Panel (mis)alignment and/or gap getting worse?!

[WATT TF]

Upon delivery I was accepting of the minimal panel gaps I noticed on my M3. Gaps appeared to be symmetrical which was enough to satisfy me, although they were a little large in some areas. I'm very particular about my cars and carefully reviewed the body upon delivery and every time it is plugged in to charge.

Now it appears as if my front end shifted slightly to create a large gap on the inside/hood edge of the driver's side headlight and on the outside edge of the passenger's side headlight (photo attached). This minimized the gap on the opposite side of each headlight to the point that it's acceptable.

I also noticed a small gap around some of the sensors on the bumper indicating something in or around the bumper settled or moved since delivery.

I have a few ideas that could lead to the cause of this:
- I've been on 2x 1,500-2,000 mile road trips that includes A LOT of supercharging
- Due to supercharging my floor board has popped severely dozens of times - every time I supercharge
- I've driven through the Colorado Rockies in a snow storm from a mild 60° Denver
- I've driven from a cold climate in Chicago to a mild climate in Georgia
- I've driven nonstop from Chicago to Silverthorne, CO - a repetitive cycle of driving on highway in cold weather, supercharging while car is asleep, followed by more highway driving (19 hours total for trip)

I'm just throwing ideas out there. Has anyone experienced growing or shrinking panel gaps? And could this be due to the rate at which different materials expand and contract when heated and cooled respectively? I can't seem to figure this one out and originally thought I had the perfect car with respect to panel gaps...

 

[Limit X]

May I ask how many miles you currently have on your car?

 

[WATT TF]

6,500 miles. I took delivery November 20, 2018, and it is an October 2018 build. VIN 118XXX

 

[WATT TF]

One more photo that may not have sent with my original post

 

[M109Rider]

Hot and cold won’t make your car parts shift.
It was likely bumped.

 

[1deepthink]

I've been following the undercarriage bang/clunk pretty closely on this thread:

Banging/clunking sound when driving over mountains in cold weather

Haven't heard any other observations about a correlation to panel gaps. None in my case.

 

[WATT TF]

For what it's worth - here's a photo of the near perfect alignment created on one side of a headlight housing by a large gap on the other side. Considering I have been behind the wheel for all 6,500 miles, and there is not a scratch on or beneath the bumper, I have a hard time believing it was bumped while in my possession. Maybe I overlooked this during delivery but I have a hard time believing that...

 

[WATT TF]

Here's my hypothesis - thermal expansion during supercharging is so bad that the floor has popped dozens of times. Everyone in the vehicle can feel it in their feet, and it is loud enough to wake me up from a nap. I have a hard time believing the thermal expansion is so bad the floor pops, but nothing else is affected. Whether the bumper moved due to the violent popping, or the thermal expansion itself, it definitely changed positions on its own.

Keep in mind I've driven roughly 1,000 miles in a day 4 times since November. A lot of 120kW supercharging in cold climates.

Nevertheless, I still love my new car and wouldn't trade it for anything else on the road. Maybe some of us owners need to put away our rulers and enjoy driving the car

 

[paranoidroid]

Those specific headlight gaps look like a lot (most?) of 3s I've seen including my own out of the factory.

 

[ngogas]

I think you have a problem and need to go to some meeting for these gap issues. Lol.

 

[M109Rider]

Here's my hypothesis - thermal expansion during supercharging is so bad that the floor has popped dozens of times. Everyone in the vehicle can feel it in their feet, and it is loud enough to wake me up from a nap. I have a hard time believing the thermal expansion is so bad the floor pops, but nothing else is affected. Whether the bumper moved due to the violent popping, or the thermal expansion itself, it definitely changed positions on its own.

Keep in mind I've driven roughly 1,000 miles in a day 4 times since November. A lot of 120kW supercharging in cold climates.

Nevertheless, I still love my new car and wouldn't trade it for anything else on the road. Maybe some of us owners need to put away our rulers and enjoy driving the car

There is no way the battery heat will pop car panels out of alignment.
No offence, but if your panels were perfect on purchase, but not now, they’ve been bumped.

 

[TeeEmCee]

There is no way the battery heat will pop car panels out of alignment.
No offence, but if your panels were perfect on purchase, but not now, they’ve been bumped.

Or perhaps they were not fastened/tightened properly to begin with and they did shift, perhaps simply from vibration associated with normal use? I have plenty of examples with my car of loose parts, some of them causing the hood to move out of alignment for example.

But hey, why not mock the OP instead ...

 

[WATT TF]

Thanks for the support TeeEmCee!

Mock the OP who is a mechanical engineer with extensive experience in thermodynamics and heat transfer...

M109Rider provides a lot of criticism with little support for his claims - what he is trying to say is the popping panels of the M3 are actually heatsinks dissipating 100% of the heat created by supercharging the battery at 120 kW in 20° outdoor temperature, and that neighboring components and joints are coated with some magical compound that prevents them from absorbing heat from the battery and popping panels.

