Gravity Service Appointments and Time In Service

Ron_Burgundy said:

Half shafts were an issue in early R1Ss. Mine included.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my rear drive unit in a very early Tesla X P90D failed after a week.

I agree, we hear about them more with EVs because there are fewer EVs and they’re scrutinized more.

There are all sorts of failures and issues with ICE cars, but folks have just gotten used to them.

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Early Model S cars and rear halfshaft problems very commonly. I had it on my 2014 S85. I still hear some old Model Ss around town with that weird whining noise coming from the back of their car.

hmp10 said:

Very glad they worked you in. I agree with @Bunnylebowski that Lucid service really does their best.

it looks increasingly less likely, though, that we'll not have our car back in time for our trip next week. They told me today that they're still working with the Engineering team on some of the issues and don't have an ETA on getting the car back to us.

I'm going to get the oil changed in the trusty old Honda Odyssey to get it ready just in case. Every time I tried a Supercharger in the Gravity and found it worked seamlessly I thought, "wow, finally, an EV you can road trip in as easily as an ICE car!" Then the NACS adapter arrived for our Air, and it was a different story. It worked at the two Tesla SC's but, as I already knew, too slowly to be of any real use other than an emergency on a road trip where our first day will be 10 hours of driving not including charge stops. And both the Electrify America stations we tried with the Gravity were out of service for equipment upgrades. It seems that EA is following their usual pattern of shutting down entire stations along a major route at once instead of staggering the shutdowns. And I don't want to depend on seeking out charge stations from other providers with which I'm less familiar.

So . . . the Gravity is in the shop; the Air will stay within reach of home charging;, and we'll be keeping the Honda a bit longer than I had anticipated. In fact, I'm rethinking the plan to let it go at all once we have three Lucids in the garage. I thought the time had arrived to go all-EV in the household. Now I'm not so sure.

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I would take the Air and just charge at any of the popular stations; because I am not EA-dependent. I just charged at any EVGo yesterday. Flawless experience.

Pilot Flying J - EVGo are all over the interstates in FL, GA, NC, SC no reason to limit yourself to EA.

Xminus6 said:

Early Model S cars and rear halfshaft problems very commonly. I had it on my 2014 S85. I still hear some old Model Ss around town with that weird whining noise coming from the back of their car.

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Our model X has had the front half-shafts replaced, and I know people who have had this done 3+ times under warranty even on recent model years. It seems to be a fundamental design flaw of Tesla that they have no interest in fixing -- perhaps many buyers of a $100k car think it should be grinding and rough to drive?

Received text today with update on my replacement center console. Shipped yesterday with 3-day expedited arrival.

The personnel change made at the service center this week is showing immediate improvement in response time. No more waiting two three days for a response. Response with minutes now.

jered said:

Our model X has had the front half-shafts replaced, and I know people who have had this done 3+ times under warranty even on recent model years. It seems to be a fundamental design flaw of Tesla that they have no interest in fixing -- perhaps many buyers of a $100k car think it should be grinding and rough to drive?

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My Model X had them replaced as well. I guess they didn’t wear well if you kept the car in the lowest suspensions setting.

Dropped it off this morning and they said “expect a couple of days”…hopefully it’s ready for Friday roadtrip. I got an Air GT loaner, so I am not complaining. It’s fast and has CarPlay! Random thoughts from this morning:

1) Drop off - I drove it into the service center, which is impressive and large. But it was weird because I parked it in the lot outside then went in and they told me they’d open the garage.

1A) Is there a service mode they’ll put it into? I remember the early Tesla days before service mode when folks would activate their horns remotely…As soon as I returned home I checked and the car is now parked way out in the parking lot of the service center. I guess I don’t really care if they get to it asap as I have the loaner…but I can’t roadtrip the loaner as it won’t hold the huge dog crate.

1b) communication - they said they’d call with daily updates. I wish they hadn’t said that because if they don’t, then I will now feel frustrated. I would not have expected daily updates otherwise…

2) Gravity Knowledge - folks at Lucid still seem to need training on the Gravity. Several folks hadn’t seen a “real” one (I guess that’s good?). More importantly, they seemed surprised my PaaK wasn’t working - then I explained it’s not available yet for Gravity. I also had to explain why I needed to bring the fob and the key card. They didn’t seem to expect the fob issue - that is, it seemed like they had not heard of it as an issue. They also didn’t seem to understand my request to
make sure all the window seals are looked at since my front window stops going up sometimes. I heard this was an issue with early Airs, so expected them to understand. I just showed them and it was fine. But these were more “front of house” folks, too.

3) They were helpful and responsive and quick and it reminded me of my Tesla service circa 2013. I’ve serious doubts they can keep this level of service, but hope they do.

PS - no issues with the 2022 AGT fob!

In my experience you usually drive the car into the garage and they meet you. Front of house service people are more coordinators, some are very savvy but they’re more the liaison between you and the techs so may not be privy to lots of things, if you talk to a tech I’m usually amazed by how much they know. Like these people are very smart, and I likely slow them down asking lots of questions since I love learning what they’ve learned. You will get a Docusign at some point describing the work, sometimes after you get your car back, sometimes before, depends on how busy they are. The Air has a service mode, initially it did not in 2022 so the shock tilt alert would go off in the app when they were working on the car haha. I do not know yet if the Gravity has service mode,, however once you pick up the car be very careful and make sure your settings are the way you have them normally as several times my Air has returned in “roll” mode instead of brake hold mode, which I do not think the service center changed but may be an artifact of service mode.

Bunnylebowski said:

In my experience you usually drive the car into the garage and they meet you. Front of house service people are more coordinators, some are very savvy but they’re more the liaison between you and the techs so may not be privy to lots of things, if you talk to a tech I’m usually amazed by how much they know. Like these people are very smart, and I likely slow them down asking lots of questions since I love learning what they’ve learned. You will get a Docusign at some point describing the work, sometimes after you get your car back, sometimes before, depends on how busy they are. The Air has a service mode, initially it did not in 2022 so the shock tilt alert would go off in the app when they were working on the car haha. I do not know yet if the Gravity has service mode,, however once you pick up the car be very careful and make sure your settings are the way you have them normally as several times my Air has returned in “roll” mode instead of brake hold mode, which I do not think the service center changed but may be an artifact of service mode.

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Thanks for the background. Appreciate it.

They DID call me this afternoon to tell me they didn’t get to it but believe they will tomorrow. I appreciated the call and the honesty.

I also still had a huge grin on my face from driving the AGT loaner all over the place - cautiously and below the speed limit, of course.