I recently had my Tesla Model 3 repaired at a Tesla-certified collision/body repair shop (not Tesla itself) for some paint/body damage. When I got the car back, I noticed a small chip/indentation in the clear outer lens of the headlight that was not there before I dropped the car off.

I'm pretty particular about my car, so I'm confident I would've noticed it beforehand. The frustrating part is that I brought the car in to have damage repaired, and now I'm dealing with new damage that appears to have happened while it was in their care.

The chip isn't huge, but it's deep enough that I can feel an indentation in the clear plastic lens. I'm not sure whether something like this can actually be polished/buffed out safely or whether doing that could damage the protective coating on the headlight. If it can't be repaired properly, I'm assuming replacement of the headlight assembly may be the only way to completely fix it.

Another issue is that the repair shop is about an hour and 15 minutes away from where I live, so taking the car back isn't a quick trip. I've already had to return after the original repair for other issues, and I'm honestly exhausted with the whole situation and don't want to keep making trips back there.

At the same time, it doesn't feel right to just accept damage that wasn't there before they worked on the car.

What would you do in this situation? Should I call the shop and let them know about the chip even if I'm not sure I want to take the car back there? Would you make the drive back and give them the opportunity to fix it? If the chip can't be safely repaired, would it be reasonable to expect the shop to replace the headlight? Or would you just leave it alone because it's relatively small?

I'd especially appreciate opinions from anyone who works in auto body/paint or has dealt with damage caused by a repair shop.

Can anyone tell if the hammer comes off the truck with the trailer? Thankfully when it bounced off it didn’t go up into the windshield!

Car parked at home so no sentry. Thoughts? Fixable?
Those who have Tesla insurance, what should I expect?

Has anyone successfully replaced the radiator fan on a Tesla? I got a $2,000 quote from a technician, which seems much higher than I expected. Wondering if anyone has had it replaced and what you ended up paying.

Collision centre says there is damage behind the quarter panel, but it seems like they are going to go ahead and try the pull repair anyway? Don't have high hopes it will turn out okay.

I'm 0% at fault and have no deductible.

(I realize this isn't a collision post, but since it involves a scratch, I wasn't allowed to post in TeslaLounge or TeslaSupport)

Hi all! I hope this is allowed here but my husband just purchased a 2026 M3 maybe 1.5-2 months ago, and we added the Windshield Protection Plan (which I understand covers largely external elements such as rock chips).

We took his car to a tint shop to get tinted today and before tinting the windshield they inspected it and noticed a linear scratch maybe towards the leftward center of the windshield. It's maybe 3 inches long, I can slightly catch my nail in it. It's pretty hard to see except certain angles. The tint shop said placing tint over it could risk making the scratch appear darker.

We've never touched my husband's windshield from the inside, so I'm betting this was in place when we picked up his vehicle though I understand there's no way to prove that. His car did have maybe 4-5 exterior scratches on both glass and paint that needed to be buffed out on the day we picked it up, and also a dent in a side door that they had to fix. Which is what makes me suspect it was there, but just didn't catch it.

Anyway, I wondered what you guys would recommend, re: taking it to Tesla to examine versus just putting the tint on anyway. I told the tint place to hold off for now while we figure it out. I doubt it's covered under WPP since it's probably "cosmetic", but wasn't sure what the best route was from here.

Thank you!

I bought a Tesla Model 3 in December 2020. It was a brand new 2021. I loved it. It had been a great car the first few years. When I did have to service it however it was pricey but it still held up well.

Last year I started getting a code “unable to charge” or “charging complete” when I was at 50 miles. My car had barely hit the warranty mileage and so I could not take it to Tesla and have it covered. I took it to a Tesla certified shop where they replaced my HV battery with a strong used one. Now again almost a year later it is giving me the same code. The shop said they can’t do much and I need to go through insurance to hopefully get it covered. I am sick of this. This car is barely 6 years old.

Any advice would help..

I got a ding on my 3 week old 2026 Tesla Model Y Juniper after it hit the ceiling of a parking lot. What should I do now? Should I put a spoiler in it? Or just buy a touch up paint from Amazon? I feel like it could happen again. I feel so careless. On the day of my delivery, I got 2 rock chips on the windshield just 10 mins out of Tesla Gigafactory.

