Should you buy a second-hand Tesla Model 3? This is my experience of living with one

The Tesla Model 3 and Model Y have consistently ranked among the best-selling cars in the UK for years. That means there are plenty of used Teslas available on the market with prices starting at around £14,000, and countless potential buyers wondering whether a pre-owned Tesla Model 3 would be a wise purchase.

To find out whether a used Tesla is worth spending money on, I decided to see what it’s like to live with a second-hand model. How quickly has a car like this aged? How has the build quality stood up? What’s the technology like to live with? And crucially, what has time and mileage done to the battery and range of the car?

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For our tests, I’m running a car from Tesla’s official used car scheme – Tesla Certified Pre-Owned – to answer all of these questions and more. I’ll be updating my used Tesla review as I get more hands-on experience with the car, so check back in to see how the second-hand EV performs under real-world conditions.

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Every Tesla bought through the brand’s certified pre-owned scheme gets an upgrade to ‘enhanced autopilot’, whether it had it originally fitted or not. It’s a £3,400 option on a new Model 3 so a real benefit on a used car, and I’ve been giving it a go in the UK with, mostly, impressive results.

Enhanced autopilot is Tesla’s name for its semi-autonomous technology that we can use in the UK. It’s an adaptive cruise control system that will drive the car for you, keeping the car in lane and keeping a set distance from the car in front (that you can adjust). You have to remain in control, but keeping your hands on the wheel, but it’s a feature I love that I find makes longer, more tedious journeys that bit more relaxing.

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Tesla’s system goes a little further than most by helping you change lanes – it will identify when it’s safe to do so when you’ve initiated a lane change, then with a little wiggle of the steering wheel to remind the system that you’re still there, the car safely changes lanes. It’s clever stuff.

With the navigation set, enhanced autopilot will also advise you when to change lanes or when to take an exit on the motorway. And updates to come will give you ‘summon’ ability – the car will exit a parking space and come to you while you’re standing outside the car.

It’s certainly one of the better systems I’ve used – and I’ve used them all – but like them all, you do have to remain in control. There are occasions where it gets a bit flummoxed by lane markings on the road, or gets a bit scared by other cars or motorbikes straying into your lane and slams the brakes on – you have to be quick on the throttle to avoid upsetting the car behind.

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One minor frustration is that it needs constant reminding that you’re there and alert on straight roads. It needs regular steering inputs – which you’re unlikely to do on a straight road – otherwise you get visual and eventually audible alerts asking you to move the steering wheel. So you end up periodically wiggling the steering wheel when you don’t have to, just to remind the system that you’re awake.

On longer motorway journeys it really does make life a little more relaxing, though, and I’ve experienced in both my Model 3 and a brand new Model Y seven-seater that I’ve had in on test. As a bit of a geek, I love knowing the tech is all working hard; the combinations of cameras, sensors and serious computing power. And, as my car has, the system gets better with software updates.

The potential of full self-driving is still a little way off in the UK – even though you can equip your car with the kit to do it, when legislation allows. It’s all systems go in the US, though, as I experienced in my test drive in a Tesla Cybertruck.

But on a recent trip to stay with my folks in Arizona, Ralph and Marsha Grimes, we took a much longer journey on full self-driving - and I mean full self-driving. Ralph is loving his new Tesla Model Y, even more so with the technology on board. And we used it to do a full 70-mile round trip with the car driving itself from the moment Ralph left his drive in Sun City West, following the navigation all the way to wonderful western town Wickenburg and back again. It even managed to negotiate the combination of barriers and gates at the entrance and exit to the development where Ralph and Marsha live.

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Unlike enhanced autopilot, you don’t even have to keep your hands on the steering wheel with full self-driving – you can sit with your hands in your lap, but you do have to keep watching the road; cameras inside the car are keeping an eye on you making sure you’re not just watching Netflix. And I have to admit I was hugely impressed, sitting watching Ralph with his arms folded and the car navigating bends, traffic lights, lane changes, highway exits, crossing traffic and even spotting barriers.

As for my car, I’ll continue to put enhanced autopilot to good use. You have to know how it works and where it might need you to take over, but for me the benefits outweigh the negatives.

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The most common question I’m asked about my Model 3 is how well the battery is lasting – and research shows that’s one of the biggest concern for anyone buying an EV, new or used.

A few months ago, I drove a nine year-old Tesla Model S with 254,000 miles on the clock and it still had 84 per cent of its original capacity, meaning a potential range of over 250 miles for that well used model.

As for my car, at just over three-years old and with nearly 25,000 miles on the clock, I’m pretty happy with how things are looking battery-wise. Tesla says that you should expect less than ten per cent degradation in the first few years. So, with the claimed maximum range of my car when it was new at 360-miles, my car should have at least 324 miles range.

