A Title Mixup Left a New Tesla Owner Unable To Drive His Tesla for Months
Image: Tesla
Imagine buying a brand new car, going to register it, and finding out you can’t because someone else already did. The Drive reports that’s what one Tesla customer is going through after a title mix-up from the factory has left a mess that neither the Texas DMV nor Tesla seemingly wants to clean up.
It all started in October of 2021. A man by the name of Joe placed two orders for Tesla Model Y’s: one long range and one performance. He had no intention of buying two, he just was wanting to take whichever Model Y got made the fastest. That turned out to be the long-range model, so he canceled the order for the performance version. That’s when the problems started.
While Tesla still does direct sales in most other places, the situation in Texas is dicey. Texas allows Tesla to sell to customers there but they have to do a song and dance in order to do it. From The Drive:
Tesla does this by mailing out a self-registration packet after delivery that contains the Manufacturer Certificate of Origin (MCO), purchase agreement, odometer disclosure, and application for vehicle registration. Owners then take the packet to their local tax office, pay sales tax on the vehicle, and begin the registration process.
It’s all a bunch of annoying red tape.
The issue came when Joe received his MCO. Rather than have the information on it for the Model Y, the info on it was for an entirely different vehicle: a Model S Plaid with an entirely different VIN. So he did what any person would do and reached out to Tesla so they could correct the mistake. This being Tesla, two weeks went by with no response. He reached out to them a second time reminding them that he needed to register the car as soon as possible to avoid being charged a sales tax penalty. He was told it would be taken care of. Tesla went ghost again, so he called a third time. By this time it was late March 2022. Everything got messier.
G/O Media may get a commission
Year-round basics
Uniqlo Summer Sale
Basics you don’t wanna miss
Uniqlo’s summer sales are not to be missed. The whole sale is killer to stock up on the basics Uniqlo is known for—subtle colors, classic silhouettes, and a dress up-or-down vibe.
By this time, Joe has to move to Pennsylvania for work, something The Drive says he informed Tesla of early on. Due to the mess with the title, he had to ship the car across the country. Tesla finally gives him the right MCO. But not wanting to deal with it anymore, Joe hires an outside titling service to handle everything for him. Joe thinks everything is squared away. It wasn’t.
The Texas DMV rejected the registration application because it had already been issued to someone else. Suffice to say, it’s a shitshow now. No one knows why the registration was issued to someone else nor who that other person is. The car sits in the garage, undrivable more than six months after it was purchased because it’s not able to be registered. And Tesla and the Texas DMV are pointing the finger at each other. A Tesla employee told The Drive they’re aware of and still looking into the issue and the DMV is saying that Tesla is the one that has to issue and correct the title application. It’s all a study in everything going wrong. You can read more about it here.
