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jonquiljo
Active Member
Yes, whether its a $10K ripoff or a $1 ripoff, I still get mad as hell. It's not the money, its the attitude. It's being taken advantage of.
You have a right to feel the way you do!
These "want to rip off Tesla" owner body shops should be cut off from Tesla authorization if they get out of control. I also keep some insurance on every aspect of the car. I am over 65, so insurance is dirt cheap anyway. It's just nice and easy to pay someone (Ins. Co) to manage the repair for you - even if you pay out of pocket for most of it.
Good luck!
M3BlueGeorgia
Active Member
To get a response from Tesla, book a Service appointment and provide pictures of the damage.
They'll review and either give you an estimate or ask you for more information.
Just by way of comparison I had my rear bumper replaced by insurance. Insurance adjuster recommended a local bodyshop. Trying to be smart I went to another place I thought was certified Tesla. They had great reviews and a number of high end cars (Porsche etc.) Being worked on. The owner was decent enough and said he could get the hourly rate down to $120/HR. I told adjuster and he said insurance would pay no more than $75/HR. I was skeptical but went to his recommended shop to see. The place was incredible wall to wall Ferrari, rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley and Tesla. Low and behold their hourly rate was $75/HR for model 3. Moral of the story, true Tesla shops are not necessarily more expensive.
M3BlueGeorgia
Active Member
What was your total cost for repairing the rear fascia (which is apparently what they call it) at a body shop?
Mine was replaced by Tesla for about $1175 in 50 minutes.
JasontheBeaver
Jason Barker
As a professional in the automotive field, I can tell you that trying to negotiate with a body shop or mechanic is treading on thin ice... why? Because if you're approaching shops that already have a good reputation or have been positively referred to you by others, it means they are good for a reason. So to ask them to lower their price is saying to them, "I don't value your training, experience, reputation, and willingness to stand behind your work".
Secondly, if a shop does lower their price then that says they don't value their own training, experience, reputation, and willingness to stand behind their work.
We professionals are trained to immediately throw up a red flag when someone approaches us from a "price-first" standpoint, not a "quality first" standpoint.
Negotiating at a (non-Tesla) car dealership when buying a car is a whole different story of course, those dealerships have created that environment of asking ridiculous prices then coming down if you are willing to go through the hassle of playing their games and negotiating.
So here's my advice... when asking for estimates if you think someone is too high, it's ok to ask them why they are so far off from other shops. Any reputable shop will welcome this opportunity to explain to you why they're higher. If they're just gouging Tesla owners then you'll get a flimsy song-and-dance excuse, but if they're legit then they'll take the time to speak to you in layman's terms how they price their repairs. Just be respectful and you'll get to the bottom of who you want to do business with.
JasontheBeaver
Jason Barker
FYI, body shops mix their own paint. They do not have to go back to the manufacturer and order the paint. Each paint has a code that is a "recipe" that tells the painter how to mix it to get close to the correct color, then they spray a test panel to make sure it matches your car. If it doesn't then they tint it in the direction needed and spray again until they're satisfied. This allows for variance in paint colors and subtle fading that occurs over time. A car painted at the factory today may be slightly different than one painted today when parked side-by-side.
JasontheBeaver
Jason Barker
My biggest concern with these mobile repair guys that work for dealerships is... well... they work for dealerships.
Meaning, dealerships are notorious for being cheap and demanding the lowest price, quickest service, and longest payment terms out of their subcontractors. They also do not care much about the longevity of the repair, because they don't have to stand behind it when it starts to fail 6 months later. All of this breeds low quality work out of the mobile guys because they're always forced to cut-throat each other to keep the dealership's business.
If you can find a mobile guy whose primary income isn't from dealerships but from the retail public, and has a great reputation for quality, then I'd have no problem checking them out. Otherwise, you're seriously rolling the dice on the quality of the repair.
I understand your concern.
The mobile bumper repair specialists I have hired to repair our Porsche 911S (Rhodium Silver), Porsche Cayman S (Carrera White) and BMW 528i (White) work for private owners as well as dealers, and their continued employment is dependent on excellent reviews and referrals, therefore their work is exceptional.
I would not recommend investigating this possibility unless we had used the service and were very, very happy. We are damn picky about repairs.
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Tesla came back with $1.4k at 9 labor hours to replace the front bumper cover and painting. I asked if it would be unreasonable to adjust the estimate in light of the news story that Tesla mobile can replace a bumper in less than an hour and that the price in the past has been $800, so we'll see what happens.
(and SMALset, no, I did not have TeslCam recording while this happened. I do have it enabled now!)
(and SMALset, no, I did not have TeslCam recording while this happened. I do have it enabled now!)
