New Tesla owner must have and must do
New owner here, MYP (next few days) and was wondering what the experienced folks have to share with regards to must haves (I terior/exterior) and must dos. What are the things you couldn't do without and any neat, "can only be done in a tesla" type do-dads and apps.
For me, it looks to be: PPF film Window tint
Whatever you do, don’t fill it up with gas. There. You’re all set. Have fun!
Under the "must do" category (if you haven't already)....
Read the manual.
There are a ton of really cool features on these cars that you might miss out on if you don't give it a thorough read-thru.
RTFM is a must!
FOMO got the best of me. What are the top three cool features, according to you?
Understand that your car doesn't have USS. Since you mentioned you're buying EAP, you won't actually be able to use features like Autopark and Summon. Too many people on here post threads that they're shocked their new Tesla can't actually do what they paid for it to do. Don't be that guy
Figure out where you will get wifi updates. If you can connect to your home's (or apartment complex's) wifi, great. If not, get used to using your phone as a Hotspot.
IMO paint protection film and ceramic coating are overrepresented on this sub. Only a few Tesla owners actually get those things. If you want to get PPF and ceramic, sure, but only if you have the cash to burn.
Get accessories and other miscellaneous items like mud flaps, splash guards, wheel locks, and possibly a screen protector for the main dash. These are all relatively inexpensive and yet very helpful. You can get some of these from Tesla or from outside vendors.
Get a license plate holder, if legally required in your state. The best ones are $100-140 and are fairly easy to install. I haven't heard great things about the 3M tape that Tesla uses by default.
Develop an irrational fear of curbing your wheels, especially on a performance model like yours. Those uberturbines are magnets for curb rash. Possibly look onto aftermarket rims from, say, Tsportline or other vendors that specifically focus on Teslas.
(Very important!) Learn how to grab sentry and dash cam data. It's really easy, but you need to do this asap because you don't want to have to figure it out when you NEED it (when you've had an accident
So summon and auto park cannot be used because the car doesn't have USS?
Correct. If I were you I would just ditch EAP and save myself the $6k, unless you really want auto lane changes in autopilot.
Surely they’ll fix it at some point??
I'm not sure if Tesla's promises can be trusted. All I know is that the new vision-based park assist is... okay, but far from being usable for autopark and summon
Only buy what Tesla has delivered or is currently delivering. Anything beyond that may turn into an involuntary donation.
Just ask AP1 owners who were told in 2014 that their cars would have advanced summon capabilities that never materialized. They did get a good lanekeeping system that some people still consider to be more reliable than AP2, under the conditions it was designed for.
Or AP2 owners from late 2016 that were told their cars would be able to be summoned from coast to coast. They've been the last to get any FSD Beta access at all, and what they do get is behind everyone else. And FSD Beta has not demonstrated itself to be consistent enough for an unattended coast to coast summon.
paint protection film
This is about personal comfort and confidence, and also about longevity. If the car is your forever, keeper, collector car that you will baby, then yes do it.
If not, then...it's harder to justify dropping a few thousand dollars extra.
Personally I'd say to set your charge limit to 80 or 90%. After that turn on night mode on your display, helps with eye strain and night time driving.
Get acquainted with the app. You can do a lot of things through it (payments, requesting service, and purchasing). Took me a while to find out I could open and close the charge port with it. You can also set the charge limit with the app. Useful when you don't use Tesla charge stations.
Speaking of charging, if you use the adapter to charge, you'll notice that the adaptor will stay on and your port will try to close, when you disconnect. Easy way to pull both adaptor and plug is to pull the trigger and when the Tesla logo goes white, let go of the trigger and pull. Has to be done quickly, but it saves you time!
If you park your car in a lot of public places, enable sentry mode. It will drain some battery, but it's worth it in case some idiot decides to fuck with your shit.
Don't panic if your range suddenly decreases... I'm guilty of that. Your estimated range takes into account a lot of factors, such as driving habit, charging frequency, temperature, etc. If you drive fast all the time, expect your estimated range to drop to compensate. If you drive at normal speed while using as much Regen braking as possible, your range will go back up.
Speaking of Regen braking, it will take some time to get used to it, so practice with one pedal driving whenever it's safe. It's pretty damn amazing once you figure it out.
With sentry mode, it stores the recorded items on the flash drive in the glove box. Can i have music on the drive AND use it for sentry mode? Assuming it's a large enough drive to do both.
Yeah, there are expansions on Amazon that you can buy, which can add more USB slots or add an SSD.
By default, Tesla's come with a 128GB USB stick.
I generally bluetooth music/podcasts from my phone but you can yeah. Maybe its changed since, but it would never remember where I left off, or was horrible about it so thats why I do it that way for the past few years.
How come we should set the charge limit to 80 or 90%? And is that for super charging only or also for home charging? I super charge my model 3 to 100% every week
Only for non-LFP battery versions. LFP is ok to charge to 100%. Others are recommended to only do 80-90% charge to help reduce battery degradation.
I just got my baseline model 3 the other day brand new from the lot. I’m guessing it’s lfp
Yeah, you did see it on your charging tab. It'll tell you what it recommends for it.
Also, congrats! I took delivery of mine earlier this year.
Thank you!! And yes it said it recommended to charge to 100% which is the opposite of what I saw on this sub, so I didn’t want to damage it by doing that but now I know
And do not forget to send the arbitration opt-out letter if you just bought your car.
Check out this post from 2 days ago and actually read the manual:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModelY/comments/12sh3fp/just_received_out_y_i_have_tried_to_read_up_as/
Looking now. Good stuff there. Thanks!
Just to add here, Tesla trade in appraisal for my car was $1,000 less than CarMax.
I'm not in the great white north but does anyone use rubber floor mats? Weather tech was usually my go to for other cars.
I’m in the great white north. We have the Tesla brand mats which are made by weather tech. We like them so far and have them on both of ours.
Agreeing with this from Seattle
what model
Model Y Performance
get the abstract ocean matte screen protector, i think it is the best in the world. congrats and enjoy!
Didn't even think about a screen protector. Makes sense since you use the thing for literally everything!
What model, what model version, and what year. If its a base model then a ppf and tint is all you really need
Model Y Performance 2023, enhanced autopilot
Tint and ppf. If you’re really want, downsize the wheels or lower your suspension.
From what I gather the rims bend if you drive over a pedal so look into others
Ppf, tint, mud flaps, floor mats, console storage tray for me. That and a HPWC.
I just bought. Pick up Wednesday. Have driven a few on Turo.
The thing that I just realized and that blew my fkn mind was...no oil changes. Whaaaaat??