Desperate 2018 Model S owner searching for a fair and reasonable body shop in the Phoenix Arizona ar

[wluckeneder]

Desperate 2018 Model S owner searching for a fair and reasonable body shop in the Phoenix Arizona area.
After over 40 years of accident free driving I did the unthinkable. I rear-ended someone two days ago and did some front end damage. I contacted all the certified Tesla body shops in my area via online estimates. I am lost on who to trust or what is reasonable. I had the car towed to one shop near me for an accurate estimate and received an insane quote of $16,000.
It just seems super high for relatively minor damages.
If anyone has a recommendation I would be very grateful!
Thank You

 

[AMPd]

Choose the best certified shop and let insurance pay for it.
Repair costs on these vehicles is extremely high, mainly due to price gouging by these “certified” shops.

 

[wluckeneder]

Choose the best certified shop and let insurance pay for it.
Repair costs on these vehicles is extremely high, mainly due to price gouging by these “certified” shops.

Unfortunately I have to pay out of pocket.

 

[Doanster1]

That unfortunately doesn’t look minor to me, but $16K is quite high. What all did they find/list as needing work? Suspect compressors, fans, etc. were damaged since they live in the lower front end? Any suspension damage? Sorry to hear/see this.

 

[MP3Mike]

It just seems super high for relatively minor damages.

I'm not sure I agree with that being minor.

Just to start with:

• Headlights: ~$1,500/each
• Bumper cover: $~1,200
• Hood: ~$1,000

So even there you are looking at ~$5,200 in major parts that we can see need replaced. There are lots of parts we can't see, louvers, radiators, hoses, grills, trim, latches, wiring, sensors, homelink, radar, crash rails, supports, etc. that could be damaged as well.

Then you have to pay for labor and paint.

 

[AMPd]

Unfortunately I have to pay out of pocket.

Oh boy that’s rough, unfortunately now you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. From my experience (3 years ago I too had some bumper damage) Tesla will not sell parts to a non certified shop and certified shops estimates were 3-4 times higher than regular body shops.

 

[ron8853]

Raintree does quality work, but they told me they upcharge labor by 25% due to aluminum body. They are perfectionists --its got to be perfect before they'll release it. For example, matching the paint on the car, which most cars have some slight fade, is difficult. But they are expensive.I assume they understand you are out of pocket on this.
Other options--
Also Penske Rapid Repair....John Blackwell..7110 Princess
Also Kaizan on Deer Valley rd.

 

[wluckeneder]

I received another estimate yesterday from Kaizen Collision $17,000. I am realizing that my choices are very limited. Today I will get my last quote from Gerber Collision.

 

[BDV300]

These guys did a great / reasonably priced job on my truck:

Orlando Auto Body - Auto Body & Collision Repair In Mesa & Scottsdale

 

[PLUS EV]

Just to give you an idea how expensive Teslas are to work on, I had a still-drivable Model S get totaled out for ~69k. I couldn't believe it. But after months of back and forth between Tesla, the repair shop, and my insurance, I was just thrilled to get the check and move on (I bought another Model S).

The tl;dr of what happened was:
-initial estimate 20k damage
-then a couple weeks later "oh there's a lot of damage on the undercarriage and there's a bunch of high tech stuff that needs to be properly balanced." new damage estimate in the 40-50k range and possibly more to come!
-then insurance explains that they can get 20-30k selling the car for parts so they'd rather send me a 69k check and get ~25k for parts (net loss of 44k to them), then spend 40-50k to repair the car and potentially find more issues as they started working on it.

 

[NoMoGas]

Desperate 2018 Model S owner searching for a fair and reasonable body shop in the Phoenix Arizona area.
After over 40 years of accident free driving I did the unthinkable. I rear-ended someone two days ago and did some front end damage. I contacted all the certified Tesla body shops in my area via online estimates. I am lost on who to trust or what is reasonable. I had the car towed to one shop near me for an accurate estimate and received an insane quote of $16,000.
It just seems super high for relatively minor damages.
If anyone has a recommendation I would be very grateful!
Thank You

OK You have options. Almost all the parts are available online. Start there...

Headlights for Tesla S for sale | eBay

You can get the hood and front bumper cover new, then just have it painted. If you do the work and find the parts you can save yourself a fortune and virtually anybody can put the parts on the car then you just bring it to your body shop to get painted which is roughly between three and $4000.

 

[tmoz]

What did you eventually go with?