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What Goes Into a Tesla Model S Annual Service?
I’m still shy of the 12 month mark on owning my Model S, but I just had my first annual service and wanted to share my thoughts and experience on Tesla’s annual service.
Frequency of Service
Tesla recommends that you have your Model S serviced every 12,500 miles or every 12 months, whichever comes first. This has always been problematic for me since I drive 30,000 miles a year. So by their rules I’d be getting an “annual” service every 5 months.
When I explained this to my Tesla rep during delivery of my Model S, they had recommended that I perform the service at 24,000 miles which seemed very arbitrary to me, but that’s what I did.
At 24,000 miles (less than 10 months into ownership) I called for an Annual Service appointment. The service person I spoke to was shocked I hadn’t had my car serviced yet with all those miles and I explained that I had been following their recommendation. My appointment was booked 3 weeks out. It wasn’t urgent so timing wasn’t a big deal, but it did mean that I would be going in for my first service at 25,500 miles.
When should I take my Model S in?
I took to the TMC forum and asked other owners what their Tesla annual service experience was like. Universally, owners are treating the annual service as just that, an annual service regardless of miles and type of service needed. However similar to my experience, some owners are receiving mixed guidance from Tesla on when the annual service should really take place.
This gets even more confusing when it comes to those with the pre-paid service plan. I did an analysis of Tesla’s pre-paid service plan when purchasing the car and realized that it just wasn’t for me
One Model S owner who goes by the handle of AmpedRealtor received the following email from Jerome Guillen, former VP, Worldwide sales and service (he just changed roles):
Dear Mr. [AmpedRealtor]:
Any customer who has paid for a 4-year service plan is entitled to 4 “annual service” visits. The customer can elect to bring the car whenever they desire: we recommend every year or every 12,500 miles (whichever comes first), but the customer are free to do whatever they essentially desire. They can bring the car every 18 months or every 6 months. In the end, they will receive the 4 “annual service” they have paid for. I hope this clarifies the situation.
Many thanks for your continued support. Best regards,
Jerome Guillen | VP, WW sales and service
While thats a nice email and statement, it isn’t what the contract says when you sign up for the pre-paid plan. So while Elon, Jerome, and others have stated other things its hard to commit to a contract that clearly states something different and then expect otherwise.
Ultimately, Tesla needs to get their act together on what an Annual Service really entails and make sure the paperwork matches the intent.
What Goes Into the Tesla Annual Service?
The Annual Service price (if not pre-paid) is $600. Its an all-day affair and usually involves you dropping off your car and getting a loaner.
In many areas, Tesla offers a valet service (for free) where they’ll pick up your car and drop off a loaner, but they’ve started clamping down on that service. Nowadays it seems that they only want to do the valet service if you’re within 10 miles of the Tesla Service Center. I wasn’t offered valet service (I work 14 miles from the service center) and dropped my car off myself which wasn’t a big deal — I always love seeing all the Tesla’s on their lot.
The actual annual service was described as follows on my invoice:
They basically go over the car and check everything out. Along the way they’ll also perform any other needed updates where needed.
There was a service bulletin:
Bulletin: Model S | SB-14-17-002 | Corrosion on 12V Positive Jump Post
And I had some corrosion so they replaced the parts that were of concern.
They also did more than a normal “Annual” service since I was at twice the mileage for the annual and evidently they have different types of service at different mileages. This one they called:
24 Month/25000 Mile/40000 km Service (with Coil Suspension)
For that part of the service they removed, cleaned and lubricated front and rear brake pads and performed an alignment with some minor adjustments.
So while the service is annual, they do different things based on the mileage on the car again somewhat contradicting ideas of coming in whenever you want or only once a year regardless of mileage.
Extra Items
I generally have a list of less urgent items that I want addressed each time I go into the service center. I had two open issues this time as follows:
- One of my Tesla UMCs was not working.
- My right front tire was somehow rubbing when the wheel was at full turn and at low speeds (usually reversing into a spot).
The UMC (my original one that came with the car) was faulty and they replaced it for free after testing it themselves. I’m a little concerned it didn’t even last a year before failing but at least it was covered by the warranty. Fortunately when it failed I had a spare and had started using that after several bad charges with the original UMC.
To address the rubbing noises coming from the right front tire, Tesla mostly blamed the noise on my aftermarket Tsportsline wheels and Nokian tires but was able to address it with a wheel alignment. I don’t really buy that the aftermarket parts were the issue given there’s a forum discussion going on with owners with the exact same issue on the same front right wheel. But whatever they tweaked, it is much better now. I think their design tolerances in the wheel well are too tight.
Oddly they had an item on the service sheet as a customer complaint from me that I didn’t bring up when making the appointment:
Concern: Customer states cruise control is not working normally.