 

[goldengate]

I look at the photos and have a hard time seeing any issues. Just looks like a beautiful Model 3 to me.

 

[Stirfelt]

golden gate - That is exactly what I thought.

Yesterday a 3 parked near me while my wife was shopping. I took time and studied the (outside) carefully. I could see nothing that would have caused me any bother.

I'd really like to think that Tesla assembly is getting a handle of fit & finish problems.

 

[TeeEmCee]

I look at the photos and have a hard time seeing any issues. Just looks like a beautiful Model 3 to me.

Respectfully, this right here is the bigger issue with the Tesla community: low expectations. One would have arguably been too much of a nit picker to point out this type of issue in the early Roadster days but not anymore. The big boys are on their way and this blissful acceptance, however well intended, won't keep the lights on in Fremont for too long.

 

[zhu-]

Respectfully, this right here is the bigger issue with the Tesla community: low expectations. One would have arguably been too much of a nit picker to point out this type of issue in the early Roadster days but not anymore. The big boys are on their way and this blissful acceptance, however well intended, won't keep the lights on in Fremont for too long.

This x100. Anyone who's used to driving luxury cars should spend their time with a Model 3 before commiting and not listen to reviewers as many of them came from economy or other 10 year old cars. There is not another manufacturer in the world that would be able to get away with the lack of quality control, features, and inconsistency on a $60k car.

Although no other car gets OTA updates so I'm hoping once Tesla is fully out of global production and service hell, Elon and the exec team can spend more time on features and updates.

 

[WATT TF]

Last year my German made VW CC was bumped on the quarter panel in a slow speed parking lot collision. I took it to Gerber Collision, a reputable corporate body shop, to repair. When the car was returned I noticed a small panel misalignment and brought it back due to their lifetime warranty. The tech agreed to fix it after saying something like “Ugh bolt hole tolerances on German made cars are like .0001-.0002” and comparable tolerances on an American cars(GM, Ford) are .0006-.0010” making your car a PITA to reassemble.”

Months later I bought a M3 that I absolutely love. Just trying to wrap my head around the normalcy of my finger fitting inside the gap on opposite sides of each headlight (asymmetrical).

I’m slowly getting used to it. Thanks for the support everyone!

 

[super20g]

Your car looks pretty Tesla normal. Better than a lot. Still not 'right' but having Tesla or a 3rd party shop play with it is a roll of the dice for something pretty minor... I had them adjust mine and they just created other problems, then more problems trying to fix the prior problems. Maybe revisit after some time passes.

 

[TeeEmCee]

Last year my German made VW CC was bumped on the quarter panel in a slow speed parking lot collision. I took it to Gerber Collision, a reputable corporate body shop, to repair. When the car was returned I noticed a small panel misalignment and brought it back due to their lifetime warranty. The tech agreed to fix it after saying something like “Ugh bolt hole tolerances on German made cars are like .0001-.0002” and comparable tolerances on an American cars(GM, Ford) are .0006-.0010” making your car a PITA to reassemble.”

Months later I bought a M3 that I absolutely love. Just trying to wrap my head around the normalcy of my finger fitting inside the gap on opposite sides of each headlight (asymmetrical).

I’m slowly getting used to it. Thanks for the support everyone!

Here's what I think of it (this after less than 4 months of ownership, with 2/3 of that time spent in the shop, still with issues after 7 extremely frustrating and some downright pathetic service visits):

To the extent that you can, be persistent but choose your battles. I found enough of the Service staff to be somewhere between useless snowflakes and incompetent + full of crap, and dealing with them is both very frustrating and a massive waste of time. That aspect also obscures the accomplishment of those techs who actually put in the effort and slowly manage to fix the tons of issues arising from the Meccano-grade tolerances of all (and I mean ALL) Tesla body and interior parts.

When it comes to body work, prepare to have whatever you take the car in for made worse at first. If they're anything like the SCs in my area, they will trash your car and then look at you funny when you tell them you expect them to do a proper job. Service centers seem to be very poorly prepared to deal with body issues. In my case, I spoke to Tesla Service Support the other day and will get their authorization to take the car to a third-party body shop in hopes that they can align and fix what the SC has failed to accomplish in 7 attempts.
If you have body issues that can be classified as borderline OK (by Tesla's pathetic standards), then maybe you should consider leaving them alone. There's a very good chance they will screw it up and then break or scratch a whole lot of other things on top of that.

You will need to figure out if you can live with some of the issues that can only be improved so much. If you can, find a way to ignore the junky quality and focus on the car's good attributes (there are enough of those). If you can't do that, cut your losses and sell it now. You'll lose some money but I believe it will be a lot worse if you wait too long. There will be other options soon, real cars with real doors and seals and brakes and everything. I'm struggling with that dilemma myself but I bet that struggle will be over as soon as I try out the first e-Tron.


On a side note, I was in at Audi today for a small warranty issue. Everything was on a completely different level compared to Tesla Service. Everything. Not close. Different planets. Painful!