My Model S lost an argument with a parking garage: advice?

[BillShepp]

While attempting to navigate backwards into a 3-deep parking stall approximately 3mm wider than my Model S with a concrete wall on one side I relied too much on the rearview video (it turns out the lines represent where the wheels are, not where the widest point of the body is, who knew?!?) I scraped into the wall resulting in the attached damage.

It doesn't look terribly deformed (no creases), and I'm not necessarily looking for a showroom-quality repair if I can get a pretty good repair for 1/4 the cost (it's only a 60!). Any advice as to where to get this repaired in the Palo Alto, CA area? Do the Tesla Stores do bodywork?

Thanks!

Bill

 

[Xpress]

Ouch!

I seem to remember reading a similar story where the concrete jumped out and attacked a Model S in almost the same spot.

I think the repair was almost $20K... search thru some older threads to locate or I will send if I find it.

 

[AB4EJ]

A "Tesla-approved" body shop may not be your best bet for this - a competent body shop (maybe one with experience on the new aluminum Ford pickup) will be more accessible & cheaper.

 

[paintpolisher]

Tesla store will send you to Tesla authorized repair shop, it will be very expensive there, but it will be done right. A quality body shop will repair and respray the entire left rear quarter panel and rear bumper cover. A low quality body shop might do a blend and the low quality might not hold up over the long run. IMO if you ever trade it in to Tesla or any dealership/Carmax they will see the low quality work right away and your trade in value will drop at the price of a proper repair.

 

[Xpress]

Here you go...

Body Shop Repair Costs--for me, a deal killer?

 

[Eclectic]

One thing to consider is how the damage will be classified based on how they repair it. A few years ago my car (not the Tesla) was hit while it was parked. The damage was around the driver's side rear wheel, much like the OP's. The insurance company authorized the repair and the shop did work on the quarterpanel that ended up causing the damage to be called structural. And that's how Carfax reports it, even though the damage was not what people usually think of as structural damage. I'm not an expert on this, but I think that what happened is the shop cut out and replaced the damaged quarterpanel area rather than leave it in place and work on straightening it out.

The bottom line is that when I went to sell the car last year, the Carfax showed structural damage and the value of my car dropped a ton. It was no longer qualified for the manufacturer's CPO program and it had to be sold at auction instead. Insurance didn't cover diminution in resale and the hit was close to 50% of value.

All things equal, had I known about this, I would have pushed the shop hard to find a way to do the repair in a way that didn't make the damage structural.

 

[JST]

Yeah, that was my car in the other thread. It all comes down to whether they can work out the damage to a level you find acceptable.

Because it's on the fender lip, I'm going to guess that (as with mine) they probably won't be able to, which means a very expensive repair (replacing the whole quarter panel). But this is obviously hard to diagnose from a picture or two.

 

[TaoJones]

Condolences - that's painful stuff right there. Not just for the initial incident, but for the potential significant hit to valuation depending upon how the damage is classified. Would definitely advocate shopping around both through whomever Tesla recommends and for F-150-capable shops as well.

I had wondered when the arbitrary positioning of the backup lines would contribute to something like this. Wish they would fix that so that the lines correspond to the widest edges of the car - as one might reasonably expect.

 

[patrick40363]

I scrapped my left front fender when pulling into my garage. I took it to a local body shop and a little buffing / paint looks fine. The body shop is Carls body shop in cotati, CA but it is pretty far away from you.

 

[eye.surgeon]

One thing to consider is how the damage will be classified based on how they repair it. A few years ago my car (not the Tesla) was hit while it was parked. The damage was around the driver's side rear wheel, much like the OP's. The insurance company authorized the repair and the shop did work on the quarterpanel that ended up causing the damage to be called structural. And that's how Carfax reports it, even though the damage was not what people usually think of as structural damage. I'm not an expert on this, but I think that what happened is the shop cut out and replaced the damaged quarterpanel area rather than leave it in place and work on straightening it out.

The bottom line is that when I went to sell the car last year, the Carfax showed structural damage and the value of my car dropped a ton. It was no longer qualified for the manufacturer's CPO program and it had to be sold at auction instead. Insurance didn't cover diminution in resale and the hit was close to 50% of value.

.

Do you mean the car sold for 50% of it's original value? If so, you did about average for a used luxury car after 3 yrs. A 3 yr residual for a Range Rover, a 7 series or an S class is around 50%. If you subtract your tax rebate you did even better.

 

[RDoc]

Don't panic! Try a well recommended local body shop and you may be very pleasantly surprised. We recently had some body work done for a similar accident and spent under $900 and are very happy with the work. We didn't even attempt the Tesla recommend body shop route.

Body Shop Repair Costs--for me, a deal killer?

 

[BillShepp]

Thanks for all the advice and sympathy! A friend has highly recommended Sunnyvale Autobody, who get great Yelp reviews and are aluminum certified, so I'll certainly check them out, and Chilton's in Santa Clara is Tesla Authorized but also gets very good reviews, so I'll check there as well. Hopefully with the insane number of Teslas in the Bay Area the shops who work on them can't charge as much of a premium as shops in areas where Teslas are few and far between. I'll report back on what quotes I get.

 

[deonb]

VIN 9790 on a 60? With rear quarter panel damage?

Isn't this a write-off?

What's your loan term? Do you have gap coverage? It may be better to just take that and use the opportunity to upgrade to a 70.

 

[Eclectic]

Do you mean the car sold for 50% of it's original value? If so, you did about average for a used luxury car after 3 yrs. A 3 yr residual for a Range Rover, a 7 series or an S class is around 50%. If you subtract your tax rebate you did even better.

No, it was 50% lower than the range of KBB/Edmunds/etc. dealer trade in values for a car with the same mileage, features, etc. When you use these services, just indicate that the car had been in an accident with structural damage and you can see how much value is lost versus a car without structural damage.

 

[Gizmotoy]

Thanks for all the advice and sympathy! A friend has highly recommended Sunnyvale Autobody, who get great Yelp reviews and are aluminum certified, so I'll certainly check them out, and Chilton's in Santa Clara is Tesla Authorized but also gets very good reviews, so I'll check there as well. Hopefully with the insane number of Teslas in the Bay Area the shops who work on them can't charge as much of a premium as shops in areas where Teslas are few and far between. I'll report back on what quotes I get.

The Chilton's in Palo Alto has always done a ton of work for Tesla. I doubt they're cheap, though.

If they have to replace that rear quarter panel it's going to hurt ($20k replacements are not unheard of, but prices are supposedly coming down). You might consider suggesting you'd accept a less-than-perfect quarter panel repair (no replacement) and see what they can do if you're worried about cost.

 

[mobe]

You do not need to replace the quarter panel. All you need to do is find a good body shop and that can be easily repaired. This is not $20,000 damage. Even if it's slightly dented aluminum is easy to Repair. I would guess this damage at about $1500.

 

[Eclectic]

And banging out the dent will likely not get reported to Carfax as structural damage.

 

[Edmond]

Gratitude to the OP for pointing out this gotcha for the rest of us.

Undoubtedly a decent body shop can do a good job. Myself, I always use the 'vatos' in the south side of town, from Craigslist.

 

[JPP]

Multi-coat red--gonna be a bit harder to color match and blend....

 

[Jouley]

I used Independence Auto Body in Mountain View for other vehicles and the owner Jim did good work at a fair price and was a pleasure to work with, not sure if he does aluminum work or not.