Motley Fool story - Tesla Replacement Part Delays

[disagree]

Just wondering how you can quickly add 300 shops. Most of what I've read always seems to focus on how highly specialized these shops are with a big investment in equipment, training, etc

Are these proposed 300 shops going to be able to handle all things Tesla immediatley?

Over promise, under-deliver.™

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

Imagine...

A body shop working on numerous car brands.
A tesla shows up for repair, yeah let's leave that sitting for 3-4 months before we even order parts.
Why? Because it's a tesla.

Sounds legit.

 

[PeteP]

Hi everyone –

This week, the service team hit a global customer service satisfaction record. The team has done a fantastic job on what we control currently: our own service centers. We’re now turning our efforts on the centers we don’t control: accident repairs in body shops.

The body shop in the OP article did not begin repairs on the car for three months and then ordered more than 90 parts and took over seven months to repair the car. Neither of those are indicators of competence. To top it off, they blamed their performance on Tesla. We know from complaints that the body shop experience needs to get a lot better – and fast.

What the service team has done so far is a roadmap of how we’re going to fix the autobody experience. Wait times for appointments measured in hours and a handful of days currently. We’re providing same-day service from the Bay Area to Oslo and everywhere in between. In fact, almost 20% of jobs in our flagship center in Palo Alto are handled before the customer can finish their cup of coffee (yes, you read that correctly).

Thankfully, only a handful of our owners experience accidents each year. Since customers schedule and interface with the body shops on their own, we’re largely blind to the service pace.

Most of the customer complaints about body shops mentioned parts, so we focused on this issue. To date, we’ve reduced backlog by over 80%.

Even though we reduced part wait times, we continued to dig into the body shop complaints. What we found was astounding – cars sat at body shops for weeks and sometimes months before the body shops took action and, more often than not, the body shops blaming Tesla for parts delays were the very shops that hadn’t even ordered parts or started the repair.

We are applying brute force to this immediately. We will have individuals on our team personally manage each car on behalf of our customers that are in 3rd party body shops.

We’re also going to increase our approved shop count by 300 over the next few weeks as well as eliminating poor performing shops.

If you have an issue with a shop, please PM me directly and our team will advocate and manage your repair.

Tesla owners will get the service they expect from us – period.

Thanks to the entire service team for their commitment to setting the highest standard for service in the industry,

Jon

This is great to hear. While it may be a bit late, I am glad that you guys are focusing on this now. I had two experiences with Tesla approved body shops where part delays were a problem. In both situations, the cost for my rental car was greater than the cost to repair the car. This was not only frustrating, but it serves to drive up insurance costs dramatically.

 

[trayloader]

Imagine...

A body shop working on numerous car brands.
A tesla shows up for repair, yeah let's leave that sitting for 3-4 months before we even order parts.
Why? Because it's a tesla.

Sounds legit.

Well,
all your posts sound very biased. You do know that the official shops pay thousands of $$$ for courses, certifications and thus approvals.
Your suggested unprofessional behavior would mean business suicide. No one does this. Naive.

 

[demundus]

Hey all,

Just a follow up. @JonMc passed my message along to some folks in corporate, who called me today (within about 4-5 hours of my PM to him) to find my door and make sure it was shipped. They also called the body shop and made sure they ordered the right (new style) handles.

Skeptics be damned, Tesla came through for me on this one.

 

[trayloader]

Poor guys who now have to work overtime on a friday, since the boss is under pressure.
What might be great for you as a momentary symptomatic PR stunt, proves to be an ongoing a pain for potential 130.000 MS customers.
You simply cannot put a watchdog behind all cases. Organisatory nightmare.
There´s a reason all of a sudden the service manuals "leaked", there was "talk" about empowering the customer to do own repairs etc.

something stinks at HQ.

 

[nnick01]

Hey all,

Just a follow up. @JonMc passed my message along to some folks in corporate, who called me today (within about 4-5 hours of my PM to him) to find my door and make sure it was shipped. They also called the body shop and made sure they ordered the right (new style) handles.

Skeptics be damned, Tesla came through for me on this one.

This is a good sign. Hopefully more people will get the same response.

 

[seclinton]

4 days shy of 4 months, look at those guys; finishing up the polishing and detailing; like new car at 5:00PM today. (3/10/17)

I'd say Tesla came through, but let's be honest, it's the guys in the shop who deserve the credit for pulling it all together.

 

[Barry]

This was not only frustrating, but it serves to drive up insurance costs dramatically.

FUnny you mention this. I got my insurance staement for the next 6 months from State Farm yesterday. It's ONLY up about 10% this time, which is a big improvement, as it's almost doubled since I got the car about 2 years ago.

 

[demundus]

Poor guys who now have to work overtime on a friday, since the boss is under pressure.
What might be great for you as a momentary symptomatic PR stunt, proves to be an ongoing a pain for potential 130.000 MS customers.
You simply cannot put a watchdog behind all cases. Organisatory nightmare.
There´s a reason all of a sudden the service manuals "leaked", there was "talk" about empowering the customer to do own repairs etc.

something stinks at HQ.

It's still business hours in the US... but nearly midnight in Germany. Don't think anyone is working overtime but you on this one. If you have an issue send him a PM, that's all I can tell you (if you own a Tesla, or have a problem)

 

[Pdub2015]

Just wondering how you can quickly add 300 shops. Most of what I've read always seems to focus on how highly specialized these shops are with a big investment in equipment, training, etc

Are these proposed 300 shops going to be able to handle all things Tesla immediatley?

