Well I made it 14 months until I got my first dent. Noticed it this afternoon and no idea when it occurred. After going through the past week’s worth of Sentry Mode recordings from the left repeater camera I gave up looking. This could have been there for well over a week and I never noticed it. Maybe a rock did this while I was driving, who knows. Now it’s going to be impossible to not see it every single time. I wonder if I can pop this off and push out the dent from the inside?
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Dented repeater camera
- Thread starter PoitNarf
- Start date
I took a hit like that from rock ..
Yeah now that I found nothing on the Sentry recordings I’m leaning towards rock damage while driving. From my quick searches it looks Tesla would charge me $150+ just to replace this. And it appear there’s no way to pop out just the chrome bit. I had planned on doing a partial or full chrome delete eventually, so maybe I’ll start with the repeaters first. I’ll need to fill the dent in with something before covering up the chrome though...
xilex
Model P3D
If you chrome delete, maybe try some of that Sugru stuff that you can mold and it will adhere. It seems to be removable (
). And you just mold it to the dent while trying to maintain the original shape. Then vinyl wrap over it.
Thomas Edison
Active Member
Maybe this will interest you. It's basically a chrome delete, but a cover that sticks on top.
https://www.amazon.com/BASENOR-Signal-Indicator-Autopilot-Plastic/dp/B07R856BFL
https://www.amazon.com/BASENOR-Signal-Indicator-Autopilot-Plastic/dp/B07R856BFL
From the price of a fast food meal for 4, to a price of a fast food meal for 3?
You can definitely pop out the entire repeater assembly. i1Tesla has a recent video on how to do it. He was borrowing the wiring from the repeater to add an animated turn signal on his fog lamps. What I don't know is that once you've popped out the assembly if you can get to the underside of the chrome to pop out the dent.
Watch from 3:16.
Watch from 3:16.
I went ahead and ordered the repeater covers from Amazon. They are actually pretty nice. Seems like they would stand up to more abuse than just a vinyl wrap and now I don’t have to bother with popping out or filling in the dent in the chrome. Plus it cost about the same as most of the vinyl wrap kits for the repeaters that are being sold. Since it is a cover it is slightly bigger than the chrome piece and sticks out very slightly on the back end, but I think it fits quite well. I haven’t attached them yet, the photo just shows it resting over the chrome. I’m not a big fan of carbon fiber so I’m thinking of either doing plastidip or a matte black good quality spray paint before I attach them to my 3.
Nice! I am still waiting on my delivery. I initially had the vinyl wraps, but there were some imperfections with my installation that bothered me. When I bought the vinyl wraps, the cheapest covers were priced at around $90. As they are now the same price as the wraps, I do not see any benefit of having the wraps. I look forward to replacing them with these.
So I tried using a black matte automotive spray paint on the repeater covers I ordered but wasn’t happy with how they turned out. I then tried using a black plastidip spray on them and wasn’t happy with the look of that either. I ended up ordering another set of repeater covers from Amazon. They can be found on there for just $22 now which seems like a great deal to me. I’m not the biggest carbon fiber fan but I was even more bothered by how glossy the covers were. So instead of trying to cover up the carbon fiber I decided to just paint over it with a matte clear spray paint so it doesn’t stand out as much. It actually came out very good and I just attached the covers to my 3 a short while ago. I’ll post pics tomorrow when I can get some good shots in the daylight. This ended up being a much cheaper option than the matte carbon fiber covers that RPM Tesla recently started selling, and mine have the Tesla logo on them!
There are several sellers with these on Amazon now. Just search for “Tesla signal cover”:
CoolKo Tesla Car Front Side Turn Signal Light Lamp Strip Cover Trim for Model X, S, 3 [ Carbon Fiber Pattern with 4 Red Logo Stickers ] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SHSHPDD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_KFnsDb8R1KE22
Turn Signal Cover for Tesla Model 3, S, X, Side Markers Indicator Cap Carbon Fiber Style ABS Plastic (A Set of 2) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TXQN4K9/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3GnsDb8K2HT13
ROCCS Tesla Model 3 X S Turn Signal ABS Plastic Indicator Cover Carbon Fiber Cap https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S67954Z/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_8HnsDbCRHXNQK
There are also variations of the cover that don’t have the Tesla T logo on them if you prefer that look.
Here’s the repeater/signal cover installed on my 3 after I sprayed it with 3 coats of matte clear spray paint. I’m pretty happy with how it came out. Much better than the high gloss it had before.
For comparison here’s what it looked like before the matte clear coat:
For comparison here’s what it looked like before the matte clear coat:
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