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Bad Luck just 3 days after delivery of my 85D, 15 days repair. In China

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Ordered 85D end of Mar. and finally it's delivered mid of June, this is just something exciting like the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] generation of Iphone worth waiting that long. it's really a great car.

On the way back from a short drive 100km away from downtown on the 3rd day of the delivery, a car in the opposite direction lost control and hit the traffic cone in the middle of the road and the cone, with concrete inside, hit my car right in the front.
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I stopped the car and found the cooling liquid leaked a lot on the road, and more damage inside:
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The cooling fan was disconnected from its place and dropped to the ground and also a lot of other parts as well, impossible to move the car by itself. A tilt tray tow truck was called in by the police. When the truck arrived, we just could not find where the tow bolt was. Called Tesla service and they sent a video via Wechat (like twitter) demonstrating where and how to open the cover of the frunk.
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The support (by phone and Wechat) from Tesla service was great. When we could not find the tow bolt, I asked the Tesla guy whether we can push the car, he explained that due to the structure of the body and chassis of the car, we can’t push the car from the rear, instead we can only push the pillar A and B. Anyway we found the tow bolt and car got on the tow truck free of scrape.

The story of the car in the opposite direction hitting the traffic cone, he did not stop when it happened and I could only recall what it looked like. Thanks to the hard word of the police, he spent 2 hours searching all the videos frame by frame and finally identified it, I seldom deal with police but this time I must say they were very professional and helpful. With it identified, all can be covered by the insurance Co..

From the photo it looked the car was not damaged very much, but the parts to be replaced are 2 pages, total more than 40 items.
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Everything in the front removed then:
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And the battery pack is removed too.
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For an import car, with more than 40 items to be replaced and it’s in China, at the beginning I was worried it might take too long as it happens to some import cars because you have to wait their headquarters to send the parts to China and it can take a month. The good news is that this is not for Tesla and I think it’s just because all the Tesla China shops are part of Tesla instead of 4S shops. Actually Tesla has center stock of parts in Suzhou, China. actually the only part not available is a Joint specially for 85D because it’s kind of new. And just in about 5 days after the order placed, the part sent from US arrived.

Almost done.
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So 2 weeks after the accident (almost 1 week wasted on the insurance verification and waiting for the Joint), the car repair has been completed. Tesla assured me that it’s just like original. I hope so but even with doubt there is nothing I can do as it’s just bad luck. Anyway, for the past 2 days I drove, it really works as the brand new one, the auto polite function works the same as before and I think this is the most important because all the sensors in the front have been replaced.

From this accident, I realized how important to have a car camera recorder, if I had it, it would be very easy to find that car hitting the cone. But I just wonder why Model S does not use the front camera to record and keep the data in the system, it’s really easy to serve this with all the hardware already there.

This is the story of my new 85D, the service from Tesla is beyond my expectation. I even did not go to their shop until it’s ready for me to take it while during the repair they sent all the photos to my mobile keeping me update. Thanks to Mr. Gao of their repair team and all the stuff of Tesla Hangzhou, China, great job and I hope the quality of the repair work will be proved in the coming months of the use of the car.

PS. the total cost is RMB80800, around USD13,000.-, all covered by the insurance Co. of the other car.
 
@hocharter I'm sorry it happened to you and you had to wait for two weeks, especially your car was only 3days old! However I'm glad you were OK without any injury and the also had only minor repairs.

Surprised that the other car could send the concrete cone overto the other side of the road!
 
Sorry to hear about your bad luck, but I am happy to see Tesla is able to offer such a high level of service in China. This bodes well for their future there.

Thanks for sharing your story and photos, and good luck on your future travel.

GSP
 
Sorry to hear about your accident, but very pleased to see how well Tesla Service handled it. The second day I had my 85 someone slid on snow and hit my left rear door. It was a minor dent but the door needed to be replaced. However as this was March 2013 it took almost two months to get a door, and two weeks to get fixed because the body shop needed to match the Tesla blue paint that wasn't yet in their computerized paint system. I'm impressed that Tesla China could handle such a complex repair so quickly at this early stage of the market development. That shows the company is well organized there with dedicated employees.

Enjoy your 85D!
 
Well, wow. I'll never complain about Jersey barriers again. Concrete cones seem like asking for trouble precisely for the problem the OP had.

Glad the driver was found so they covered the repair.

English notes: hard is both adjective and adverb. The hard cone hit my car hard. Autopilot: but maybe polite was a typo combined with autocorrect.
 
Thanks to the hard word of the police, he spent 2 hours searching all the videos frame by frame and finally identified it


I don't think that'd ever happen in the States, haha.

Glad to hear it was a swift repair though! I think Tesla understands how important it is to do well in China. I don't have confidence in such a short wait time for my own EV (Leaf) here in the US.