PPF Accident

[Pianewman]

d.marks48: We're not witnesses to any of this, but let me get this straight:

They offered you FREE $3500 PPF, window tinting and windshield tinting, and a repaired car (for the.. "...the very slight paint damage and the slight residual damage where the panel was repaired by the dent specialist...") ., and you refused their offer and asked to take the car elsewhere for the bodywork. Is that correct???

From everything you've said here, I would have taken the initial offer, allowed them to correct their admitted ACCIDENT (you said they accepted full responsibility, right?) , and driven away.

In my opinion, you've made the problem worse, and ultimately, it's going to COST you, in time, money and aggravation.

 

[d.marks48]

You do realize that because they brought it to a body shop that’s not Tesla Certified they can’t order any parts? So, they can’t get the molding that was damaged around the rear wheel well and they can’t get the replacement rear right lens that always breaks when it’s removed to paint the rear quarter panel. Also, the shop they brought it to missed the damage to the right rear passenger door, so had I agreed to allow them to repair the car I would have had a damaged rear passenger door. Also, Tesla requires a Post Collision Inspection if the bumper is removed, which was the case, and that all rear sensors be recalibrated after removal. Without doing this, you very likely void your warranty for anything related to future safety feature issues. If you would allow a shop to do this to your brand new Y and additionally diminish the value of a car with 20 miles on it, than you probably should never buy a new car and certainly not a Tesla. The fact that I wouldn’t pay for the wrapping is incidental, if they hadn’t agreed to a refund I would have contested the charge with Amex. Their lack of care, and inability to be trusted with my $54000 car, should have been handled by complying with any reasonable request on my part and having a Tesla Certified Shop do the repairs is certainly within reason. Instead, they attempted to do the repair as cheaply as possible rather than reporting their carelessness to their own insurance carrier and doing the right thing! I hope you can be as magnanimous as you would have liked me to be when your brand new Tesla gets damaged right after delivery and the shop responsible attempts to repair it as cheaply as possible.

 

[Imaginex20]

No, didn’t even have the opportunity to go through the set up procedures. Not even my phone was paired to the car, let alone setting up Sentry Mode or Dash Cam. Will be doing all the set up when I finally get the car back approximately 2-3 weeks after the first day when I took delivery. I plan on posting the nastiest Google review that I can compose, as well as filing a diminished value claim against their insurance carrier and possibly a small claims suit against the PPF shop. I will also be posting their name here as soon as I’m certain I’ve extracted every last pound of flesh from them and don’t need them any more for anything related to the initial PPF install.

You do you. But IMO the shop tried their best to make things right but you went to the extreme.

 

[d.marks48]

Quite frankly, I can’t even believe for a second you’re questioning my integrity and the actions I took. Shame on you.

 

[maus92]

As I read this thread, it reinforces the reality that some Tesla owners have unrealistic expectations about their vehicle's ability to overcome bad decision making by their meatbag operators.

 

[d.marks48]

I guess it’s unrealistic to expect the PPF shop to drive the vehicle into their garage door and back out without causing damage?

 

[maus92]

It is unrealistic to expect humans to always make correct decisions / not to ignore vehicle warning systems (or to rely on not fully developed self drive technology to be perfect.)

 

[d.marks48]

This is insane, if it’s unrealistic to expect that brining the car in and out of their shop without damaging it, how could they get anyone to trust them to wrap their cars? I’m not referring to driving a car in bumper to bumper traffic, driving at 65 mph, driving in a pouring rain or snow storm, etc. I’m referring to driving at 1-2 mph, entering and exiting a garage door, while promising to take impeccable care of a customers property while in your possession.

 

[d.marks48]

And then compounding the issue by attempting to correct the error on the cheap, instead of complying with the customer’s request to bring the vehicle to a Tesla Certified Shop and restoring the vehicle to the best possible condition given that it had 20 miles on it. Anyone that disagrees with me deserves to have their $50K car meet the same fate!

 

[Uncle Paul]

While understanding the OP's justified frustration, I learned long ago (from a Physician) that "Better is often the enemy of Good".

OP had a brand new Tesla that he wanted made even better by his friendly local detail shop. OP chose that shop, knowing full well that he was passing possession of his car to that company and it's employees. It is not unreasonable to be aware that this is putting his new car at risk. Detail shops are busy places, with lots of cars going in and out all the time. Some employees are better than others, and it seems that somebody got distracted shuttling his car around in the shop. Accidents happen all the time and OP was the unlucky one.

Seems like detail shop made a good faith effort to repair the damage, but getting still another repair shop into the mix added additional risk, expense and complications.

Hope OP gets this complicated mess all sorted out, but sometimes it is hard to uncrack an egg.

 

[d.marks48]

While understanding the OP's justified frustration, I learned long ago (from a Physician) that "Better is often the enemy of Good".

OP had a brand new Tesla that he wanted made even better by his friendly local detail shop. OP chose that shop, knowing full well that he was passing possession of his car to that company and it's employees. It is not unreasonable to be aware that this is putting his new car at risk. Detail shops are busy places, with lots of cars going in and out all the time. Some employees are better than others, and it seems that somebody got distracted shuttling his car around in the shop. Accidents happen all the time and OP was the unlucky one.

Seems like detail shop made a good faith effort to repair the damage, but getting still another repair shop into the mix added additional risk, expense and complications.

Hope OP gets this complicated mess all sorted out, but sometimes it is hard to uncrack an egg.

