Let’s play is it totaled or not?

[acarney]

Ok, realistic I think I’m pretty dang far away from being totaled, but I love that everyone rushes to that conclusion.

2022 Model Y Performance - Aug ‘22 ~9,400 miles

Car pulled out from a parking lot in front of me, I jumped on the brakes but wasn’t able to stop in time. I was just accelerating off a right hand turn from an intersection after a red light so probably somewhere between 20-35mph impact depending how much my car was able to slow down.

In Washington State. Just looking for feedback on what to do to make this process work easier since I’m already massively dreading how difficult this will be. SE WA state, closest Tesla certified collision shop is 130 miles away. Actual Tesla Collision in Bellevue is ~200 miles. I’ve already heard my worst nightmares of possibly (likely?) 2-4 months for repairs.

I called the police, explained the situation to them when they showed up. They took all my info and ran my license and insurance. Showed dash cam footage to them and they requested it be uploaded to them so I did that about an hour after the accident. The other driver was hysterical so I didn’t talk to her but officers told me they got all her info and I would get it on the report, they proceeded to give me a report number. I had overheard she has Progressive. My insurance (State Farm) was called and a claim started. Pictures were uploaded.

Vehicle could be driven into the parking lot and onto/off a flatbed tow truck. Alert that front left safety restraint system failed and required service, pretty positive the seat belt tensioner fired off. Air bag didn’t deploy. Small amount of fluid leaking, my guess is washer fluid rather than battery coolant. Front obviously is pretty messed up… unfortunately my PPF was no match for this level of impact . SnapPlate got murdered and will need a new one… lol. Hood is screwed. I originally thought front side/quarters were ok, but drivers side panel gap is now so tight it’s actually rubbing the front door when it opens, but door opens without force. Bottom of this panel seems to have a buckle in it. Frunk interior bits obviously ruined. Underbelly took some damage, but possibly just the plastic bits? I did hear a cooling fan scraping against something.

See attached pictures and tell me how doomed I am and best practices/tips at this point to not be entirely miserable for the next few months. I’m the blue line, other car is the red line.

 

[Scubamikey]

well im just guessing i think totaled..

here is my pics where i was rear ended by a BMW X5 the est for repairs was over $45k and several months of waiting..

 

[Yelobird]

well im just guessing i think totaled..

here is my pics where i was rear ended by a BMW X5 the est for repairs was over $45k and several months of waiting..

Full on frame hit is a bit different then the OP’s bumper dent.

 

[acarney]

Yeah, I think mine probably is mainly crumple zones… it’ll be expensive, but I would be surprised if there was frame or battery damage…

What are they paying out for your totaled vehicle? Going to be able to get into a new one again for not much out of pocket?

I am curious how rental car plays into the total or not… they might stand to pay $5k or something just on rental if it’s 2-4 months…

 

[Pianewman]

Photo also shows rt front fender deformed at the a pillar...so...both fenders (?), hood, bumper, at a minimum. Frame? Unknown.

"20-35mph" seems significant to me. Especially if you were carrying the momentum of acceleration right up to braking.

Keep us posted. Good luck.

 

[jcanoe]

(Re: White Tesla, the rear quarter panel is hella expensive to repair. Red Tesla, the front bumper, hood and fender not so much.) There is no reason for washer fluid to be leaking from the right side. Tesla coolant is blue too. Should be fixable, probably take a couple of months depending on the parts availability.

 

[acarney]

Passenger side fender appears to have the classic “within spec” mile wide panel gap still… so I think it’s just the driver side. But it clearly was pushed back.

Going to start calling around Monday. Everyone keeps telling me to lawyer up even if it’s 100% liability on the other party so I can fight for diminished value, make sure they don’t try to screw with me on rental if it takes an excessive time (like 3-4 months) and stuff like that. Never dealt with an accident before or a lawyer, certainly don’t have any established relationships with an attorney….

Any guidance or recommendations on how to go about that? Type of lawyer? What kind of cost I might be looking at initially? Could that be recouped via the claim, or is that sunk cost to try and extract more to cover other stuff?

Also, anyone deal with having to hit a collision shop and then Tesla for repairs? The body work Tesla app is saying I need to do via a collision shop, but then it’s saying *after that* is taken care of I can schedule with a Tesla service center for the safety restraint system fault… if I have to shuffle the car between places and coordinate two separate things… this is going to be a huge pain. Again, closest Tesla service and approved collision is 130-200 miles from me. I do not want to be driving hours to shuffle my car down to another service center to drive home just to go pick it up again days or weeks later.

