Vandalised Battery Pack

[katbc]

Has anyone heard of battery packs being vandalised? It's not unusual for us to see multiple sentry events when getting back to the car, however sometimes there are so many (and it would take hours to sit through them, although now with the latest update you can see the red dot of what triggered the recording) and what we tend to do is walk around the car and look for damage, if there is none then we don't bother checking all the sentry events and we delete them.
However.. we sadly now realise we've never thought to look at the underside of the car.

We just lifted the car up to rotate the wheels, and to our horror found huge damage to the battery pack and the black plastic panel that lines the outside edge of the battery pack.
Our first thought was that we ran over something, but the amount of damage suggests we definitely would have felt it. Also and more telling, there are no scrape marks, like if you went over something and had to reverse off it, or continue over it, there was nothing like that. The marks are on both sides, near the back wheels, and they are also the same distance in from the lateral edges of the car, like someone jacked it up but didn't use the proper jack adapter (the little hockey puck looking thing), and just jacked in right on the battery!
So maybe someone tried to take the wheels? But no damage there.. you'd think you'd see the little caps pulled off or broken right?
Has anyone heard of people jacking the car on the battery pack to vandalise the battery? I don't mean to sound cynical, but we can't figure it out, nor can our friends. It's going to get looked at soon so they might have seen something similar before and recognise it?
We are stumped, and pretty devastated. Even though we have insurance, it's just hard to see that amount of damage (and on an 8 month on car!).
We are also trying to recover the deleted sentry events but it's not looking promising.

 

[wtwieder]

Have you had wheels changed on your car? Damage to the battery pack can happen when the car gets lifted improperly.

 

[katbc]

Only by us when we changed from winter tires, and we used the correct technique. The damage wasn't there then, so we know it happened between then and now (it hasn't been in a shop or anything).

 

[MP3Mike]

Do you have any pictures of the damage?

 

[zhu-]

Are you seeing damage near the jack points? There's been multiple posts here of mangled jack points from possibly improper transport from the factory.

 

[KenC]

Pics, please, and are you absolutely sure it wasn't delivered that way?

Seems like a lot of effort for petty vandalism.

 

[katbc]

An update. After A LOT of investigation, we confirmed the following: A tow truck picked it up not using the jackpoints or wheel dolly, and then put it back down. We don't know which tow company it was, or why it happened. The repair autobody shop and some other professionals opinions guessed it might have been a case of mistaken identity - ie: they got the wrong car, maybe a repo, or they thought is was illegally parked but then realised it wasn't. It really was the strangest thing to happen. The repair was made to the underside of the battery and the side panels that were warped. I'll include photos. I'm updating this because I'm about to make a post on what happened to the car last Friday. What a string of bad luck we've had! Anyway, I'll try add the photos in case anyone wants to know what happens when your car gets lifted by a tow truck incorrectly.

 

[katbc]

 

[katbc]

 

[camalaio]

Thanks for following up, that doesn't happen often!

Intentional battery vandalism is something I'd almost never expect, and this makes a lot more sense now. Unfortunately, it happens to vehicles aside from just battery electric vehicles and tow companies get away with it quite a bit.

 

[zhu-]

The repair autobody shop and some other professionals opinions guessed it might have been a case of mistaken identity - ie: they got the wrong car, maybe a repo, or they thought is was illegally parked but then realised it wasn't.
View attachment 607422

Another possibility could be that they did intend on towing your vehicle for whatever reason, realized they damaged the vehicle and stopped to not be liable for damages.

 

[LionXng]

Dropping the car and leaving after doing damage sounds exactly like what a shady tow truck driver would do.

 

[freeAgent]

Dropping the car and leaving after doing damage sounds exactly like what a shady tow truck driver would do.

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all that a tow truck driver would be careless and damage the car, then realize they did so and just put it back down and run away. They were (are) so bad in Chicago, that there's even a song about the "Lincoln Park Pirates" aka Lincoln Towing.

 

[karbomusic]

An update. After A LOT of investigation, we confirmed the following: A tow truck picked it up not using the jackpoints or wheel dolly, and then put it back down.
View attachment 607422

I'm guess the Sentry footage of that wasn't realized/found in time? Would have been nice to show up to the towing company with video. :0

 

[XLR82XS]

Nothing malicious here. Rocker plastic bowing is common - happened to my 2020 shortly after delviery.
The scrape on the underside is an impact of some kind - most likely something in the road you didn't notice.

 

[Halldawg]

We have had some catalytic converters cut out of cars here recently that were left overnight in a parking lot. Probably not related, but who knows?

 

[zhu-]

Having looked more at the photos it doesn't appear obviously to be tow truck damage. Did anybody go over a speed bump too fast?

 

[katbc]

Nothing malicious here. Rocker plastic bowing is common - happened to my 2020 shortly after delviery.
The scrape on the underside is an impact of some kind - most likely something in the road you didn't notice.

You clearly didn't read the whole thread. It was a tow truck.

 

[katbc]

Having looked more at the photos it doesn't appear obviously to be tow truck damage. Did anybody go over a speed bump too fast?

It was confirmed by multiple professionals that is wasn't something we drove over or there would be scrapes is certain areas. All marks were equal distance from the outside edges and the back wheels. The all said a tow truck.

 

[katbc]

I'm guess the Sentry footage of that wasn't realized/found in time? Would have been nice to show up to the towing company with video. :0

Correct. It would have been fantastic to take them to it and ask them to educated themselves in the future about a) towing a tesla, and b) checking they have the right car. Lucky insurance covered the financial side of things.