Nightmare Edition, What Terrible Support Looks Like

[Palagius]

It's pretty important to watch the attached video (with sound on!!) to get how infuriating this is. Sequence of events:
- 9/10, mobile service comes to fix an inoperable door handle, passenger rear
- That "fix" introduced the attached behavior
- Leave messages (plural!) with local service center, zero return calls
- 9/20, send an email to "customer service" after receiving a service feedback survey
- 10/13 (note the interval) "customer service" responds that someone will call me
- 10/14, someone calls me, casually tells me they can look at the car on January 5

Watch the video. I'm supposed to just deal with the above for a further number of months after they introduced the problem. I was better off simply having a rear door handle that did not work most of the time. Error message cheerfully says to schedule an appointment with the Ludic App... as though that has ever worked. Never once has the app shown me a potential appointment, and of course, it shows you that there are no appointments available *after* you arduously spend time inputting details about your problem.

And I am reasonably certain I communicated to the individual who called me how substantial a problem this is.

I'm confident there are well-intentioned people within Lucid that want the ownership experience to not be a nightmare. But they clearly are not being afforded the resources to make that possible. For my part, I think signing up and waiting a year to get a Dream Edition car indicates both a desire for the company and products to succeed and a willingness to take a chance on a young company's sophomore outing. But this is completely appalling. That goodwill has been so far squandered I do not even have the words to describe it--and I am reasonably literate.

I would encourage any prospective buyer to look at the attached video and evaluate his/her comfort level with the idea that the company says that is a problem that can wait months to be fixed. On what is allegedly (perhaps the Air Sapphire notwithstanding) their premier product offering--the Gravy Dream Edition.

Now with the context above, try to imagine their automated survey cheerfully asking me how likely I am to recommend Lucid to a friend or colleague after my service. In what universe would I do that?

 

[audiojerry]

This is very troubling information, and I can't imagine why Lucid would be allowing this to happen without quickly trying to address it and reaching out to you to try to make things right. It provides further indication that Lucid is planning to throw in the towel. After receiving excellent response and service in my first 18 months, my August appointmet for service resulted with me not having my car for over 3 weeks while waiting in the service queue.

Where are you located and how far are you from the service center? Would it be possible for you to drive there and speak directly to the service manager and try escalate the issue for immediate service?

 

[Palagius]

I'm local-ish to the Virginia SC in Tysons Corner. It would eat a couple of hours from my day to go over there uninvited. I have considered doing that but I mostly just have fatalism about it. It's not like they can manufacture more service center capacity and I presume there are thousands of other owners with comparable levels of anger and vehicular impairment. I don't think they view it as "a safety issues" per se. The door doesn't actually flap open or anything--indeed often it cannot be opened from the outside.

 

[borski]

I'm local-ish to the Virginia SC in Tysons Corner. It would eat a couple of hours from my day to go over there uninvited. I have considered doing that but I mostly just have fatalism about it. It's not like they can manufacture more service center capacity and I presume there are thousands of other owners with comparable levels of anger and vehicular impairment. I don't think they view it as "a safety issues" per se. The door doesn't actually flap open or anything--indeed often it cannot be opened from the outside.

I understand your frustration. That said, they may be able to hold on to your vehicle and provide you with a loaner during that time, since this is a very very annoying way to drive.

So consider calling them and asking for a loaner during the time until they fix the issue.

 

[parkd]

I continue to avoid a service appointment with Lucid for just this reason. Between how challenging it is to get appointments, the enormous amount of time they keep the car, and the uncertainty that problems aren’t made worse, I will keep crossing my fingers and toes I don’t need to bring it in. Heck, I haven’t even folded down the second row yet in 10 months out of fear of introducing the squeak from under those seats. Otherwise…love the car.
The service issues need to be a visible priority for the company. It feels like it is getting worse, not better. Tesla was pretty terrible early on in the Model 3, but not this bad.

 

[Palagius]

I understand your frustration. That said, they may be able to hold on to your vehicle and provide you with a loaner during that time, since this is a very very annoying way to drive.

So consider calling them and asking for a loaner during the time until they fix the issue.

Calling them gets nowhere. When you call the Tysons SC, you get put on hold. You are then presented two options: "request a call back by phone number" or "leave a message for service". You don't even have the option of just sitting and waiting how ever many hours it takes to get a human on the phone. I did both in September repeatedly and never heard back.

There once was an asynchronous text / SMS option that early on seemed to work well, but I have not tried it recently--and appear to have lost whatever number it was. Perhaps I need to hunt that down, as providing the video might help.