This was actually derived from an email to ownership a few months before the service about the problems around limited regeneration in the cold. It wasn’t a complaint about the car as it was working as designed, it was a suggestion that they may want to review how things worked in that area as I thought there was a safety issue.
Tesla collects all concerns / complaints that you email them with and will include it into your service checklist.
Getting a Loaner
Any service event (planned or unplanned) is an opportunity to experience a Model S with a different set of configurations. While I was hoping for a P85D, I ended up with a beautiful blue P85+.
While the extra performance was nice, I wasn’t blown away by it since I had a lot more trouble with keeping the wheels from spinning. With my S85 I really have to work at losing traction and the traction control does a great job. With the P85+ (it had winter tires on too, Sottozero) the tires spun a lot and I didn’t like the experience — the power was too much for either the tires or the traction control or both.
The other thing the car had that was new for me was the Alcantara headliner. I really liked the look of it and would have to think hard on that option next time. I’d want to hear about maintenance/cleaning experiences first though.
Summary
My first paid Tesla service appointment in over 25,000 miles cost a total of $600 and was overall a good experience. I felt that it was good value for the amount of work Tesla did on the car. Tesla did everything I expected (and more) and returned my car cleaner inside and out than it has been in many months of driving through a harsh New England winter.
Granted it got dirty before I even reached home but it was still great to see how beautiful the car looked when clean. I’m ready for spring.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner
Elon Musk sat beside Trump as AI leaders signed a voluntary White House safety accord.
Elon Musk had the seat right next to President Donald Trump on Tuesday as the White House hosted the leaders of America’s biggest artificial intelligence companies for a lunch that ended with a voluntary industry accord on AI safety.
A seating chart Trump posted on Truth Social placed Musk at the president’s left in the East Room, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on his right, according to an Associated Press reporter. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also attended, along with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
🚨 Elon Musk is currently speaking to the media alongside President Trump after a meeting with AI Leaders in Washington today
Trump says AI is now being called “Super Intelligence” or SI pic.twitter.com/woJJqUVP9B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 29, 2026
After the lunch, Trump told reporters outside the West Wing that the executives had signed “The White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” Johnson described it as a voluntary statement of principles built on “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review,” while Zuckerberg said company boards would independently review reports from outside auditors. Trump called the document “morally binding,” said he would name a new AI czar within days, and signed an executive order formally renaming artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” CNBC reported.
Musk was not in the room for Tesla alone. Since SpaceX absorbed xAI, he runs the company behind Grok and one of the largest AI training operations anywhere. On September 25, he said another 220,000 Nvidia GB300 chips would come online at Colossus 2 within a week, with more expected in November and December.
“I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of A.I. … S.I., pardon me.”
“Thank you.”@elonmusk catches his own slip after calling the technology “A.I.” while speaking alongside President Trump and other tech leaders, quickly correcting himself to “super… pic.twitter.com/fH7CFileNb
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 29, 2026
SpaceX confirms third massive compute deal at Colossus data center
Musk also used the trip to restate his energy ambitions. “SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year,” he said at an event in Washington. It is the same combined target he laid out that feeds directly into Terafab, the Tesla and SpaceX chip venture that will need enormous amounts of power.
The showing between Musk and Trump has come a long way, since the two had the very public split in mid 2025 after Musk opposed the “Big Beautiful Bill” and left DOGE. They reconciled at Charlie Kirk’s memorial that September, and Trump later called their relationship “good”. Since then, Musk has joined Trump’s China delegation in May and attended last week’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
For Tesla, that access to government official could pay dividends. As Teslarati noted in January, federal autonomy rules, NHTSA oversight and a single national standard for driverless vehicles all run through an administration Musk can more easily reach directly as Tesla works to scale Robotaxi and Cybercab beyond Texas.
Credit: @BLKMDL3/Twitter
Ahead of its highly anticipated unveiling, Tesla’s upcoming Roadster received a new patent that aims to keep it grounded while enabling white-knuckle speeds.
The patent, which was granted on September 29, is titled “Electric Car Fan,” bluntly stating its design but not its purpose, which is further detailed in the text of the application. Interestingly, it comes two weeks before the Roadster event, which was delayed due to unfavorable weather on Thursday, which could cause issues, as Tesla revealed the event must be held outdoors.
🚨 The design uses electrically driven ducted fans, typically shown as a row of four at the rear, powered by the vehicle’s high-voltage battery.
The fans pull air from an underbody inlet, route it through ducts, and expel it from a larger rear outlet that functions as a… https://t.co/CHQB9u9UA3 pic.twitter.com/QVXmWTdggh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 29, 2026
The purpose is to solve a problem that is relatively unique to high-performance electric cars. Instant motor torque is useless if the tires cannot plant that force, and conventional wings and underbody tunnels generate downforce only when air is already rushing past the car. At launch, in slow corners, and under hard braking from modest speed, passive aerodynamic additions contribute essentially very little to downforce.
