Tesla’s driving range fell short, so where’s my £10,500 refund?

Challenge yourself with today’s puzzles.
Crossword
Polygon
Sudoku
In June I paid £42,791 for a new Tesla Model 3 car. On the advert it had an estimated range of 318 miles, but after I fully charged the battery the display in the car said it only had a range of 248 miles. I booked it in for a service so that Tesla could find out why the range displayed in the car didn’t match what was advertised. But Tesla said the battery was working as expected and closed my service request.
I told Tesla that I wanted to return the car as the range did not match the advert and it agreed to take it back. I found a pre-owned Tesla Model 3 with a bigger range that was on sale for £32,200, so I decided to swap and Tesla agreed to refund the difference of £10,591.
Under the terms of the contract, my money should have been refunded within 14 days, but it has been nearly two months since I returned the car and I am still waiting. The last time I heard from Tesla was in August to apologise again for the delay but I’ve been given no date for repayment. I just want my refund.Name and address supplied
How far an electric car can travel when it’s fully charged can make or break a decision to buy one. So I could understand why you were disappointed that the range displayed in the car was so much lower than the one advertised.
This problem stems from the fact that there is more than one way of estimating a car’s range. In the UK manufacturers have to test the range using a lab-based method known as the worldwide harmonised light vehicle test procedure (WLTP), and when advertising cars they are only allowed to show this range.
• The fund manager who expects to fail (and he’s backing Burberry)
But this restriction doesn’t apply to the display in the car. Your new car was showing a different range that uses a testing method from the US-based Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA range tends to be lower than WLTP but Tesla believes the EPA method is more accurate because the test is based on real-world driving. Tesla’s UK website shows the WLTP range, but the US version shows the EPA range.
Steve Huntingford from What Car? magazine said many people were finding that their electric cars didn’t get anywhere close to the WLTP range advertised, and that the uncertainty about how far they can really go was putting off potential buyers.
I couldn’t solve the issue of which testing method was more accurate, but I could help with your refund. It turned out that a simple admin error was the cause of the delay and within a day of my involvement, £10,391 had landed in your account. There was a shortfall of £200 because you had been charged a fee for paying for the car on your credit card, so you weren’t eligible to get that back.
Tesla didn’t want to comment but would it compensate you for the length of time it took to return your money? It offered a goodwill voucher of £180 to spend in the Tesla Shop.
One morning in May I came downstairs and realised the door to my Miele steam oven was hanging off. I removed it to stop it crashing to the floor and on closer inspection, I realised the glue had failed. Even for a 16-year-old oven, this was concerning and could have been dangerous if the door had become detached while the oven was on.
I called Miele and was told that I would need to buy a replacement door, so I paid £470 for it to be delivered to my house. But I only got one of the glass sections. I called Miele again and it said it would send the complete door, but I got the same section of glass and nothing else.
After listening to the call recordings, Miele acknowledged that I had ordered a complete door, but said it had made a mistake because it actually costs £780, so I would need to pay an extra £310. After I complained it eventually said it would honour the original agreement.
Then every day for the next three weeks I got a jiffy bag containing different components. I asked Miele for instructions to assemble the door but it said it didn’t have any and that it would charge me £1,700 to get an engineer to put it together at my home. I wasn’t happy with this and it eventually reduced the call-out fee to £50. By this point, I hadn’t had an oven for four months, but I reluctantly agreed to pay.
Miele said extra parts were needed and that the engineer would bring these to the appointment, but the engineer didn’t turn up. I was given an appointment two days later but the engineer didn’t bring the parts with him. He took all 29 parts back to the workshop and Miele agreed to send the complete door back to me in the post.
But when it arrived in September, it was scratched and hadn’t been assembled correctly so it came apart in my hands. I haven’t been able to use my oven for the past five months and Miele’s behaviour throughout this sorry saga has been appalling.Anne, Windsor
Just when you thought the situation couldn’t get any more absurd, Miele surprised you. I can imagine your confusion when it sent you a package a day over three weeks, as though it had signed you up to a build-your-own-oven subscription.
It wasn’t until the end of September that the poorly assembled door was collected, but when Miele rebuilt it and sent you photos, you noticed that the same scratched piece of metal had been used.
After I got involved, Miele apologised and said it was committed to putting things right. It took a week for it to rebuild the door and send it to your home, and thankfully you’ve been able to install it yourself. But why had this been such an ordeal? Miele said: “Unfortunately mistakes made at the outset, combined with the age of the appliance, availability of the parts, and problems with delivery resulted in an extended repair time, for which we apologise unreservedly.”
Miele didn’t charge you for the construction and delivery of the door, but I still thought it should compensate you for its errors, which wasted so much of your time and left you without an oven for five months, but it said it had gone above and beyond to resolve this for you already. You were unimpressed and I wouldn’t blame you if you steered clear of Miele appliances from now on.
£1,442,777: the amount Troubleshooter has saved readers so far this year
If you have a money problem that you would like Katherine Denham to investigate, email [email protected]. Please include a phone number