Body Shop Repair Costs--for me, a deal killer?

[anxman]

She was pulling onto a main road from a driveway. Turned too early and clipped a concrete curb. While that seems innocent enough, the part that really grinds my gears is that she continued forward after the first impact - you can see along the rear door where the scrub starts - and kept driving and turning until the rear wheel was buried into the curb and the car was suspended by that damaged bit of bodywork. In my world, when you hear a grinding sound from outside the car, you bloody well STOP!

Ooof -- that sucks man. My gf does the same thing sometimes. Drives me crazy.

 

[HankLloydRight]

"Just power through it, it'll be fine."

 

[FlasherZ]

For the record ...

a) above comment was completely tongue in cheek - you know, just in case anyone thought otherwise.

I got it - hence the buff out comment.

 

[David99]

All these thoughts and concerns are very valid. And having suffered through the same I can 100% relate. The reason it won't affect Tesla's sales is because damages to car are not too common. The number of people that have the problems found in this thread are too small to make an impact.

 

[rlang59]

She was pulling onto a main road from a driveway. Turned too early and clipped a concrete curb. While that seems innocent enough, the part that really grinds my gears is that she continued forward after the first impact - you can see along the rear door where the scrub starts - and kept driving and turning until the rear wheel was buried into the curb and the car was suspended by that damaged bit of bodywork. In my world, when you hear a grinding sound from outside the car, you bloody well STOP!

(Sorry had to put this)

 

[Canuck]

She was pulling onto a main road from a driveway. Turned too early and clipped a concrete curb. While that seems innocent enough, the part that really grinds my gears is that she continued forward after the first impact - you can see along the rear door where the scrub starts - and kept driving and turning until the rear wheel was buried into the curb and the car was suspended by that damaged bit of bodywork. In my world, when you hear a grinding sound from outside the car, you bloody well STOP!

It will be interesting to hear how your repair goes in Vancouver. Please let us know.

And please go easy on your wife. Really, it's all your fault for letting her drive it in the first place. That's why god made the Nissan Leaf...

 

[RDoc]

Don't believe all the horror stories about crazy costs for minor repairs. Recently we scraped the front left fender on our S and had it repaired at a local shop I've done business with before.

This cost $893 to have repaired. They removed the fender, repaired and repainted it perfectly. I'm sure if we'd had to get replacement parts from Tesla it would have been another story though.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

This cost $893 to have repaired. They removed the fender, repaired and repainted it perfectly. I'm sure if we'd had to get replacement parts from Tesla it would have been another story though.

Sounds like you were charged a very reasonable amount. It pays to shop around!

 

[swegman]

RDoc, it looks from the photo that most (if not all) of the damage was to the rubber/plastic bumper (which you called a fender) and not the Aluminum side panel. It looks from the photo like the Aluminum side panel only had minor paint damage but no dent or other physical damage. Had the Aluminum side panel been damaged, your repair cost would have been significantly more expensive, as the panel would likely have had to be replaced.

 

[RMG007]

IMO, this is the Achilles tendon of the Tesla. Recently, wife started to back out of garage with back hatch up. Minor dents to rear tailgate, but also cracked rear hatch window. I'm in San Diego and we have one TARS. No other body shops I contacted work on aluminum. But here's the kicker -- TARS said entire tailgate needed to be replaced, not repaired. Seems to me, setting aside the comfort factor of the TARS being familiar with working on Teslas and my belief they should be able to acquire parts from Tesla quicker, any competent body shop could make the repair. They are replacing the rear hatch and glass, not repairing it.

In any event, insurance covered and the TARS did a great job and completed the repair within a week after waiting about two weeks for parts.

The parts were $2,100. The labor was ~ $7,000! 50 hours at $130/hr for body work and 2 hours at $175/hr for mechanical. My plumber charges less. lol

 

[Cowby]

.......I'm in San Diego and we have one TARS. ......But here's the kicker -- TARS said entire tailgate needed to be replaced, not repaired. Seems to me, setting aside the comfort factor of the TARS being familiar with working on Teslas....

In any event, insurance covered and the TARS did a great job....

This came to my mind when reading this...

 

[Tanquen]

I wonder how Tesla is going to mitigate repair costs like these on the Model 3. Clearly they would have problems selling a $35k car in volume that required $20k fender scrape repairs. Makes me think they will go with old school bolt-on steel body panels instead of aluminum. But that adds weight and reduces range. Will be interesting to see their engineering choices when it comes out.

I thought they already said they were going with steel as aluminum was too expensive.