But I tried to explain when they finally called me yesterday that the car was freaking out. Not sure what other words I could be using.

 

[audiojerry]

Maybe the offered level of service has changed since I leased my lucid in July of '24. I live in Wisconsin about 90 miles from the Chicago service center. I've had 5 service appointments since then, and each time my Lucid was picked up and a Lucid loaner (a higher model than mine) was dropped off. That impressed me and would have encouraged me offer high pralise, but I can't do that in light of so many other negative aspects associated with Lucid.

PS: Another reason to go to the service center is to establish a personal connection to the service manager and get his/her cell phone number. This would provide you with direct communication with him/her with a call or by texting. I never had luck using the app or Lucid's service number, but I've had much better success ontacting the center directly by text.

 

[borski]

Maybe the offered level of service has changed since I leased my lucid in July of '24. I live in Wisconsin about 90 miles from the Chicago service center. I've had 5 service appointments since then, and each time my Lucid was picked up and a Lucid loaner (a higher model than mine) was dropped off. That impressed me and would have encouraged me offer high pralise, but I can't do that in light of so many other negative aspects associated with Lucid.

You still can offer high praise for that service center. Not all service centers (and thus, experiences) are created equal. That needs to be fixed, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t praise the work of the people doing a good job.

In fact, I’d argue the opposite: that praise helps tell Lucid which centers to focus on fixing, and which to try to emulate and learn from.

 

[Palagius]

You still can offer high praise for that service center. Not all service centers (and thus, experiences) are created equal. That needs to be fixed, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t praise the work of the people doing a good job.

In fact, I’d argue the opposite: that praise helps tell Lucid which centers to focus on fixing, and which to try to emulate and learn from.

FWIW, as jaded and angry as I am, I don't think the Tysons SC is poorly run. I just think there are a lot of Lucids on the road in greater Washington, DC, many of them have problems, and the SC is simply not large enough or staffed enough to handle the load. I know zero about running such a facility, but it seems like they could be moving to three shifts of techs or whatever to try to burn down the backlog. But the hand-off between techs might make that impractical.

But I also assume that nearly all work (like mine) is warranty work, and thus is a cost center with no offsetting revenue--a hard thing to increase the funding for when cashflow is tight.

 

[raleighone]

I also wonder if Lucid, with it's early "service reputation" is having trouble attracting the best techs to their service centers. I mean, as frustrated as I've been, I had sympathy for nearly every tech I talked with: they all seemed (and some told me they were) overworked, overwhelmed and under supported by the company. If I was a tech looking for a job...not sure Lucid would be first choice.

I've also noticed that many of them said "they" a lot about Lucid instead of "We." I literally called out a SC mgr who said this to me...I said "You are Lucid!" lol Funny, but not. To me, it tells me something about how the company culture (is there one?) is being managed if each SC feels like they aren't fully unsupported.

One last anecdote: At a SC I visited, I was talking to a trainee. He wasn't even an EV guy and talked for 5 minutes how he loved the sound of an engine. I joked "and you're working at Lucid?" and he said "gotta pay the bills" in front of several others. Okay, I get it and this is hardly earth shattering. But it's also a long ways away from having techs that are hardcore EV'ers and have their hearts in the industry.

 

[watermelonrooste]

It's pretty important to watch the attached video (with sound on!!) to get how infuriating this is. Sequence of events:
- 9/10, mobile service comes to fix an inoperable door handle, passenger rear
- That "fix" introduced the attached behavior
- Leave messages (plural!) with local service center, zero return calls
- 9/20, send an email to "customer service" after receiving a service feedback survey
- 10/13 (note the interval) "customer service" responds that someone will call me
- 10/14, someone calls me, casually tells me they can look at the car on January 5

Watch the video. I'm supposed to just deal with the above for a further number of months after they introduced the problem. I was better off simply having a rear door handle that did not work most of the time. Error message cheerfully says to schedule an appointment with the Ludic App... as though that has ever worked. Never once has the app shown me a potential appointment, and of course, it shows you that there are no appointments available *after* you arduously spend time inputting details about your problem.

And I am reasonably certain I communicated to the individual who called me how substantial a problem this is.

I'm confident there are well-intentioned people within Lucid that want the ownership experience to not be a nightmare. But they clearly are not being afforded the resources to make that possible. For my part, I think signing up and waiting a year to get a Dream Edition car indicates both a desire for the company and products to succeed and a willingness to take a chance on a young company's sophomore outing. But this is completely appalling. That goodwill has been so far squandered I do not even have the words to describe it--and I am reasonably literate.

