Tesla model 3 accident

[yamanote]

Yes, I agree, it's not for everyone to hassle with a salvage value buyback from insurance but if it's not totaled I don't think the owner has to worry about any diminished value. In other words, if insurance repairs it, he/she should be fine.

Any accident that shows up on Carfax will negatively diminish the car's value. To what extent depends on the exact amount of damage- but there is no scenario where an accident on Carfax will not impact the value. Especially in this case where the repair bill would be upwards of $25-30,000.

Regardless, there is little doubt that this car is totaled.

 

[dmurphy]

Any accident that shows up on Carfax will negatively diminish the car's value. To what extent depends on the exact amount of damage- but there is no scenario where an accident on Carfax will not impact the value. Especially in this case where the repair bill would be upwards of $25-30,000.

Regardless, there is little doubt that this car is totaled.

Yup ...

Had a deer hit last year that caused $21k in damage to our Buick. That was immediately on the CarFax report - before the repairs even started - and dropped the book value on the car from $34k to $17k. In other words, by repairing and not totaling the vehicle, the book value of the car became less than the repair cost. Insurance wins, I lose.

So yes -- totaling out is the best bet here. I expect it to be, and that's definitely in the owner's favor.

 

[BritneySpears]

Yup ...

Had a deer hit last year that caused $21k in damage to our Buick. That was immediately on the CarFax report - before the repairs even started - and dropped the book value on the car from $34k to $17k. In other words, by repairing and not totaling the vehicle, the book value of the car became less than the repair cost. Insurance wins, I lose.

So yes -- totaling out is the best bet here. I expect it to be, and that's definitely in the owner's favor.

Oh, wow, didn't know carfax can find out about those kinds of things. Seems sort of like that should be private information between insurance co and customer, but that's a different subject. Thanks for that info.

 

[thewallaby]

Can't see details from the photos but it looks like B pillar is saved. So the damage if front axel/sus, 2 doors and panel. Not a totalled from the photos but a detailed investigation will show. I took my S that had both panels behind C pillars smashed, both doors and rear bumper and they still fixed it as new. 30k repairs though

 

[BritneySpears]

Can't see details from the photos but it looks like B pillar is saved. So the damage if front axel/sus, 2 doors and panel. Not a totalled from the photos but a detailed investigation will show. I took my S that had both panels behind C pillars smashed, both doors and rear bumper and they still fixed it as new. 30k repairs though

This kind of stuff is a curiosity to me... B pillar could be fine but my guess is ins will total it anyway because it's highly probably it bent slightly. It'd be hard to tell unless measured on a bench but my guess is they don't want to spend money on that and then find it's no good. Apron, fender support, and strut tower area could also be damaged.

 

[dmurphy]

Oh, wow, didn't know carfax can find out about those kinds of things. Seems sort of like that should be private information between insurance co and customer, but that's a different subject. Thanks for that info.

Not at all. If the police department shows up, CarFax will get a record.
If the insurance company is involved, they get a record.
Most body and repair shops also participate with CarFax.

I really sincerely hope the Model 3 above is totaled. It did its job - it protected the life and limb of its passengers.


For comparison in what happens when it's NOT totaled ... here's the CarFax record from our deer accident last year ....

CarFax record of the damage:


The damaged vehicle:


After repair (4 months later) (looks good, right? Except for the deer-twisted license plate ...):


Repair costs - plus $900 in towing plus $1,000 for my car rental:


Well... after repair, the HVAC failed. Then the power steering failed. Then we found the subframe was twisted (and supposedly repaired) -- but that makes the vehicle basically salvage in the eyes of any reputable car dealer. Couldn't sell it anywhere except a shady "buy here pay here" used car lot. So we did that and bought a Model X instead.

It was 5 months, 4 tow trucks, 2 body shops, 1 bankruptcy (the first body shop), 1 factory strike, $21,000 of insurance money ... and I STILL sold the vehicle for a $10k+ loss.

 

[Sensae]

Not at all. If the police department shows up, CarFax will get a record.
If the insurance company is involved, they get a record.
Most body and repair shops also participate with CarFax.

