2019/2020 Model3 Long Range - Buying advice please

[giveitfish]

mwahahaha1234 said:

What’s your sense for the max range on an average British day (10 degrees and rain lol), normal driving, heating on (I’m like you, I’d just treat it like any other car), 100% charge as a one-off, appreciate you can’t do that every day without knackering the battery. Normal driving style using re-gen as much as practical - I’ve gotten out of the habit of ‘enthusiastic’ driving these days as it makes my current MPG plummet!!

Thanks,
Dan

Basically I’d be happy to get in it and just drive anywhere I like without much forethought. Holidays in places like the Lake District need thinking time as there is limited charging and lots of demand, but generally I don’t think about range - you just refuel when you need to.

That being said, I work to 200 miles being a comfortable target on a full charge. It’ll certainly beat that, but it leaves me a nice margin.

[AVB]

The car also tries its hardest to stop you running out. Telling you where to charge, how long for, whether you need to slow down etc.

[mwahahaha1234]

Thank you all for the help, it’s invaluable! My old car is now sold and collected. We’re away for a few days then will start looking at some M3 examples and probably a Tesla test drive when we get back. I drive a Model Y about a year ago, albeit briefly and really liked it (out of budget as I don’t want finance right now, hence looking at the M3). Be interesting to have a go in a M3. Thank you all for the advice and help you’ve given so far, really appreciate it!

[mwahahaha1234]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to post a quick update on this after all the generous help I was offered by the forum. Late last week, I collected our new (new to us that is, ‘19 plate), Model 3 Long Range!

I bought through Tesla directly as the additional year’s warranty seemed good value, also I got a really good price (or at least I’d like to think) from having an Autotrader saved search and seeing examples come and go, also from looking at examples appear and promptly disappear on tesla.com as they were reserved.

She’s covered 46.8k miles so far and imho is in great condition, not being able to see the car before putting a deposit down was an odd one - but I was happy with the price assuming it didn’t appear as though it had experienced a tough life so far and upon getting to Tesla Winchester last Thursday, I was pleased when they pointed out which one was mine (no plates on them in the showroom).

Enhanced Autopilot is on there too, as with seemingly most examples from Tesla direct - almost as if they put it on them all to differentiate - not sure if that’s the case though.

Ideally I’d have preferred a 2021 heat pump model for said heat pump, also for the power tailgate and heated steering wheel (although that’s not on all facelift cars, as early ones were still Freemont). However with the price this one came up for, I’m happy with the value prop, also the faceliftt 21 onward cars were a good chunk more financially and with the economy in the place it is right now, I’d rather not take that on. In a more economically stable world, I’d have just gone for a Model Y and financed the difference, but this was pretty much a straight swap from my old car, so happy I’m not in for any additional monthlies.

We’ve had our Tesla Wall Connector fitted, moved to Intelligent Octopus (it was a busy few days!!), also I ordered a few more Key Cards and have activated them, so we always have a spare in a safe place in the house just in case the others get lost etc - wow how great paying £30 for 2x keys and coding them yourself!!!

The 50 or so miles back from Winchester was very interesting - learning about Autosteer and Navigate on Autopilot - very cool!!

So… EV ownership here we go… I’m still in that overly obsessive new period where I’m over analysing everything and praying I haven’t bought a bad one - give me a few weeks and I’ll calm down :-).

Edited by mwahahaha1234 on Monday 27th March 13:56

Edited by mwahahaha1234 on Monday 27th March 13:56

[Zcd1]

mwahahaha1234 said:

Hi everyone!

I wanted to post a quick update on this after all the generous help I was offered by the forum. Late last week, I collected our new (new to us that is, ‘19 plate), Model 3 Long Range!...

Congratulations and enjoy!

LMK (let us know) if you have any questions.

One unsolicited piece of advice: Change the %/miles of range remaining to %, and never look back. As you gain experience with the car, you'll understand the reason for the suggestion...

