Toyota Owners Jump Ship to Tesla

Someone had to buy it new for it to be available second hand. Without someone deciding to pay more for a new Prius over a Corolla, you wouldn't have a Prius now.

For the past two years, the F-series sold over 700k each year, and I am not seeing "bare bone" base trim ones bought for business fleets. The Highlanders I see are new. Same of the 4Runners and Rav4s. There are some older ones, but if the average new car price is over $36k, if isn't because the well to do decided to spend more alone.

 

I think I would pass on a used Model 3. haha Given how outrageously expensive these cars are to fix, once you go past that 50k mile warranty, you are on your own to flip the bill once something goes wrong. That 8 year warranty only covers just the battery pack and drive units. Used luxury cars are some of the worst used cars to buy esp if it used German car as they are some of the biggest money pits that money can buy. There's a reason why they have no resale value. My uncle just gotten rid of his 2001 BMW 740iL last year as the main computer went out on it rendering it into a undriviable machine. Not only you need to replace that expensive computer, you also need a battery maintainer and the BMW ISTA-P dealer scan tool to reprogram the stupid computer. That's what you get for buying a cheap $3k BMW. They are notorious for electrical problems as they age. The only used luxury car I would buy is a Lexus ES. It's basically a Toyota Avalon, less bells and whistles, parts are inexpensive.

 

@hill, yep, he wants a model 3 bad, new or used. Read the post above.

 

i don't car when it gets here, but i hope it gets here, and is not a compliance car.

 

Not really sure about the economics of used cars. The cars that have cost me the most in repairs have been bought used, and generally left me with the impression that the previous owners didn't want to deal with the headaches anymore. I'm not saying that new cars are a better deal financially, but merely that the difference isn't as big as you might think, and probably not worth the headaches (for me at least).

If you want to drive cheaply, my advice would be 1) buy the most basic car you can (new or used), and 2) keep it a long time.

 

Can't any less basic than an all electric drive train.

 

Many of times people buy the wrong types of cars without farther researching them. Don't buy a Fiat/Chrylser product and expect it to drive it many miles and realized what a peice of junk they are once the car starts falling apart. Haha I always look for cars no older than 7 to 10 years old. I make sure that they have full service records that are well maintained and of course make sure it was some Toyota product since I don't like replacing my cars very often. Honda's are great too but it's quality control has started slipping in recent years with all of it's failing H5 automatic transmissions in the last 10-15 years. Every since the the merge with Renualt, Nissan's quality control has went way down hill. Hyundai's use to be rolling piles of junk but it's Quality control has dramatically improved over the years.

 

It has been said when you buy used, many times you are buying somebody else's problem.

There was some reason the original owner decided to sell the car.

The reason may be related to the condition of the car or it may not be related. Many tomes there is no real way to know which ahead of time.

 

Many used cars on the market are lease returns, especially in the high end market. Most are certified, with better warranties then the new car ones. I would not think of owning anything but Toyota/Lexus, Nissan/Infiniti or Honda/Acura.

 

Yep. Toyota products generally have the lease amount of problems. Its always best to reach a cars reliability track record based on year, make and model. My 09 had zero problems that's nearly 10 years old. My uncle's 2004 GMC Envoy XL breaks down all the time as he has endless electrical problems and engine problems. Those GMs just don't hold up well as they age.

 

And yet all of those brands rank much lower than Tesla in customer satisfaction (which is #1 with 90%) according to Consumer Reports survey. Don't dismiss Tesla until you have tried one.

 

Customer stratification doesn't equal reliability. There's a difference. There's isn't a large number of Tesla and Porsche owners to begin with since those aren't mass market cars that have millions of owners. It's easy to survey a few thousand owners vs a million. Expect that to change once those cars start rolling out of warranty and more owners are added in the survey and watch its reliability and stratification scores move around. Toyota/Lexus still holding the top two spots for 20 consecutive years in a row. The 2012 Model S will be completely roll out of warranty in the next three years.

 

Actually, the Consumers Report survey does include customer satisfaction with reliability. If Tesla owners are not satisfied with reliability, they haven't been reporting it to CR.

As reported by?

 

It will change as as years go on believe me. Tesla is a very new car on the market. As more and more occupy the road so as the results will change. The more people that participate in these surveys the more refined the results are. The larger the database of the same make and model of each group the better.

If you've paid attention to Consumer Reports for the past two decades, noticed that Toyota and Lexus has always been in the #1 and #2 spots? Just go back all the way to the early 2000s. The two brands have switched places with each other back and forth a few times over the years but nothing dramatically has changed. Toyota still holds the benchmark in quality and reliability surveys. Nissan use to be up there with Toyota and Honda back in the 90s especially when they were Datsun's up until it's involvement with Renault. It's Quality control has went way down hill in the last 20 years and worse in recent years. Hyundai has came up in recent years as thier Quality control use to be terrible 10-15 years ago. They company borrowed and adopted the TPS (Toyota Production System) into thier own Hyundai Production System to improve it's quality control in recent years. TPS most be that good for other companies to copy it, thanks to Mr. Deming. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207540701223493

 

Eman, reliability is your #1 requirement for a car it seems.
That is a good standard.
I am more concerned with how the company handles issues that do crop up. But my #1 buying requirement is that the car allows me to use zero carbon fuel should I choose to. Second is a car people get excited about, and can help speed the adoption of EVs.

For you, I see why Toyota is an excellent choice.
Can you see why Tesla is an excellent choice for me?

 

Let's see how a Tesla holds up over 10 years, that will be a real test of what these cars are made of!

 

You know Toyota is pretty hard to beat for reliability across all models.