Front bumper damaged from collision

[henrymax]

Hi guys....

sad thing happened... i fell asleep on road and my 3 hitter the pickup truck in front of it. I have scheduled collision repair on Tesla app, but it doesn’t have any availability until January. Question is: do you think it’s still safe to drive for road trip before the repair? I mean... it doesn’t look that bad at all, but wanna get some advice from you guys first.

thx.

 

[WilliamG]

Looks like a minor thing to me. No airbag deployment, no other apparent damage - go enjoy your road trip!

Out of interest, did the vehicle attempt to brake on its own? More details would be interesting.

 

[timp123]

If that were me I would not bother fixing or getting insurance involved, assuming the sensors are working OK. Buff and wax the bumper and move on. I'd bet the service center would be happy to recommend replacing the bumper for upwards of $1000. Would not be worth it to me, especially with the risk of an insurance premium hike.

 

[ZappCatt]

Ignore it

 

[mystery]

Hi guys....

sad thing happened... i fell asleep on road and my 3 hitter the pickup truck in front of it. I have scheduled collision repair on Tesla app, but it doesn’t have any availability until January. Question is: do you think it’s still safe to drive for road trip before the repair? I mean... it doesn’t look that bad at all, but wanna get some advice from you guys first.

thx. View attachment 490537View attachment 490538View attachment 490539

dont see any significant damage...

why repair?

 

[Garlan Garner]

Hi guys....

sad thing happened... i fell asleep on road and my 3 hitter the pickup truck in front of it. I have scheduled collision repair on Tesla app, but it doesn’t have any availability until January. Question is: do you think it’s still safe to drive for road trip before the repair? I mean... it doesn’t look that bad at all, but wanna get some advice from you guys first.

thx. View attachment 490537View attachment 490538View attachment 490539

If you plan on using any form of AutoPilot…..try it out before you leave.

I had the same thing happen as I was pushed into the car in front of me after being rear ended.

My autopilot went in and out of service as I was driving because the forward facing radar was attached to a bracket that got bent. The bumper looked fine, however that bracket was bent.

I had to drive about 300+ miles without autopilot. Oh well. Its fixed now.

 

[ecarfan]

i fell asleep on road

did the vehicle attempt to brake on its own?

How would he know? He says he fell asleep.

 

[Garlan Garner]

How would he know? He says he fell asleep.

Indeed he did and then his car hittered that pickup truck. <------- I apologize....I couldn't resist. LOL

 

[sduck]

That's nothing. I have a pretty major hole in my bumper from a fender bender currently, and it's fine to drive. I have one of the ultrasonic sensors out, so I get all kinds of pop up messages, and autopilot doesn't work completely, but it's been deemed safe to drive.
BTW replacing the front fascia is a fairly expensive thing, and if you're at fault, you need to consider well whether to involve insurance or not. If you use insurance to pay for it, it's basically just a very expensive loan. I've opted to pay for mine myself.

 

[CharleyBC]

The ultrasonics look good. The radar is about where that scrape is, but lower. I bet it’s okay too. If the car isn’t issuing any warnings, you’re good to go. Worst case, if the radar or something is knocked out, you just drive the car the old fashioned way without AutoPilot. Enjoy your trip!

 

[henrymax]

Wow thank you all for the input! I wouldn't bother doing anything if the only damage was the cosmetics (which as some of you said, it's really minor), but since it's my first EV/Tesla, I'm just not very sure what's behind that impacted area as I assume there're way more stuff than my previous ICE car. The car is still running well even with autopilot on last night and this morning, so hopefully (finger crossed) there will be no issue for my upcoming trip!

 

[henrymax]

Indeed he did and then his car hittered that pickup truck. <------- I apologize....I couldn't resist. LOL

After reviewing the front camera footage, I think I was still somewhat awake until the car was almost slowed down to a stop behind the truck then fell asleep with my foot still on the pedal, then that happened. I can see my car was almost coming into a complete stop, then it moved forward again and hit. Lost conscious for maybe 1 to 2 seconds, but bad enough for driving with 1 pedal (driving mode: HOLD, all safety features on with front collision warning set at "medium")

and to answer the question: the car did not attempt to brake (or maybe didn't have enough time and room to react?) before the impact. and to my surprise the front collision warning usually would have alerted me, but not this time. It did not produce any sound at all.

 

[henrymax]

dont see any significant damage...

why repair?

just not so sure if anything behind that impacted area got damaged by the impact since it's EV... would have ignored it totally if it was my old ICE car lol

 

[timp123]

just not so sure if anything behind that impacted area got damaged by the impact since it's EV... would have ignored it totally if it was my old ICE car lol

As CharlieBC stated above, I would only be concerned about the ultrasonic sensors and the radar behind the bumper fascia, and if autopilot works and you haven't seen any errors pop up on the screen, I would assume you're good to go.

Also, if you haven't already, don't even mention anything to your insurance company. Several years ago someone knocked off my side mirror while parking, and I was dumb enough to call my insurance company just to ask if I had coverage for that. They said no, so I went ahead and took care of it myself. Never filed a claim or did any paperwork. Next thing you know, my premium went up because of the reported incident, even though no claim was filed. That's when I learned never to tell the insurance company anything unless you need them to write a check.

 

[JetFalcon]

I just used bumper solution this week, and it was pretty good. Someone on this forum recomendded.

 

[TLLMRRJ]

I just used bumper solution this week, and it was pretty good. Someone on this forum recomendded.

I would definitely call one of these bumper repair places first to see if they can make it look like new. They can probably heat that warp out of the bumper and buff the paint to look like nothing happened. If it needs some paint, they do a pretty good job airbrushing.

If they have to paint a large area of the bumper, I would clear bra it afterwards because a mobile repair won't have as good of flexibility and adhesion to prevent rock chips.

If it doesn't look good, then you were looking at an expensive bumper replacement anyway with a deductible hit and a claim on your insurance, so better to try the low cost solution first.

 

[JetFalcon]

I would definitely call one of these bumper repair places first to see if they can make it look like new. They can probably heat that warp out of the bumper and buff the paint to look like nothing happened. If it needs some paint, they do a pretty good job airbrushing.

If they have to paint a large area of the bumper, I would clear bra it afterwards because a mobile repair won't have as good of flexibility and adhesion to prevent rock chips.

If it doesn't look good, then you were looking at an expensive bumper replacement anyway with a deductible hit and a claim on your insurance, so better to try the low cost solution first.

It's been almost a week. And overall it's pretty good. Maybe a super picky person would notice the imperfections of the paint strokes, but in the mindset of like if I was a bystander, not the owner, I think it's pretty good. I need to check it again, I only see it from a distance and it seems fine to me.

I'll try upload pictures from my iPhone when I can.

 

[SageBrush]

Will the truck owner report the accident ?

 

[UWGorilla]

Also just to throw it out there if there’s a Tesla center near you a new bumper is about 1100$ installed brand new already prepainted. That’s assuming no radar/ sensors were damaged, for me it was just a small crack near the top and other person paid but it was much less than what conventional body shops wanted (around 2.5k)

 

[tvad]

Spend the money on Vivarin.
Vivarin | Caffeine Alertness Aid | Caffeine Tablets | 200 MG Caffeine