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WinterDragoness
Member
I have similar damage from turning a corner in a parking lot just a bit too hard and hitting a high curb at low speed.
Boy was I angry.
The problem is that only a small percent of auto body shops know how to deal with aluminum. People think it's unrepairable. Even a shop I called told me it needed to be replaced instead of repaired.
But aluminum can be undented (in some cases, just heating it pulls the dent out). Largish holes can be brazed closed. Seams can be TIG welded.
The only thing that worries me is that broken aluminum under the black plastic rocker panel. It looks possibly structural, though I doubt it is. But could it have deformed something structural behind it?
I know the rear quarter panel costs $10k+ to replace, but I was looking at the panel on ebay, and it doesn't actually include the part I damaged. It ends in some yellow tape. In this video he puts on a quarter panel that includes the damaged part, which makes me wonder if the design changed at some point or if it actually comes in two pieces that are somehow connected and painted without a seam? In which case, maybe I could replace just the small part I damaged without a big bill. I've been unable to find the part I damaged sold separately but I don't know what to call it either.
At this point, I need to find a shop in California's Inland Empire that can do aluminum repair (if not, then Santa Monica, but I expect prices will be higher). Of course, I still can't decide if it's really worth $1000-$1500 for a vanity fix... Bah.
Boy was I angry.
The problem is that only a small percent of auto body shops know how to deal with aluminum. People think it's unrepairable. Even a shop I called told me it needed to be replaced instead of repaired.
But aluminum can be undented (in some cases, just heating it pulls the dent out). Largish holes can be brazed closed. Seams can be TIG welded.
The only thing that worries me is that broken aluminum under the black plastic rocker panel. It looks possibly structural, though I doubt it is. But could it have deformed something structural behind it?
I know the rear quarter panel costs $10k+ to replace, but I was looking at the panel on ebay, and it doesn't actually include the part I damaged. It ends in some yellow tape. In this video he puts on a quarter panel that includes the damaged part, which makes me wonder if the design changed at some point or if it actually comes in two pieces that are somehow connected and painted without a seam? In which case, maybe I could replace just the small part I damaged without a big bill. I've been unable to find the part I damaged sold separately but I don't know what to call it either.
At this point, I need to find a shop in California's Inland Empire that can do aluminum repair (if not, then Santa Monica, but I expect prices will be higher). Of course, I still can't decide if it's really worth $1000-$1500 for a vanity fix... Bah.
The link to your ebay part actually goes to one of the welding videos so I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I'd guess its a full quarter panel that someone has already cut off the piece that you need from and used it for a repair. They're probably just selling the rest of the panel. TIG welding thin aluminum sheet takes some real skill. Particularly when you are talking about doing it well enough that the weld can ground flush and painted over without being notifiable. You've also gotta worry about warping the parts. Certainly not impossible, but I think you'll have a hard time finding a shop that can do that.
WinterDragoness
Member
Oh, you're totally right the panels were cut. It even says that in the description (with some hunting). Searching ebay for 1020514-S0 turns up three such panels, all cut in roughly the same place, so I assumed it was a feature of the panel.
As for welding... The guy in the video makes it look easy and his sheets don't warp despite hanging in mid air, but I can't say how difficult that really is. If TIG doesn't cut it, I feel like brazing should work and leave plenty of extra to grind down. Various vids show heating and gently hammering provide pretty fine control of shape. You don't even need a lot of space to hammer hard like with sheet metal (educated guess). Even if you can't get the shape perfect, you can still use bondo just like you can with sheet metal.
The OP obviously found a shop that could handle fixing the tears in his aluminum, but as to how difficult it actually was to perform and how hard it might be to find a shop to do it, I can't say for sure. I do know that the local guy I took my car to figured he would ask $1500 to repair it if it were sheet metal (he doesn't know aluminum) so the fact the OP found a shop asking $1200 for a similar job implies aluminum isn't significantly harder to deal with, if at all. The vids also make me think the process might not be as difficult as people expect - it just requires different tactics and practice.
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WinterDragoness
Member
I can see now the damage to my car's panel was more extensive than the OP's. The main problem is the length of the tear and extent of deformation which makes it harder to get the entire tear back in alignment for welding. Why can't they align and weld in increments? Not sure. Why couldn't they fix just the top, visible part of the tear and just fill the rest with sealant? Well, that's mostly what I had done.
