Repainted before delivery? Or, Detail Place: "Did you buy your Tesla used?" Me: Uh...no?

[Murtaya]

So I bought my 2022 Model S new and received it on June 30th of this year. I spent an hour going through six pages of checklist items before accepting delivery, and other than the hood making contact with the right headlight, it looked fine. It only had 14 miles on the odometer.

A week after delivery I was washing the car and first noticed that the rear quarter panels in front of the tires felt pretty potted up from gravel. I was surprised about how much was marked up already, and so I really avoided higher speeds or acceleration until I got the PPE on it.

I dropped the car off today at the detail shop so they could put on the PPE. The guy pointed out that he was surprised at the amount of potting on the rear fenders considering the car was only a month old. Then later I got a call back from them asking if I had bought the car new or used. I told them that it should have been new off the lot. He mentioned that it looked like the right rear quarter panel had been repainted (and not very well done, at that).

Has anybody run into something similar when picking up their new Tesla? Is there a way to get any pre-delivery history on our cars? I'm wondering if there was an accident that they quickly tried to repair, or if this was just some shoddy assembly (I mean, I did pick it up on the last day of the fiscal quarter).

The car had all the newest features (rotating center display, etc.), and supposedly it only had the 14 miles on it (though I'm not sure how easy it is to hack the odometer hack number before delivery), so I can't imagine it was actually used or anything. It was the exact spec I ordered, and I wasn't offered any alternate builds or anything. I didn't see any threads on here regarding pre-delivery repainting via searching.

Kinda upsetting for somebody to ask if the car you just bought brand new was in fact used...Maybe the detail place was just trying to get me to pay for an extra wax or something?

 

[Gixx1300R]

Tesla is going to Deny Deny Deny. Post pics of what you are talking about

 

[jjrandorin]

Brand new cars are repaired all the time by the manufacturer, to fix shipping damage etc. If its under a certain amount, they dont have to disclose it, either. This is not a tesla thing (the BMW port does this all the time, its definitely a thing).

Now, the "quality" of said repairs, is another thing. BMWs (for example) is basically the same as factory installed options. Tesla might not have done such a good job in repairing it.

I think you can have something like paint thickness tests done and see if that panel is different than the rest of the car, and possibly get tesla to pay for repair or something (if you are willing to fight about it, and get a professional opinion that the part you are looking at was definitely re painted etc).

It definitely could have been re painted, and still sold as new, without disclosure though, and again thats not a "tesla" thing, thats a "all car manufacturers" thing. The part that would be a "tesla" thing is the sub standard part of the repair.

 

[K2500Z71]

Unfortunately this happens quite frequently with all makes. Vehicles get damaged in transit, etc. and get repaired. I don’t think the manufacturers have to disclose the damage unless it exceeds a certain $ amount but I’m not sure of the threshold.

 

[strider]

Fairly common in the Refresh MX Delivery thread. Tesla has ZERO QA at the factory. Whatever rolls off the line is shipped and the local Service Centers deal with it. If something is wrong or there is damage in shipping, the local Service Center will fix it. That means they will engage a local body shop to fix any paint problems or shipping damage.

Bottom line is that it is very possible that your car was resprayed by a local body shop before you picked it up but I doubt Tesla will admit to it unless you have a good relationship with them.

Welcome to Tesla!

 

[mswlogo]

My rear quarter panel was repainted by the delivery center. Luckily they painted it pretty well. They were sloppy on the polishing clean up (they didn’t). Never would have known it if they cleaned up after.

Your 14 miles on the OD is a flag it was driven to a body shop and back

 

[Murtaya]

Thanks all--luckily at least I personally couldn't really tell that it was poorly done....at least until the detailer told me. I'm getting the detailer to take all the pictures they can and document what they see.

I was hoping 14 miles at delivery was low (it was below the thresholds that the delivery checklist suggested), but I'm guessing usually it's probably even lower for others. Oh well, I guess I could use it to check a 7-mile radius' worth of paint shops to see if they recognize the car . I should probably also start on the ones that live on gravel roads, judging by all the pottmarks.

That said, probably won't make a big deal about it. Just another quirky Tesla trait, I guess (which will add to the mystique of owning a Tesla...and maybe also the cases against their quality that might come back to bite them in the long run).