Would Tesla collision in Bellevue be able to handle everything in house?


Edit: Also, think I can get the other insurance to cover the cost of the paint protection film for the damaged areas? It’s matte/stealth so I’m certainly going to have to replace that so the car doesn’t look horrible and while ALSET has good prices, I still expect ~$1500 or so for the front end. Had it applied in October and should still have all the paperwork.

 

[jcanoe]

You might consider buying a new or used Model Y. However long the repair takes won't matter. As soon as the repairs have been completed you sell the repaired Model Y. You will lose some money. Life is short.

 

[jjrandorin]

Going to start calling around Monday. Everyone keeps telling me to lawyer up even if it’s 100% liability on the other party

Fault was already determined (or are you just thinking that yourself)?

 

[acarney]

Fault was already determined (or are you just thinking that yourself)?

I don’t know if fault has been determined. I’m being entirely honest and I think it’s pretty clear cut that the person at fault was the one entering the road way in front of another vehicle that was traveling at speed and with the right of way. That would make her totally at fault.

I have nothing official that says anything. Just a police report number. My insurance said they’ll reach out and request the report when it becomes available.

She was hysterical crying and yelling almost the entire time, so I didn’t approach her. I made the police aware of that and they said that was fine, everything would be on the report.

I then shifted energy to getting my vehicle taken care of. My local State Farm office and agent was already closed (at 4pm on a Friday), the national claims number for them said it would be a 25 minute wait on hold…

So I used the State Farm app to report an accident (start a claim) and when that didn’t get me set up with a tow but basically said “thanks! We’ll review this,” I jumped back on the phone to sit on hold with State Farm while my mom called tow companies. Finally as soon as she got a tow company and agreed to the $250 for a less than 3 mile tow, I got a rep on the phone. So we canceled our tow since I didn’t want to float that cost.

Took about 40 minutes on the phone with the rep who basically refilled out my claim, even though first thing she asked for was my claim number. Then we spent awhile trying to figure out where to tow the vehicle and she started picking random shops after about ten minutes of trying to look up “Tesla approved” places and was asking me how far different places were from me, all over 100 miles. I didn’t feel comfortable just picking one randomly and having my car randomly dumped there since I know wait times might be very long… and I am kinda worried about the battery. It’s at 65% which will last awhile, but not 4-5 weeks if it’s just sitting somewhere waiting to be looked at. So I took control and said let’s just tow it to my place and I would call around for shops. So it’s sitting in front of my house right now. I wanted to get moving since I knew waiting for a tow would be awhile. Accident happened around 3:30 and I finally got home, about three miles away, at about 6:15 to 6:30.

Today I had to go into work for a side project for a couple hours and then took care of setting a rental car up. I debated going through State Farm via the app or myself with the plan of going for reimbursement later. I opted for myself since I can use my platinum card for primary rental car insurance coverage for one flat $25 charge for 30 days of coverage vs the $17 or whatever that Hertz would charge. Might as well scoop up from credit card points and hertz points while I’m at it. I debated just going for a “standard” class car or not, but a little googling online said if the other party is at fault, I should be able to get a “reasonably equivalent vehicle” as the rental… well nothing is more equivalent than another Model Y plus I won’t have to try to get reimbursed for gas costs now either, because that certainly would be above what an electric vehicle costs me. So I booked 30 days initially for ~$1400 and redeem some old air miles that were getting dusty for a flight down to PDX tomorrow (~200 mile drive) to pick up the rental. Flight I’ll never get reimbursed , but that’s fine, no one rents electric around me and total cost of a “standard” car around me from hertz (via State Farm, so I assume the most discounted) would have been $990 for 30 days… ~$400 over 30 days to not use gas and be back in an actual equivalent vehicle seems to make sense and something I could argue, that’s ~$13/day.

Maybe it comes across entitled, but I’m annoyed that I have to deal with all this crap, I’m annoyed my mother skipped an oncology appointment (actually why I left work early and was heading home to take her to it), I’m annoyed how poorly people do their jobs, just generally annoyed, so being back in a car I know and has good navigation if we need to trek to Seattle for medical appointments will help to smooth out my mood by the time I return to work on Monday and try to juggle calling places.

Speaking of which…

I guess I just start calling collision places on Tesla’s approved list and explaining I have front end damage form an accident and will they accept my vehicle towed to them and when could they get an estimate and then start work once approved.

I guess I’ll also try to call State Farm again to see if they have a copy of the police report yet and if they have officially determined fault.

