I'll start out by saying that I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but I will certainly move it if not. I've had this written up for a while and been debating whether to post it and have decided now to do it.
The Accident
The accident happened on eastbound Harding Pl approaching the Nolensville Pike intersection (in front of the Delta Express gas station) on Sept 8th at around 4pm. Traffic at this point was stop and go for a good long distance. Unfortunately for me the guy in the Pearl White Cadillac sedan didn't stop in time and ended up in my bumper. Due to the rear camera I saw the whole situation unfold and felt helpless to stop it. He clearly wasn't paying attention when I moved up and let a significant gap open up but then traffic in front of me stopped so I did as well. But he just seemed to be accelerating still. I recall tapping my brake lights at him and inching up as close to the car in front of me as I heard his brakes squeal. I grabbed my phone because it fell and when I sat up he had pulled into the center turn lane and pulled next to me. I had assumed we were moving out of the way of traffic and actually started to get over as well when he pulled a U-turn. I proceeded to get out of the car and take pictures as rapidly as I could. I got several clear pictures of his plate and face. To add insult to injury it took the police 2 hours to show up.
Tesla Service Greatness
After the police, my wife and the insurance company I called Tesla, specifically the Brentwood, TN store. They were trying to help me come up with the best possible solution. I live 2 hours away from the store and this was a Friday afternoon so I was running out of options fast. They didn't have any Tesla vehicles but they did have a VW Tiguan (compat SUV) that someone else had returned that I could take. I managed to make it there minutes before they closed. They managed to diagnose an AC issue that I spent countless times on the phone with Tesla about and took the car in and gave me the VW. They told me first thing Monday morning they would take the car over the ECR (European Collision Repair) which was the body shop they used and recommended.
The First Bumps
Monday morning I spoke with ECR and signed some forms and sent them back electronically to allow them to work on the car. I spoke with Tesla and they said they would take my car over later in the afternoon. Great. Tuesday. ECR: "no we haven't gotten the car yet." Telsa Service: "We had a scheduling issue with the truck and will take it there later today." Wednesday. ECR: "no car" Tesla Service: "Didn't you want us to fix the AC first? No? Oh we'll take it over right away." Thursday. ECR: "no car" Tesla Service: "Huh? We're waiting until Friday because the parts will be here for the AC. Just take it over for the body shop to work up quote and hell with the AC? You got it!" Friday. ECR: "no car" Tesla Service: "Parts are on UPS for delivery today. We'll fix it and take it over." ECR: "we have your car!"
As you can imagine from the summary it was getting a bit frustrating but hey, the car is 2 hours away and Tesla is taking care of it for me and fixing a long standing issue so I couldn't get that mad. ECR starts tearing down the car at this point and the guy handling my car (I'll call him Mr X because I can't remember his name) says he'll call me Wednesday to let me know the status. Wednesday rolls around and I speak with my insurance company who hasn't heard from ECR yet. I speak with ECR and the Mr. X says he's waiting to hear back from my insurance company to see when the adjuster will come out. He tells me he'll call me as soon as the adjuster is scheduled. Thursday comes and my insurance company calls me to tell me my adjuster will be out on Friday. No call from Mr. X. Friday comes around and the adjuster calls me from the body shop and let's me know the status. He sends me over some docs. I call Mr. X who tells me there's absolutely no reason the car couldn't be done by Friday Sept 29th. I tell him that the 29th would be perfect since I have to go to Nashville that day and I'll pick up the car then. I proceed to call on Sept 27th (Wednesday) to ask about the status of the car to make sure we're still good. Mr. X wants to check something and will immediately call me back. I unfortunately put it out of my mind and realize after they closed that he didn't call me back. I call back on Thursday and Mr X proceeds to tell me that Tesla hasn't gotten them the parts yet. I call Tesla Parts who say "what parts? There are no parts on order for you VIN." I call Mr. X and he says "oh that's weird". I call Tesla Parts who tells me they've now got an order from ECR.