I would encourage any prospective buyer to look at the attached video and evaluate his/her comfort level with the idea that the company says that is a problem that can wait months to be fixed. On what is allegedly (perhaps the Air Sapphire notwithstanding) their premier product offering--the Gravy Dream Edition.

Now with the context above, try to imagine their automated survey cheerfully asking me how likely I am to recommend Lucid to a friend or colleague after my service. In what universe would I do that?

This is horrible. If it is a new car, contact a lemon law attorney and get rid of it. Imagine what will happen to the service if they declare bankruptcy.

 

[raleighone]

It's pretty important to watch the attached video (with sound on!!) to get how infuriating this is. Sequence of events:
- 9/10, mobile service comes to fix an inoperable door handle, passenger rear
- That "fix" introduced the attached behavior
- Leave messages (plural!) with local service center, zero return calls
- 9/20, send an email to "customer service" after receiving a service feedback survey
- 10/13 (note the interval) "customer service" responds that someone will call me
- 10/14, someone calls me, casually tells me they can look at the car on January 5

Watch the video. I'm supposed to just deal with the above for a further number of months after they introduced the problem. I was better off simply having a rear door handle that did not work most of the time. Error message cheerfully says to schedule an appointment with the Ludic App... as though that has ever worked. Never once has the app shown me a potential appointment, and of course, it shows you that there are no appointments available *after* you arduously spend time inputting details about your problem.

And I am reasonably certain I communicated to the individual who called me how substantial a problem this is.

I'm confident there are well-intentioned people within Lucid that want the ownership experience to not be a nightmare. But they clearly are not being afforded the resources to make that possible. For my part, I think signing up and waiting a year to get a Dream Edition car indicates both a desire for the company and products to succeed and a willingness to take a chance on a young company's sophomore outing. But this is completely appalling. That goodwill has been so far squandered I do not even have the words to describe it--and I am reasonably literate.

I would encourage any prospective buyer to look at the attached video and evaluate his/her comfort level with the idea that the company says that is a problem that can wait months to be fixed. On what is allegedly (perhaps the Air Sapphire notwithstanding) their premier product offering--the Gravy Dream Edition.

Now with the context above, try to imagine their automated survey cheerfully asking me how likely I am to recommend Lucid to a friend or colleague after my service. In what universe would I do that?

This is terrible, for sure. My only advice after dealing with many service issues: do whatever you have to do to get a manager on the phone and speak to them. On my several serious issues, almost nothing happened until I finally spoke to a human being. Good luck...that is a crazy annoying issue to have.

 

[watermelonrooste]

It's pretty important to watch the attached video (with sound on!!) to get how infuriating this is. Sequence of events:
- 9/10, mobile service comes to fix an inoperable door handle, passenger rear
- That "fix" introduced the attached behavior
- Leave messages (plural!) with local service center, zero return calls
- 9/20, send an email to "customer service" after receiving a service feedback survey
- 10/13 (note the interval) "customer service" responds that someone will call me
- 10/14, someone calls me, casually tells me they can look at the car on January 5

Watch the video. I'm supposed to just deal with the above for a further number of months after they introduced the problem. I was better off simply having a rear door handle that did not work most of the time. Error message cheerfully says to schedule an appointment with the Ludic App... as though that has ever worked. Never once has the app shown me a potential appointment, and of course, it shows you that there are no appointments available *after* you arduously spend time inputting details about your problem.

And I am reasonably certain I communicated to the individual who called me how substantial a problem this is.

I'm confident there are well-intentioned people within Lucid that want the ownership experience to not be a nightmare. But they clearly are not being afforded the resources to make that possible. For my part, I think signing up and waiting a year to get a Dream Edition car indicates both a desire for the company and products to succeed and a willingness to take a chance on a young company's sophomore outing. But this is completely appalling. That goodwill has been so far squandered I do not even have the words to describe it--and I am reasonably literate.

I would encourage any prospective buyer to look at the attached video and evaluate his/her comfort level with the idea that the company says that is a problem that can wait months to be fixed. On what is allegedly (perhaps the Air Sapphire notwithstanding) their premier product offering--the Gravy Dream Edition.

Now with the context above, try to imagine their automated survey cheerfully asking me how likely I am to recommend Lucid to a friend or colleague after my service. In what universe would I do that?

This is a person at their corporate customer service. Maybe she can help you to get in sooner.