Then I guess I’ll try to figure out what law office around me to call and figure out how that works… because now I am really annoyed at how much time and energy on my part is required and I want to squeeze everything I can from them.

Looking back on it I have no idea if Ms hysterical lady had been in a number of accidents or what.. but I do recall her stopping her sobbing long enough to yell “that’s not my guy!! That’s not my tow truck!” when the place that the police called to move her vehicle (still in the middle of the road) showed up. About three minutes later I guess “her guy” showed up and her car was gone before the police handed my documents back to me and left. Then she disappeared moments later… apparently she’s a pro at this and I’m feeling like the fool.

 

[acarney]

You might consider buying a new or used Model Y. However long the repair takes won't matter. As soon as the repairs have been completed you sell the repaired Model Y. You will lose some money. Life is short.

I’ve debated that… I guarantee my mother (who I help care for) would be leaning towards that. She already has commented she won’t feel safe in the car afterwards… especially because it’s electric and “damaged.”

I just think I would be out a lot and I’m not sure it’s a smart move for me at this time, especially since I’m trying to buy a house, literally in the worst market in ages.

I bought my Performance Y on Aug for about $72,000…. But I traded in a LR Y for an amazing deal so I was out of pocket only about $4500 including tax. I owe $27k on it. I have ~$6k in window tint and full body matte paint protection film on it, I never expect to recover that cost when selling or trading in.

If I ordered a new Performance Y they could get it to me within a month (they claim), but it would be $61,200 for my config (red/white) plus ~$5,500 tax. I would qualify for the $7500 tax credit though. I probably could step down to MSM instead of red and save $1000, but I don’t really want to step down to a LR. I would like to have it matte again and tint is a must in my area, so probably $6k again there.

$65,200 total or around there… currently financing at 3%, likely would be at 5% now.

I’m seeing a couple Performance Y’s around my mileage (9,400 miles) for $58k listed with Tesla. I have no idea if I could sell for that, and I really hate private party sales, especially with a financed vehicle, plus those other haven’t been in an accident.

I have no idea how diminished value claims work, how often they are successful, or how much it might net me.

If I could sell mine for $50k I would be out $15k getting into a new one… minus whatever I got from diminished value… that seems steep to me (that’s getting towards 25% of the vehicle total cost is coming out of pocket to get rid of a 9 month old vehicle [that was in an accident] and into a new one…)

Advice? Opinions?

 

[jjrandorin]

The rental car coverage will be determined by either your own insurance (which is whatever you have on your policy, which is whatever you are paying for for rental coverage and almost always only includes 30 days of coverage) or whatever the other insurance agrees to pay which is going to likely be a fight between you and them, if the other party is actually deemed to be at fault and their insurance company agrees that is the case.

Fault matters in these type cases, and I am not an expert on that by any means, its just something you need to keep FIRMLY in mind as you navigate this, so you dont end up eating a bunch of costs you dont currently expect to eat.

Glad you are ok from the accident, and hope it all turns out the way you expect.

 

[jcanoe]

Don't forget to include the cost of driving a rental for months. There is usually a cap on rental car reimbursement.

Be sure to save the Dashcam recording. Hysterical driver is likely to claim that you were at fault when you hit her vehicle. Probably has no insurance or lapsed insurance.

 

[acarney]

Absolutely. Dash cam has already been submitted to police as evidence. They did mention she said I was “flying,” but saw the dash cam footage on the scene and didn’t say anything. I honestly don’t know my exact speed, but I’m certain I was within speed limits and dash cam clearly shows it wasn’t excessive speed. I was coming from a right turn after a full stop at a stop light ~230 feet before impact, with probably 30+ feet of those being me on the brakes.

She mentioned progressive to the officers, but no idea if it’s current. I am a little worried in that case… they did hand her some paper they printed from their police vehicle where as they just handed me back my documents and gave me a report number.

I’m pretty heavily insured so I probably will survive this… if they don’t drop me afterwards if it turns out I have to have my insurance pay… or jump me to like $400/mo. Right now I have an amazing deal at like $68/mo for great coverage! (And maxed rental, but of course you’re all correct, it’s $1000 limit and 30 days… which was the highest they offered.)

Otherwise I’m $500k/250k bodily injury, $250k property damage, $500 deductible for glass/comprehensive/collision, uninsured/underinsured property damage $250k, underinsured/uninsured 500k/250k, and PIP and all the other little bits. I’m astonished I’m paying like $408 every 6 months for that and I really hope it doesn’t change!