Tesla’s filing says that its fans can produce the downforce needed, independent of vehicle velocity, then ease off so the same hardware does not pile on drag at highway speeds, an issue that can come from excessive body modifications.
The hardware outlined in the patent is a ducted-fan package that is placed into the rear of the vehicle. An underbody inlet between the rear wheels feeds a duct that rises to a wide outlet in the diffuser. In that outlet are four axial fans, which are divided by vertical strakes. They will pull air from under the floor and press the chassis onto the pavement.
The language in the patent claims it can cut drag rather than add to it while simultaneously increasing downforce.
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
The fans run from the high-voltage battery and a vehicle control system, so output can be modulated rather than left on as a fixed penalty.
There are additional strengths that can come from this design, like extra tire load at low speed, which can contribute to even more face-melting acceleration rates, decrease stopping distance, and sharper turn-in before a wing has air to work with. Adjustable fan speed lets the car add grip only when needed, so it can be catered to the force of a turn or acceleration.
These designs were previously used, and banned, in some competitive settings. The Brabham BT46B was banned in F1 competition for using a similar fan design and being labeled as too effective.
Tesla still lists the Roadster as having a sub-two-second 0-60 MPH time and a 250-plus-MPH top speed, and there are expectations for a SpaceX cold-gas thruster package that could not only increase acceleration but potentially cause the vehicle to hover.
It is important to note that a patent is not a production part, and packaging four fans in a rear diffuser, managing noise, and potential debris are all things Tesla must consider. With that being said, the patent being granted shows Tesla is designing the Roadster to go fast, but it is also attempting to use unique strategies to combat any issues it might have at those speeds.
Credit: @thaichiminh1907/X
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) showrooms have been picked clean ahead of the end of the third quarter of the year, as demand looks to be strong and delivery estimates for new vehicles are pushed into late 2026 and early 2027.
Tesla appears to have sold out of many of its Model 3 and Model Y trim levels in the United States, as only the Model Y RWD and Model Y All-Wheel-Drive are available for delivery before the end of the year.
Additionally, many showrooms are either completely empty or void of all but just one demo unit within the buildings themselves in an effort to bolster what could be one of Tesla’s best quarters in vehicle deliveries in recent memory.
I’m at Tesla right now and when I walked into their showroom I was shocked to see it basically empty.
I asked one of the people working there where all of the cars are “Gone – it’s the end of the quarter and we’ve sold out of everything… including the display vehicles”So… pic.twitter.com/rN7s3gE6sJ
— Devin Olsen (@DevinOlsenn) September 25, 2026
All the cars are gone from Tesla Century City!
All they have is Model Y L, a self-driving video playing on the background. I guess the best product is no product. Either that or they just sold the showroom cars. pic.twitter.com/mzCjWaXwww
— Whole Mars Catalog (@wholemars) September 26, 2026
Show room is empty. I asked and they have sold the demo cars too. Delivery numbers better be outstanding! pic.twitter.com/jq5N28Q6tZ
— Electric Brawl (@3lectricBrawl) September 22, 2026
Additionally, when I spoke to the guys at Tesla Mechanicsburg two weeks ago, when I returned the Model Y L, their third hauler of the week had just arrived, and every vehicle on it, along with every vehicle in their delivery lot, was accounted for and had a name attached to it for delivery.
Talking to the guys at the Mechanicsburg showroom on Friday, they couldn’t believe they had ANOTHER hauler coming in of cars for delivery—and each was accounted for
No car just sitting in inventory. They’re expecting a BIG quarter, and this is more than just the Y L https://t.co/ce801GkKVv
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 21, 2026
Tesla saw a 25 percent increase in deliveries in Q2 compared to the same quarter the year before. The vast majority of the 480,126 units it delivered, 467,762 vehicles to be exact, were the Model 3 and Model Y.
In Q3 2025, Tesla delivered 497,099 vehicles, once again a figure that was dominated by the company’s two mass-market vehicles. Analysts have unusually wide predictions for this quarter, likely because so many firms missed the Q2 delivery figure by such a substantial margin; Wall Street predicted 408,000 cars, while Tesla delivered 480,000.
Goldman Sachs has Tesla slotted for 435,000 deliveries in Q3, while JPMorgan said it anticipates 482,000. The median guess is about 449,000 deliveries for Q3.
Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here.
Elon Musk2 hours agoElon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner
Elon Musk16 hours agoTesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
Investor's Corner17 hours agoTesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong
