pschmitz87
Active member
- First Name
- Peter
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2024
- Threads
- 3
- Messages
- 37
- Reaction score
- 17
- Location
- Seattle
- Vehicles
- Model Y
- Occupation
- Sales
- Thread starter
- #1
How does that saying go, first time caller, long time listener? Been on these forums since the fall anticipating the release of the truck and finally got it delivered last Tuesday in Lynnwood WA just about 30 mins north of Seattle.
Up until the Sunday before I actually didn't know if we were going to pull the trigger as we were on the fence but in the end I'm glad we did. So far overall I'm loving it. It does have its quirks which I'll mention below and happy to field any questions if people have them. For reference we currently have a 2020 Model Y and have owned a 2022 Model 3 but since sold it. We have 2x kids (ages 2 and 3) and a small dog we haul around.
I also hope this doesn't get flagged or is against the rules but for any reservation holders in the Seattle area interested in test drives without wanting to go on Turo, feel free to DM me and we can meet up or I can drive to you. I was thinking of charging $100/hr but can give a better rate for forum members.
Pros
- Drives like a dream, steering wasn't actually too bad for me to adapt right out of the lot but I've also been reading these forums extensively for months so mabye mentally I was already in a place to realize it was going to be very sensitive. Overall though its fun, easy to navigate in parking lots/drive throughs, and is more nimble than it should be when its needed
- Having a family this thing is so easy to load the kids in, as you can see in the back seat there is plenty of room inbetween the car seats for a full adult to sit comfortably which is not the case for our Y. The car seats are the Nuna Exec which are some of the largest on the market and in the Y I can't buckle my seat belt and have to sit slightly turned to one side to fit (I'm 6'1" 230lbs for reference). In the truck, I'm completely comfortable. The adjustable height also makes buckling them in at a height you don't have to bend over for and the doors opening a full 90 degrees makes everything easier
- Its definitely quieter inside the cab then the other Tesla vehicles I've driven with the exception of hearing the motors accelerate. I honestly don't mind this as it sounds like a more aggressive electric whine similar to what you might hear in the Jetsons which the child in me appreciates.
- Storage storage storage. While this doesn't have the Rivian passthrough tunnel, man does this have just pockets, holes, room everywhere. The doors have multi-tiered areas to place everything from bottles to wallets to almost full purses. The floor ribbed area inbetween the driver and front passenger is a game changer which sounds silly but for my wife's giant purse she brings in the car to when we pickup to go food, none of that is at her feet taking up all the room anymore. The back seats have so much room under both the front seats and the backseats themselves that its changing the way we load the car and where we put what items for trips. Then of course you have the bed and the frunk which compared to the Y when we would have to tetris everything a package of toilet paper would still end up on a kid's lap, it just changes the way you think of whats possible in your day to day use
- This thing is fast and I know everyone knows that and I probably don't need to say it but when you punch it off the line, you can feel this thing lurch forward at rates no 6,600lb object should be able to accelerate at without a permit or on some type of track. You can also feel vs other Teslas (I've driven all of them including the plaid ones) just the sheer weight that is being hurdled forward which at times is frightening. I was giving a friend a test drive and he pulled up to a light with some kind of coupe AMG series benz next to us, decided against my recommendation NOT to race him and just absolutely smoked him, not even close.
- How solid everything is, at least so far nothing feels flimsy or like they skimped on it (sans the rearview mirror, I cover that below) other than things that don't matter too much like the tray insert for the center console.
Neutral/Misc
- While the screen is the largest Tesla screen to date, it doesn't feel that dramatically bigger coming from the Y. I jus tthought it would be but at least not so far although my wife feels its bigger.
- This is a weird one but as you can see in the screenshots, the Y has Disney+ and the Truck doesn't, even though both have Hulu. I asked the delivery lead about this and he had no idea that was even the case nor did he have any info on when/if that will ever change
- A lot of other forum members have talked about this, but just be ready for picking up your car and nothing else. They didn't do any training, any walkthrough of the new features on the truck that aren't on other vehicles, they didn't have guides, tips, fanfare, nothing. It will probably be very minimal so just don't expect them to offer up a great experience. Now of course if you ask questions they are there to help, but there is nothing official at least from what my delivery manager said
- Building on the delivery experience, I asked a LOT of questions and most of them they didn't have answers to. Even stuff in these forums like the missing bolts on the rear areas (mine are also missing) they didn't even know about. Just be aware there is a HUGE lack of communication from HQ to these service centers around CT deliveries
- I asked about Tesla officially supporting wraps in Seattle, he didn't have a timeline nor did he know if they would ever support. This also seems like a BIG miss on Tesla's behalf where if these things are coming off the line in Austin, they do wraps in Austin, why not allow reservation holders to add a wrap during checkout, wrap it off the line and then ship it?
