Hey guys,
After 3 long awaited months, I finally received my Tesla Model S last Friday, which was one of the happiest moments of my life. Unfortunately that happiness was short lived, yesterday night I was exiting the parking in my building and the incoming car did not move as it should to give the vehicle leaving enough space to exit. In fear of having the automatic doors close on me, I miscalculated the space and I hit the wall on the right side. It's a very narrow L shaped entry/exit.
I heard a loud noise and immediately went into shock when I turned and saw pieces of the concrete wall falling off. I turned back, parked the car and noticed severe damage to the right side doors.
I called my insurance this morning and they asked me to go to their nearest collision center to get a repair estimate. The entire repair was estimated for $4,582.40 including the $2,000 deductible.
See link below for more details on the estimates:
picsurge.com - Tesla Damage Estimate
The collision center said that since the damage required new parts and no work on the aluminum body so that I could take it to an non certified tesla shop too if I wanted, I am in SoCal (Orange County).
I did a search on this forum for similar subjects and found that many recommend to get estimates from different repair shops, so with my self stem on the ground and swollen eyes from crying all night long, I got inside my broken Tesla and decided to give that a shot.
I called Class Auto Center, a certified Tesla shop that my insurance company recommended and they told me to come by next week for a full assessment.
So my first stop was at a non certified shop first with excellent reviews on Yelp. They said that they needed to check first if they could even order the parts as they had tried in the past and received very negative responses from Tesla. They suggested me to go to a certified shop in the mean time.
My second stop was at the European Motor Car Works; they assessed the damaged and the estimate and they said that it seemed like the T-post was severely damaged and that it needed replacement since the impact shifted the back door gears, etc. otherwise the replacement doors are not going to fit.They also said it that it would add additional cost and take at least 2 months of work. Since they are completely booked until October, they told me to check with other Tesla certified shop too.
My third stop was at the Spectrum Collision. Once again they assessed the damage and agreed with the initial estimate. I mentioned what the previous shop had said, so they assessed the T-post. They explained that it was indeed a possibility that it might need replacement, but that there was no way of telling whether it would or not until they try fitting the new doors in. They said they could take my Tesla right away and best case scenario if there's no damage to the t-post and pre-order the doors by tomorrow, my Tesla would only require 2 weeks of work at most.
So the clock hit 7 and my Tesla repair shop trip came to an end. I came back home feeling about the same as when I left, devastated, I can't blame myself enough for what happened, I should have checked the distances and reminded myself that the Tesla is slightly bigger than the C300 (my last rental).
I am sad to admit that my Tesla is my first vehicle (not driven though, I used to drive a lot of rentals). I've had my full drivers license for 8 years now and I've never had any tickets or accidents before, until last night. This experience is weighting very heavily on me right now, I don't have many people that I can share it with either and the last thing I was told about the t-post needing replacement completely killed my hope that this was just going to be a few weeks nightmare, it seems more and more that it's probably going to be a 2-3 month nightmare now.
I thought of posting my story in this forum as I'd figured that maybe there's others out there who have been on a similar boat. I am attaching pictures of the damaged parts (see link below for image gallery), I would really appreciate it if any of you could give me some words of wisdom, advice on how to proceed or on the estimates I was given. I'm thinking of paying a visit to 1-2 more Tesla certified repair shops and see what they have to say too.
Thanks for reading
See link below for damaged parts pictures:
picsurge.com - Tesla Model S Damage
After 3 long awaited months, I finally received my Tesla Model S last Friday, which was one of the happiest moments of my life. Unfortunately that happiness was short lived, yesterday night I was exiting the parking in my building and the incoming car did not move as it should to give the vehicle leaving enough space to exit. In fear of having the automatic doors close on me, I miscalculated the space and I hit the wall on the right side. It's a very narrow L shaped entry/exit.
I heard a loud noise and immediately went into shock when I turned and saw pieces of the concrete wall falling off. I turned back, parked the car and noticed severe damage to the right side doors.
I called my insurance this morning and they asked me to go to their nearest collision center to get a repair estimate. The entire repair was estimated for $4,582.40 including the $2,000 deductible.
See link below for more details on the estimates:
picsurge.com - Tesla Damage Estimate
The collision center said that since the damage required new parts and no work on the aluminum body so that I could take it to an non certified tesla shop too if I wanted, I am in SoCal (Orange County).
I did a search on this forum for similar subjects and found that many recommend to get estimates from different repair shops, so with my self stem on the ground and swollen eyes from crying all night long, I got inside my broken Tesla and decided to give that a shot.
I called Class Auto Center, a certified Tesla shop that my insurance company recommended and they told me to come by next week for a full assessment.
So my first stop was at a non certified shop first with excellent reviews on Yelp. They said that they needed to check first if they could even order the parts as they had tried in the past and received very negative responses from Tesla. They suggested me to go to a certified shop in the mean time.
My second stop was at the European Motor Car Works; they assessed the damaged and the estimate and they said that it seemed like the T-post was severely damaged and that it needed replacement since the impact shifted the back door gears, etc. otherwise the replacement doors are not going to fit.They also said it that it would add additional cost and take at least 2 months of work. Since they are completely booked until October, they told me to check with other Tesla certified shop too.
My third stop was at the Spectrum Collision. Once again they assessed the damage and agreed with the initial estimate. I mentioned what the previous shop had said, so they assessed the T-post. They explained that it was indeed a possibility that it might need replacement, but that there was no way of telling whether it would or not until they try fitting the new doors in. They said they could take my Tesla right away and best case scenario if there's no damage to the t-post and pre-order the doors by tomorrow, my Tesla would only require 2 weeks of work at most.
So the clock hit 7 and my Tesla repair shop trip came to an end. I came back home feeling about the same as when I left, devastated, I can't blame myself enough for what happened, I should have checked the distances and reminded myself that the Tesla is slightly bigger than the C300 (my last rental).
I am sad to admit that my Tesla is my first vehicle (not driven though, I used to drive a lot of rentals). I've had my full drivers license for 8 years now and I've never had any tickets or accidents before, until last night. This experience is weighting very heavily on me right now, I don't have many people that I can share it with either and the last thing I was told about the t-post needing replacement completely killed my hope that this was just going to be a few weeks nightmare, it seems more and more that it's probably going to be a 2-3 month nightmare now.
I thought of posting my story in this forum as I'd figured that maybe there's others out there who have been on a similar boat. I am attaching pictures of the damaged parts (see link below for image gallery), I would really appreciate it if any of you could give me some words of wisdom, advice on how to proceed or on the estimates I was given. I'm thinking of paying a visit to 1-2 more Tesla certified repair shops and see what they have to say too.
Thanks for reading
See link below for damaged parts pictures:
picsurge.com - Tesla Model S Damage
