I’ve decided to forgo the claim and just pay out of pocket. I can’t accept our rates going even higher than they already are. Ugh
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Bumped garage door frame, $5k repair
- Thread starter EatsShoots
- Start date
If it was an older car I’d definitely attempt it myself. I will do what you said and see if maybe I can get a lower price. $2600 in labor like this does feel like a lot, since that is entirely labor.
FWIW, this incident on the driver door corner ran about $6K to repair. Got clipped by a passing car while sitting parked with the door open in a parking lot-- got my attention!. Happened three weeks after I got the car.
FWIW, USS would probably not have helped. They are so wildly inaccurate I'm not sure what the fuss is about them (this is the first car I've ever had that has them, been driving 60 years without managing to hit a stationary object yet). Better to learn how to tell where your car is in space by looking out your windows-- see what it looks like from inside, then get out to see where you actually are relative to an obstruction, repeat until your perception from inside matches the situation outside.
FWIW, USS would probably not have helped. They are so wildly inaccurate I'm not sure what the fuss is about them (this is the first car I've ever had that has them, been driving 60 years without managing to hit a stationary object yet). Better to learn how to tell where your car is in space by looking out your windows-- see what it looks like from inside, then get out to see where you actually are relative to an obstruction, repeat until your perception from inside matches the situation outside.
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
As others have said, just get a pre-painted fender from Tesla or eBay and slap it on. It's a few screws and less than an hour of effort that anyone can do, even a body shop. Don't worry about the frunk alignment, the fender position is adjustable and it just got knocked out of position. Some Dr. Colorchip touch up paint will fix the bumper scratch well enough and you'll be back in business.
ODWms
Member
Another collision shop today said I must go to the tesla one (they didn't want it), and another paint repair dent dude locally (the only other one I can find) said he thought it was too much for him, so we're stuck with the $2600 quote for dent.
Oh--unless I do it myself. I may see if I can get a local fender. I see some on ebay for shockingly low prices like $200, which can't be right or good. OEM seems to be around $1300. I'm optimistic that the paint match will be good enough I'll never notice it, but if I could get a local fender it would be much better. I found a couple videos on youtube of replacing the fender and it looks like more than an hour for somebody who hasn't done it, but probably not too bad so I'll see about a part. But this begs the question of why the pro shop wanted $5k. I will email them again for the itemized break down.
Oh--unless I do it myself. I may see if I can get a local fender. I see some on ebay for shockingly low prices like $200, which can't be right or good. OEM seems to be around $1300. I'm optimistic that the paint match will be good enough I'll never notice it, but if I could get a local fender it would be much better. I found a couple videos on youtube of replacing the fender and it looks like more than an hour for somebody who hasn't done it, but probably not too bad so I'll see about a part. But this begs the question of why the pro shop wanted $5k. I will email them again for the itemized break down.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Considering an unpainted OEM fender is about $300, around $200 sounds about right for a used one. It will most likely have some scratches and perhaps minor dents, but the price is not out of the ordinary.
The paint match of MSM tends to be fairly decent, as it's a fairly forgiving paint color and Tesla only created one variant. Matching the Pearl White is a lot harder.
Crap, I cannot find a midnight silver fender anywhere online other than one place that has them for $1327 or something. At least one place does sell for $300 but wants $200 to paint match, and 2023 isn't in the drop down. I thought about seeing if the service center can get me one, but they don't take questions--only appointments it seems. With that said, the fact they have openings tomorrow sure beats the hell out of my toyota dealer which needed two weeks for a basic oil change.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Just do a service request in the app. Do a parts only request in the "other" category. You can find the part number and description in the parts catalog.
You can ask for parts cost of painted, unpainted, and labor costs for install. They will give you an itemized quote. Depending on how busy your SC is, it make take a couple of days for them to respond.
The "official" install may have more labor given it requires taking off the headlight and the front bumper. If you look on eBay, you can find other unofficial ways to replace the fender that does not require fully taking off the front bumper to take it the headlight, which can save some labor.
Note the service manual is free under service subscription:
Thanks! Per that link I need 1081400-12-D, painted fender. Also I see some of those painted online so that part was a big help.Just do a service request in the app. Do a parts only request in the "other" category. You can find the part number and description in the parts catalog.
You can ask for parts cost of painted, unpainted, and labor costs for install. They will give you an itemized quote. Depending on how busy your SC is, it make take a couple of days for them to respond.
The "official" install may have more labor given it requires taking off the headlight and the front bumper. If you look on eBay, you can find other unofficial ways to replace the fender that does not require fully taking off the front bumper to take it the headlight, which can save some labor.
Note the service manual is free under service subscription:
With that said my app doesn't appear to have that option. On front page of iphone app: service > Request Service > Other > "Something Else" (only option).
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Yes, that's the category you use and just say "parts only" in your description.
Small typo also, meant to say on YouTube other are some videos on how to install it without taking off whole front bumper (basically the bumper is flexible enough that it only needs to be partially taken off enough to move the headlight out of the way of the fender).
Holy crap. So the one local tesla-certified collision shop that gave me the $5k quote. That was on the phone as an estimate, and the price quoted in thread title. I Just got the official estimate.
$10,600.
