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I mean, I have a Range Rover right now and they're literally bottom of the table for reliability so clearly I don't learn my lesson...
It's an interesting one though. I think the reason they have such a high warranty repair rate is two-fold:
- They're a brand new manufacturer with a brand new production process (relative to ICE manufacturers) so there's bound to be a lot of teething issues. The fact the repairs are all warranty shows that, inconvenience aside, it's not a cost problem as an owner.
- They're still purchased by a high number of early adopters / car nerds who frequent online forums. I've never seen so many videos / forum threads on collection day check lists with 50+ items to tick off. I think a significant number of the warranty claims reported are for those items which could be as minor as a 1mm difference in panel gap. Something which your average ford buyer isn't going to use a forum checklist to warranty. It's also something ford wouldn't do anyway...
It's also probably worth noting that the warranty repair process is extremely streamlined with Tesla to the point that you can submit all warranty claims, right through to booking an appointment and a loan car, through the app. Try doing that with any other manufacturer.
That low barrier for claims probably means more claims are submitted and processed than any other manufacturer too.
I've got a few issues with the RR which require a day in the dealer, who aren't provided loan cars, and I have to phone up or visit the dealer to diagnose the issue before a warranty claim is even accepted. For example, my front driver side parking sensor beeps when the car is stationary and the temperature is over 25 degrees (ish). Luckily, when I took it in for the first repair, the weather was hot enough to detect the fault so they took a look, under warranty, and re-aligned the sensor. The problem persisted though but, by the time i'd booked it in again, it was colder and the issue wasn't replicable. This means if i'd left it with them, they would have charged me £280 to diagnose it (even though they couldn't) and wouldn't fix it. So I just drove home.
Each of those was a 90 min round trip in tandem as they aren't doing loan cars. The second trip wouldn't have been reported as a warranty claim because I decided to sack it off...
TLDR: the warranty claim process for Tesla is so easy that more people claim on it, meaning higher figures than your traditional manufacturer.
- They're a brand new manufacturer with a brand new production process (relative to ICE manufacturers) so there's bound to be a lot of teething issues. The fact the repairs are all warranty shows that, inconvenience aside, it's not a cost problem as an owner.
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When people buy luxury products like new cars they don't do it based on information like this, they do it based on what they "really want" which tends to boil down to advertising, brand identity, self image etc.
Occasionally they say something like "I loved (the object or brand) as a child" which honestly just means they were exposed to advertising and branding as a youth and want to feel young again.
There's no point trying to look deeper than this.
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Soul
Belagerent
@Stonehedge
Not directly a reply to @Soul who I see might buy a Tesla but would appreciate his opinion.
Why would anybody in their right mind buy such an unreliable car? In the UK 40% of purchased Teslas have needed warranty repairs in first three years of ownership and time to fix is amongst the worst of any manufacturer. In the US, Tesla vehicles have the worst reliability rating of any new car currently on sale.
My neighbour's Tesla has needed its doors rehanging twice (due to sagging on the brackets) and had to have a software fault that caused it to emergency brake whilst driving fixed.
Do people have great faith in the new Tesla being shitloads more reliable than their older cars or do people just not care about their car falling apart?