I really sincerely hope the Model 3 above is totaled. It did its job - it protected the life and limb of its passengers.


For comparison in what happens when it's NOT totaled ... here's the CarFax record from our deer accident last year ....

CarFax record of the damage:
View attachment 613862

The damaged vehicle:
View attachment 613863

After repair (4 months later) (looks good, right? Except for the deer-twisted license plate ...):
View attachment 613864

Repair costs - plus $900 in towing plus $1,000 for my car rental:
View attachment 613865

Well... after repair, the HVAC failed. Then the power steering failed. Then we found the subframe was twisted (and supposedly repaired) -- but that makes the vehicle basically salvage in the eyes of any reputable car dealer. Couldn't sell it anywhere except a shady "buy here pay here" used car lot. So we did that and bought a Model X instead.

It was 5 months, 4 tow trucks, 2 body shops, 1 bankruptcy (the first body shop), 1 factory strike, $21,000 of insurance money ... and I STILL sold the vehicle for a $10k+ loss.

Man, I feel for you. Thanks for sharing your story and I appreciate the heads up. Your experience is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I feel that if they were to fix the vehicle there will always be underlying issues in the future that are not immediatley known. As a result, this might cause me to lose more time and money down the road. As of right now, I am still waiting on the shops estimate once they do a thorough inspection.

 

[RC2785]

Dont worry about dealing with the other insurance, just give their insurance details to your insurance and they will take care of it for you.

 

[SlimJim]

What a headache. I am glad everyone is OK.

 

[RL-TheDude]

Not at all. If the police department shows up, CarFax will get a record.
If the insurance company is involved, they get a record.
Most body and repair shops also participate with CarFax.

I really sincerely hope the Model 3 above is totaled. It did its job - it protected the life and limb of its passengers.


For comparison in what happens when it's NOT totaled ... here's the CarFax record from our deer accident last year ....

CarFax record of the damage:
View attachment 613862

The damaged vehicle:
View attachment 613863

After repair (4 months later) (looks good, right? Except for the deer-twisted license plate ...):
View attachment 613864

Repair costs - plus $900 in towing plus $1,000 for my car rental:
View attachment 613865

Well... after repair, the HVAC failed. Then the power steering failed. Then we found the subframe was twisted (and supposedly repaired) -- but that makes the vehicle basically salvage in the eyes of any reputable car dealer. Couldn't sell it anywhere except a shady "buy here pay here" used car lot. So we did that and bought a Model X instead.

It was 5 months, 4 tow trucks, 2 body shops, 1 bankruptcy (the first body shop), 1 factory strike, $21,000 of insurance money ... and I STILL sold the vehicle for a $10k+ loss.

Another argument in support of leasing with minimal money down,,,

 

[thewallaby]

Another argument in support of leasing with minimal money down,,,

You might be right but if you put 0 money down on a M3LR the month fee is 980dollars... in 3 years you end up paying 36000 dollars for a car. I d rather take the risk of losing 10000 dollars on a 45000 car than guarantee of losing it through a lease...
Get a good high tier insurance instead. Where i live it is mandatory, even for new cars.

 

[valaeyron]

Man, I feel for you. Thanks for sharing your story and I appreciate the heads up. Your experience is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I feel that if they were to fix the vehicle there will always be underlying issues in the future that are not immediatley known. As a result, this might cause me to lose more time and money down the road. As of right now, I am still waiting on the shops estimate once they do a thorough inspection.

Exactly. The other year a drunk driver t-boned my wife’s year old car - she was OK (after a year of bad headaches) but when speaking to the adjuster, he said it could go either way - repair or totaled. I asked him to please consider that with frame damage, no matter how good the repair it would not be as strong as before...and I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting my family in it again..land would feel terrible selling it immediately and putting someone else’s family in it.

He totaled it.