Sorry, but absolutely no blame can be assigned to me! Yes, you’re giving up possession of your vehicle to a third party, but that’s why they have insurance. Not only did they attempt to fix the vehicle on the cheap w/o my permission, but they even refused to provide me with the name of their insurance carrier and policy information, necessitating that I file a collision claim with my insurance company. Only a scum bag outfit operates like this, and they deserve everything they are going to receive when I ultimately post my Google review. Hopefully none of you casting any blame on me will ever experience dealing with scumbags like this, but if you do remember how you attributed a small amount of blame to a totally non-responsible party and expect that for yourself!

 

[dogmodes]

@d.marks48 I sympathize with your situation. I don't really have much to say about the back and forth and what they offered vs going with Tesla certified. But I do agree that Tesla's backup and slow collision avoidance stuff is lacking. On the phone with my wife last night, it was raining, rear camera was all fogged, she's complaining about not being able to see out back window and no rear windshield wipe. She's on a very dark street backing out of a curved driveway she was unfamiliar with. She backed into a tree in the rear driver side corner. She was going 1MPH and the beeping didn't start until right when she hit.

I think most of the time the thing works when pulling into a spot and there are known/expected obstacles. But as other people have mentioned it doesn't behave as good as most other cars in catching those unknown situations. Any car we've had since 2004 or so would have been blaring at her before hitting it and any car in the past 10 years we've had would've stopped automatically.

Tesla needs improvement in this area and Blindspot notifications and cross traffic alerts. Their cars aren't up to speed with most others in those areas IMO. Was it her fault, of course it was, she was in charge of the car. But I do sympathize with the driver of your car and your situation. You'll find quickly that any critical input about Tesla will be met by those that 1000% will fight you to death.

 

[d.marks48]

I’m not blaming Tesla, or anyone other than the PPF Shop Manager. It was broad daylight, inside a brightly lit shop and conditions to drive the vehicle were ideal. If the driver were paying any attention at all she should have realized what was happening and been able to avoid damaging an expensive car left in her care. Of course accidents happen, all of us are human and capable of making a mistake at any time. I do forgive her for the mistake, but I fault the shop for not being forthcoming and honest and willing to do the right thing by notifying their insurance of the accident and allowing them to fix the car appropriately in a Tesla Certified Shop. Not fessing up to a mistake and taking the appropriate actions to correct a difficult situation is where they went wrong. Anyone looking to get PPF on their car deserves to know how this shop will react in such a situation, which will be the basis of my Google review when I post it.

 

[Pianewman]

Making a poor decision (IMO) isn't a reflection on your integrity. I just think you made the wrong choice.

You had $3500 of "free" from the offending shop, which, again, in my opinion, is huge. You admitted there was minimal damage, then discovered the plastic wheelwell trim (seriously??? probably a $40-50 part, at most) and then started worrying about them doing the repairs "on the cheap." YOU questioned THEIR integrity, and they dug in their heels.

There's nothing magical about Tesla needing special body shops. Electronics? Sure, but all of that can be handled easily by your SC.

Sorry you're struggling through all of this. Hope it all works out.

 

[d.marks48]

As is frequently the case in”minor” incidents like this, upon further evaluation by qualified technicians the total damage becomes greater than initially determined. The crease that was created in the door was very hard to see by my untrained eyes, but was easily identified by the repair shop certified by Tesla. Sure, the wheel trim is a $60 part, but can’t be ordered by any non-certified Tesla body shop. All I was asking was for the PPF shop to allow the car to be repaired by a qualified Tesla certified body shop at their expense, which they refused. Upon such refusal, their next best appropriate response should have been to give me the name and policy number of their insurance carrier, which they also refused, necessitating that I file a collision claim with my insurance carrier. Even though they refunded my payment for the PPF, how is any of this fair? The car now will likely have diminished value caused by an accident reported through the insurance industry. I was in customer service my entire life, and I would never treat a customer that I made a mistake with in such a fashion.

 

[olsookie]

You can technically get the value you lose during a trade in by your insurance company, it’s called diminished value.

Honestly, just read through this again. I understand the frustration and unfortunately I do not think at this point anything is going to make you happy. Posting further opinion on the boards is only going to get you more ticked off bc we from the outside see a shop trying to make good on their mistake and that’s what we’ll continue to point out.

 

[dogmodes]

I’m not blaming Tesla, or anyone other than the PPF Shop Manager. It was broad daylight, inside a brightly lit shop and conditions to drive the vehicle were ideal.

So here’s the issue I’m really concerned about. How in the world did the car hit a wall, without sounding any alarms or warnings and without braking before impact. According to the owner, and I am taking her at her word because of how fair they’ve reacted, the car never issued any warning and never sounded any sort of alarm. How could the allegedly safest car in the world, with all the safety features and safety awards, not have issued an audible warning or applied any emergency brakes? This would have never happened in my 202Outback; the alarms would have sounded loud enough to wake the dead and the emergency brakes would have locked prior to any kind of low speed impact.

I’m really concerned that the safety record of Tesla is not all it’s advertised claimed to be.

I was agreeing with your first post. I was just pointing out that your shop driver is not the first person to have similar issues and my wife experienced it last night. Also at least one other person in this thread had a similar issue where they thought alerting or stopping should have kicked in. It's clear however that this has gone beyond that for you and I wish you luck in getting it sorted out.