S85 For Sale White/Tan/Gloss Wood/No Pano 3500 miles ACCIDENT DAMAGE

Updated with Request for Bids

I would like to start by thanking everyone that took time to give me feedback on selling my wife’s S85. That information, combined with some valuable cost data on a similar repair, has provided a clear and compelling case for selling the car as is.

The car is now available for sale and delivery. I would like to solicit bids by email for the next four days at the close of which I will sit down with my wife and examine all of them in an attempt to pick the best buyer. This will be Tuesday afternoon. I prefer email over PM as I seem unable to manage the volume in my PM account. As mentioned earlier, it is my intention to to be fair throughout this process and disadvantage no one. I will make the car available for inspection throughout this process.

Information from seller:
The car has clear title without lien holder, is in our possession and is in my wife’s name.
The car can be delivered to the buyer as early as two days after the close of bidding and selection of a winning bid.
A successful bid should include a non-refundable deposit that (1) allows the buyer to rely on the purchase of the car and (2) allow the seller to rely on the sale so that the car can be removed from the market. It has been my past experience that these types of deposit are typically made within a few days of the successful bid and are routinely in the 10% range.
I would prefer all payments be made via wire transfer to Tesla referencing the order number for my wife’s replacement car.
Although not a mandatory requirement, it would be very helpful if the successful bidder would allow for my wife to remain in the car until the replacement arrives. If the buyer is kind enough to allow this, I would anticipate protections for the buyer such that the car remains in my wife’s name, on our insurance policy and there is a clear zero cost exit for the buyer should anything happen to the car during this time (like another accident ). Again, this is desirable for obvious reasons but is by no means a requirement of a successful bid.

My primary goals are to meet the buyer’s needs for value while fetching the best possible price for the car as is. I am open to any approach that helps to achieve both goals.

Thank You,
Bill Hart

bill
at
lolachampcar
with the obligatory dot com




Original Post
I tried to put this in the "classifieds" section but apparently that is being handled by a different mechanism which requires a PayPal account (which I no longer have - Spam).

My wife was hit yesterday (Dec. 12th) by an SUV pulling out of a parking lot. It was a glancing "Tbone" in that my wife was going about 20 mph and the SUV's plastic bumper smeared the aluminum on my wife's car from the passenger door mirror all the way back to the quarter panel just before the rear wheel. There was one small scratch on the rear wheel but nothing significant enough to have caused any damage to the wheel or the suspension. Both doors open and close, are sealed against the door seal, the windows go up and down and there is no additional wind noise in the car. In short, the damage is mostly cosmetic in nature and the car is perfectly drivable.

The car was a September delivery and has 3500 miles on it. I am considering placing an order for a replacement car and selling this car as is. It will come with a clean car fax and obvious accident damage. I would think at diminished value it would make for a very good project car. If you have a NASCAR bent to you and are only seen from the driver's side, you may well just leave the damage be as the car is perfectly functional as is.

Please contact me if you have any interest in the car as I would like to establish a baseline value for it as input to a buy new versus repair calculation.

Thanks,
Bill

The car performed flawlessly with only a little lower back soreness.

You can find a bunch of pics here-
2013 Tesla Model S85

I would think it would have to be North of $40K to make sense. That should be possible given an 85 KW/Hr battery is $40K referb and $50K new.

Here is what I've gathered so far-
Recent right rear quarter panel replacement and door touch up was $22K and the owner was offered $8K in diminished value (which he has rejected as estimates put the number more like $18K). I will be dealing with the same insurance company and the same body shop if I have it repaired. The car is basically $82K when you subtract the Federal Tax Credit. My damage is as above plus two doors so let's use $25K as a conservative number. 82-25-8=49K and those are very conservative numbers. Something North of $40K, which should be do-able, combined with a modest increase in both the repair and diminished value numbers and I can eat the rest as depreciation and the cost of driving on the road with other people. Think of it as a Stuff Happens tax. It sucks but it happens.

This only works if there is a home for the car. A do it yourself type or one with a friend at a body shop can replace the doors and work the rear quarter cost effectively. Sure, the repair will not be Tesla certified but then you will not have to pay $82K for the car.

This is the reason for posting, to see if my logic makes sense.

For any interested party, I would be more than happy to make the car available to an independent appraiser should you have interest and want a better level of comfort in the car's condition.

(1) I have spoken with the body shop that just completed a similar repair (rear quarter replace and minor door repair for $23K) and they described in detail how hard both the body shop and the owner had to work on State Farm to get the work completed correctly. I have no interest in spending six to eight weeks doing this. If I am going to spend my time working with State Farm, I prefer to do so in a way that has my wife exactly where she was the morning of the 12th, driving a new S85.

(2) The value equation consists of the car as it is now, the cost to repair, the diminished value and depreciation. My discussion with the insurance company will effectively be reduced to depreciation if I sell the car as is given that the insurance company is responsible for the repair and the diminished value. They can apportion between those two any way they see fit as I am only concerned about the total. I would prefer to reduce the conversation to depreciation where Tesla has defined the extreme ($1K/month $1/mile) then fight to get a reasonable repair then argue for diminished value based on "expert's opinion". Why would I want to put the effort into repairing the car if it is going to be sold?

Lastly, I suspect the overall value equation is better selling as is. I may be wrong here, but I suspect someone will buy this car and do something less than a full on Tesla certified repair or, for that matter, not repair it at all. If I do the repair, it will be north of $25K. A new buyer that chooses not to replace the rear quarter will not be anywhere near that number and will also benefit from the diminished value. Theoretically this increases the retail sale number as is plus the State Farm property damage element over a repaired car retail sale number.

I'm curious enough to test this theory as it seems the smartest overall way to minimize everyone's loss in both time and money. It is better for me as I do not have to spend my time on the repair tread mill, it is better for the buyer as they get the best possible value and ability to control repair costs and it is best for State Farm as it minimizes the combined PD and diminished value claim total. Regretfully, it would take a very forward thinking and capable State Farm adjuster to realize this and I do not think such a person exists in this day in age. Competence is a very rare quality.







A thought occurred to me at breakfast. As a potential buyer, would you prefer to buy a damaged car in the $45Kish range or the very same car repaired in the $70Kish range?

I'm afraid that, if I am going to have success here, I will need to keep things as uncomplicated as possible.

Plus, I would think it would make more sense to pick up the car minus depreciation, diminished value and damage allowance and then mange the damage repair to the level and quality you require.

Wellington is close so that would work. I'm going to stop by the WPB Tesla Service Center to have them confirm there is only cosmetic damage (for the insurance company and my responsibility to mitigate additional loss).

If you were not going to put door shells on the car, I'd leave them exactly as they are

The SC map going up the East Coast sucks from Daytona (last SC) to something like North Carolina. There are a couple of threads about people making the trip and how they managed to charge. I do lament the lack of East Coast corridor coverage as originally promised "by the end of the year"

Lastly, there is no extra wind noise at all and the doors close soundly. I've run the windows up and down as a quick test and will repeat that in detail when I go by the Service Center.