I Bought 2 VERY USED TESLAS So You Don't Have To

So I'm a used car dealer and I just bought two very, very, very used Teslas, so you don't have to. And in this video, I'm going to show you all the good things and the bad things about owning and buying a used Tesla. All right, so we have a potential big, big negative with this Tesla. So before I sell this on my lot, I'm actually going to have to replace this because of the amount of water that builds up in this thing. So I'm very, very, very pleased with that. Something I would definitely recommend. Running out of battery and you can't do anything about it. I think that's really a non-issue and probably overblown. Every time you get in, you get out, you touch this trim and it moves. The whole, I mean, you can see. All right, so let's talk about some of the biggest concerns I had and what I hear from a lot of people, what their biggest concerns are going to be with buying a used Tesla. Well, the number one thing is range. So we actually get into both of these and figure out what the range is and how much they've actually lost of the actual mileage that they're getting off of these batteries. We'll show you that later. But build quality. Build quality is probably the number two thing that I hear about when you think about Tesla. Not necessarily even a used Tesla, but a new Tesla is some of the build quality concerns coming out of the factory. But we're not talking about new cars right here. We're talking about these used cars that I have purchased and how have they held up. 86,000 miles, 100,000 miles. What does a used Tesla with that many miles, what does it look like today? So let's start out with exactly what they are. This is a 2019 Model 3 Standard Range Plus. It's got 86,000 miles. And this one right here is a Model S Long Range and it's got 100,000 miles on it. It seems like the build quality is way worse in this Model 3 than it is in the Model S if you see. So let me turn you around, show you this right up here. So this is already like baking of the steering wheel and the material is separating from itself. The other issue that I see in this Model 3 is this trim. See, it's already flapping. Every time you get in, you get out, you touch this trim and it moves. The whole, I mean, you can see all these clips. All the clips are coming out in this thing. It feels like a cheap quality car. So when I'm driving it, what I like to say about this Model 3 is that it feels like, and I bought a lot of cheap cars over my years, so I'm trying to relate it to another car. It almost feels like it's a really, really fast 2005 Kia Spectra. That's how the build quality feels. That's how the actual ride of it feels. Lots of road noise. You feel every little bump. Model S, not the case. It feels like more of a luxury car. It feels like a higher-end BMW. That's what it feels like when you're driving it. Model 3, not so much. Cheap Kia is what it feels like. So another thing that I found that happened a lot in a lot of these Model 3s that I was looking at, I looked at a lot of Hertz cars that they were dumping into the market. I looked at a lot of trade-ins. This one was a trade-in. It was not a Hertz car, but these tail lights, it seems like at least one of these lights on every Model 3 that I found, and it's this one on this car, gets condensation. After a big rain, and then we have sun here right after that, it builds up a lot of water inside these tail lights. And then before I sell this on my lot, I'm actually going to have to replace this because of the amount of water that builds up in this thing after a rainstorm. Behind me, I got this 2019 Model S, and my biggest complaint about this car is that the frickin' door won't stay shut. So I've got two scenarios in both these cars, the Model 3s right here, this Model S, but my driver door, it's shut right now, but there's a gap in it. So here's the problem with that, is when I'm going down the highway, I'm going down the interstate at higher speeds, there's a whistle that happens in the car. It drives me absolutely insane. And here's the issue, I mean, and this car right here, this back door does the same thing. But when I'm driving at certain angles, it looks like the door is still open, it's because it's not shutting flush. This is something that I've seen in a lot of Model 3s, Model Ss that I've checked that are used, a lot of them have these issues where, okay, there's panel gaps on the hood from the trunk, you have doors that look like they're open when they're actually closed. And this could be just something that the car's always had. And I'm not sure if that's from just longevity of the car, having a lot of miles, opening and closing doors a lot, that could be an issue, or it could be because that's how it was when it was new. So that's something else you've got to check when you're looking at these used cars. All right, now, so the batteries, the batteries, let's talk about the batteries. All right, so this is my first check of the actual charge of this Tesla overnight. We just used a little 120 volt charger, the slow wall charger, whatever, and it's about 14-ish hours. It was at 20 miles of charge whenever I plugged it in. So I'm expecting, what I've looked online, is three to five hours. So what I'm hoping for is an extra 70 hours of charge, 70 hours, 70 miles of charge, because that'd be 14 times five, 70 miles. So that would be optimistic, I think. So let's check it out. All right, getting in the car, and we have 59%, 117 miles. That's actually way better than I expected. So my actual first impressions of this thing charging overnight blew away my expectations. And really, I feel like a person that doesn't drive a ton, they could get away without having a 240 outlet. They could do 120 overnight, and if they're getting, I mean, that's 100 miles overnight is what I got. And that's plenty, plenty for a person who doesn't drive a ton. So just going back to the battery, this is probably the most important thing that you're going to be looking at when actually looking to buy a used Tesla, is that you have to see, okay, what kind of range did this car come with when it was made? And now, where is it at now? And from what I understand, and what I've experienced with these two cars, is that the data that this Tesla is