I don't want to out them here, but this is utterly abominable. Cost involves:
- a few bucks on brackets
- new front right repeater lamp (no idea why) for $143
- hood emblem (no idea why) for $28
- e-coated fender for $487
- a new wheel (!!!!) for $350. The curb rash on the wheel is very minor (far more minor than lease cars I've returned and not been dinged for)
- $981 for "package and store parts"
= $2.2k in materials
+ $7600 in labor (!!!!) (24 hours body, 16 hours paint, 8 hours mechanical, diagnostic, electrical, admin making up the rest)
+ tax
= $10,700.
I'm open to doing this myself, but either I'm glaringly missing something or this shop is straight up trying to scam me. I don't need to disconnect battery or any other crap to remove the fender do I? I'm absolutely not going to be bringing the car here. I'll do myself or have the other guy do it for $2600.
1/3rd of the value of the car for this dent is a downright disgraceful quote.
$10,600.
I don't want to out them here, but this is utterly abominable. Cost involves:
- a few bucks on brackets
- new front right repeater lamp (no idea why) for $143
- hood emblem (no idea why) for $28
- e-coated fender for $487
- a new wheel (!!!!) for $350. The curb rash on the wheel is very minor (far more minor than lease cars I've returned and not been dinged for)
- $981 for "package and store parts"
= $2.2k in materials
+ $7600 in labor (!!!!) (24 hours body, 16 hours paint, 8 hours mechanical, diagnostic, electrical, admin making up the rest)
+ tax
= $10,700.
I'm open to doing this myself, but either I'm glaringly missing something or this shop is straight up trying to scam me. I don't need to disconnect battery or any other crap to remove the fender do I? I'm absolutely not going to be bringing the car here. I'll do myself or have the other guy do it for $2600.
1/3rd of the value of the car for this dent is a downright disgraceful quote.
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If I say parts only as my entire thing it still wants to setup an appointment. If I make a longer description it figured I wanted a collision repair and asked for pics. Is it normal to get an "appointment" even though I only want parts quote?
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Yes, you can let it set an appointment, just set it very far into the future. When the time comes, the appointment can be changed to the day you pick up the part.
Basically what you want is for a human to give you a parts only price. You just work around the quirks of the app to reach that goal. There is no need to attach a picture, just a sufficient description of the part is enough (enough so they don't mix up which part you are asking for, for example passenger vs driver side).
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Pretty obvious that shop doesn’t want the work… they’re probably backlogged for months
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
The repeater lamp has tabs that are very easy to break on removal, so officially it's regarded it as one time use. However, if your release the tabs from the inside (pulling back part of the wheel liner), it should be possible to release them without breaking the tabs.
The only electrical parts you will touch during removal is that fender camera, and perhaps the headlights. Disconnecting the battery is probably overkill, just powering off the car should be enough.
Just replacing the fender shouldn't take that many hours if DIY (although I'm not sure how collision centers do billing). It's basically a weekend job that takes a few hours.
Here's an example video:
The clips are removed by popping out the center retention circle, then the rest, as detailed in below post. There is a slot that allows slipping a flathead to do so. Installing is the reverse (push in rest first, keeping center circle raised, then push in the center to retain it).
Anyone else have this bulge/gap where the rear skid plate meets the battery cover?
Look at the service manual for details on the rest.
For the tools, I would say you can use a normal 3/8" ratcheting socket wrench set for most of the bolts, but some of the tighter areas will require a smaller 1/4" one, and as per video, some places you have to use a small combination wrench because your ratcheting head likely won't be able to fit.
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
Yep, @stopcrazypp is exactly right. Note that the painfully long fender video is seemingly an unedited real-time account of that guy figuring it out on the fly. He stops several times to just stare at it and think for a while, he runs off to silence a smoke alarm, he takes his dog for a walk, and in the end, the whole damn project took him 16 minutes. Of course it takes 3X longer to install/adjust the replacement but that still adds up to 47 fewer hours of labor than the scammer quoted you.
There's also the dance that happens between the body shops and the insurance companies. For a repair that's going to take $5K in actual parts and labor the insurance adjuster will submit a valuation of $2500, the body shop will them look more closely at the car and spec out all the things that the insurance adjuster missed and will come back with a quote for $10k. There will then ensue a negotiation between the body shop and insurance company that will eventually result in $5k worth of work being done. As a private party you get the inflated price, and lots of people will just pay it because they don't like negotiating or don't have the buying power, knowledge, and skills to negotiate it down. I pick a good body shop and let them duke it out with the insurance company
I don't think they are, I think only 2-3 weeks, but I have the impression this is just a "let's throw a bunch of crap at the wall and start negotiations high with insurance"; this was alluded to in the email as well. If I look at the quote they are charging .2 hours minimum for everything, so they've itemized everything like they are building a spacecraft; every single bolt has its own ".2 hours", so then it ends up taking a full hour to undo five bolts. 12 minutes for one of the plastic clips stopcrazypp mentions, etc.
Everything within the plane of existence for this is being touched/replaced/finagled. The hood emblem is perfect, so I can only assume their intention is to remove the existing one (thereby breaking it) and then painting like the entire damn front of the car to put a new one on.
I have a ticket in with tesla to see about a new fender. It's proving rather tricky to find a painted one within the USA that is not damaged, unfortunately, if I hit up ebay or other spots, salvage, etc.
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