Tesla delivery checklist — inspect before you sign

What to check at a Tesla delivery

Delivery day is the last moment at which a defect is unambiguously the seller’s problem. This Tesla delivery checklist covers more than a hundred checks across thirteen sections: the paperwork and the configuration match first, then paint, panel gaps, lights, glass, wheels and tyres, the charge port, the compartments, the cabin, the screen and connectivity, and a short road test. Around twenty-five are marked essential, so the blocking checks take about ten minutes if the delivery centre is trying to hurry you.

It starts before you arrive: order confirmation, final invoice and VIN, proof of payment, insurance in force from the handover date, identity document and driving licence. Then you walk one physical loop around the car rather than jumping between themes — front, driver side, rear, passenger side, wheels and underbody, storage and charge port, then inside from the driver seat outwards, then the screen, then the drive.

What separates a checklist from a record is evidence. Every issue you log carries a severity — cosmetic, functional, safety or administrative — a note written against that specific check, and photos attached to that check rather than to the inspection as a whole. On the day, that turns “the door looks off” into a line a service centre can act on, and it is the difference between ticking boxes and leaving with a document that still means something three weeks later.

The problem with most delivery checklists

Most delivery checklists are a list of tick boxes. You tick, you get a percentage, and at the end you have a number instead of a record. If a panel gap turns out to be a real problem three weeks later, a percentage proves nothing.

Worse, many of them let you improve your score by removing items. Skip a check that does not apply and the denominator shrinks, so the bar moves up without anything being inspected. That is exactly backwards for a document you might need later.

This tool takes the opposite approach. Every check has one of four states — conform, issue, not applicable, not checked — and none of them is hidden from the totals. Marking something not applicable moves it between columns; it never removes it from the count.

What this tool actually does

It walks you around the car in a physical order, from the paperwork to the front bumper, down one side, around the back, up the other side, then inside, then the screen, then a short drive. You are not scrolling up and down a thematic list while standing in a car park.

Each check tells you how to look, what counts as passing, and what to do if it does not pass. When something fails you choose a severity, write a note against that specific item, and attach photos from the camera or the gallery.

At the end it produces a report: vehicle details, timestamps, every issue with severity, note and photo, the items you did not check, the items that did not apply, and a recommendation about the conversation to have before you sign.

Built for a car park, not a desk

Delivery day happens outdoors, one-handed, often in poor light and sometimes with no usable mobile signal. So the app installs to your home screen and works with the network switched off once you have opened it once.

Everything is stored on your device using the browser database. There is no account to create, nothing is uploaded, and no analytics ever sees your VIN, your notes or your photos. If you want a copy elsewhere, you export it yourself as a JSON file.

• Two paths: about ten minutes for the blocking checks, or twenty-five to thirty minutes for everything.
• Guided mode for one section at a time, overview mode for the whole list.
• Large touch targets, visible focus, and readable contrast in bright daylight.
• A print layout designed as a report, not a screenshot of the checklist.

Before delivery day: what to prepare

The checks that go wrong most often are the ones you cannot fix in a car park. Confirm the order details and the final invoice, check that the VIN on the invoice is the VIN on the car, make sure the payment has cleared, and have insurance in force from the handover date rather than from the following morning.

Bring a photo identity document, your driving licence and the payment confirmation. If someone else is collecting the car, or a finance company is paying for it, bring whatever authorisation your market requires. Ask the delivery centre for the car to be dry and parked somewhere you can walk all the way around it, and confirm in advance that you may inspect before signing.

The tools are minimal. Almost every complaint about a rushed Tesla delivery day traces back to two things: arriving with no time in hand, and no agreement that the inspection comes before the signature.

• Order confirmation, final invoice and the VIN, checked against the car itself.
• Proof of payment, and insurance valid from the handover date.
• Identity document and driving licence in the name on the order.
• A torch, a clean microfibre cloth, a tyre pressure gauge, and a charged phone for photos.

What to do if you find a defect

Record it before you discuss it. Choose the severity, write down what it is and exactly where it is, and photograph it with light raking across the surface. A defect described in a note with a photo attached to the specific check is far harder to dispute later than one raised verbally beside the car.

Then get it onto the delivery paperwork itself, not only into your own record. Ask for the due bill, damage note or whichever document your market uses, and keep a copy or a photograph of everything you sign, including the list of defects.

Whether to accept the vehicle is your decision, and it depends on the defect, your contract and your jurisdiction. This tool does not answer that for you. What it does is make sure that if you sign, you sign with a dated record of the state the car was in at handover — and that if you do not, you can say precisely why.

What this tool is not

It is not affiliated with Tesla, Inc., and it is not a substitute for the manufacturer handover process. It does not give legal advice, it cannot tell you whether to accept or refuse a vehicle in your jurisdiction, and it never claims a car is defect-free.

What it does claim is narrow and honest: this is what you looked at, this is what you found, this is the evidence, and this is a sensible next step for each finding.