Model Y Performance on order

I own 3 Teslas. My oldest is a 2018 M3P with 140,000 miles. Almost 2/3 of these miles are road trip miles and perhaps 1000 of those miles are on dirt and gravel roads (when I say that I like to get off the beaten path, I mean it). I do park in my garage and I wash the car at the automat weekly. So, no, I don't treat my car with kid gloves and it is my daily driver.
I'll not claim that the paint finish is pristine after all this abuse, but it is more than acceptable. It is a white car, so paint chips are quite visible (brush swirls from the car wash less so). The front end and rocker panels take the most abuse. The rocker panel abuse is mostly invisible unless you lie on the ground looking for it. To protect the nose, I use a high-quality PPF that costs around $550 USD installed. I also use a ceramic coat on the nose and windshield that I (non-religiously apply myself).
My experience has been that Tesla paint is no more or less hearty than any other vehicle I've owned. Minimal care has been enough to protect it (and not being terribly anal about it probably helps even more).

I finally got a delivery date for this Memorial day weekend. But I'm still having second thoughts and trying to weigh the cost/benefit of my purchase.

Positive:
1. Supercar acceleration
2. Lots of cargo space
3. Best charging infrastructure
4. Faster charging
5. Toybox
6. Charge routing
7. Unlimited aftermarket accessories
8. Better phone App
9. OTA update
10. Frunk
11. Heat pump

Negative:
1. Glass roof gets hot in the summer, need to spend more money for ceramic tint.
2. Super expensive staggered tires set up
3. No passenger grab handles (difficult for aging parents to get in and out)
4. No 360 camera. Possible future update?
5. No driver display (can be remedied with aftermarket part)
6. No ventilated seats
7. Autopilot is not hands free
8 . No switchgears. (Physical buttons can be operated without looking)
9. No rear wiper
10. Awkward door handles.
11. No wireless Apple Carplay

Well, I finally got my car. The delivery was plain and simple and the car looks great. Panel gaps and paint were excellent.
I did notice the driver's door handle was sticking out a little bit. It wasn't flushed when the handle sprung back. The service tech took care of it right away before I drove home. All of this was happening on Memorial day!

There were discrepancies between my trade offer and downpayment.
I was given an estimate of $29K for my car but they sent an offer of $27,700 instead. After a few hours of back and forth text conversations it was discovered that if I remounted my OEM wheels I will be given $28,900 minus extra mileage. I was told I went over the allotted mileage when I was given the quote. We settled on $28,600 which was fair.

I started the purchase with the base Model Y on order but chose the incoming Y performance instead. The original loan was approved for $12k down but they told me my final payment would be $17k instead. We met somewhere in the middle and they ended up resubmitting the loan back to the bank with $15K down. It was one of the most troublesome purchase experience in my 30 years of car buying of at least 20 cars. Most of my new car purchase usually takes about 2 hours total from start to finish. I'm still not a fan of this online purchase platform. To me, this buying experience is akin to buying a car from Walmart.

Once home I was able to install all the recommended accessories and spent about 3 hours putting on ceramic coating. Overall I give this a C average for purchase experience. My Mercedes, Audi and BMW buying experience were much smoother. Too bad though, this is such a good car.

garsh said:

Tesla needs to fix this. Online, no-pressure purchasing could (and should) be a good experience. But Tesla regularly screws up because delivery times are so long that the original estimates no longer apply, and everything has to be recalculated and renegotiated. And of course, the changes never seem to go in favor of the buyer.

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It's almost like I'm begging to buy. That's borderline arrogance. Everytime there's a tiny issue with the paperwork, they kept saying this deal can't be done and perhaps I should reschedule or cancel the deal. It was frustrating. They have the car and I have the money what's so difficult about that? The loan had been approved weeks ahead of time. They also don't realized that I have to drive 2 hours to get to the delivery center. I was exhausted after getting to the center and didn't even get offered a refreshment. In contrast to the Mercedes dealer that I frequently shopped, not only would refreshments be served, they would even comp for any meal I chose if I had to wait.

I only wish Elon Musk is told how insanely horrible the current buying experience can be. Otherwise this could be my first and last Tesla.