I Need a Manager
At this point I'm a bit annoyed with ECR's communication. I call them back and the person that answers the phone is Brian. He's shop manager, he assures me he'll talk with Mr. X and make sure he contacts me. The week of Oct 2nd through the 6th I get 2 phone calls from Mr. X. One letting me know the parts have come in and the 2nd on Friday Oct 6th telling me the car is reassembled and just needs to be painted. He tells me the car will be ready on Oct 11th. I keep it to myself that I can't get the car until the 12th. On the 10th I call and I'm told "we're on schedule". I call the morning of the 12th to setup when to pick up my car. Brian answers the phone and is surprised I'm wanting to get the car. He explains that they are waiting for the adjuster. I explain to him my conversations with Mr. X and at this point I'm mad. Brian says he'll take over my case directly and gives me his cell phone number. He's surprised to hear that on the 6th I was told the car was assembled since they found supplemental damage. There was a mistake and they didn't let the insurance company know until the 11th. I asked about the damage and I'm told they found the trunk floor to be warped and very damaged. I asked if the extra damage was under $300 if I could just pay for it out of pocket to speed this along. Brian swears the damage is significant and will require more parts. For reasons unknown to me the adjuster doesn't come out until Oct 17th. But Brian proceeds to call me every day to let me know the status. The car is completed on Nov 2nd and taken back over to Tesla. The Tesla Service Manager, Casey, calls me and tells me they looked over the car and its "100%". They found an issue with the rear right door handle and they fix it on Nov 3rd.
Time to Get the Car
I drove up on Nov 4th and since this was a Saturday my car was left with the sales staff. I called and confirmed that we were ready to go and they put the car on a charger for me. When I arrived I met my contact named Steve and we went out to the car. The first thing I noticed was the lack of badging (e.g. "Model S" and "P85") and the spoiler missing. Steve suggested that maybe they were in the trunk so we opened the trunk... HORRIBLE DECISION! Water began to stream out of the latches and anywhere a rubber grommet was. It dumped what felt like 100 gallons of water into the carpeted trunk area. Steve RAN to get towels. Steve took a number of pictures to share with Tesla management at his own insistence. We cleaned up the mess and proceeded to continue inspecting the car. We discovered the rear left tail light was full of water as well. There were a few blemishes and imperfections in the paint that had me a bit disappointed as well. The odd thing here is that it hadn't rained for few days so the water had clearly sat there for a while. Steve also pointed out what appeared to be a missing gasket along the interior lip of the trunk. I called Brian, who sent me to voice mail and then proceeded to text spam him the photos and express my displeasure with the work. I got a call back and I was told by Brian they would fix the issue. We worked it out that I would take the car home and keep it in my garage so that when it did rain more water didn't get in. Brian would pick it up from my house and do the repair. At this point I got into the driver's seat for the first time and noticed that the wheel looks like someone chewed on the bottom half of it. My best guess is that someone was holding keys or some tools in their hands and grabbed the wheel a bit to tight and left indentations in the leather. Brian swears up and down it was like that or that Tesla Service did the damage. I showed this to Steve as well who took more pictures and told me he had spoken to Corporate and that I would be receiving a phone call within the hour which I was surprised at since it was a Saturday. I was also told that Casey and his entire team were out on travel the upcoming week (Nov 6th - Nov 10th) for training.
The Final Repair
ECR came on Nov 7th and got the car. They did the work on the 8th and brought the car over to Tesla Service to perform a "water seal test" which passed. They brought the car back to me on the 9th. It wasn't so smooth because ECR didn't want to get me a rental and just wanted to leave me stranded until my car was done. I called Tesla Service and the manager filling in for Casey told me he'd talk to ECR. Brian called back and they rented a car from Enterprise for me. ECR took care of the water problem and the missing badging and spoiler but refused to deal with the steering wheel. The best picture I had of what the wheel looked like prior to the repair was almost 6 weeks before the original accident so they were content to say I must have done the damage in the interim.
The Follow Up
I never got a call from Corporate or anyone like Steve had said I was going to. I received two surveys from Tesla. One for the service visit (the AC) and one for the body shop visit. I left a little bit more detail about the service visit than just the AC and explicitly mentioned how disappointed I was with Casey telling me the car was "100%" and had been looked over. This prompted him to personally give me a call to apologize. I recounted most of this post to him over the phone and got a lot of apologies from him. He offered to do a reduced cost repair for ECR for the steering wheel and told me he'd call them to discuss it. I got a call from Brian explaining to me that the damage wasn't their fault and they wouldn't be involved in a repair of the wheel. He also pointed out that between having to tow my car 2 hours away and the "extra labor hassle" of my car that if they repaired the wheel they'd be "losing money on this job" so that was another reason why he wouldn't fix it. I told him that I hoped he knew that I would have to give him negative reviews for the job and that I was willing to say that ECR did their best to solve everything and overall I was happy if we could take care of the wheel and paint blemishes. He told me I could drive it up to them and they would wax the car for free but that's all that he would do.
