# Victim of (someone elses) Auto Summon



## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

My wife came out to her Model 3 after work today to find a note on the windshield: "My self backing car messed up....."

After calling the gentlemen, it turns out he also has a Model 3 and was attempting to use auto summon, apparently for the first time.

He wants me to use a local body shop rather than taking it to Tesla (it's a two hour drive for us). Any thoughts on that?


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

I had very similar damage from road debris and replaced the bumper cover and hood. Independent body shop's estimate $4,500. Tesla's estimate and actual final $1,100. No complaints. At any rate, the choice is yours; don't let the at- fault driver pressure you to use a shop you don't want to.


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## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

FRC said:


> I had very similar damage from road debris and replaced the bumper cover and hood. Independent body shop's estimate $4,500. Tesla's estimate and actual final $1,100. No complaints. At any rate, the choice is yours; don't let the at- fault driver pressure you to use a shop you don't want to.


Ok, will check with them too. He's an insurance agent and seems to think Tesla is marking up body work 30 to 40%.


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## Enginerd (Aug 28, 2017)

Any chance of TeslaCam footage? In addition to evidence for your insurance claim, it might also help those of us amateur Smart Summoners (aren't we all?) avoid a similar mistake.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

It's too difficult to see in the photos because of the lighting whether the crease in the front quarter panel has been crushed. It doesn't look like it from the photos, and if that's accurate, you might be able to get a good paintless dent removal pro to handle it (the area is indeed accessible by removing the cowling behind it). I've seen worse plastic bumpers repaired so it looks like nothing happened, so that's the least thing to worry about.

This is close enough to easy to repair that I would suggest getting an estimate before calling insurance. It would be silly if you have something like a $1000 deductible, and the repairs are $1100, so the insurance pays $100 and then dings your insurance rate (and the car's value) worse then the car.


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## FogNoggin (Mar 19, 2019)

I smell a cover up. I would hope there's cam footage from one of the cars involved. I feel the other guy messed up and blamed it on his car. What a time to be alive.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

I think a lot of the body is aluminum. With my Audi most local body shops can't handle the aluminum. You might be stuck with the Tesla body shop.


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Madmolecule said:


> I think a lot of the body is aluminum. With my Audi most local body shops can't handle the aluminum. You might be stuck with the Tesla body shop.


on the 3, most of the body aluminum is on the movable parts (doors, trunk, frunk) and the stationary things are steel 
(going from memory of the colored diagrams released way back - so could be remembering wrong).


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

MelindaV said:


> on the 3, most of the body aluminum is on the movable parts (doors, trunk, frunk) and the stationary things are steel
> (going from memory of the colored diagrams released way back - so could be remembering wrong).


 On Mdl 3 - the front bonnet (frunk) and side doors are aluminum. The rear trunk lid is steel.

ANY competent body shop can straighten and smooth aluminum.


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## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

JasonF said:


> It's too difficult to see in the photos because of the lighting whether the crease in the front quarter panel has been crushed.


The fender right behind the joint of the front piece is buckled slightly, haven't put a ruler on it but it's noticeable, and yes, the metal on the front is actually "crinkled" a little, it's going to take some skill to get that right. Hopefully they just replace that panel, I'm guessing component parts are less than labor on something like that?


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## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

Enginerd said:


> Any chance of TeslaCam footage? In addition to evidence for your insurance claim, it might also help those of us amateur Smart Summoners (aren't we all?) avoid a similar mistake.


Sadly, the sentry cam option was off.... and the regular footage "rolled over" due to the size of the memory stick. I've rectified that, got the big Samsung on the way now. It seems we are having trouble with that car retaining it's settings. I've turned on sentry and "lock" modes, but they don't seem to stay set. Unless those are also tied to the driver profile, I need to call Tesla about why that is happening.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

fritter63 said:


> The fender right behind the joint of the front piece is buckled slightly, haven't put a ruler on it but it's noticeable, and yes, the metal on the front is actually "crinkled" a little, it's going to take some skill to get that right. Hopefully they just replace that panel, I'm guessing component parts are less than labor on something like that?


It's not so much whether the metal is crinkled as if the normal crease in the metal has been "squished" that decides whether or not they can use paintless dent removal. They generally can't make creases appear factory - but they can handle both flat and sculpted metal surfaces.

If not, it's parts, paint, and labor at a body shop. If you go to Tesla, I believe they would order the quarter panel and bumper pre-painted, and the cost would be parts plus labor.