actually giving me now, the data that this Tesla is giving me right now, is pretty accurate as far as how much range the car actually has to it now. Now you have the over-optimism, but the car is not showing that it still has the same range that it did when it was released from the factory. All right, so I did upgrade. We had some contractors out to the house doing a couple of things. So I had them go ahead and put in this 240 volt outlet in our garage. And I know that I'm going to, with this experiment or whatever, I'm going to at least have this Tesla for a while. And I do want the ability to charge at a faster rate. Now, I'm aware that if you just have the wall charger, if you don't drive a lot, probably absolutely fine. I am wanting to make sure that I can charge very quickly. So this is why I put this in. So now we're going to see how many miles this actually gives us compared to what you have seen now from the wall charger. Not the wall charger, the standard wall outlet, 120 volt versus 240. We'll look at that. All right, so we have a potential big, big negative with this Tesla. So let's get in here. I charged it to 80% last night, which is what Tesla actually recommends that you do. So you do not wear down the battery, right? So I got it to 80% last night and that told me that it was going to have 160 miles of range and I've been driving it today. And let's just pull up our trip here. So since the last charge, it says I've driven 66 miles. But what it's telling me is that we have 59 miles of range left. It had 160 miles. I drove 66 miles. So I should have 94 miles left, but it's showing that I only have 59 miles left. So we have 30 something miles of deficit there. Now today was a hotter day. So I ran the AC. That's a big miscalculation. Now from what I've heard from talking to Farzad and John, Dr. Know-It-All, I know they're Tesla experts and I wanted to pick their brain about it. They said that the mileage that the car is going to tell you that it has is going to be optimistic. And I was prepared for that, but I wasn't prepared for this level of optimism. So in my book, this is a pretty big negative that you can't really depend on the actual mileage that's showing. Now if it was off by like 10% or less, I can get with that. I can understand that, but that's a lot more. So in my book, a big negative. An understatement would be that, okay, these Teslas are optimistic about the range that the car tells me that it actually has. I did get lucky though with this Model S. I've got a contact in Tesla and he's able to actually check all of these used Teslas that I was looking at to see what kind of work has been done. And this battery on this Model S had actually been changed just one month before I bought it. So I basically have a brand new battery in this car, which I think is a big reason why I was, I feel like I was able to steal it. I paid $22,000 for this Model S and having that new battery is massive because what I've recently learned is that a new battery to put in these things would cost a consumer about $15,000. And that's, that's a big problem if, if the batteries need to be changed quite often. And here's, here's one thing that I learned when I was looking for these cars and having this contact in Tesla. I looked at about five Model S's and had him check them out and three or four of them had had their batteries recently replaced. That's a big number. Now, these are cars that came available onto the used market. So let's say that maybe these were rare cases and okay, the reason why these people wanted to get rid of these cars was because they had battery issues. That's why it's a higher percentage in the cars that I am just trying to look for myself. But I really think that maybe the battery replacement issue might be a bigger issue than what we are being really led to believe by the company. This is all me just seeing this anecdotally. So you can take it with a grain of salt. Obviously there's going to be people out there that have had batteries. They last forever. Never any problems. You're going to have other ones where they put 50,000 miles on them. Had to get the battery changed. From what I'm hearing from other experts that are in the field, they say that the battery problem is a non-issue. This is not what I have personally experienced trying to buy these used vehicles. So there you go. All right. So now what it's showing is that we're actually getting 30 miles of range per hour on this new Atlas. So I'm very, very, very pleased with that. Something I would definitely recommend, especially if you have a Tesla whose battery lasts longer than 200 miles like the one that I do. It's going to be up to, I set it up to 90%. It's going to be up to 90% charge and it says three hours and 50 minutes. So here's the problem with the normal consumer that's going and buying a used EV is you're not going to probably have the access to know if the battery has actually been changed or not. This is a problem and this is might be something that Tesla hopefully would want to fix in the future unless they actually have to change more batteries than what we think. In which case you'll probably never hear that data because obviously Tesla doesn't want that to come out that, okay, it's a pretty big percentage. When I say big percentage, even if it's three to 5% of cars that have to have their batteries changed within a hundred thousand miles, that's pretty big knowing that the batteries cost about $15,000 to change. So that data is probably not going to come out through Tesla. And it's unfortunate because if you are a buyer who wants to buy a used Tesla, the most important thing about this whole purchase is the battery. And you think about a consumer looking up maintenance history on a Carfax report. We use that a lot in the ICE realm where I'm talking about used cars on my dealership. And you're not going to see battery changes on the Carfax because Tesla is not reporting to Carfax when they do this kind of maintenance. And as a flip side to see what happens for ICE vehicles, when there is a major motor transmission, timing belt, water pump, any of this stuff is changing the car and it's going through a reputable mechanic. If it's going through usually a franchise dealer that does this work, then they will actually