Uh. Is this real? My Tesla-certified shop did not call out any such calibration. And I sort of doubt that ultrasonic sensors would need calibration. If they do, body shops should be very familiar with the procedure since tons of cars have these sensors (and have for a few years!).
Ok, that still seems quite high.
I have a quote for front bumper rework (resurfacing, shaping, painting) for $1300 Canadian pesos. That's $971 US freedom dollars. But wait, there's more! That price includes a new fog lamp assembly which itself is about $300 if I recall correctly. I thought this was high, but not after reading this thread.
Tesla quoted me $1200 just for the bumper cover and said labour + fog lamp assembly would be extra, so that was a hard no.
My quote is from a Tesla certified body shop that has a fairly good reputation in general, in an expensive city. You're getting gouged. Hard.
Tesla told me it was $1200 just got the bumper without installation. I don't know the final cost as it was handled by insurance. Looking at quotes below I wonder why Tesla said the bumper alone woke he more expensive than people here paid including installation.
Well it's been a while. Had other concerns and didn't need to handle this during Covid, but I'm back on it now and I promised to update the thread, and I still appreciate the advice I've gotten here, so I will. To recap:
Shop 1 estimate ~$2k
Shop 2 estimate ~$2k
Old Tesla estimate ~$1.4k
I asked the same estimator from before from Tesla, who says the process had changed and I need to make a new case. So I did.
New tesla estimate: ~$1.1k
Strangely now Tesla is estimating the part itself to be ~$900 and labor is less than an hour. Previously Tesla wanted 9 hours of labor, much of this for painting the part. My best guess is that this time they are getting a ready-made pre-painted part, which is more expensive but it saves enough labor that it's still cheaper overall for me. I've accepted this estimate since at ~$1.1k this is now close enough to what people here and elsewhere are saying is a reasonable price and at this point I'd like to get my car looking nicer again.
I'll update this once I get the actual bill.
I'm not going to name the two shops, but they are the top 2 recommended shops for Tesla repairs that I could find online at the time. So there's that.
Shop 1 estimate ~$2k
Shop 2 estimate ~$2k
Old Tesla estimate ~$1.4k
I asked the same estimator from before from Tesla, who says the process had changed and I need to make a new case. So I did.
New tesla estimate: ~$1.1k
Strangely now Tesla is estimating the part itself to be ~$900 and labor is less than an hour. Previously Tesla wanted 9 hours of labor, much of this for painting the part. My best guess is that this time they are getting a ready-made pre-painted part, which is more expensive but it saves enough labor that it's still cheaper overall for me. I've accepted this estimate since at ~$1.1k this is now close enough to what people here and elsewhere are saying is a reasonable price and at this point I'd like to get my car looking nicer again.
I'll update this once I get the actual bill.I'm not going to name the two shops, but they are the top 2 recommended shops for Tesla repairs that I could find online at the time. So there's that.
Just to put it in context... my comprehensive insurance on the Model 3 is $114.60 annually.
My wife had a run-in with a deer last year in her Enclave; that was a $21,000 repair. I paid a total of $100.
If I had to pay for the repair myself, that’s the equivalent of 183 years’ worth of premiums.
So I’ll keep that comprehensive coverage ....
Might want to consider that. All it takes is one incident and you’re looking at lifetimes’ worth of premiums.
Got my car back today. Total price ended up being $1.2k including tax. I'm satisfied with the result and would use Tesla service again. Thank you to the people on this forum pointing me to the right approach. Details below.
There was a non-trivial and clearly visible amount of left-over adhesive on the bumper when I got it back, not subtle at all, though the Tesla service removed that in the shop when I pointed it out. The front panel gap is ever-so-slightly larger than it was before - I didn't point this out at the time, but probably should have, but it's a tiny difference. The color is a good match, I have to specifically look for it in the right light and up to close to notice a difference. A slight difference is to be expected, even though it's the same color from the factory, since the paint on the original parts is worn and the bumper is new.
They gave me $100 Uber credit to get home from the store and back. Remaining credit is taken back after you take delivery (fair enough!).
This was originally estimated to be done the same day, but I also had some warranty work and FSD upgrade to be done, and the FSD upgrade required more troubleshooting than they had expected so I got it the next working day. I've seen reports that you have to update the software after an FSD upgrade, as the SW is reset to an early version, but it was already updated when I got it back - and good thing too, since the troubleshooting they had was around the software not updating.
In this thread there's been talk about the amount of work and knowledge it takes to calibrate the system after a front bumper replacement and there was a line item for this in one of the original non-Tesla estimates that I got. Tesla did not report doing this on the bill and I'm pretty sure they didn't do it. However, the car reported that it had to calibrate itself, so I had to drive it for a bit before self driving became available again, same as when I got the vehicle originally. It wasn't long, I think less than 10 miles. Now I'm wondering if that non-Tesla place would have had an engineer driving the car around to calibrate and charging me $140+/hour for doing so.
