agordon117
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- Joined
- Jan 11, 2024
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- Location
- Ohio
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- cybertruck foundation awd
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- #1
Alright, I've had a couple of days to catch up on sleep, and collect some thoughts about the vehicle. Today is day 3 of driving it, I've done rain at night, fog, etc.
Delivery experience:
I arrived 30 minutes early at my showroom, and my truck was ready to go. They let me check it out first, inside and out, without me needing to ask to open it. The white leather trim looked great (no smudges, fingerprints, stains), and there was only one little grease mark on one of the seats (probably a last second fingerprint, came right off). Camera alignment looked good. But, the biggest issue inside is that there's a sticker on my rear passenger window that I have no clue how I'm going to remove. When I asked my delivery guy about the D rings that were missing, he pulled out his phone and showed me "it only says premium accessories on a foundation series order". So I had to pull mine out and go to the store page for the D rings to show him that it says 4 are included with the foundation truck. It's annoying to have to do that, but be prepared. Tesla just does this. They treat you like a nuisance rather than a customer. The customer is always wrong with them.
On the outside, Panel gaps all looked great. One scuff on a fender (not big enough to worry about). Passenger side roofline is up just under 1/8" at the rear. Passenger rear door sticks out along the entire height a bit. Both are enough that I want to see if they can address it, but if they don't it's not the end of the world.
Passenger door button is very hard to press compared to the other 3, and not nearly as clicky. Passengers have a hard time figuring it out vs any of the other doors, and it takes 3-4x as much force as the other buttons. Fingers crossed they can address this.
Lots of rail dust, one of the spots was quite big. I haven't gotten it all off yet but I'm working my way through it. Just to give other owners some peace about it, here are 2 pictures (before and in the cleaning process) of the worst spot, which came fully out after 3 hits of BKF (letting it sit longer before scrubbing each time, never exceeding 60 seconds before removing). It really did look like it was pitted until the very last bit came off, now the surface is totally smooth aside from the orbital sanding marks. I didn't include a "finished" picture, because you'd have no way to even know where the mark was this close up.
The one big exterior issue is the permanent drip stains on the rockers. Both sides have them, I've tried 4 different cleaners to remove them, and have one more coming. I'm fairly certain it's from barkeeper's friend which they must have used while prepping. I'm certain they used it because when I have been using it to remove rail dust spots, I am not changing the finish of the truck at all. So it must have been freshly done.
Now for the "review" section.
Truck handles like a dream. It's an incredibly smooth ride (on medium ride height, haven't tried it lower). The steering didn't take any getting used to at all. It just felt natural. Seeing it in person is such a different experience to watching videos or seeing pictures. It's so unreasonably cool looking. It's hard to pick out specific positive things to say about it, because everything that isn't a complaint is awesome. To everyone waiting for one, I can promise you it's worth the wait. Just hang in there. It's an amazing vehicle. You will be so thankful that you waited for it when you finally drive it home.
The bad:
-Headlights are crap. The low beams are a 4.5/10 (barely better than halogen), and the highs are 7/10. On a rainy night, I wouldn't feel comfortable driving on an unlit highway unless there were no cars in front of me and I could use my brights. They just aren't bright enough as they get far away from the truck. I tried adjusting them lower, but now they are still not bright enough, and also too low. I don't know how this was the solution they came up with. It really needs to be fixed before volume production, and offered as a retrofit to existing owners.
-Steering wheel comfort... The driving experience for long trips is not good. The turn signals are on the left side of the steering wheel. So the comfortable/correct long distance driving position is left elbow planted on the arm rest on the door, and left hand on the steering wheel where your thumb can reach the turn signals. Except this is very not doable in the truck. The combination of pedal placement, seat height, how far out/down the steering wheel comes, steering wheel size, and the shallow armrest on the door make it impossible for me (5'10" tall) to find a position where my elbow is far enough on the armrest to be comfortable. I either have to grip the wheel lower and not have access to the turn signals, or just get the tip of my elbow on the corner of the armrest. People who said the steering wheel is too small are right if only for this reason. You never feel like you need more wheel to control the truck, but it doesn't come far enough outward to find a comfortable driving position. The wheel feels great when you're maneuvering around a parking lot with both hands where they can reach the buttons, but that's not how I want to spend an entire road trip.
-No roll mode. I absolutely hate the ever changing braking dynamics of "hold" mode, and while it IS a smoother hold mode in the truck than my model Y had, I just hate the every shrinking list of options in tesla vehicles. Roll mode only exists in off road mode, you cannot set it that way for normal driving. The amount that it fights you at the bottom end of the throttle is never the same twice when you're in hold mode, making it easy to give it too much gas when you're trying to inch forward in a parking space.
-Front camera view cannot be enabled above 5mph. Pushing the camera button only serves to turn off the rear view camera (which makes less than zero sense). If you're pulling up to a light and know you want to check your front end position, too bad, you can't turn that camera on until you're almost stopped. Even pulling up my driveway and making the turn into my garage, I have to basically fully stop to get the camera button to bring up the front camera view.
