[alexanderwept]

It's not unheard of at all - astute car buyers know how to read VINs to find better/worse cars. Ask VW fans if they know how to tell if a car was built in Germany or Mexico - it's in the first character of the vin. Car build quality is a complicated subject but it's generally understood that some manufacturers do better than others.

We'd be surprised if someone found missing bolts on the vehicles at a Lexus dealer, but if you heard of someone's new Range Rover having problems, it would par for the course. The consensus opinion of automotive build quality rankings is generally that Tesla is below average but it's not the worst. Elon Musk is on the record benchmarking Toyota so at least he knows where to put the bullseye.