Body shops. And I would imagine (have to imagine, since I have zero expertise in the subject) that the time to add would depend heavily on how many shops they already have in their pipeline waiting for approval, and how fast their approval process works. I'm sure there are other qualifying factors to add to that as well. But offhand, the number does not seem to be extremely high for a nationwide endeavor.

 

[trayloader]

See the bigger picture please: I applaud the effort but this is not working in the scale suggested.

 

[Bishop]

not to be that guy .. but why doesnt he have that symbol where someone proved they actually work at tesla ?

 

[MP3Mike]

not to be that guy .. but why doesnt he have that symbol where someone proved they actually work at tesla ?

Maybe because this isn't an official Tesla site and they don't have those symbols.

 

[Motomania]

Thanks for that reply Jon; I look forward to seeing the results of this action plan and seeing a more normalization (relatively speaking) of the collision repair process.
-
I think most high-end manufacturers, certified bodyshops could quickly take on Tesla certification.
-
Most high-end manufacturers, certified shops already have (or quick access to) specialized equipment needed to repair high-end vehicles; that falls outside the scope of an average bodyshop.

 

[ThatOneRoadie]

FUnny you mention this. I got my insurance staement for the next 6 months from State Farm yesterday. It's ONLY up about 10% this time, which is a big improvement, as it's almost doubled since I got the car about 2 years ago.

Ditto on Insurance problems due to high cost-of-repair; I had to cancel my 100D order because my Geico quote went from ~$1200/yr to $2800/yr once I gave them the correct model and VIN. And the $2800 quote was with a $2500 deductible on collision/comprehensive ($500 deductible would've been over 3k/year).

 

[Raddoc]

Ordered a 100D two weeks ago. Was kind of regretting my decision. Feeling better about it now (if the EPA does there job).

 

[hpartsch]

Hi everyone –

This week, the service team hit a global customer service satisfaction record. The team has done a fantastic job on what we control currently: our own service centers. We’re now turning our efforts on the centers we don’t control: accident repairs in body shops.

The body shop in the OP article did not begin repairs on the car for three months and then ordered more than 90 parts and took over seven months to repair the car. Neither of those are indicators of competence. To top it off, they blamed their performance on Tesla. We know from complaints that the body shop experience needs to get a lot better – and fast.

What the service team has done so far is a roadmap of how we’re going to fix the autobody experience. Wait times for appointments measured in hours and a handful of days currently. We’re providing same-day service from the Bay Area to Oslo and everywhere in between. In fact, almost 20% of jobs in our flagship center in Palo Alto are handled before the customer can finish their cup of coffee (yes, you read that correctly).

Thankfully, only a handful of our owners experience accidents each year. Since customers schedule and interface with the body shops on their own, we’re largely blind to the service pace.

Most of the customer complaints about body shops mentioned parts, so we focused on this issue. To date, we’ve reduced backlog by over 80%.

Even though we reduced part wait times, we continued to dig into the body shop complaints. What we found was astounding – cars sat at body shops for weeks and sometimes months before the body shops took action and, more often than not, the body shops blaming Tesla for parts delays were the very shops that hadn’t even ordered parts or started the repair.

We are applying brute force to this immediately. We will have individuals on our team personally manage each car on behalf of our customers that are in 3rd party body shops.

We’re also going to increase our approved shop count by 300 over the next few weeks as well as eliminating poor performing shops.

If you have an issue with a shop, please PM me directly and our team will advocate and manage your repair.

Tesla owners will get the service they expect from us – period.

Thanks to the entire service team for their commitment to setting the highest standard for service in the industry,

Jon

I love Tesla! Awesome.

 

[SocalMS]

Ordered a 100D two weeks ago. Was kind of regretting my decision. Feeling better about it now (if the EPA does there job).

I would advise you to keep your expectations low.. for your own sanity..

 

[JonMc]

- That's great, and I agree, never had an issue with Tesla Service; always top notch.

That being said, I can call BS on you Jon; at least in my case; and I know I am not alone.
- I can show you documented accident teardown reports w/dates; confirmed estimates (within 4 days)
- I can show you secondary estimate also confirmed w/insurance; we can both verify when part orders were placed, let's be transparent. (w/in 3 weeks)
- I can show you time stamped tear down photos of my car (I went an took photos)
- I can show you a list some 2 months later with no less than 12 parts still pending from Tesla. (I have it hanging at my desk)
- I can now give you the name and number of the one person I was able to reach who personally pulled the parts to get to my repair center (3rd party); after I got a copy of the missing parts list from my repair center, that's when Tesla jumped on it.
- I can show you time stamped photos from Feb 24 showing body work finally completed as the parts were finally available
- I can tell you the exact part it took Tesla 2+ months to provide (Rear bumper rail)
- I can show you my RFS parts list, the order date, and that was in stock and shipped immediately.

11/14/16-->3/10/17 (4 days shy of 4 months from accident to repair) Go take a look, my car is at the factory as I type this getting sensors checked, alignment, and software upgrade. Leave a note inside if you checked it. (It's the black P85 with RFS, tinted windows, CF wrapped handles, and an EVAnnex CCi)

Stop blaming the 3rd party shops for short supply of OEM replacement parts.

Please PM me your VIN? Thanks.