Alright everyone, just got home. My baby is charging right now. So good time to recap Day 1 of Life with Karma:
As many of you know, I was less than satisfied the last week or so with all things FIsker. It was classic tale of boy meets car, boy falls in love with car, boy courts car and tells all of his friends/family/clients about said car, boy waits for car...and waits... and waits... and waits. But finally, boy gets car!
My car was supposed to arrive at the dealer yesterday, and after talking to four different people at Fisker corporate and several people at the dealer, as I boarded my plane to LA, my car was not yet at site.
I landed around midnight, no messages welcomed me from Fisker. No update at all. I got up around 830am, called Fisker corporate, and still, no one had a clue where my car was - and then an hour or so later, I got a call from both Fisker corporate and the dealer AT THE SAME TIME saying 'rejoice, your car is here"
Indeed - ecstatic, relieved, anxious, were all apt ways to describe how I felt. I assembled the family, and we headed to the dealer. Quick aside - despite the delivery moratorium, I spoke to Fisker corporate and told them I'm aware of all the comfort/command center/nav bugs and would rather enjoy my car now and bring it in later for the 6.13 update. They agreed, provided I knew that the car wasn't going to be completely bug free. They also assured me that there were no safety or mechanical problems with the car/6.12, so it was all just comfort/command center related.
After an hour or so at the dealer, the time was right to take my baby off the lot. Yes, there are fit/finish issues. The body panels do not meet flush (this was not unique to my car - the three others in the showroom also had similar fit issues). the rear and trunk have slight gaps where they meet. This is consistent throughout the vehicle. Interestingly enough, the headlight panels meet relatively well, although on both sides, the fender panels look a little too short and there's a bit of a gap. Again, not unique to my car from what I can tell. We had a small hiccup after playing around with everything - the 12V battery light came on and we had to do a hard reboot. The leather on the passenger seet looked a bit over...whats the word ... crumpled(?)...more so than the driver's side and more so than the other one I saw in the showroom. I'm not sure if this is an issue or just a result of them using BoW and not "wasting" leather. I'll post a pic of that later. Also, Fisker may be taking out the Solar/February screen feature altogether. My Karma has the battery issue fixed and version 6.12 of the software.
I got my Karma with only 1 mile electric-only range, so the 55 miles or so I've put on the car so far today are all in Sport mode. Not to tempt fate but I've had no mechanical problems since I left the dealer. No check engine light. No mysterious this or that while driving. My bluetooth calls and audio work fine. The NAV lady does keep telling me to slow down, and she knows the speed limit everywhere I am (different thresholds for each).
The parking sensors... well they're only semi-useful. I'm still learning the "size" of my car, so I've been parking about a foot or two from the curb.
My car is charging now with the included charger. Not sure if the dashboard red plug light is supposed to stay on or not (because mine isn't), but the included charger still indicates its charging.
Driving around town, eating a late lunch, definitely got a ton of looks and questions. Which I didn't mind. This car is definitely going to limit where I can actually go, since I'm still uber-paranoid about scratches and other things (the result of driving an exotic/expensive looking car I guess).
Props to Arun from Fisker corporate - he was awesome to deal with and very attentive. Generally great about following up with me - if you guys have issues, I'd point you to him. Also thanks to my dealer... they were very helpful today and called me a few hours after I had the car to make sure everything was going well.
Three years in the making. Let's hope I'm one of the lucky ones and have no major (or minor) issues with the car. Fingers crossed!!!