- I asked about when they would send out a tech to swap our home tesla charger with the new universal one so we can do V2H should we need it and he said HQ would reach out on that, they didn't have any info
- The cameras are all a bit fish-eye-y so just know that when backing up it looks like you're inches from something when in reality its closer to 1 foot away and its dissapointing they don't offer a 360 view by meshing all the views together as right now you can only look at the front camera + the side cameras OR the back camera + the side cameras at once on the screen, not all 4 together
- The delivery manager warned me about the attention and channels like MKBHD pointed it out, all owners have mentioned it so far but just prepare yourself for reactions both good and bad. TBH at least 90% of them have been good or neutral but I've already driven by a Nissan Leaf and a 90's red pickup truck where just driving in the opposite direction down the road from them going the speed limit on a side road, they both felt it necessary to aggresively flip me off well ahead of passing by me so I saw. Not a big deal but I just always wonder what those people in their heads think they are accomplishing or if they feel good about themselves afterwards because they made their opinions known SMH
- I don't have data to support this yet so putting it in the neutral but so far it seems like I get less mileage than what is quoted when I leave as far as potential miles go. The other day I did a 56mile RT but it seemed like closer to 80 miles were used to get there and by no means was I driving aggresively as I had the kids in the car. I do live in a pretty hilly area of Seattle so maybe just that non-highway driving drains it more as its heavier to move around that type of an environment
- Putting this in neutral because its not perfect but I will say the visibility IMO is better than other people have given it credit for. It reminds me a lot of my old 92' Toyota 4WD Celica which we used to call the Pope-Mobile as it had so much glass (obviously with the exception of rear visibility)
- No word on when updated hubcaps will be available to help with mileage
Cons
- Everyone has mentioned this but the fact that they didn't do a digital mirror is just such a huge miss. I hope at some point they add this or some manufacturer comes out with a wireless one that magnetically mounts so you can charge it between trips but for $100k knowing the rearview screen deficiencies, this just is plain dumb
- I get while driving that probably for legality or NHTSA rules they can't have you stream any media but the fact that you can't have basic Netflix controls for the rearscreen to change the media is a miss for families. I'm not asking to have full netflix experience but the fact that I can scroll through Spotify willy nilly while driving but can't see a basic cover photo netflix media menu to select something else when one kid is screaming "NO MORE MARIO" combines with the rear screen at an odd angle for the front passenger to try and navigate isn't ideal
- I didn't realize this until I left a grocery store and started hearing weird creaking, rubbing and just overall odd noises but be aware that if you select "easy entry" height while in drive, the car will let you drive in that mode which messes up sterring, the wheels everything. Hopefully this is updated in future OTA pushes but it should default to if you select that in drive it doesn't work and only says available in park
- Again they could add this in future OTAs but it affect a lot when driving/parking more than I would think. The standard stuff like backing in to a spot and knowing how far you are away (becuase like I mentioned with the fish-eye camera comment above) as its not super clear but also having it warn you about objects if you have the "auto easy-entry" turned on. For example, the first few times parking against the parking space concrete bumpers (I don't know the technical term so don't come at me) I parked tires touching them in medium drive height and then the car would enter park, auto drop to easy-entry and thankfully so far I haven't done that with a large enough one that the bumpers scrape or fall on them but that is something to keep in mind with keeping auto easy-entry on is that you could drop your truck into an object
- I'll put this comment in the negative section only because I have to take it back to the service center to get it fixed and that is annoying + they don't have an ETA but you can also see in pics of the bed that it almost seems like the assembly line washed the back out with a really harsh chemical and left streaks. When I picked up I noticed that, they had a tech come out, spray it down with a chemical, wipe it all, everything looked great + glossy black and then they said let it dry for a few hours and when it did, the streaks came back so they asked me to schedule an appointment to fix it but it didn't feel like they were confident they knew how to fix it other than replacing the entire liner which I'm not even sure a service center can do.
- Slight rust in center of the wheels as shown in the pics, it should just barkeepers wipe out just haven't done it yet but still annoying they didn't clean it more upon arrival
- Something else families should consider is just the raw and heavy form of the truck which can be potentially dangerous for little ones. Our driveway is also at around a 10degree grade so parking with the front higher than the back means its way easier to tap a door and have it close with a lot of weight behind it because of the materials involved and with the door edges effectively being raw metal and relatively unfinished, should a small hand or anything else be in the way, I'm slightly terrified and on edge every time I think about it. Of course I knew it was going to be very industrial but the magnitude was something I didn't think about as much as I should have. Not regretting it (yet) but I'm just hyper aware when the kids are getting in/out that I'm not doing anything else besides being focused on them being away from the truck and any pinch areas before I do anything else.
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