 

[Sensae]

Exactly. The other year a drunk driver t-boned my wife’s year old car - she was OK (after a year of bad headaches) but when speaking to the adjuster, he said it could go either way - repair or totaled. I asked him to please consider that with frame damage, no matter how good the repair it would not be as strong as before...and I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting my family in it again..land would feel terrible selling it immediately and putting someone else’s family in it.

He totaled it.

Thanks for sharing your story and for advice. I'm glad your wife is ok and hopefully she made a full recovery. I thought we would be fine a day after the accident but, boy was I wrong. We're feeling the effects now experincing neck pains, constant headaches, lower and upper back pains.

If there is frame damages to the vehicle, I just hope the adjuster can emphatize with us for the very same reasons you mentioned above. Of not wanting to put your family or another family in the vehicle.

 

[BritneySpears]

Exactly. The other year a drunk driver t-boned my wife’s year old car - she was OK (after a year of bad headaches) but when speaking to the adjuster, he said it could go either way - repair or totaled. I asked him to please consider that with frame damage, no matter how good the repair it would not be as strong as before...and I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting my family in it again..land would feel terrible selling it immediately and putting someone else’s family in it.

He totaled it.

Sorry to read about wife getting injured... I just want to comment on "frame damage" and how I think it's less appropriate today than it was 50 years ago and so there's a much more limited issue with it. The term was derived in the days when cars were built on a frame and if the collision damaged the frame at one location it could have damaged the frame in other locations. It's much less so on unibody cars. In most cases the damage you see to unibody elements is where the damage occurred. Sheet metal bends and absorbs impact energy. Stiff "frame" built cars transfer energy and don't absorb or crush very well. It's still unlikely that "frame damage" to a unibody construction car will get repaired though. Likely it gets totaled. In Teslas the unibody is mostly rivet-bonded (at least in the crash areas I've seen in my experience). The specialized labor cost to repair that kind of damage easily goes in the tens of thousands. However, it is a valid repair if your "frame" gets repaired and you shouldn't have to worry about some overall, bent unibody that will cause future problems or that it's not as strong as before. Key body elements can be easily measured to determine a unibody is within correct position. Too strong or too stiff of a repair is also a problem as load travels through the stiffest member but if the repair is done per spec that won't be a problem.

And as others have written, carfax will screw you anyway if there's a repair so that has to be considered.

 

[DopeGhoti]

With all the talk on the previous page about the option to repair under a Salvage title, the OP should be aware that Tesla has been establishing a clear policy of disabling Supercharging and in some cases all DCFC on Teslas with Salvage titles.

 

[BritneySpears]

With all the talk on the previous page about the option to repair under a Salvage title, the OP should be aware that Tesla has been establishing a clear policy of disabling Supercharging and in some cases all DCFC on Teslas with Salvage titles.

To be clear, yes, if the owner accepts the payout, totaling the car, and buys it back from ins for the salvage value and then subsequently repairs it him/herself. Most people won't do that though. If it's repaired and not totaled it won't get branded "salvage" but it seems carfax and others will still hurt the value as the repair gets posted.

 

[KenC]

Not at all. If the police department shows up, CarFax will get a record.
If the insurance company is involved, they get a record.
Most body and repair shops also participate with CarFax.

I really sincerely hope the Model 3 above is totaled. It did its job - it protected the life and limb of its passengers.

For comparison in what happens when it's NOT totaled ... here's the CarFax record from our deer accident last year ....

CarFax record of the damage:
View attachment 613862

The damaged vehicle:
View attachment 613863

After repair (4 months later) (looks good, right? Except for the deer-twisted license plate ...):
View attachment 613864

Repair costs - plus $900 in towing plus $1,000 for my car rental:
View attachment 613865

Well... after repair, the HVAC failed. Then the power steering failed. Then we found the subframe was twisted (and supposedly repaired) -- but that makes the vehicle basically salvage in the eyes of any reputable car dealer. Couldn't sell it anywhere except a shady "buy here pay here" used car lot. So we did that and bought a Model X instead.

It was 5 months, 4 tow trucks, 2 body shops, 1 bankruptcy (the first body shop), 1 factory strike, $21,000 of insurance money ... and I STILL sold the vehicle for a $10k+ loss.

