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Model Y repair horror story

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Took my 2021 MYP to a trusted, Tesla certified body shop to get the bumper and fender replaced / repaired. Car has been stuck at the shop for a month now waiting for more parts from Tesla (which was determined at teardown). Tesla then sent the wrong headlight and now the wait is "several weeks" for the correct part. My insurance covers me for 30 days of rental car coverage, so now I have to foot the bill for a rental as I wait and wait on Tesla to *hopefully* send the correct headlight, date still undetermined.

The accident was my fault. I have only 2-3" side to side clearance in my garage. But when Tesla Service came over to fix my faulty horn, he pulled the car up and over a parking curb and into a terrible position in the garage. I didn't realize he moved the car (never told me, even after I offered to move it for him). When I backed up, the tire was on the wrong side of the curb. I hit the accelerator a bit harder to get back over it, and managed to then crash into a support pole partially ripping off the bumper and damaging the fender (and headlight apparently). The whole situation really sucks and I'm really starting to get screwed now.

Lesson learned: I really should have waited and had the car repaired at Tesla directly instead of my approved body shop. I feel like this might have prioritized the parts I need, and maybe they would have helped me with a loaner for sending the wrong parts. Beware out there...

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I remember in other cases Tesla will also send the owner a list of parts ordered. When this is done, some have found it is the body shop that was lagging and was not being proactive in following the case.

If it is body damage where it's not just a part replacement with no painting required, I believe Tesla farms it out to a body shop. I don't believe Tesla does it themselves given they done have the equipment and personnel to handle body repairs and painting.
 
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It's crazy to me they don't produce more replacement parts to keep their cars on the road. With the volume of cars being made, the volume of damaged cars is going to escalate dramatically. I'm sure they've done some metrics on "number of cars produced versus number of cars needing repairs" but clearly their math is wrong.

When I was in the previous Memphis service center for some sensor replacement they had STACKS of commonly damaged replacement parts in their lobby. Bumpers, fenders, doors, glass, plastic trims ... maybe if you're not near an actual Tesla service center you're just SOL.
 
If I'm not mistaken I think most Tesla service centers don't do body work, so they would probably refer you to a certified body shop anyway. The parts delays seem pretty normal to me, in that it seems to happen a lot for various reasons. When my car was getting the lift gate repaired due to getting rear-ended, it apparently took 3 tries to get a lift gate delivered to the body shop without getting smashed during the transit, so at least in my experience stuff does happen in these situations.
 
Delays like this are very common these days with any luxury brand. A friend just waited 3 months for parts for his Infinity, another waited longer for parts for her Mercedes. When I bought my Y back in 6/2020 I made sure to get extended rental coverage (doubled the rental allowance for a few dollars per month extra).

With USAA one gets a certain amount of $ for rental in a situation like this. How long that allocation lasts depends on how expensive a vehicle one rents.
 
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Continued supply chain issues are affecting all industries and all auto companies. Tesla being fairly new auto company manufacturing most of the parts itself with very few 3rd party suppliers the availability of parts becomes a bigger issue when basic raw materials are in short supply. Sadly I don't see any short term improvement in this situation. My Tesla model X is at the service center in the Bay Area for the past 3 weeks waiting for replacement parts and I am only a few miles away from the Fremont factory where Model X is manufactured. Unfortunately, this situation is likely to prevail for some more time.
 
That stinks sorry to hear that. One of the reasons I keep a spare car in my rotation. We picked up a super cheap mini cooper S for any time one of our cars is down. I typically do all of my own work so owning Audi, BMW and Mercedes you almost always need a spare car. I assume the M3 LR will be the same due to the support of the vehicle. I know Tesla is struggling up to keep up with the demand but they should put a little more priority in service for existing customers who bought in to the platform. Most people don't have the option to keep a spare vehicle in the mix and no one should be without a car for a month.
 
I was hit on Black Friday and I still don’t have my car back, been 4 months with nothing. Back orders, faulty new parts, paint issues, battery issues, coolant leaks, and more.

I love my car but I don’t even remember what it’s like to drive it and I’ve been considering selling it when I get it back the wait on repairs is inexcusable.
 
There's plenty of bad experiences to go around these days but it's no different than with any other brand. Here's a tire rotation that turned into a $500 job to replace a lug nut which took two weeks.

What should have been a simple, sub-$100, half-day service, including oil change and tire rotation, ended up costing over $500 and took over two weeks to complete, as the wheel stud needed to be ordered. Fully $400 of the total was the labor involved in removing the wheel and the hub on which the wheel studs are attached and the use of a hydraulic press to remove/replace the damaged stud. Here is how the costs break out:

 
Try to repair a crashed car as well as possible and keep it on the road. Eventually the body shop will accumulate all the needed parts, or winter will arrive, so you can then give up the car for the duration.
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My wife crashed our M3 in the UK. Front fender, front panel, air bags required. 5.5 months later we got the car back. Air bags have to be transported by land and sea! The repair centre made us feel better about the delay by saying that they have Mercedes and Ford cars waiting much longer than we did!
 
This is not only exclusive to Tesla. My wife's 2015 Toyota Highlander has been in the body shop for a month and still no ETA of when the car will be ready. It needs a new right front door, the panel for the right front tire and a paint job. The parts are in backorder. A freaking Toyota!!!
 
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I disagree with some of the above comments. Tesla can simply reduce the number of cars that they sell so they can keep parts for the existing customers.
in Q1 2021 Tesla sold 180,000 cars . In Q1 2022 Tesla sold 310,000 cars. How come they dont have issue with their new cars ( yes, it takes longer for someone to receive a new Tesla but to me they should delay the delivery of new Tesla's even further ) so they can have parts for their existing customers. Clearly they dont care about the existing customers as much . I have a Tesla Model S 2021 paying $1500 a month which has been in the shop for 2 months because of a back order part . I really think that it is time to keep these companies accountable for such practices.
 

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I disagree with some of the above comments. Tesla can simply reduce the number of cars that they sell so they can keep parts for the existing customers.
in Q1 2021 Tesla sold 180,000 cars . In Q1 2022 Tesla sold 310,000 cars. How come they dont have issue with their new cars ( yes, it takes longer for someone to receive a new Tesla but to me they should delay the delivery of new Tesla's even further ) so they can have parts for their existing customers. Clearly they dont care about the existing customers as much . I have a Tesla Model S 2021 paying $1500 a month which has been in the shop for 2 months because of a back order part . I really think that it is time to keep these companies accountable for such practices.
Why would Tesla sell less car intentionally and focus on making more parts for existing cars??? It's not just Tesla problem. My neighbor had to wait 2 months for his driver side headlight for his Chrysler minivan.
 
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But Chrysler has clear supply shortage issue. They are unable to produce same numbers of cars because of supply shortage. In the case of Tesla, Tesla clearly does not have the same issue! Don’t you think that if they did, they could not sell 120000 more cars? Tesla is incorrectly is blaming the delays to shortage of supplies and they can get away with it! They simply increased / shifted production from handling existing customers to selling new cars because they know that they can blame supply shortage.