There was a non-trivial and clearly visible amount of left-over adhesive on the bumper when I got it back, not subtle at all, though the Tesla service removed that in the shop when I pointed it out. The front panel gap is ever-so-slightly larger than it was before - I didn't point this out at the time, but probably should have, but it's a tiny difference. The color is a good match, I have to specifically look for it in the right light and up to close to notice a difference. A slight difference is to be expected, even though it's the same color from the factory, since the paint on the original parts is worn and the bumper is new.
They gave me $100 Uber credit to get home from the store and back. Remaining credit is taken back after you take delivery (fair enough!).
This was originally estimated to be done the same day, but I also had some warranty work and FSD upgrade to be done, and the FSD upgrade required more troubleshooting than they had expected so I got it the next working day. I've seen reports that you have to update the software after an FSD upgrade, as the SW is reset to an early version, but it was already updated when I got it back - and good thing too, since the troubleshooting they had was around the software not updating.
In this thread there's been talk about the amount of work and knowledge it takes to calibrate the system after a front bumper replacement and there was a line item for this in one of the original non-Tesla estimates that I got. Tesla did not report doing this on the bill and I'm pretty sure they didn't do it. However, the car reported that it had to calibrate itself, so I had to drive it for a bit before self driving became available again, same as when I got the vehicle originally. It wasn't long, I think less than 10 miles. Now I'm wondering if that non-Tesla place would have had an engineer driving the car around to calibrate and charging me $140+/hour for doing so.
@dmurphy : I understand that insurance can pay off in a big way in rare cases. However, if the insurance companies are competent, the expected return from having insurance is less than your premiums - otherwise they are losing money. It still makes sense to insure to the extent required by law and also if the expense you are insuring against is so large that it would create significant financial hardship (so most people should insure their house, for example). I can replace my car without significant financial hardship (if I couldn't, I would be driving a less expensive car), so insurance for that isn't a good deal for me, as the expected return from insurance is negative. Same reason I don't insure my suits, windows, laptop etc. Except there is the hassle of negotiating for repairs for my car, that might change things.
It all depends on the likelihood of an event happening over some rate of time, distributed across N number of policy holders.
In this particular case, I think the likelihood of any kind of comprehensive claim over, say, a 10 year period is fairly high. Even something as innocent as a busted windshield.
If the comprehensive insurance is $114.60/annually, and a new windshield for a Model 3 is, say, $1200, that would mean one broken windshield a decade would put me ahead by paying for the comprehensive insurance vs. not having it.
Considering the number of other perils the comprehensive policy covers, I think it's quite a fair value for dollar.
I understand what you're saying and typically agree on extended warranties for items - but given the likelihood of a claim per decade, I think this is one policy worth carrying.
Just given the deer accident, I'd need to live 3 more lifetimes without filing any other claims whatsoever for me to lose money on comprehensive coverage.
Over $1200/year for comprehensive coverage with an extremely high deductible? That’s crazy high. There must be a serious risk factor involved.
edit: oh, and how do they make money? Simple. The aggregate of the policyholder premiums roughly equals what their cost would be. The profit comes from investing that money; it doesn’t just sit in a bank account waiting for a rainy day... If I invested $114/year, my returns would be minimal.
If they invest the aggregate billions paid in premiums, even a modest ROI makes significant income.
Given that my insurance company is a mutual, profits after operations are either distributed as a dividend check (Been a while since I’ve gotten those) or reduced premiums.
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I've never had a claim and am not a youth driver, so I'd be surprised if I were estimated to be high risk by the insurance companies. This is getting a bit off topic, but indeed, average insurance cost for full coverage is higher than my quote, namely the average is $1555 according to this article, and obviously the average car less expensive than a Tesla:
Average Cost of Car Insurance 2020 | Bankrate.
I pay way less, but I also don't have coverage for my own car, only liability (which could be a ruinous event, so I need that one). Coverage for your own car seems to be way more expensive than other kinds of coverage, presumably because that coverage is more likely to have claims. If your rate is really $100 just per year for full coverage on an expensive vehicle, then you're getting a very good rate and the boffins at the insurance company have essentially calculated that they don't believe that you'll ever have a claim, most likely. Congratulations.
Average Cost of Car Insurance 2020 | Bankrate.
I pay way less, but I also don't have coverage for my own car, only liability (which could be a ruinous event, so I need that one). Coverage for your own car seems to be way more expensive than other kinds of coverage, presumably because that coverage is more likely to have claims. If your rate is really $100 just per year for full coverage on an expensive vehicle, then you're getting a very good rate and the boffins at the insurance company have essentially calculated that they don't believe that you'll ever have a claim, most likely. Congratulations.
