintwork between the 2 cars was very similar (both dark Blue) in quality which let's ne honest is somewhat shocking.

[Up_North]

Speed limit sign recognition is dreadful and inconsistent. There is an 8 mile stretch of roadworks near me on an A road. It has at least 12 50mph speed limit signs yet the car doesn’t see a single one of them. A few miles away, also on an A road, there are also roadworks and the car sees all of the lower speed limit signs.

Fanboys will come up with a suitable excuse. The same fanboys who come up with a workaround for the fact that you can’t open the glovebox while watching YouTube.

[steveatesh]

Up_North said:

Speed limit sign recognition is dreadful and inconsistent. There is an 8 mile stretch of roadworks near me on an A road. It has at least 12 50mph speed limit signs yet the car doesn’t see a single one of them. A few miles away, also on an A road, there are also roadworks and the car sees all of the lower speed limit signs.

Fanboys will come up with a suitable excuse. The same fanboys who come up with a workaround for the fact that you can’t open the glovebox while watching YouTube.

Got to say I’ve never tried that but can you pres the right hand steering wheel button and say “open glovebox” or does that not work when watching YT/NF etc?

I agree the speed limit recognition is poor, as is the sat nav telling you to take the wrong exit off roundabouts despite the blue line pointing to the correct one. Brilliant car , I love mine, but they have definitly scored some own goals on basic tech that should be spot on.

[Durzel]

The criticisms about the paint, to me, sound like bad prep rather than fundamental issues. If you wanted actual, tangible paintwork issues then you should have seen what the Made in America cars were (are?) like. Paint runs, dust nibs, etc.

As said above a detailer will be ultra critical of paintwork anyway. Swirls and the like that you'd get from some random employee washing the car with one sponge and a chamois are par for the course with pretty much any new car I think. That being said though of all the cars I'd taken to my detailer the Model 3 was the only one he warned me in advance that I wouldn't be happy with, and that - having done many of them - "they're all crap, but yours is one of the better ones". High praise.

By all accounts I've read the Made in China cars are a lot better, or at least a lot more consistent. it sounds to me that you got one that had been washed after it arrived by someone not adhering to the whole two bucket, virgin woollen mitt, etc method.