Overall
1. I would never use ECR nor recommend them to anyone.
2. Tesla Service was stellar in helping me get the car over to ECR in the first place and providing me with a vehicle.
3. I genuinely feel like Tesla wanted me to be happy but they clearly dropped the ball checking out the car and then reaching back out to me
4. Did I say never use ECR? Cause never use ECR.
The Accident
The accident happened on eastbound Harding Pl approaching the Nolensville Pike intersection (in front of the Delta Express gas station) on Sept 8th at around 4pm. Traffic at this point was stop and go for a good long distance. Unfortunately for me the guy in the Pearl White Cadillac sedan didn't stop in time and ended up in my bumper. Due to the rear camera I saw the whole situation unfold and felt helpless to stop it. He clearly wasn't paying attention when I moved up and let a significant gap open up but then traffic in front of me stopped so I did as well. But he just seemed to be accelerating still. I recall tapping my brake lights at him and inching up as close to the car in front of me as I heard his brakes squeal. I grabbed my phone because it fell and when I sat up he had pulled into the center turn lane and pulled next to me. I had assumed we were moving out of the way of traffic and actually started to get over as well when he pulled a U-turn. I proceeded to get out of the car and take pictures as rapidly as I could. I got several clear pictures of his plate and face. To add insult to injury it took the police 2 hours to show up.
Tesla Service Greatness
After the police, my wife and the insurance company I called Tesla, specifically the Brentwood, TN store. They were trying to help me come up with the best possible solution. I live 2 hours away from the store and this was a Friday afternoon so I was running out of options fast. They didn't have any Tesla vehicles but they did have a VW Tiguan (compat SUV) that someone else had returned that I could take. I managed to make it there minutes before they closed. They managed to diagnose an AC issue that I spent countless times on the phone with Tesla about and took the car in and gave me the VW. They told me first thing Monday morning they would take the car over the ECR (European Collision Repair) which was the body shop they used and recommended.
The First Bumps
Monday morning I spoke with ECR and signed some forms and sent them back electronically to allow them to work on the car. I spoke with Tesla and they said they would take my car over later in the afternoon. Great. Tuesday. ECR: "no we haven't gotten the car yet." Telsa Service: "We had a scheduling issue with the truck and will take it there later today." Wednesday. ECR: "no car" Tesla Service: "Didn't you want us to fix the AC first? No? Oh we'll take it over right away." Thursday. ECR: "no car" Tesla Service: "Huh? We're waiting until Friday because the parts will be here for the AC. Just take it over for the body shop to work up quote and hell with the AC? You got it!" Friday. ECR: "no car" Tesla Service: "Parts are on UPS for delivery today. We'll fix it and take it over." ECR: "we have your car!"
As you can imagine from the summary it was getting a bit frustrating but hey, the car is 2 hours away and Tesla is taking care of it for me and fixing a long standing issue so I couldn't get that mad. ECR starts tearing down the car at this point and the guy handling my car (I'll call him Mr X because I can't remember his name) says he'll call me Wednesday to let me know the status. Wednesday rolls around and I speak with my insurance company who hasn't heard from ECR yet. I speak with ECR and the Mr. X says he's waiting to hear back from my insurance company to see when the adjuster will come out. He tells me he'll call me as soon as the adjuster is scheduled. Thursday comes and my insurance company calls me to tell me my adjuster will be out on Friday. No call from Mr. X. Friday comes around and the adjuster calls me from the body shop and let's me know the status. He sends me over some docs. I call Mr. X who tells me there's absolutely no reason the car couldn't be done by Friday Sept 29th. I tell him that the 29th would be perfect since I have to go to Nashville that day and I'll pick up the car then. I proceed to call on Sept 27th (Wednesday) to ask about the status of the car to make sure we're still good. Mr. X wants to check something and will immediately call me back. I unfortunately put it out of my mind and realize after they closed that he didn't call me back. I call back on Thursday and Mr X proceeds to tell me that Tesla hasn't gotten them the parts yet. I call Tesla Parts who say "what parts? There are no parts on order for you VIN." I call Mr. X and he says "oh that's weird". I call Tesla Parts who tells me they've now got an order from ECR.