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## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

JasonF said:


> It's not so much whether the metal is crinkled as if the normal crease in the metal has been "squished" that decides whether or not they can use paintless dent removal. They generally can't make creases appear factory - but they can handle both flat and sculpted metal surfaces.
> .


I have lots of experience with paintless dent removal (lived in Denver hail storms for 20 years). This aint it!


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

Klaus-rf said:


> On Mdl 3 - the front bonnet (frunk) and side doors are aluminum. The rear trunk lid is steel.
> 
> ANY competent body shop can straighten and smooth aluminum.


That has not been my experience in Atlanta with my aluminums A7 Audi. One would think if they can handle steel they should be able to work on aluminum. I even was forced to take my car to Liberty's approved repair shop, only to have it moved to Audi's approved shop a few days later because of the aluminum. My car came new with a dent to the qtr panel. They had it repaired at a Tesla approved shop. I did not check with other shops to see if they could of handled it. Since I was paying I wasn't concern except for the fact that they disconnected by remote access so I had no idea what shop was actually working on it. It did suck purchasing a new car with a dent, but it was just part of my delivery hell.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

fritter63 said:


> I have lots of experience with paintless dent removal (lived in Denver hail storms for 20 years). This aint it!


Depends on the person working on it. I once had a fist-sized dent caused by something in my garage falling over onto the front right quarter panel on a car I had years ago. It had similar lines around the front wheel to the Model 3, so an angled crease, and a flatter area. The pro got the dent removed no problem.


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

fritter63 said:


> and the regular footage "rolled over" due to the size of the memory stick.


regardless of disk size, only the last 60 minutes is saved


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## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

quick update, local bodyshop quoted $1898 with a TON of caveats, as in not the final price, not sure how or if they can do the recalibration of sensors, might have to still ship it to Tesla, etc. And that's for metal work and repaint of the dents. 5 day job.

Tesla quoted me $2398, replace panels with new factory painted, and 1 day job.

Perp has decided to use his insurance. We'll be going with Tesla.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

It's smart going with Tesla in this case, because their estimate is likely to be the _final_ price. If the other shop has to ship the car to Tesla for calibration, that's $400 in flatbed towing costs (it's unlikely their shop insurance would allow them to drive it), plus $175/hr at the Tesla Service Center. If the process takes only an hour, that's already higher than Tesla's estimate.


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## Gatornail (Apr 11, 2017)

When my car was hit in the parking lot back in August, the Tesla certified body shop here in Louisville (no other shops would even give an estimate) had it from October 7 until YESTERDAY! The final bill came to over $8K! It was pretty much a nightmare (the timeframe was not completely the body shop's fault due to my insurance company taking a week to approve the first supplement, but it was awful having to drive an ICE again for a more than a month. ) Hopefully yours won't be as bad as mine was.


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## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

Gatornail said:


> When my car was hit in the parking lot back in August, the Tesla certified body shop here in Louisville (no other shops would even give an estimate) had it from October 7 until YESTERDAY! The final bill came to over $8K! It was pretty much a nightmare (the timeframe was not completely the body shop's fault due to my insurance company taking a week to approve the first supplement, but it was awful having to drive an ICE again for a more than a month. ) Hopefully yours won't be as bad as mine was.


Damage must have been much worse!


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## Gatornail (Apr 11, 2017)

They had to replace the rear bumper and rear quarter panel, and one wheel. Apparently they had to take practically the whole car apart (removing the back seat and headliner inside the car) in order to properly get to work on the parts that needed replacing. Plus, the battery had to be completely discharged for them to safely get the work done. At least that’s what they charged for anyway. Also, the new bumper came in raw, so they had to paint and blend paint on adjacent parts. I’m just REALLY GLAD to have my car back.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

Gatornail said:


> They had to replace the rear bumper and rear quarter panel, and one wheel. Apparently they had to take practically the whole car apart (removing the back seat and headliner inside the car) in order to properly get to work on the parts that needed replacing. Plus, the battery had to be completely discharged for them to safely get the work done. At least that's what they charged for anyway. Also, the new bumper came in raw, so they had to paint and blend paint on adjacent parts. I'm just REALLY GLAD to have my car back.


I was doing so much cringing reading that...whatever body shop that is, it's _really_ scary.

If they removed the back seat, they could have easily disconnected and isolated the battery. Discharging the battery fully like...ugh.

But after all of that, what scares me most is if they were shocked that they had to paint the bumper...


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## fritter63 (Nov 9, 2018)

Update/correction, after talking with the adjuster, the offending vehicle was a 2017 Model S, not a Model 3.


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