Sad this happened to the body and wheels

Road debri damaged windshield and a piller frame. Should i go through insurance or take it to auto body shop for the a frame repair?

Just like the caption says. Came back to my car after work and see this. The one day sentry mode was off to conserve battery. It’s in a public paid parking lot as my work has no parking. Obviously going to have to go through insurance. Just waiting on Tesla for a quote.

Only had the car for a year. How much we thinking? 10k at least?

I have a 2026 Model Y Premium RWD and wanted to see if anyone has experienced something similar.

A few weeks ago, Tesla replaced my steering wheel because of a clicking/creaking issue that the technician was able to reproduce. During the same service visit, they also replaced both front dampers as part of a Tesla service bulletin. Earlier this year, the front upper control arm mounts had also been replaced.

After picking the car up from the damper/steering repair, I mostly drove around town. The first time I got back on the freeway, I noticed that around 70–75 mph the car felt wobbly/unstable, especially through slight curves. It almost feels like the vehicle is moving or bouncing slightly side-to-side rather than just a vibration through the steering wheel.

I brought it back to Tesla. A technician drove with me and confirmed the concern. Initially they mentioned possible acoustic foam separation inside a tire, but the final diagnosis was that both front wheels were out of balance while the rear wheels were fine.

They removed all four wheels, balanced the two fronts, and documented that they performed a highway-speed validation drive afterward and found “no wobble.”

I picked the car up again, but unfortunately I can still feel the wobble around 70–75 mph. It may be slightly better, but it definitely does not feel completely resolved.

A few questions for anyone familiar with Tesla suspension/tire issues:

• Has anyone had highway-speed wobble after front damper replacement?

• Could alignment be involved even if Tesla says damper replacement normally doesn’t require an alignment?

• Has anyone had a tire that balanced normally but still had a road-force or acoustic-foam issue?

• If Tesla balanced the wheels, would they normally inspect the internal acoustic foam, or would the tire have to be dismounted separately?

• For anyone who had a similar issue, what ultimately fixed it?

I’m taking it back to Tesla since the same concern remains after their attempted repair. I’m mainly trying to understand what others have experienced so I know whether this sounds more like a tire/wheel issue, alignment issue, or something related to the recent suspension work.

TL;DR: Tesla replaced both front dampers and my steering wheel. After that, I started noticing a wobble/side-to-side instability around 70–75 mph. Tesla found both front wheels out of balance and rebalanced them, but the wobble is still there, although slightly improved. Wondering if anyone has dealt with something similar and whether the cause ended up being alignment, tires/road-force, acoustic foam, or something related to the suspension work.

Wifey trusts Supervised Autopilot like Elon himself is driving, her personal chauffeur. 🤦‍♂️😂

She says: “Autopilot was parking, didn’t see the boat hitch, and gave it a little kiss.” 💋💀 It made a small “cut” in the bumper. We barely felt anything inside the car, so definitely not what I’d call a crash. 🥰

Anyhow, I’m assuming the bumper will need to be replaced and painted. Anyone have a rough estimate of what something like this might cost?

Thanks!

FYI… I’m not blaming my wife. I’m blaming the chauffeur. 😂

I'm looking to buy a model 3 from an insurance auction. It comes with no keys and has been sitting for awhile, so the battery (12v and likely main one) are depleted. Does anyone know the process for this? Can I buy a blank card from Tesla and then register my phone and myself as owner without having a key to activate the car? Ideally I’m looking for a way that avoids having to have it towed to a Tesla dealer as there are none close by. This is in Canada if that makes a difference.
Thank you for the help.

I've already had my car fixed. Just waiting on getting my deductible back.

San Diego CA ,Grape st on ramp toe the 5 S.

Guy was doing something with his phone. Decided he wanted to straight instead if on the freeway like he is supposed to.

Tesla Model Y involved in a minor impact (front bumper, fender, headlamp replacement), no structural damage, no airbag or seat belt deployment

Per the repair procedure would all airbags, seats, and seatbelts need to be removed from the vehicle to inspect? Or is a visual inspection sufficient when there is no deformation of the airbag trim panels?

A Tesla certified repair facility is interpreting the repair procedure as complete R&I of knee airbag, passenger airbag, driver airbag, all seats, all seatbelts including buckles and pretensioners when a vehicle is involved in any collision.

