After spending 4 days going through snow, slush, and mud (lot of dirt roads around here) to my local ski areas, I headed to the airport to go on a trip with the family. Because each day was so full and because as soon as you wash the car in these conditions its dirty again, I drove to the airport with a dirty car. While I was away I had the valet airport garage detail my Model X inside and out. The inside looked good, but new scratches I had never seen showed up? Based on how they look, how do you think I got these scratches. Note: before I started the ski week, I had washed the car in a touch-less car wash and the scratches were not there.
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Likely the parking lot staff did not take care washing and drying it. The clear coat gets swirls marks very easily without the proper wash/dry techniques. If those are only swirl marks, they can be corrected by polishing and waxing or better yet like an opti coat pro plus would protect it in the future.
My car is about 5 months old and it's paint does the same. If you look at it the wrong way it will scratch.
Some have speculated that it's California's stringent air quality regs that has led to Tesla's paint being so much more delicate than other manufacturers from out of state.
I would take it to a pro detailer to have them look at the scratches. Best to take it to the retailer who applied the opti coat. Personally, I get uncomfortable letting anyone wash my Teslas for fear of scratches. I even ask the Tesla dealer to not wash it after a service appointment. My X is flat black which swirl marks are the most noticeable of all the colors.
Not sure, they would know the best course of action to fix those scratches. Just looking at the scratches in your pictures, based on the direction, they were likely caused by a wash mit dragging something across the paint. If the mitt touches the ground, or heavy dirt/grit is still on the paint when they drag the mitt across, or not using a grit guard in the bottom of the bucket... yeah that stinks that happened. Might be worth saying something to the parking garage who washed it.
Electric700
Active Member
Good suggestions above. Also a lot of owners hand wash their cars, and applying a spray (or semi-solid) wax after you're done will help to protect the finish.
This is exactly the reason I am getting my car fully wrapped in a few weeks. Stuff like this drives me crazy (my MX is midnight silver and 1 week old).
Unlike most car manufacturers, Tesla doesn't park their cars for months on end prior to delivery. They go from the factory to the consumer in short order. This means the paint doesn't have that extra time to harden, and it is easily scratched for the first few months.
James Anders
Member
I bought my Model X in October and had no scratches in the first few months. My guess is the scratches occurred because of the heavier grit a big snow thaw kicks up combined with possibly bad car wash practices that Sandy talks about up thread. The problem is there is no way I can prove definitively it happened while the car was washed.
The most useful thing to do at this point is to just figure out why it occurred and either learn to live with it as MS16 recommended or figure out how to prevent it. I did XPEL coat the front of the Model X and was told that was probably enough especially with the double coat of Opti Pro every where else. Maybe I should have paid the 6k plus to do the whole vehicle given where I live as James above pointed out.
It's funny how this upsets me when all other cars I have owned have got beat up over time and I just shrugged it off. But those cars were not nearly as expensive or as beautiful.
I took my brand new Model S back to the service center I picked it up from for post delivery quality fixes, and they washed it without telling me, putting swirl marks ALL over the car. Such is life unfortunately 
I have a "free" detail from them since it rained on my delivery day, and I was considering using it when the last missing piece of my quality control fixes comes in, but I'm not sure whether it will come back better or worse than before.
I have a "free" detail from them since it rained on my delivery day, and I was considering using it when the last missing piece of my quality control fixes comes in, but I'm not sure whether it will come back better or worse than before.Doesn't opti coat protect against swirl marks?
My SC also has a detailer, but I have no idea how good he is. My car is only two weeks old and it was delivered with some swirl marks.