I contacted 8 shops, all of which said the quarter panel needed replacement but none of which gave me a good reason why. Finally, I contacted [email protected]. They never responded, but I found a different email through one of the repair shops and got a response there. They say [email protected] is the central email to contact so keep trying if you don't get a response.
Anyway, Tesla sent my pics to some shops and John (general manager) at Service King of Pasadena was willing to give the repair a shot. We set an appointment and I brought the car in. At first, one of the techs came out to look at it and said he didn't realize the panel was torn all the way to the bottom, despite the pics I sent. He felt it couldn't be repaired. Argh. I waited to talk to John and he said he also didn't realize the extent of the tear (I called it a "4-5 inch tear" when I sent the emails so I don't know why it was so confusing). However, since I'd taken an hour to drive down there he said he'd do his best to find a way to do something with it.
Here's a pic they took with the trim removed:
The next day, John said he'd talked with his team and thrown around about 10 possible repairs but none of them were feasible. He had hoped they could access the back of the panel by removing seats and interior trim but it wasn't possible. It's interesting they didn't already know that - I guess most owners just let them replace the quarter panel. It still makes me think that shops are simply afraid to deal with aluminum repairs because they don't have much experience and if they make a mistake, as John described it, they could be out a ton of money for replacing a huge section. On the other hand, John also said they could patch aluminum if they accidentally burned through it, and Tesla-approved aluminum welding tools make burning through unlikely, so... I still don't get it. With those quick-weld hooks and some screw holes to get hooks into, lack of access can't be the only problem.
The other part of the problem is that the wheel housing and rocker panel were also bent. The rocker panel is a structural part and Tesla forbids pulling it back into shape in most situations because pulling it can weaken it. In my case, the damage might have been small enough to pull back into shape but not without taking off the quarter panel to investigate, and then it becomes an expensive repair.
So, instead of doing a full, warrantied repair, he offered to do a "rough pull" to get it roughly back into shape, then seal it against water intrusion with structural sealer. He said he'd do that for free, which I could hardly believe, but I agreed. BTW, John was really helpful and friendly throughout the process, even offering to come in on labor-day weekend so I could pick up the car, but I felt too guilty to take him up on that.
Here's the final repair:
Okay, it looks like a little scar. I almost want to put a bandaid over it for kicks. You can see some added dents where they used a hook fed in through the screw holes to pull the metal out. They also sealed everything, painted exposed aluminum, and cleaned up the black skirt trim.
In general, I'm thrilled to have it to this point with no money spent. There's no warranty but he believes the repair will last. I even offered to pay him something for it but he declined. The car was also washed much better than Tesla service centers wash it, including wheels shined and everything inside vacuumed. Why are they so nice?
My only question is, if they could get it to that point, why not offer to have the top of the tear welded and everything smoothed out properly? Obviously I'd have to pay for the extra work but I can't imagine it being more than a few hours. John said you need to have aluminum body panels precisely aligned to weld them. In this case, the two sides of the panel at the top of the tear are still slightly overlapped, and fixing that might be quite difficult with poor access to the back. I feel like maybe they could cut the tear with a very slender saw (something like a Dremel cutting wheel), then weld that. Or just weld it the way it is, grind smooth, and use Bondo to even it out. The engineer in me really wants to know what's possible, but I don't want to keep pestering John with questions.
One thing I'm pretty sure is possible is to smooth out the dents from the hook pulling. I found a video showing how.
Finally, here's the curb that did all the damage. Check out all the blackened stones from tires scraping.
I contacted 8 shops, all of which said the quarter panel needed replacement but none of which gave me a good reason why. Finally, I contacted [email protected]. They never responded, but I found a different email through one of the repair shops and got a response there. They say [email protected] is the central email to contact so keep trying if you don't get a response.
Anyway, Tesla sent my pics to some shops and John (general manager) at Service King of Pasadena was willing to give the repair a shot. We set an appointment and I brought the car in. At first, one of the techs came out to look at it and said he didn't realize the panel was torn all the way to the bottom, despite the pics I sent. He felt it couldn't be repaired. Argh. I waited to talk to John and he said he also didn't realize the extent of the tear (I called it a "4-5 inch tear" when I sent the emails so I don't know why it was so confusing). However, since I'd taken an hour to drive down there he said he'd do his best to find a way to do something with it.