Wow, just wow! That's like you hit a moose! One of those life experiences you hope to forget over time.

I got hit by a deer, as it ran into the side of my 2016 Chevy Volt, damaged both doors, which got replaced, only about $3500 in damage. I traded that car in to Tesla for my Model 3, and when I did the trade-in self evaluation, I noted that it had had accident damage. Presumably, they checked the VIN thru CarFax. Anyhow, in hindsight, I guess I got lucky because my trade-in amount $18,000 was pretty fair for a '16 Volt with a clean history.

 

[imola.zhp]

Not sure you'll need to worry about diminished value, that car looks totaled.

 

[BritneySpears]

Not at all. If the police department shows up, CarFax will get a record.
If the insurance company is involved, they get a record.
Most body and repair shops also participate with CarFax.

I really sincerely hope the Model 3 above is totaled. It did its job - it protected the life and limb of its passengers.


For comparison in what happens when it's NOT totaled ... here's the CarFax record from our deer accident last year ....

CarFax record of the damage:
View attachment 613862

The damaged vehicle:
View attachment 613863

After repair (4 months later) (looks good, right? Except for the deer-twisted license plate ...):
View attachment 613864

Repair costs - plus $900 in towing plus $1,000 for my car rental:
View attachment 613865

Well... after repair, the HVAC failed. Then the power steering failed. Then we found the subframe was twisted (and supposedly repaired) -- but that makes the vehicle basically salvage in the eyes of any reputable car dealer. Couldn't sell it anywhere except a shady "buy here pay here" used car lot. So we did that and bought a Model X instead.

It was 5 months, 4 tow trucks, 2 body shops, 1 bankruptcy (the first body shop), 1 factory strike, $21,000 of insurance money ... and I STILL sold the vehicle for a $10k+ loss.

I think your pics are a good study of what totals a car and what doesn't. Pretty much everything that got bent in your pics is remove/replace. It looks like it was all radiator support, radiator a/c condenser + bunch of other small brackets. If anything at the root of all these supports got dislocated, like at the firewall, it would be totaled.

 

[dmurphy]

I think your pics are a good study of what totals a car and what doesn't. Pretty much everything that got bent in your pics is remove/replace. It looks like it was all radiator support, radiator a/c condenser + bunch of other small brackets. If anything at the root of all these supports got dislocated, like at the firewall, it would be totaled.

I agree with you -- and I use it as a classic example of why airbag deployments don't ever "automatically" mean a vehicle is totaled. The cost of the airbag module, the SRS controller, and all new seatbelts PLUS all the body and mechanical work was still less than the cost to total. (and yes - mostly bent up as you said - except for the A-pillar damage, the door damage, the subframe damage and the fan module being pushed against the engine.)

Thing is .... what they didn't tell me was that the subframe had been twisted. They straightened it out on a jig and called it a day. Had I known that, I would've fought the insurance adjuster much, much harder to get it totaled. I learned the subframe was pulled after the fact .......

When I tried to sell the thing (after the HVAC failed and then the power steering failed) ... the first place I took it up put it up on a lift, and called me in to take a look a few minutes later. He was kind enough to point out the points where it was straightened. In his words, "Technically, this isn't 'frame' damage, because it's the 'sub frame'... but it's enough that I can't sell it certified. Between that, the airbag deployment and all the body work, there's nothing we can do with it ... I can't sell the used ones on the lot as it is, let alone something with all this damage."

That was all I needed to want out of the vehicle -- and now. It's somewhat irrational, but I just could never trust it again. I'm sure whomever is driving it right now got the bargain of a lifetime and is blissfully happy with it. But that wasn't me, wasn't ever going to BE me, and I wasn't going to ever trust putting my family in its care ever again.

I let my heart speak instead of my wallet. Sometimes you have to go with the gut - I know full well it wasn't the most financially sound move (and I'm sure the Dave Ramseys of the world are banging their head against the wall hearing this ...) but I couldn't keep it. Just couldn't do it.