Tesla Fights Deer. DFW Body Shop Advice Needed.

[andystj]

While driving near Canyon Lake this weekend, a deer decided to pick a fight. The deer lost, but she did leave her mark. There is a tear in the front bumper along with some damage to the hood. Fortunately, she did not take out a headlight or the windshield, so the car drove back to Allen with no issues, warnings or problems.

Advice needed regarding Body Shop choice. I understand that John Eagle Collision in Dallas and Trade Secret in Plano are the two Tesla Authorized shops. Trade Secret is more convenient, but Yelp! seems to indicate delays and an unwillingness to let me keep the car while parts are on order.

The car is definitely driveable. We recently ditched our spare ICE, so I don't have a backup vehicle. I'd much rather drive my Tesla than a rental. Moreover, I don't have rental coverage since I always had a spare until last month. Sigh.

Anyone keep their Tesla while waiting for parts for cosmetic body work? Who did you use?

Thanks,
Andy

 

[mark]

I used trade secret - I think the Tesla parts backlog is better now - they would know. It was bad last year - waited 6 weeks for a headlight.
I don't think it was the shop at fault.

 

[bollar]

Most of our members report John Eagle is a better experience (such as it is).

 

[andystj]

Most of our members report John Eagle is a better experience (such as it is).

Thanks.

 

[zwede]

I had a bad experience with trade secret (another car, not the Tesla).

 

[JMG]

Trade Secret = no beuno.

They completely lied to me, provable by my Tesla app. They held onto my car for about a week solid, and I watched it every morning get moved out of the back lot into a front parking space (that is another thing against them, they are so tight on space, they park cars in their front parking lot). And then every day at 5 (or 6, whenever they closed) they would pull it back into the back lot for the night. It was never worked on once, even though we waited about 3-4 weeks so they could get the part in and clear up their schedule.

When I played dumb and emailed my point of contact about it to see "how things are progressing". He replied back with some baloney about "It's going slowly, its a bit harder because its the left side where the power port is. blah blah". I so replied back, "Interesting, because it appears that it's never been inside a bay yet. It's pulled out first thing in the morning, not moved all day, and then back in the rear parking lot at the end of the day. It's done this for a week now. I assume your techs are not working on it in the front public parking lot, am I correct?"

No reply, but 15 minutes later it was moved into a bay and was charging with doors open. He never even acknowledged that email.

The straw that broke the camels back, after many more back and forth emails. Several promises of "should be done by <date>" and then that date comes and goes, finally they fess up and say "Umm. Tesla sent us the wrong quarter panel." I am furious because this means that they lied and were never working on it when they said they were. If so, they would've noticed weeks ago that the quarter panel was wrong. So now we had to reorder parts and wait for Tesla...again.

So needless to say, IF I ever need a body shop again (and I sure hope I never do) I'm not taking it back to Trade Secret.

 

[Rockster]

I've had two Tesla repairs at Trade Secret and one done at John Eagle and this is what I experienced:

Trade Secret:

• It's true that they have outgrown their facilities (and are actively looking to expand/relocate). This results in cars being shuffled all around their facility.
  
• They can be slow. Whether the delay is parts related or just their backlog or slowness, I can't specify. They're not super fast.
• Even though they're really nice there, they can sometimes be poor at communicating the status of repairs. Either no communication or incorrect status, there were times I was frustrated waiting for a clear picture of what was going on.
  
• The quality of their work was great. My MC Red repairs were well matched and carefully done.

John Eagle:
The repair to my MC Red MS done at John Eagle was horrid. Really bad orange peel along with paint runs, drips, and bubbling. They got overspray on the glass and on the rubber in numerous places. It appeared as though they gave a can of spray paint to a toddler with instructions to paint my car.

In short, comparing three repair experiences on MC Red Model S's, I may have been a little frustrated at the less than stellar communication and slow turnaround at Trade Secret but the work was done well. In very sharp contrast, I wouldn't let John Eagle paint my child's red wagon.

 

[Boourns]

Resurrecting this thread. Are John Eagle and Trade Secret still the only game in town? I have a relatively small scrape on my 3 that I would like to have looked at.

 

[mark]

My S has been held hostage at John Eagle for 3.5 months. I have had better (but still slow) experiences at trade secret.

 

[Rockster]

Tesla's site now lists a number of shops in the area when I search for the Frisco, TX area:

Body Shop Support

The site now says something about "light body repair," so maybe they're bringing more shops on board but limiting what some of them can do? Not sure.

 

[Boourns]

Interesting. I'll look into Service King and Parkwood Collision.

 

[CarlW]

I damaged the right rear quarter panel.on my Model S and it needs to be replaced. My GEICO rep seems very good. If I use one of their partner shops that is on the Tesla approved list, they negotiate everything, guararantee the repairs, etc. The closest GEICO partner Tesla approved shop is Gerber Collision and Glass in Carrollton. (actually it's the Gerber shop on King George near Love Field, but it said the repair is something that needs to be done by its Carrollton shop). I just learned that Tesla has opened its own body repair shop in Dallas "for minor repairs" only. Questions: Anyone have experience with Gerber working on your Tesla? Any chance replacing the rear quarter panel is something Tesla's new Dallas shop can do? (I'm guessing not since Gerber is sending me to one of its more specialized shops).