Mistakes made. Anyone have an idea how much I will be dinged for this on lease return?

[jebinc]

OK, here's a weird one that removes a surprising amount of different kinds of grime: 409. Can't hurt to try, saved my --- many times.

Then, in increasing order of dangerous outcomes:

Have you tried isopropyl alcohol? Wear gloves, do a small areas at a time, have a fan nearby. Test first on the underside somewhere.

Then, if that's not doing the job, maybe acetone? (BE REALLY CAREFUL IT COULD MELT DOWN THE WHOLE SEAT). Or maybe not. IDK. Also super bad for skin and lungs, if it works do super small areas. Spreading any solvent in large areas can overwhelm you and make you really sick, the large surface area allows more to evaporate faster.

Seat melted, but stain remains…

 

[eIon]

You should pay them whatever they expect to be paid for their effort unless they offered results-based pricing.

As a last ditch effort, you might try plain old Simple Green. It's an incredibly strong degreaser that destroys most products, but might be somewhat safe on polyurethane or whatever Tesla seats are made of.

I gotta say, I'd be trying more stuff, maybe even 'goof off professional' or naptha, acetone or toluene . Try any of these on a hidden-ish surface first, acetone and toluene will melt plastics for sure. Toluene is the most likely to give you success, I think.

Don't smoke around these either, and leave the windows open. Treat them like gasoline, because they behave very much like that, if not more.

You could even try gasket remover(methyl ethyl ketone). MEK is awful stuff... use gloves and don't breathe while using it. It'll also(like the above) take off paint!

Pay the detailer whatever they quoted for the attempt. If they are especially cool, they may cut you a discount since they weren't able to resolve. And yeah, looks like you'll just have to pay the piper for whatever tesla deems an appropriate charge for that 'damage'.

OK, here's a weird one that removes a surprising amount of different kinds of grime: 409. Can't hurt to try, saved my --- many times.

Then, in increasing order of dangerous outcomes:

Have you tried isopropyl alcohol? Wear gloves, do a small areas at a time, have a fan nearby. Test first on the underside somewhere.

Then, if that's not doing the job, maybe acetone? (BE REALLY CAREFUL IT COULD MELT DOWN THE WHOLE SEAT). Or maybe not. IDK. Also super bad for skin and lungs, if it works do super small areas. Spreading any solvent in large areas can overwhelm you and make you really sick, the large surface area allows more to evaporate faster.

Seat melted, but stain remains…

OK, ill definitely make sure I pay them for their work. They are offering to dye the seat back to white as a last resort. Thoughts?

 

[jebinc]

OK, ill definitely make sure I pay them for their work. They are offering to dye the seat back to white as a last resort. Thoughts?

Won’t match. Better off just getting a new seat cover from Tesla. Did you get a price from the SC?

 

[beachsideev]

Id offer to pay. Hopefully they would feel bad and give you a break.

In stead of trying to clean it, how about dying it instead. Although I'd wait until just before I turned the car back in case it came back.

 

[jebinc]

Id offer to pay. Hopefully they would feel bad and give you a break.

In stead of trying to clean it, how about dying it instead. Although I'd wait until just before I turned the car back in case it came back.

Bleed through. Just replace the seat cover.

 

[eIon]

Won’t match. Better off just getting a new seat cover from Tesla. Did you get a price from the SC?

2000 USD

Id offer to pay. Hopefully they would feel bad and give you a break.

In stead of trying to clean it, how about dying it instead. Although I'd wait until just before I turned the car back in case it came back.

I'm guessing they won't feel bad . I did learn a valuable lesson though to be honest.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

Did you tell them that you're Elon? Maybe they'll give you a discount?

 

[Stew-2]

Tire cleaner such as Bleche Wite? That is exactly what it is meant to clean off after all. I would try a little bit on a Q-Tip or something first.

 

[jp_ggc]

I'd see if you can find a local interior shop to see if they can clean it up. They usually have all the tools to get it out.

 

[eIon]

They will likely charge you way more at lease return than it would cost you to fix it yourself. (Same holds true for curb rashed wheels and tires with insufficient remaining tread.)

Mike, I was hoping you could elaborate on this. Do you also mean from Tesla itself? This is shaping up to be something that will likely need a seat cover replacement from Tesla. I was quoted 2000 USD. Are you saying it would be better for me to take that now rather than be forced to pay an unknown price at lease return since I would have no choice at that point?

I also plan on purchasing a Tesla after this lease. Not sure if this would put anything in my favor about them looking the other way on this (probably not).

 

[MP3Mike]

Mike, I was hoping you could elaborate on this. Do you also mean from Tesla itself? This is shaping up to be something that will likely need a seat cover replacement from Tesla. I was quoted 2000 USD. Are you saying it would be better for me to take that now rather than be forced to pay an unknown price at lease return since I would have no choice at that point?

Yeah. We have seen where people that return lease vehicles with worn out tires, or excessive curb rash on the wheels that Tesla charge more in replacement/repair costs than you could have done it yourself prior to return.

You don't necessarily need to do it now, I would just make sure it is done before you turn it in. Depending on how long until you do that, there may be more salvage vehicles available from which you could get a seat cover for considerably less.

I also plan on purchasing a Tesla after this lease. Not sure if this would put anything in my favor about them looking the other way on this (probably not).

Yeah, from what I've heard Tesla doesn't do that...

 

[beachsideev]

Are you saying it would be better for me to take that now rather than be forced to pay an unknown price at lease return since I would have no choice at that point?

I also plan on purchasing a Tesla after this lease. Not sure if this would put anything in my favor about them looking the other way on this (probably not).

It doesn't work that way. A couple of months before the lease ends, you'll take a bunch of pictures and send them to the lease returns dept. They'll examine the pictures and send you an estimate. If you still have the damaged seat covers, you'll have to send them pictures of the damage so they can come up with an estimate. As long as you are good about taking pictures, that's what they'll charge you at lease end.

For some items, having tesla do the repair may be cheaper. For instance, they charge $85 per wheel for wheel rash repair. I couldn't find a shop that would fix them for less than $125 each, so it would have made sense to have tesla fix them and pay the $85+. However, I bought a $40 bottle of wheel touch up paint and completely repaired one of my wheels that had a little rash and touched up another that had pretty bad curb rash. Ultimately tesla determined that my bad wheel was good enough and refunded my the $85 + tax I had paid. This is a BIG YMMV!

For tires, they only put the oem tires back on. They quoted 4 tires for a total of $1340, (+ tax I'd guess). I couldn't install 4 oem tires for that little, but I did find a deal on some closeout tires at tirerack that met tesla's specs for about $750 installed. That's what I did. They had no problem with them.

Tesla could care less if you are buying or leasing another tesla or walking away. They are going to charge you the same either way. However if you do lease another one, they will waive the disposition fee. (I'm not sure about buying). If your sales advisor tells you they will waive damage if you do, get that in writing. My guess is you won't see that email.

If you do need new tires, do them 6 months or so before the lease ends so you'll get to enjoy them a little. I wish I did that.

Tl;dr: take really good pictures and the estimate you get is what you'll pay.

Since you have already consigened yourself to replacing the seat cover, I'd get a little more aggressive first. Maybe some white shoe polish. I think the white wall tire bleach is a really good suggestion too.

Good luck.