-Blind spot camera removes the rear view when it's active. I turned mine off for now. I already have side view mirrors. As helpful as the blind spot camera is, I would not choose it over my rear view mirror. They need to come up with a way to show both, there's plenty of screen real estate to do so. The way it currently works shouldn't even be on the list of possible options.
-The rear view display itself is an absolute joke. Cars right behind you look like they're 500 feet back. For whatever reason, they didn't crop the rear view in a way that makes any sense. Because of this, I feel much less aware of my surroundings than when driving any other vehicle. Including trucks, suburbans, you name it. One of my strengths when driving is being aware of every other car on the road to the point that if I didn't check my blind spots, I would never have an issue. I DO check them every time in every vehicle, but not having that same level of awareness feels weird. If a car is coming up on you fast and making aggressive maneuvers where you'd want to hold off on a lane change until they would pass, you'd never have a single clue it was happening. Anything further back than the car directly behind you is really not possible to see. I'm going to be looking into replacement rear view mirrors with cameras (hopefully that don't have such a bad/far away view). I know the weirdos will come in here and say only side mirrors should ever be needed, but less information isn't better no matter how you try to twist it. More driver awareness is always better than less. You should be capable of driving without it, but there's zero excuse with the availability of modern technology why tesla shouldn't have provided a better rear view image.
-On wet roads, my wheels have been locking up at the start of each drive. When accelerating and decelerating, I can feel the brakes clicking as if I have lost traction. Smooth and slow acceleration, as well as early and smooth braking. I don't know if the tires need to warm up before they have any traction at all, or if there's some bug in the traction system. The funny thing is, I did a full 0-60 pull on an on ramp, and the tires didn't slip at all. But smoothly and slowly leaving my house, they slip.
-My bed divider only works on the first third of the bed (where the under bed storage is). immediately once you are past that it will not grab a single location in the rest of the length of the bed. Some people reported it only didn't fit in the middle third of the bed, but for me it's worse. Don't think it can be addressed at all either. You'd need a bed divider that has feet of variable thickness as you go along the bed. I will likely never use it since the only place it works is where I would never want to put it (preventing the under bed storage from being opened).
-Walk away door lock doesn't beep the horn. That's the only way I know that my car has locked, so that will need to be fixed somehow.
I'll have more to say as I go. So far I've installed some glass screen protectors and the molle panels. Today I'm gonna try to put some leather protectant (they claim it's a ceramic coating for leather) on the white trim. I have more coming to do the seats as well. Also put on the center caps and lug nut covers I ordered back in january (and I don't think they have been back in stock since). If anyone has any questions, I'll be around to answer them. Any solutions to the above problems that I find, I will be happy to post here.
Delivery experience:
I arrived 30 minutes early at my showroom, and my truck was ready to go. They let me check it out first, inside and out, without me needing to ask to open it. The white leather trim looked great (no smudges, fingerprints, stains), and there was only one little grease mark on one of the seats (probably a last second fingerprint, came right off). Camera alignment looked good. But, the biggest issue inside is that there's a sticker on my rear passenger window that I have no clue how I'm going to remove. When I asked my delivery guy about the D rings that were missing, he pulled out his phone and showed me "it only says premium accessories on a foundation series order". So I had to pull mine out and go to the store page for the D rings to show him that it says 4 are included with the foundation truck. It's annoying to have to do that, but be prepared. Tesla just does this. They treat you like a nuisance rather than a customer. The customer is always wrong with them.
On the outside, Panel gaps all looked great. One scuff on a fender (not big enough to worry about). Passenger side roofline is up just under 1/8" at the rear. Passenger rear door sticks out along the entire height a bit. Both are enough that I want to see if they can address it, but if they don't it's not the end of the world.
Passenger door button is very hard to press compared to the other 3, and not nearly as clicky. Passengers have a hard time figuring it out vs any of the other doors, and it takes 3-4x as much force as the other buttons. Fingers crossed they can address this.
Lots of rail dust, one of the spots was quite big. I haven't gotten it all off yet but I'm working my way through it. Just to give other owners some peace about it, here are 2 pictures (before and in the cleaning process) of the worst spot, which came fully out after 3 hits of BKF (letting it sit longer before scrubbing each time, never exceeding 60 seconds before removing). It really did look like it was pitted until the very last bit came off, now the surface is totally smooth aside from the orbital sanding marks. I didn't include a "finished" picture, because you'd have no way to even know where the mark was this close up.
The one big exterior issue is the permanent drip stains on the rockers. Both sides have them, I've tried 4 different cleaners to remove them, and have one more coming. I'm fairly certain it's from barkeeper's friend which they must have used while prepping. I'm certain they used it because when I have been using it to remove rail dust spots, I am not changing the finish of the truck at all. So it must have been freshly done.
Now for the "review" section.
Truck handles like a dream. It's an incredibly smooth ride (on medium ride height, haven't tried it lower). The steering didn't take any getting used to at all. It just felt natural. Seeing it in person is such a different experience to watching videos or seeing pictures. It's so unreasonably cool looking. It's hard to pick out specific positive things to say about it, because everything that isn't a complaint is awesome. To everyone waiting for one, I can promise you it's worth the wait. Just hang in there. It's an amazing vehicle. You will be so thankful that you waited for it when you finally drive it home.
