New Delivery - Bad Paint Job - Opinions

[Darren Donovan]

Just dont understand how that made it out of the factory! Where's quality control??[/QUOTE]

Tesla doesn't have that department, Lol.

 

[medx]

Wow @super20g that's quite the list of problems. Mine is a 111k AWD built on 09/18...so three days before delivery.

Tesla was supposed to open a body shop of their own in Van Nuys. It may be open.

If you're going to wrap it anyway, perhaps you can get them to pay for the wrap instead of a respray.

I called service and they said Tesla's Van Nuy's Body Shop is only doing light collisions and not full repaints. It would be way more cost effective for Tesla to just give me a new car and wrap this one & make it a loaner, but they are insisting on repainting it.

That said, if they approved wrapping the car for me instead, I don't think the wrap cost would offset the devaluation in trade-in price for bad paint. I know three good wrappers in LA between $2-2.5k and Raail 2k for half that...I think this current paint job would probably knock off more than that on it's value. Any opinions on this?

 

[medx]

Well, nothing good to report...it's been a frustrating week of calls & emails. No one from Tesla seems to give a *sugar*, they all say work with your delivery center and the delivery center says the only option is to repaint it. They won't give me a new car.

I called three of Tesla's approved body shops and asked them how much a repaint like this would cost and they said at the low end if they don’t need to repaint everything $5k, but more realistically $8-10k. Even with Tesla's corporate discount a repaint is still going to be expensive.

I don’t see how putting me in a loaner for at least a month & repainting the car makes sense....whatever, shitty start to ownership.

 

[MXWing]

Well, nothing good to report...it's been a frustrating week of calls & emails. No one from Tesla seems to give a *sugar*, they all say work with your delivery center and the delivery center says the only option is to repaint it. They won't give me a new car.

I called three of Tesla's approved body shops and asked them how much a repaint like this would cost and they said at the low end if they don’t need to repaint everything $5k, but more realistically $8-10k. Even with Tesla's corporate discount a repaint is still going to be expensive.

I don’t see how putting me in a loaner for at least a month & repainting the car makes sense....whatever, shitty start to ownership.

Tesla is NOT paying for the repaint?

 

[medx]

Tesla is NOT paying for the repaint?

Sorry if unclear, they are paying for the repaint, but they won't give me a new car or discount, wrap, anything else.

 

[Adam3]

Yikes that looks terrible.

 

[C141medic]

I just turned my 3 over to service to fix various delivery issues including fish eye and dust nibs in pretty much every panel (generally just a few, but still...). Doors sagging. Panels not flush with one another and not centered.

They gave me a brand new loaner S built at the same time in the same color as my car. I took it home and gave it its first bath because it literally just came off the delivery truck, was dirty as hell and hadn't been prepped. Anyways, I took my time cleaning the S and there are no paint issues. No gap issues. The panels are all flush with one another, etc... The build quality is remarkably better in every way.

Now I just have to keep fingers crossed that my car comes back in decent shape and still feels like a new car to me and not something service and the body shop has molested. Doesn't help that I got an alert on my phone saying the speed limit I set at 85 had been met. I told them there was an odd noise on the driver side at highway speeds, not back to the future speeds...

Not all that happy of a (day 1) camper, but 60K was my top. I couldn't afford an S and it's a little bigger than I prefer as well. Still love the driving experience, it's great! Just not a fan of the fit and finish after the 900 day wait.

Edit: I have a feeling a good portion of the 3's are similar to mine. I saw several on different occasions at the service center with the same issues. Not terrible, but not ideal shape at a 60k price point. If people claim perfect cars, I am not sure they know what to look for or just not as detail oriented... I am sure some batches are better than others.

Ditto. Dropped my 10 day old car with 118 miles off at the SC yesterday. They offered an Enterprise loaner but I refused. I have the same concern that I’ll get it back either “molested” or have new “issues” as others have reported after service/body work. I have my fingers crossed.

 

[MXWing]

Sorry if unclear, they are paying for the repaint, but they won't give me a new car or discount, wrap, anything else.

I think you deserve more than status quo. Your local escalation contact either has no brain or no power.

Objectively looking at the situation it’s probably not easy for Tesla to code a check to you or to code a check to your ppf vendor.

I would perhaps ask for things they might be able to code for goodwill.

An HPWC, mats, extended warranties, software?

I hate negotiating this way because information is asymmetric but I would also go “so what CAN you do for me? We know my situation is fubar. Treat me how like I would treat you were our situations reversed”.

I’m sorry this happened.

Edit: not fully ethical but you can ask the body shop what they can do. Maybe give you awesome paint that would wipe out the ozone layer or some sick black pearl paint or something.

Ask for the “not legal in California” paint job.

 

[medx]

An update on this...Marina del Rey wouldn’t let me return the car on the 4th day (picked up Friday, called Monday) despite it having less than 50 miles on it...dropped off to Tesla Burbank Oct. 1...have been in a loaner since, so 27 days now...car is supposed to be finished early next week.

Also, nice to see that AWD and white interior has dropped in price during this time...

The employees helping me at Burbank when I dropped the car off admitted it was the worst paint job they’ve seen and were very apologetic and my point guy there has been very understanding, so we’ll see how this whole ordeal turns out

 

[brandonee916]

Here's my paint story... I have little "bubbles" in nearly every panel (they look like air bubbles in the clear coat, LOTS of them)... clear coat paint drip on my fender, back bumper alignment really off, and the front bumper has a dark area and lots of bubbles like it was cooked for too long, headlights misaligned. I took delivery on 9/8, dropped the car off a week later... I haven't seen my car ever since :-( I'm trying to keep positive that it will be right, but I'm getting really disappointed by my experience.

 

[medx]

Here's my paint story... I have little "bubbles" in nearly every panel (they look like air bubbles in the clear coat, LOTS of them)... clear coat paint drip on my fender, back bumper alignment really off, and the front bumper has a dark area and lots of bubbles like it was cooked for too long, headlights misaligned. I took delivery on 9/8, dropped the car off a week later... I haven't seen my car ever since :-( I'm trying to keep positive that it will be right, but I'm getting really disappointed by my experience.

Jeez, terrible man, so sorry to hear. I want to say it’ll all work out, but I have no idea, and this experience has made me feel numb towards Tesla.

 

[Stirfelt]

"this experience has made me feel numb towards Tesla."

"Numb?/" You are more understanding and forgiving than me.

I haven't asked for my $1k back yet, but I'm in no mood to make the leap until such time as Tesla can consistently assemble an automobile whose first trip is not to the SC.

Unfortunately, the situation will not improve as long as buyers continue to accept blemished vehicles. We had all hoped the situation would be showing improvement by now ... but based on owner comments on this forum, the situation has not improved.

 

[medx]

"this experience has made me feel numb towards Tesla."

"Numb?/" You are more understanding and forgiving than me.

I haven't asked for my $1k back yet, but I'm in no mood to make the leap until such time as Tesla can consistently assemble an automobile whose first trip is not to the SC.

Unfortunately, the situation will not improve as long as buyers continue to accept blemished vehicles. We had all hoped the situation would be showing improvement by now ... but based on owner comments on this forum, the situation has not improved.

I don’t blame you. If the tax credit wasn’t as important for me, I’d wait.