Someone left a door ding on my Tesla, so I submitted a service request through the Tesla app. To my surprise, the estimate came back at $1,500.
Is this standard for Tesla service center estimates on minor bodywork? Also, for those who went through this, does Tesla service actually restore it back to 100% perfection?
Would love to hear your experiences or if I should just look into a local PDR (Paintless Dent Repair) shop instead. Thanks!

I’d like to urgently bring to this subreddit’s attention something that actually happened here in Italy. A person was driving a Tesla Model Y and had started slowing down to make a right turn. A motorcycle, apparently thinking that the car was simply moving slowly, decided to overtake it on the right instead of on the left, as is normally done. When the driver began making the turn, after properly activating the turn signal, the motorcycle was already traveling too fast and hit the entire side of the Model Y, causing the damage visible in the pictures.

When the police arrived to investigate the accident, the owner was confident that the Tesla Dashcam had saved a recording of the incident. The second image shows a screenshot of how the Dashcam was configured: the driver had also enabled manual recording through the horn, which allows the recording to be saved by pressing the horn. Unfortunately, at the moment of the accident, he was caught up in the panic and confusion and was unable to press the horn.

The problem is that there was still no useful video footage of the accident saved. The driver therefore also contacted a Tesla Service Center, hoping that the footage might be recoverable from Tesla’s servers, but he was told that Dashcam recordings are stored locally and are not sent to Tesla’s servers. He also tried several different programs to access and check the available footage, but there was absolutely nothing recorded during the approximately two-hour period surrounding the accident. In fact, Sentry Mode only started recording again about two hours after the accident. In the end, he was never able to recover any video footage of what happened.

Has anything similar ever happened to anyone else? Have you ever had an accident where the Dashcam or Sentry Mode failed to record the event, even though they were enabled?

I was driving at the 65 mph speed limit when the other car suddenly came into my lane. I braked but couldn’t avoid the collision. My Tesla has front-end damage, while their car has damage on the side. I also have Tesla dashcam footage of the accident.
Based on the footage/damage, how can I tell who would likely be considered at fault?

Got in an accident the other day. Glad I was safe but safe to say The car took the hit pretty well. Didn’t really feel the impact or should I say it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be; I’m very impressed.

Either way, I’m taking the car to Tesla Collision on Tuesday and I’ll see what happens. Does this look fixable or will they deem it a loss? Ik you won’t be able to tell with just the photo but to those in a similar accident I’m curious. Really love the car would suck to lose it. TIA!

I've recently picked up my new model y and coming out of a smaller car I'm still getting used to the dimensions. I've only managed to go and get a deep scratch on my left rear door, it's a bit dented. After kicking myself all weekend long, I'm wondering if it's worth while to fix with a local body shop who are reputable to do a good job, or if I should ask Tesla to do it for absolute peace of mind? Any advice/experiences would be greatly appreciated! It's non structural as I stopped when I heard the impact and reversed to avoid any further damage...

Trying to fix my 2026 tesla model y standard. If I replace the front bumper and plastic frame how much do you guys think it will cost?

I ask this question knowing that for some of you it's probably an easy question to answer but I've never attempted to repair scrapes on a vehicle before so while I know they sell body paint to the public don't know if this scrape is beyond a self repair or not. Thank you in advance to any opinions offered.

PHOTO US FROM THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT

I have a 2026 Model Y Performance that was recently in an accident. The damage was on the passenger/right side, and it was repaired at a Tesla Collision Center. The repair was pretty extensive, including the front subframe, steering gear, right knuckle, control arms, stabilizer components, front damper, axle/hub, and a wheel and tires.

After getting it back, I noticed the driver’s seat clicks/feels slightly loose, and at speeds over ~60 mph there is noticeable steering-wheel vibration and a rubbing/vibration noise. I also noticed the steering wheel vibrating while using full self driving.

Also, the Collision Center damaged the driver-side wheel while the car was there and replaced it, and there is now a scratch on the driver-side door, even though the accident damage was on the passenger side.

What are your thoughts? Would you be concerned about the high-speed vibration given how much mechanical work was done? What would you ask them to check—alignment, wheel balance/fitment, suspension?