I really like my car. I've been taken with the Tesla driving experience since May of 2013, when I went for a test drive on a whim and came away convinced that the world was changing.
I've been uncomfortable, though, with the idea of owning the car out of warranty, for the reasons we've all discussed, and so had been thinking that I'd take advantage of the RVG and maybe order another one in December, when it will be 3 years old.
A few weeks ago I scraped the side of the car on the wall of my parking garage on the way out of the building. Not sure why--I've done that drive every night for 2+ years in the car. Call it a momentary brain freeze, or a misguided attempt to clip the apex.
The scrape is entirely cosmetic, but is sadly on the rear quarter, right behind the rear door.
Long story short, it looks like (consistent with what others have posted), I am going to need a new rear quarter panel, and that this is going to cost about $20,000.
That's. Crazy.
C-r-a-z-y.
Insurance has authorized the repair, so now it's just a matter of waiting for it to be completed. But as much as I love this car, I can't deal with daily driving the equivalent of a mobile Faberge egg.
It's also hard to get excited about the "social responsibility" of having a car like this when a scrape on the side leads to burning $20,000 in resources that could be used better for almost literally anything else. How much permanent supportive housing could you buy for local homeless folk with that kind of cash, for example? How many solar panels could I buy? Instead it will go toward fixing my fancy luxury car. Jesus.
If it weren't for the RVG and the fact that I've been planning on giving the car back in December, I'd probably just leave it. But I can't do that, so I suppose I will have it fixed.
But the chances that I'll buy another just went down significantly. Tesla really needs to address this cost-of-repair issue, and do it quickly.
I've been uncomfortable, though, with the idea of owning the car out of warranty, for the reasons we've all discussed, and so had been thinking that I'd take advantage of the RVG and maybe order another one in December, when it will be 3 years old.
A few weeks ago I scraped the side of the car on the wall of my parking garage on the way out of the building. Not sure why--I've done that drive every night for 2+ years in the car. Call it a momentary brain freeze, or a misguided attempt to clip the apex.
The scrape is entirely cosmetic, but is sadly on the rear quarter, right behind the rear door.
Long story short, it looks like (consistent with what others have posted), I am going to need a new rear quarter panel, and that this is going to cost about $20,000.
That's. Crazy.
C-r-a-z-y.
Insurance has authorized the repair, so now it's just a matter of waiting for it to be completed. But as much as I love this car, I can't deal with daily driving the equivalent of a mobile Faberge egg.
It's also hard to get excited about the "social responsibility" of having a car like this when a scrape on the side leads to burning $20,000 in resources that could be used better for almost literally anything else. How much permanent supportive housing could you buy for local homeless folk with that kind of cash, for example? How many solar panels could I buy? Instead it will go toward fixing my fancy luxury car. Jesus.
If it weren't for the RVG and the fact that I've been planning on giving the car back in December, I'd probably just leave it. But I can't do that, so I suppose I will have it fixed.
But the chances that I'll buy another just went down significantly. Tesla really needs to address this cost-of-repair issue, and do it quickly.