report that work to Carfax where you can see it lined out. Okay, this is the mileage that it actually got done when your motor was changed, when the transmission was changed. And that's something that you're not going to have access to in a used Tesla. All right now, so let's talk about the good things. I've talked a lot about the build quality, battery range, the actual loss of miles due to optimism. But there's great things about used Tesla. One, I can tell you is price. So prices have come down a lot and this is what really allowed me to make the dive into buying these Teslas. This car right here, this Model S, it was a $95,000 car new. Now it's what, five years old and I bought it for $22,000. That's how much the prices have come down. On this Model 3, I didn't pull the actual price of this. I would guess somewhere between $30,000 to $40,000 is what this thing was new. And I paid like $17,000 for it. Now, granted, high mileage, right? So prices should be lower. But typically what you see in cars is that they don't drop that much that quickly. So that's an advantage to buying a used Tesla right now because prices have come in so much and you're able to actually buy one that you can afford and have as another car in a lot of situations and not have to depend on it to be your number one car. So you can try out the technology and a lot of people aren't going to be willing to pay $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 for a car that they're just trying out, right? So prices are a big positive for buying a used Tesla right now. Another thing that has been very surprising to me is charging. And that's one of the big things that I hear in my comments saying, okay, well, where are you going to charge the thing? There's not even a supercharger near me. I can tell you I've been driving these things now for the better part of two months. I've not used a charging station once. There's been no need for it. I just plug it in at home. I use the analogy of, okay, think of these as like a cell phone. Like you can, you plug in your cell phone every night and you do the same thing with your Tesla, pull it into your garage. Now, if you don't have a garage, then you have to run a cord outside. I'm not comfortable with that. And there's probably a lot of other people that aren't comfortable with that. That's going to be another hurdle that buying a used Tesla. If you don't have a garage, you don't have the space for it. I know it's absolutely fine. It's safe to run a cord outside. I just don't really want to run a cord out of my house. That's personal preference, but you're going to have a lot of other consumers that are doing that. So you're going to have to have the right situation to be able to just charge your Tesla and charge it overnight. But if you do have that right situation, it's a non-issue. And if you think about this car right here, I can get 345 miles of range on this car right here. If I have it fully charged, usually you don't fully charge these things. But there's almost zero case unless I'm going on a trip where I'm going to be driving over 300 miles in a day. So I think, I really believe the problem with the association of the charging and not being able to get to a supercharger and you running out of battery and you can't do anything about it. I think that's really a non-issue and probably overblown in 99.99999% of use cases. And probably the biggest really positive for me is I've been driving cars now for 20 years and ICE vehicles for the most part, pretty much the same, right? These vehicles offer a completely different driving experience. And it's like a new way to drive when I'm getting in it. It's something that I've never experienced before. And I'm still great. I'm still in the honeymoon phase of these cars. Acceleration is really fun. The tech is really good when it works. I've had some situations with the Model S with autopilot where I did not want to stay in the lane. So I'm very, very cautious about that. I've got all the latest software downloaded on these things too. So I'm still learning. But really the big thing, especially on this Model 3 is that my cell phone is my key. I don't have to carry around a key for this. The Model S, you have to actually have the key. I don't understand. They're the same year, but they have different technology in them where I can use my phone as the key here, but you can't on the Model S. They didn't actually put that into the Model S until I think it was like 2021. I've done the research. Yes, you cannot use your phone as the key for this Model S. That's a downside for buying a used Model S over a 3 because it is much more convenient to just have my key be the cell phone. I love that you can turn the car on. You can turn the AC on. It's hot here in North Carolina. I'm sweating right now. I can turn the AC on these cars wherever I am 20 minutes before I'm actually getting in the car. I can set the cabin temperature. It's a small thing, but it's one of the big benefits to these cars that I think a lot of people will actually like. If you are going to buy whatever Tesla it is, if it's an EV, just in general, the biggest things you need to check for when you're going to look at them, battery. Battery is by far the number one thing because that's going to be the most expensive thing that you're going to have to replace. Especially if you're buying a Tesla, you need to look at build quality, things that have held up in the car that haven't held up in the car because especially with these older Teslas, build quality is not anywhere close to as good as it is right now. They have gotten way better with the new Teslas that are coming out right now, but these, they had issues with coming out of the factory. Every Tesla is going to be different and you're going to need to check it out. Put your hands on it. Don't buy a Tesla from Tesla's used inventory because they don't even show pictures of them. You want to go and actually put your hands on a Tesla, especially if it's used before you buy it, just so you can know the kind of build quality that you're getting into. In this video, I'm going to show you the goods and ... Nope. I'm going to use ... Look at the lens, not the screen. This is a 2019 Model ... 2019 Model 3 and it's got 100 ... Nope. Still is bad.