[NDA]

mwahahaha1234 said:

Hi everyone!
I ordered a few more Key Cards and have activated them, so we always have a spare in a safe place in the house just in case the others get lost etc - wow how great paying £30 for 2x keys and coding them yourself!!!

Congrats on the car - I'm sure you'll enjoy it. They're very easy cars to own and drive.

Will you not use your phone as the key? I have 2 key cards, but have never used them.

[CharlieAlphaMike]

Zcd1 said:

Congratulations and enjoy!

LMK (let us know) if you have any questions.

One unsolicited piece of advice: Change the %/miles of range remaining to %, and never look back. As you gain experience with the car, you'll understand the reason for the suggestion...

Tesla advised me to swap between % and miles/km's to allow the car to regularly recalibrate itself. I'm not sure how true this is but that's what I do. The battery 'bar' indicator will give you a good idea of the % state of the battery if you choose to leave it set to miles/km's.

Edited to say: Plus, I recently fitted a discreet HUD unit which automatically shows battery % when in Park (plus of course speed, gear selection, indicators).

Edited by CharlieAlphaMike on Tuesday 28th March 19:42

[lizardbrain]

How much was the HUD?

Not that I don’t think the car isn’t perfect in every way

[CharlieAlphaMike]

lizardbrain said:

How much was the HUD?

Not that I don’t think the car isn’t perfect in every way

I knew someone was going to ask 😂 After a lot of shopping around, it soon became clear that the exact same HUD was available from various suppliers, with prices from approx £50.00 to well over £100.00. Mine was approx £50.00 (I love a bargain 😊 ).

Glancing at the screen was never an issue for me but having my speed displayed right in front of me is now perfect.

It's a really nice addition and was a relatively easy fit. I ignored the fitting instructions, especially when it came to routing the cable. There was a much better way of hiding everything IMO for not much more effort.

[mwahahaha1234]

Zcd1 said:

Congratulations and enjoy!

LMK (let us know) if you have any questions.

One unsolicited piece of advice: Change the %/miles of range remaining to %, and never look back. As you gain experience with the car, you'll understand the reason for the suggestion...

Thank you! Yup agree that looking at % is a lot better than range, our overnight IO charging is going really well, so nice to see at 90% full battery in the morning too.

[mwahahaha1234]

NDA said:

mwahahaha1234 said:

Hi everyone!
I ordered a few more Key Cards and have activated them, so we always have a spare in a safe place in the house just in case the others get lost etc - wow how great paying £30 for 2x keys and coding them yourself!!!

Congrats on the car - I'm sure you'll enjoy it. They're very easy cars to own and drive.

Will you not use your phone as the key? I have 2 key cards, but have never used them.

Yup we’re using phone keys, the cards are more incase phones are dead and we’ve somehow lost the cards we got with the car - having some spares in a ‘safe place’ to then be able to add more keys if needed seemed like a good idea. Loving the phone key though, great idea and works really well so far.

[mwahahaha1234]

One thing to add, the Tessie app is my new obsession. - it’s amazing. I keep looking at the savings with 10p per kWh IO rates vs 28mpg and £1.65 odd per l of diesel - just incredible.

Appreciate I need to add some onto the electricity costs to balance out the more expensive daytime rate vs the price cap, but we’re still way up on diesel.

[CharlieAlphaMike]

CharlieAlphaMike said:

lizardbrain said:

How much was the HUD?

Not that I don’t think the car isn’t perfect in every way

I knew someone was going to ask ?? After a lot of shopping around, it soon became clear that the exact same HUD was available from various suppliers, with prices from approx £50.00 to well over £100.00. Mine was approx £50.00 (I love a bargain ?? ).

Glancing at the screen was never an issue for me but having my speed displayed right in front of me is now perfect.

It's a really nice addition and was a relatively easy fit. I ignored the fitting instructions, especially when it came to routing the cable. There was a much better way of hiding everything IMO for not much more effort.