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As you can see from the picture above, that’s pretty much exactly what a full charge gives me. But there are two things to bear in mind: firstly, that charge was completed overnight in temperatures of around three degrees Celsius, when I would expect the range to be lower – EV batteries do not perform best in the cold. I’d expect that to be better when the weather is warmer. Secondly, most of the driving I’ve done so far in my Model 3 have been motorway miles, where again EVs are not at their most efficient. The official testing procedure that gives car makers their claimed range figures are done in a mixture of driving, including lots of stopping and starting where EVs use energy recovered from braking to put power back into the battery. If I was doing more town driving, I’d expect that range figure to be higher again.

To give you an example of that, I recently travelled from Buckinghamshire to Kent to collect my Dad, then took him to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium where one of my sons works to take him on a tour. The total round trip (not including walking around the Stadium!) was almost exactly 250 miles. I got home with 33 miles range left, meaning a total potential range on that day of 283 miles. Bear in mind, though, that again most of that was on the motorway, and it was another cold day.

In summary, I’m happy. I think balancing it out across a year with different temperatures and different types of driving, getting over 300 miles-worth of use out of the battery is entirely do-able, probably closer to around 330. And I’m comfortable in the knowledge that with purely motorway driving, a 250-mile range in cold weather is easily achievable, too. In fact, yesterday I did a 190-mile round-trip on the motorway and still had 60 miles range left.

What quickly becomes apparent when you’re driving any EV is that you learn to manage the mileage, working out how far you’re going, whether you need to charge en route or when you get there, or whether you can get there and back and charge again at home if you have a home charger.

As for the rest of the used Tesla Model 3 experience, passengers can barely believe it’s a used car, the quality and condition of the car is so good. I’ve started to explore and enjoy Enhanced Autopilot doing much of the work on the motorway, and the quality of the engineering and responsiveness of the drivetrain has also impressed me. Only the slightly stiff ride is a slight disappointment, although passengers report that it’s worse in the back than the front.

Finally, for now, I can’t get enough of the view out – the deep front windscreen is a joy to sit behind and makes me wonder why, when there’s no engine up front, more car makers don’t improve forward visibility with big, deep windscreens.

In Tesla-speak, ‘certified pre-owned’ means the same as ‘approved used’. These cars have been through a series of thorough checks before being re-sold by Tesla through its network of dealers. They also come with decent warranty coverage.

When Vauxhall launched the UK’s first ‘approved used’ scheme, the tagline was “treating used cars like new” and that certainly seems to be the case with Tesla, too.

Let’s start with the ordering process for a certified pre-owned Tesla, which is pretty much the same as ordering a new one – it’s all done online. You have free choice of the cars in stock around the country, and you’re welcome to test drive a car local to you, or go to the car’s location to test drive it. If you choose to buy, the car can be delivered to you locally, too.

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My deep blue metallic Model 3 long range all-wheel drive turned up in absolutely pristine condition. I’m a hard bloke to impress, but the condition of my car was so good that my wife genuinely thought it was a brand-new car.

Considering my pre-owned Tesla Model 3 had 24,000 miles on it, the bodywork – and more surprisingly the white leather interior – were all completely unmarked. My car had also been cleaned and polished to a high standard, so was gleaming when it turned up. It sat smartly on its 19-inch sports wheels.

There’s not much difference in spec between one Tesla and another, but every certified pre-owned model gets an upgrade to ‘enhanced autopilot’ – Tesla’s autonomous driving tech – whether it already had it or not. The white leather was also an upgrade when this car was new.

A factory-fresh Tesla Model 3 starts at £49,900, but this 2021 car cost £28,400 through Tesla’s certified pre-owned service. As well as the upgrade to autopilot enhanced, it came with a brand-new MoT and one remaining year of the standard Tesla warranty, which will run out in September 2025. The battery cover will continue until 2029.

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Anyone taking delivery of a Tesla – new or used – should take the time to connect their phone, get logged into the Tesla app, and set up the various functions and apps on the car to their liking. This can take some time, but is absolutely worthwhile. Being the child that I am, I went straight for the emissions testing mode that emits fart sounds outside the car – hilarious (for me, at least).

Getting used to that giant touchscreen isn’t the big deal it might seem. Ultimately you keep your eyes on the road and only glance at the speedo in the top right-hand corner. I tend to keep the map open on the left of the screen, while the right screen shows what the car can “see” around you, identifying cars, pedestrians, cones and even wheelie bins.

As for driving, again the certified pre-owned Tesla Model 3 feels like new. The performance is addictive, with just a squeeze of the throttle pinning you to the back of your seat. Lifting off and feeling the one-pedal driving mode instantly slow the car is just as much fun. It all adds up to feeling like a really well-engineered car with lots of thought as to how the owner will use and want to drive it.

This first generation Tesla Model 3 has a slightly stiff ride – time will tell if that becomes a frustration – and there are also a few creaks around the cabin. But generally, the build quality of my China-built Model 3 seems good. We’re making good use of the twin wireless phone chargers at the front, the deep storage bin in the centre of the car, and the frunk under the bonnet has served us well on several trips to Tesco.

I can already feel myself getting attached to my Tesla Model 3, regardless of those 27,000 miles on the clock. The car’s maximum claimed range, which I’ve yet to put to the test, is a very reasonable 360 miles. I look forward to seeing how realistic that is in my next update.