 

[Murtaya]

Just to follow up, I here are some of the pictures from the detailer of the paint rework and the hard water spots on the car. Those 14 pre-delivery miles must have been wild.

 

[EMAX]

Count me in as another crappy repaint job...I have already put on tint and had started paint correction. Im going to see what the dealership will do but guys...check your cars over five times before delivery. This stuff should never be happening on a 100k car period....I am probably going to try and wet sand it out and clear bra over it to see if the clear bra texture masks the horrible spray job Tesla did.

Manager was going to call me today to discuss....starting out 0 for 1...no call. Got a message they will send Tesla mobile so somebody can likely make it worse....no thanks. Why does it seem like buying a Tesla compares to buying a brand new 100k car from a shady used car dealer who put saw dust in the tranny to hide the failing transmission.

 

[Cheburashka]

I'm surprised they actually repaired it and didn't try to just sell the damaged car "within Tesla spec". I guess the damage must have been pretty bad and noticeable.

 

[jaeida8]

So I bought my 2022 Model S new and received it on June 30th of this year. I spent an hour going through six pages of checklist items before accepting delivery, and other than the hood making contact with the right headlight, it looked fine. It only had 14 miles on the odometer.

A week after delivery I was washing the car and first noticed that the rear quarter panels in front of the tires felt pretty potted up from gravel. I was surprised about how much was marked up already, and so I really avoided higher speeds or acceleration until I got the PPE on it.

I dropped the car off today at the detail shop so they could put on the PPE. The guy pointed out that he was surprised at the amount of potting on the rear fenders considering the car was only a month old. Then later I got a call back from them asking if I had bought the car new or used. I told them that it should have been new off the lot. He mentioned that it looked like the right rear quarter panel had been repainted (and not very well done, at that).

Has anybody run into something similar when picking up their new Tesla? Is there a way to get any pre-delivery history on our cars? I'm wondering if there was an accident that they quickly tried to repair, or if this was just some shoddy assembly (I mean, I did pick it up on the last day of the fiscal quarter).

The car had all the newest features (rotating center display, etc.), and supposedly it only had the 14 miles on it (though I'm not sure how easy it is to hack the odometer hack number before delivery), so I can't imagine it was actually used or anything. It was the exact spec I ordered, and I wasn't offered any alternate builds or anything. I didn't see any threads on here regarding pre-delivery repainting via searching.

Kinda upsetting for somebody to ask if the car you just bought brand new was in fact used...Maybe the detail place was just trying to get me to pay for an extra wax or something?

A lot of issues with my new S's paint. Something seemed to have happened to the driver's side rear quarter panel. Bare metal visible under the wheel well, bare metal clear coated over, primer clear coated over, etc. Also noted some type of rock chip clear coat damage on the passenger side of the car that was touched up by covering it with some type of cheap touch up that easily came off. Car has now been at the body shop for about 6 weeks. I'm hoping the car looks brand new without any perceptible panel differences when I get it back (allegedly next week).

 

[Watts_Up]

I was thinking about those videos "Tesla Fremont Flyover - Refresh S' Everywhere"

All those Tesla waiting for parts must have been finaly updated and found a new home.
But I imagine that some of them might had suffer from been not stored propely.

 

[Ziddy]

Just to follow up, I here are some of the pictures from the detailer of the paint rework and the hard water spots on the car. Those 14 pre-delivery miles must have been wild.
View attachment 838216View attachment 838220

Is it hard to remove water marks?

 

[yerEVan]

Happened to my 22 MY. Driver door was poorly repainted. By the time I found out, I was passed the 100 miles. They denied it and said maybe I had it repainted. Got wrap done (clear PPF). hides it well.

 

[2101Guy]

Is it hard to remove water marks?

no. Claybar works for me in seconds.

 

[jaeida8]

Happened to my 22 MY. Driver door was poorly repainted. By the time I found out, I was passed the 100 miles. They denied it and said maybe I had it repainted. Got wrap done (clear PPF). hides it well.

That's terrible. I'm lucky I hand-washed my car and looked over it in detail before 100 miles.

 

[Murtaya]

Is it hard to remove water marks?

It can depend on how hard the water is, how long the spots have been there, etc. I don’t think these spots were there long enough to be too difficult to remove.