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Advice Needed: Respray or Touch Up Paint?

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Wanted to get your opinion guys, posted a week or so ago in regards to the poor condition of the delivered vehicle. After hearing everybody's advice, at the end of the day, I decided to just keep the vehicle (tomorrow is my 7th day). I just didn't want to go through the headache of returning a vehicle and dealing with all the fuss. Plus, I trust my delivery adviser Zach (hopefully its not a mistake!). Spoke to them today and said that the parts are still in transit and will call once they arrive.
The hood and front bumper supposedly is a simple replacement part and does not involve having to respray anything.

My question to you guys is, the two rear panels that have the three small paint chips/pitting, would you guys elect for the respray or just ask for free touch up paint?
According to Zach, he mentioned that to fix it it would require the panels to be removed and repainted. He also mentioned that this would be outsourced to a "Tesla Approved" body shop (Kenwood Collision Center in MD). From what I read, the general consensus is that a body shop rarely can match the factory paint quality/attributes.
My biggest concern is if left alone that the chip will get larger and larger.

What do you guys think?

Imgur
 
Respraying a portion of a car is always a gamble. The stuff just never comes out as good as a full car spray. I had a similar problem and have been sitting on the decision to bring it in to the Tesla body shop or just deal with it. So far I'm leaning towards deal with it.
 
My door came with a small chip on the edge. I elected to ask for a touch up kit and try myself. The trick here is don't bother with the "blending solution". You want to keep adding paint and letting it dry, until the paint blob is above the surface of your normal paint. Then wetsand it flat with 3000 grit, then buff with compound.

You have pearl, right? Even the factory bumpers sometimes don't match. White is a hard color to match, especially in pearl.
 
Same issue from delivery/factory or paint issues from rock chips etc.
Delivery issue. It was noted as a due bill item and they wanted me to bring the car in to their body shop and deal with Uber credits while they worked on it. In the end, it was too much of a hassle for me so I've just sat on the issue. My paint defect is on the leading edge of the passenger door so it isn't TOO unslightly. It's to the point where I might actually make it worse by having that part resprayed.
 
Wanted to get your opinion guys, posted a week or so ago in regards to the poor condition of the delivered vehicle. After hearing everybody's advice, at the end of the day, I decided to just keep the vehicle (tomorrow is my 7th day). I just didn't want to go through the headache of returning a vehicle and dealing with all the fuss. Plus, I trust my delivery adviser Zach (hopefully its not a mistake!). Spoke to them today and said that the parts are still in transit and will call once they arrive.
The hood and front bumper supposedly is a simple replacement part and does not involve having to respray anything.

My question to you guys is, the two rear panels that have the three small paint chips/pitting, would you guys elect for the respray or just ask for free touch up paint?
According to Zach, he mentioned that to fix it it would require the panels to be removed and repainted. He also mentioned that this would be outsourced to a "Tesla Approved" body shop (Kenwood Collision Center in MD). From what I read, the general consensus is that a body shop rarely can match the factory paint quality/attributes.
My biggest concern is if left alone that the chip will get larger and larger.

What do you guys think?

Imgur

No offense but the quality of those pictures is terrible.

It looks like possibly there were some attempts to already touch these up either at the factory or at the delivery center. It also looks like these might have started out as fisheyes but again, can't really tell until you provide better photos.

These don't look like they could be easily touched up and they are in an area of the vehicle where it will be pretty conspicuous if the touch up is not done well. A really good touch up guy though will very lightly wet sand the area and try to blend it a bit so might get decent results. Some large cities have "touch up paint specialists" who pretty much just touch up paint on cars so they don't have to be re-sprayed... you could try to track one down and try that.

If Tesla is paying for it and the damage bothers you then you should have it repainted by a high quality shop that warranties their work.

My wife and I recently took delivery of a $40K+ Honda that had two small chips introduced on the lift gate when the car was going through prep (they speculated some foreign object on one of the wash arms damaged the car). I was going to just touch it up but they insisted on re-spraying it and warrantying that area for longer than the factory warranty. The car was pearl white so I was a little skeptical about how well they would be able to match it but in fact they did it perfectly you can't tell it was ever damaged.

Good luck.
 
Thats a hard decision...
There is always a chance that the respray can be PERFECT but at the same time it can even be worse.
Not to mention that it looks like its two different panels that need to be sprayed.
Does anybody know if it can be spot fixed or would the body shape have to respray the WHOLE panel pieces?
You would also risk getting your white seats dirty from the bodyshop employees so theres that as well.
 
I had the same problem. On delivery day, I noticed a paint chip on the rear bumper and a chip on the rear quarter panel. It was put on a due bill. Last Monday. I took my car into the SC and the service advisor "Eddy" advised me the rear bumper would be replaced with a new one and the quarter panel will be needed to be sent out to the body shop to be re-painted. I told them, "Do what needs to be done to make it look perfect" They gave me a loaner, Model X Performance (very fast). I got the car back today and went over it inch by inch. I have to say, the color-matched perfectly. While my car was parked next to another Model 3, I noticed my headlights were a little off on alignment compared to the other Model 3. I told the service advisor and he told me I needed to make another appointment. SMH can't win em all I guess.
 
That white pearl coat is not an easy color to match. The variables not only include color of two coats, but the pressure and the lay of the metal flake. Lots of air pressure tends to make them flatten out while lower pressure is good for the sparkle. I'd try to touch up and only respray if it really driving you nuts.

After my car, I am wondering where all the dirt in California is. Seems that Tesla is exporting California soil one paint job at a time.
 
Same issue- front wheel well had missing paint- they offered to put a new bumper and repaint it- but honestly- I spent $54k on a car, didn't want to do that- and I figured matching that pearl white seemed like a gamble. So I returned it and will re-order. But yeah- it's a pain. If it needs service- simple say NO and get a new VIN # - they told me I could only talk to service by signing and once I did- I was screwed and couldn't get a new VIN
 
Thats a hard decision...
There is always a chance that the respray can be PERFECT but at the same time it can even be worse.
Not to mention that it looks like its two different panels that need to be sprayed.
Does anybody know if it can be spot fixed or would the body shape have to respray the WHOLE panel pieces?
You would also risk getting your white seats dirty from the bodyshop employees so theres that as well.

This is my biggest concern. Taking it to the body shop and the paint quality getting worse, paint not matching the shade, or the body shop messing up something even more. Whether that's dirtying the white seats , over spray, or scratching the other panels etc etc. It doesn't help that there are some bad reviews on Yelp but what body shop doesn't have that.
Argh. I really don't know...
Does anyone know if the WHOLE trunk would be resprayed or just that area? Because if its the whole trunk than the spoiler has to be removed etc. Man this is becoming such a headache.
 
This is my biggest concern. Taking it to the body shop and the paint quality getting worse, paint not matching the shade, or the body shop messing up something even more. Whether that's dirtying the white seats , over spray, or scratching the other panels etc etc. It doesn't help that there are some bad reviews on Yelp but what body shop doesn't have that.
Argh. I really don't know...
Does anyone know if the WHOLE trunk would be resprayed or just that area? Because if its the whole trunk than the spoiler has to be removed etc. Man this is becoming such a headache.


By the way, my car is Pearl White and the paint matched. As far as the trunk, the whole trunk would need to be re-painted.