So after emailing the CPO advisors about several cars over the 2 weeks prior, I discovered that they are not very responsive and way understaffed. It was hit or miss with photos and quality of photos. There were about 5 instances where I emailed to get photos and never heard back because the car was sold in the interim 3 or 4 days.
I watched the CPO's carefully using the ev-cpo website and saw numerous posts on the forums about rejecting CPO's and either rolling the $2500 deposit into another car or getting a refund.
Now to actually answer your questions - (1) no I did not get a carfax on any cars either before or after placing a deposit; (2) the CPO advisor was very responsive after I placed my deposit and he sent me a dropbox link to photos, which were surprisingly good quality photos; (3) I called a Tesla certified body shop in my area and asked if they could ballpark me an estimate based on photos and they said maybe so I emailed the photos and got an estimate
Hopefully this answers your questions. The CPO process is hit or miss, and there are tons of cars coming off lease so I can't imagine it getting any better without Tesla hiring more people.
I posted this elsewhere, but I ended up responding to a private party post about a P85D, got all the documents and photos from the guy, had a phone call with the guy and asked for some specific follow up photos. Do I miss having the CPO warranty, and was I a little concerned about the private party sale, yes, but I had a great experience with an awesome straight forward guy. Plus he bought the car as a CPO and it still has approx 3 years and 22k miles on it, which is plenty.
I still have my 85D listed below in my signature, but soon I will add my P85D t my signature line as well.