The bad:
-Headlights are crap. The low beams are a 4.5/10 (barely better than halogen), and the highs are 7/10. On a rainy night, I wouldn't feel comfortable driving on an unlit highway unless there were no cars in front of me and I could use my brights. They just aren't bright enough as they get far away from the truck. I tried adjusting them lower, but now they are still not bright enough, and also too low. I don't know how this was the solution they came up with. It really needs to be fixed before volume production, and offered as a retrofit to existing owners.
-Steering wheel comfort... The driving experience for long trips is not good. The turn signals are on the left side of the steering wheel. So the comfortable/correct long distance driving position is left elbow planted on the arm rest on the door, and left hand on the steering wheel where your thumb can reach the turn signals. Except this is very not doable in the truck. The combination of pedal placement, seat height, how far out/down the steering wheel comes, steering wheel size, and the shallow armrest on the door make it impossible for me (5'10" tall) to find a position where my elbow is far enough on the armrest to be comfortable. I either have to grip the wheel lower and not have access to the turn signals, or just get the tip of my elbow on the corner of the armrest. People who said the steering wheel is too small are right if only for this reason. You never feel like you need more wheel to control the truck, but it doesn't come far enough outward to find a comfortable driving position. The wheel feels great when you're maneuvering around a parking lot with both hands where they can reach the buttons, but that's not how I want to spend an entire road trip.
-No roll mode. I absolutely hate the ever changing braking dynamics of "hold" mode, and while it IS a smoother hold mode in the truck than my model Y had, I just hate the every shrinking list of options in tesla vehicles. Roll mode only exists in off road mode, you cannot set it that way for normal driving. The amount that it fights you at the bottom end of the throttle is never the same twice when you're in hold mode, making it easy to give it too much gas when you're trying to inch forward in a parking space.
-Front camera view cannot be enabled above 5mph. Pushing the camera button only serves to turn off the rear view camera (which makes less than zero sense). If you're pulling up to a light and know you want to check your front end position, too bad, you can't turn that camera on until you're almost stopped. Even pulling up my driveway and making the turn into my garage, I have to basically fully stop to get the camera button to bring up the front camera view.
-Blind spot camera removes the rear view when it's active. I turned mine off for now. I already have side view mirrors. As helpful as the blind spot camera is, I would not choose it over my rear view mirror. They need to come up with a way to show both, there's plenty of screen real estate to do so. The way it currently works shouldn't even be on the list of possible options.
-The rear view display itself is an absolute joke. Cars right behind you look like they're 500 feet back. For whatever reason, they didn't crop the rear view in a way that makes any sense. Because of this, I feel much less aware of my surroundings than when driving any other vehicle. Including trucks, suburbans, you name it. One of my strengths when driving is being aware of every other car on the road to the point that if I didn't check my blind spots, I would never have an issue. I DO check them every time in every vehicle, but not having that same level of awareness feels weird. If a car is coming up on you fast and making aggressive maneuvers where you'd want to hold off on a lane change until they would pass, you'd never have a single clue it was happening. Anything further back than the car directly behind you is really not possible to see. I'm going to be looking into replacement rear view mirrors with cameras (hopefully that don't have such a bad/far away view). I know the weirdos will come in here and say only side mirrors should ever be needed, but less information isn't better no matter how you try to twist it. More driver awareness is always better than less. You should be capable of driving without it, but there's zero excuse with the availability of modern technology why tesla shouldn't have provided a better rear view image.
-On wet roads, my wheels have been locking up at the start of each drive. When accelerating and decelerating, I can feel the brakes clicking as if I have lost traction. Smooth and slow acceleration, as well as early and smooth braking. I don't know if the tires need to warm up before they have any traction at all, or if there's some bug in the traction system. The funny thing is, I did a full 0-60 pull on an on ramp, and the tires didn't slip at all. But smoothly and slowly leaving my house, they slip.
-My bed divider only works on the first third of the bed (where the under bed storage is). immediately once you are past that it will not grab a single location in the rest of the length of the bed. Some people reported it only didn't fit in the middle third of the bed, but for me it's worse. Don't think it can be addressed at all either. You'd need a bed divider that has feet of variable thickness as you go along the bed. I will likely never use it since the only place it works is where I would never want to put it (preventing the under bed storage from being opened).
-Walk away door lock doesn't beep the horn. That's the only way I know that my car has locked, so that will need to be fixed somehow.
I'll have more to say as I go. So far I've installed some glass screen protectors and the molle panels. Today I'm gonna try to put some leather protectant (they claim it's a ceramic coating for leather) on the white trim. I have more coming to do the seats as well. Also put on the center caps and lug nut covers I ordered back in january (and I don't think they have been back in stock since). If anyone has any questions, I'll be around to answer them. Any solutions to the above problems that I find, I will be happy to post here.
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