I Need a Manager
At this point I'm a bit annoyed with ECR's communication. I call them back and the person that answers the phone is Brian. He's shop manager, he assures me he'll talk with Mr. X and make sure he contacts me. The week of Oct 2nd through the 6th I get 2 phone calls from Mr. X. One letting me know the parts have come in and the 2nd on Friday Oct 6th telling me the car is reassembled and just needs to be painted. He tells me the car will be ready on Oct 11th. I keep it to myself that I can't get the car until the 12th. On the 10th I call and I'm told "we're on schedule". I call the morning of the 12th to setup when to pick up my car. Brian answers the phone and is surprised I'm wanting to get the car. He explains that they are waiting for the adjuster. I explain to him my conversations with Mr. X and at this point I'm mad. Brian says he'll take over my case directly and gives me his cell phone number. He's surprised to hear that on the 6th I was told the car was assembled since they found supplemental damage. There was a mistake and they didn't let the insurance company know until the 11th. I asked about the damage and I'm told they found the trunk floor to be warped and very damaged. I asked if the extra damage was under $300 if I could just pay for it out of pocket to speed this along. Brian swears the damage is significant and will require more parts. For reasons unknown to me the adjuster doesn't come out until Oct 17th. But Brian proceeds to call me every day to let me know the status. The car is completed on Nov 2nd and taken back over to Tesla. The Tesla Service Manager, Casey, calls me and tells me they looked over the car and its "100%". They found an issue with the rear right door handle and they fix it on Nov 3rd.
Time to Get the Car
I drove up on Nov 4th and since this was a Saturday my car was left with the sales staff. I called and confirmed that we were ready to go and they put the car on a charger for me. When I arrived I met my contact named Steve and we went out to the car. The first thing I noticed was the lack of badging (e.g. "Model S" and "P85") and the spoiler missing. Steve suggested that maybe they were in the trunk so we opened the trunk... HORRIBLE DECISION! Water began to stream out of the latches and anywhere a rubber grommet was. It dumped what felt like 100 gallons of water into the carpeted trunk area. Steve RAN to get towels. Steve took a number of pictures to share with Tesla management at his own insistence. We cleaned up the mess and proceeded to continue inspecting the car. We discovered the rear left tail light was full of water as well. There were a few blemishes and imperfections in the paint that had me a bit disappointed as well. The odd thing here is that it hadn't rained for few days so the water had clearly sat there for a while. Steve also pointed out what appeared to be a missing gasket along the interior lip of the trunk. I called Brian, who sent me to voice mail and then proceeded to text spam him the photos and express my displeasure with the work. I got a call back and I was told by Brian they would fix the issue. We worked it out that I would take the car home and keep it in my garage so that when it did rain more water didn't get in. Brian would pick it up from my house and do the repair. At this point I got into the driver's seat for the first time and noticed that the wheel looks like someone chewed on the bottom half of it. My best guess is that someone was holding keys or some tools in their hands and grabbed the wheel a bit to tight and left indentations in the leather. Brian swears up and down it was like that or that Tesla Service did the damage. I showed this to Steve as well who took more pictures and told me he had spoken to Corporate and that I would be receiving a phone call within the hour which I was surprised at since it was a Saturday. I was also told that Casey and his entire team were out on travel the upcoming week (Nov 6th - Nov 10th) for training.
The Final Repair
ECR came on Nov 7th and got the car. They did the work on the 8th and brought the car over to Tesla Service to perform a "water seal test" which passed. They brought the car back to me on the 9th. It wasn't so smooth because ECR didn't want to get me a rental and just wanted to leave me stranded until my car was done. I called Tesla Service and the manager filling in for Casey told me he'd talk to ECR. Brian called back and they rented a car from Enterprise for me. ECR took care of the water problem and the missing badging and spoiler but refused to deal with the steering wheel. The best picture I had of what the wheel looked like prior to the repair was almost 6 weeks before the original accident so they were content to say I must have done the damage in the interim.
The Follow Up
I never got a call from Corporate or anyone like Steve had said I was going to. I received two surveys from Tesla. One for the service visit (the AC) and one for the body shop visit. I left a little bit more detail about the service visit than just the AC and explicitly mentioned how disappointed I was with Casey telling me the car was "100%" and had been looked over. This prompted him to personally give me a call to apologize. I recounted most of this post to him over the phone and got a lot of apologies from him. He offered to do a reduced cost repair for ECR for the steering wheel and told me he'd call them to discuss it. I got a call from Brian explaining to me that the damage wasn't their fault and they wouldn't be involved in a repair of the wheel. He also pointed out that between having to tow my car 2 hours away and the "extra labor hassle" of my car that if they repaired the wheel they'd be "losing money on this job" so that was another reason why he wouldn't fix it. I told him that I hoped he knew that I would have to give him negative reviews for the job and that I was willing to say that ECR did their best to solve everything and overall I was happy if we could take care of the wheel and paint blemishes. He told me I could drive it up to them and they would wax the car for free but that's all that he would do.
Overall
1. I would never use ECR nor recommend them to anyone.
2. Tesla Service was stellar in helping me get the car over to ECR in the first place and providing me with a vehicle.
3. I genuinely feel like Tesla wanted me to be happy but they clearly dropped the ball checking out the car and then reaching back out to me
4. Did I say never use ECR? Cause never use ECR.
