Had to do a search and see how a Model 3 would fair when having and driven for 100k miles! Well, I’m getting close to 50k miles in less than two and half yrs of owning it. Interestingly enough, my 90% is at 256 miles. Some days it shows 266 miles. Wonder how my battery is holding up…
Let's see.... 3 sets of tires @ $1200 or so each, no oil changes, no brake changes, a couple windshield wiper changes, a few small things (1 or 2 lights, charge port pins) got replaced under warranty. I paid $400-something for the upper control arms / ball joints I mentioned in the video. Cost of electricity and even supercharging on trips was far less than gasoline, a rough estimate would be maybe 30%. Car itself was $50K when I bought it. So aside from the vehicle purchase price, the cost to operate for 100K miles was significantly less than a gas car. Plus there's always the smile I get when I roll past a biden-era gas station sign saying $4.99 for gas and thinking "NOT ME!!!". :)
I didn't get any paint protective films, and it's only been waxed twice. I used to hand wash the car, but I got lazy about a year ago when a local automated car wash opened up and they offer a deal where for about $26 I can go there once a day for the whole month. I read about ppf and ceramic coatings and such, but never got into it. Front bumper has a couple nicks from stones, but otherwise the paint is holding up well.
Because when the left side one went bad, it would squeak and creak and make noise at every little bump in the road. I had to drive it like that for a week until the parts came in to the local Tesla Service Center, and it was driving me crazy. I changed the right side upper arm / ball joint at the same time, because I figured if one was worn out, the other probably wasn't far behind after 60,000 miles of Pittsburgh roads. They have been fine ever since, the newer control arms are a later revision that hopefully won't lose all the grease. They should have grease fittings, but that's not good for planned obsolescence and service center repair revenue and corporate profits.
The interior has been fine, only thing I ever had to fix was the drivers door power window switch. After 3-1/2 years I managed to break the plastic button, so I could lower a window but not put it back up with the switch. I'd have to use other functions in the touch screen (car wash mode) to put the window back up. Once I got the switch changed, the problem went away.