 

[jcanoe]

Absolutely. Dash cam has already been submitted to police as evidence. They did mention she said I was “flying,” but saw the dash cam footage on the scene and didn’t say anything. I honestly don’t know my exact speed, but I’m certain I was within speed limits and dash cam clearly shows it wasn’t excessive speed. I was coming from a right turn after a full stop at a stop light ~230 feet before impact, with probably 30+ feet of those being me on the brakes.

She mentioned progressive to the officers, but no idea if it’s current. I am a little worried in that case… they did hand her some paper they printed from their police vehicle where as they just handed me back my documents and gave me a report number.

I’m pretty heavily insured so I probably will survive this… if they don’t drop me afterwards if it turns out I have to have my insurance pay… or jump me to like $400/mo. Right now I have an amazing deal at like $68/mo for great coverage! (And maxed rental, but of course you’re all correct, it’s $1000 limit and 30 days… which was the highest they offered.)

Otherwise I’m $500k/250k bodily injury, $250k property damage, $500 deductible for glass/comprehensive/collision, uninsured/underinsured property damage $250k, underinsured/uninsured 500k/250k, and PIP and all the other little bits. I’m astonished I’m paying like $408 every 6 months for that and I really hope it doesn’t change!

Your insurance will want a copy of the video; her insurance will too assuming she has any. A witness would be helpful, even with a dash cam video. (A few years back I was a witness to an accident. I also captured the accident on my (non-Tesla) dash cam camera. The police officer who responded wanted to know what I saw. They only looked at the video after I made a statement.) Was anyone else in either vehicle?

 

[acarney]

Your insurance will want a copy of the video; her insurance will too assuming she has any. A witness would be helpful, even with a dash cam video. (A few years back I was a witness to an accident. I also captured the accident on my (non-Tesla) dash cam camera. The police officer who responded wanted to know what I saw. They only looked at the video after I made a statement.) Was anyone else in either vehicle?

Nope. Busy area but no one stopped… I actually had a car about 100 feet behind me just kinda move to the shoulder to drive around and keep going. There was a nurse that lived in some apartments right near there that came running out within a minute or two, but I don’t think she saw the impact, just heard it. She mainly stayed with the hysterical lady after I said I was fine and I made the call to police and stuff. Then she disappeared sometime while I was talking with officers and I didn’t get a chance to get her name or thank her. Two or three other people stopped, but they were all 2 or 3 minutes after I had made the call to police.

Can’t figure how to upload the video to State Farm via their app, but I uploaded stills with the description added as “how do I upload the dash cam video?!” and I’ll ask them that when I call them for an update.

 

[jcanoe]

Nope. Busy area but no one stopped… I actually had a car about 100 feet behind me just kinda move to the shoulder to drive around and keep going. There was a nurse that lived in some apartments right near there that came running out within a minute or two, but I don’t think she saw the impact, just heard it. She mainly stayed with the hysterical lady after I said I was fine and I made the call to police and stuff. Then she disappeared sometime while I was talking with officers and I didn’t get a chance to get her name or thank her. Two or three other people stopped, but they were all 2 or 3 minutes after I had made the call to police.

Can’t figure how to upload the video to State Farm via their app, but I uploaded stills with the description added as “how do I upload the dash cam video?!” and I’ll ask them that when I call them for an update.

How do I email a dash cam footage?
The quickest option, if your insurer allows it, is to use a file transfer service such as WeTransfer or a cloud storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dashcam/comments/3br0da

 

[acarney]

How do I email a dash cam footage?
The quickest option, if your insurer allows it, is to use a file transfer service such as WeTransfer or a cloud storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dashcam/comments/3br0da

Thanks… debating if I just send that to the standard like [email protected] or what.. I haven’t been assigned anyone other than a fairly unhelpful phone rep that I had to keep asking “so how does this work… “

 

[jcanoe]

Thanks… debating if I just send that to the standard like [email protected] or what.. I haven’t been assigned anyone other than a fairly unhelpful phone rep that I had to keep asking “so how does this work… “

The file size is usually the limiting factor. If you can edit your Dashcam clip to under ~10 seconds it may be able to be sent as an email attachment.

 

[acarney]

The file size is usually the limiting factor. If you can edit your Dashcam clip to under ~10 seconds it may be able to be sent as an email attachment.

It’s about 27 meg and ~23 seconds. I sort of wanted to keep the context that I was at a stop, made a right hand turn, and then started accelerating rather than just a clip showing a straight on impact. I thought this context would help show I wasn’t “flying.”