If it helps. The instructions simply said the cable could be 'tucked' into the dashboard vent, then pushed behind the plastic kick panel in the drivers footwell and along the plastic door sill. It then suggested routing the cable on top of the carpet under the drivers seat (the connection is made at the back of the centre console by removing the plastic cover). The unit simply connects to the existing loom.

I decided it would be better to pull the dash top and side cover of the dashboard off, to enable better routing of the cable. You can't see any of the cable now it's in situ. I then pulled the kick panel in the footwell off, along with the plastic sill cover. That made it much easier to route the cable. You'll find the carpet is 'split' near the rear of the drivers seat which means you can route the cable under the carpet with ease. There is a connector at the end of the cable and another connector on the end of the (short) cable that connects to the existing loom (it will all make sense if and when you buy one). I found it easier to route the short cable under the carpet, pull the long cable (that goes the HUD) through from the sill and connect under the drivers seat carpet. I used a couple of tie wraps to keep the cable in place (securing everything to the existing loom under the seat).

One other bit of advice. The connection to the existing loom is easy. The existing loom has two block connectors behind the plastic trim cover at the back of the centre console. You simply unplug them and connect the HUD cable with the block connectors supplied (they are all pre-wired so no soldering of crimping etc is needed - like we did in the old days Space is tight and so the cables have to be squeezed in behind the plastic trim cover. I was nervous about having this extra length of cable rubbing up against a sharp edge of metal so I found a short piece of rubber car door seal and covered the sharp edge of metal with that. The extra cable only adds a few inches to the loom but trust me, it's a tight fit. The rubber door seal I used was maybe 6 to 8 inches long. It's worth doing this just for peace of mind. I'd hate to have a cable shorting out because it was rubbing against the sharp edge of the bodywork.

Whether this HUD will affect any warranty claims of course is questionable. Tesla have just carried out a remote update (totally unrelated) on my car and they didn't say anything so I assume they don't know this unit is in place. Keep it to yourself

Hope this helps.

[gmaz]

I'm also thinking of getting a Model 3 LR. Does anyone have the performance upgrade option and how much did it affect your insurance premium?

[mwahahaha1234]

gmaz said:

I'm also thinking of getting a Model 3 LR. Does anyone have the performance upgrade option and how much did it affect your insurance premium?

I don’t have the upgrade at the moment and have to say, it’s blisteringly quick as-is. I doubt anyone would be left wanting more in terms of acceleration from the stock LR fwiw.

[AsyouWere]

Sorry to hijack the thread but with current prices are they any better than the average diesel now?

Went to look at a model 3 performance at the weekend and love the car, later that night thought id check local charging stations nearest one to home is a lidl 50kwh @ 65p per kwh... Would this equate to around £50 to charge the car? Id get more miles for the same money in my current 530d?...

[ghibbett]

AsyouWere said:

Sorry to hijack the thread but with current prices are they any better than the average diesel now?

Went to look at a model 3 performance at the weekend and love the car, later that night thought id check local charging stations nearest one to home is a lidl 50kwh @ 65p per kwh... Would this equate to around £50 to charge the car? Id get more miles for the same money in my current 530d?...

Solution: charge at home.

[AsyouWere]

ghibbett said:

Solution: charge at home.

Is it now not really viable then if no home charger?

Just checked our octopus tariff its around 36p which if my maths is correct would be around £26 to charge the Tesla... Still not a substantial saving over a 300bhp diesel.

[lizardbrain]

My nearest public charger is 30p a kWh which is cheaper than domestic at present. Unless you do the smart meter thing

[Maracus]

AsyouWere said:

ghibbett said:

Solution: charge at home.

Is it now not really viable then if no home charger?

Just checked our octopus tariff its around 36p which if my maths is correct would be around £26 to charge the Tesla... Still not a substantial saving over a 300bhp diesel.

Get on to an EV tariff. Even paying slightly more for your day rate it works out a lot cheaper overall. More so if you can load shift onto the cheapo hours.

For eg, I'm on 7.5p off, 39p on with Octopus Go until September. I think the off peak is 12.5p at the moment.