Here's a pic they took with the trim removed:
The next day, John said he'd talked with his team and thrown around about 10 possible repairs but none of them were feasible. He had hoped they could access the back of the panel by removing seats and interior trim but it wasn't possible. It's interesting they didn't already know that - I guess most owners just let them replace the quarter panel. It still makes me think that shops are simply afraid to deal with aluminum repairs because they don't have much experience and if they make a mistake, as John described it, they could be out a ton of money for replacing a huge section. On the other hand, John also said they could patch aluminum if they accidentally burned through it, and Tesla-approved aluminum welding tools make burning through unlikely, so... I still don't get it. With those quick-weld hooks and some screw holes to get hooks into, lack of access can't be the only problem.
The other part of the problem is that the wheel housing and rocker panel were also bent. The rocker panel is a structural part and Tesla forbids pulling it back into shape in most situations because pulling it can weaken it. In my case, the damage might have been small enough to pull back into shape but not without taking off the quarter panel to investigate, and then it becomes an expensive repair.
So, instead of doing a full, warrantied repair, he offered to do a "rough pull" to get it roughly back into shape, then seal it against water intrusion with structural sealer. He said he'd do that for free, which I could hardly believe, but I agreed. BTW, John was really helpful and friendly throughout the process, even offering to come in on labor-day weekend so I could pick up the car, but I felt too guilty to take him up on that.
Here's the final repair:
Okay, it looks like a little scar. I almost want to put a bandaid over it for kicks. You can see some added dents where they used a hook fed in through the screw holes to pull the metal out. They also sealed everything, painted exposed aluminum, and cleaned up the black skirt trim.
In general, I'm thrilled to have it to this point with no money spent. There's no warranty but he believes the repair will last. I even offered to pay him something for it but he declined. The car was also washed much better than Tesla service centers wash it, including wheels shined and everything inside vacuumed. Why are they so nice?
My only question is, if they could get it to that point, why not offer to have the top of the tear welded and everything smoothed out properly? Obviously I'd have to pay for the extra work but I can't imagine it being more than a few hours. John said you need to have aluminum body panels precisely aligned to weld them. In this case, the two sides of the panel at the top of the tear are still slightly overlapped, and fixing that might be quite difficult with poor access to the back. I feel like maybe they could cut the tear with a very slender saw (something like a Dremel cutting wheel), then weld that. Or just weld it the way it is, grind smooth, and use Bondo to even it out. The engineer in me really wants to know what's possible, but I don't want to keep pestering John with questions.
One thing I'm pretty sure is possible is to smooth out the dents from the hook pulling. I found a video showing how.
Finally, here's the curb that did all the damage. Check out all the blackened stones from tires scraping.
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It sounds to me like Service King probably doesn't have anyone who is super proficient at welding and they were worried they either couldn't get it to look good or would cause additional damage. They figured they'd rather waste an hour or two to make it look decent and not charge you (generating some good will) than risk having a pissed off customer when it didn't turn out well.
It seems there might be a very logical division of labor here where the gross repair is done by Artisan A and the final finishing done by Artisan B. A small shop might not have both so you would get [jpg.248679] all painted up for you to take home and use for as long as it takes for you to find an Artisan B to do the final finishing. If you never get around to it that is ok since it has already been protected from corrosion and can last indefinitely.
Thanks for all those videos.
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Thanks for all those videos.
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WinterDragoness
Member
That's certainly possible. Reading quotes and experiences with aluminum repair in the UK makes me think it's likely lack of experience and lack of expensive tools that make shops unwilling to repair damage like mine. Also the tendency to want to do the most expensive repair possible for greatest profit. Either way, I'm glad Tesla is opening their own body shops so we can get a second opinion.
If you need similar repair and live near Wisconsin, try Marshall Auto Body who says they've worked with aluminum aircraft repair for 25 years and have lots of experience working directly with Tesla. I considered contacting them to get their opinion on the feasibility of repair but never got desperate enough to want to bother them. Maybe contacting aircraft repair companies might be helpful as well.
