One of the bigger frustrations of the Tesla model 3 owner, has been the length of time to repair a car after an accident. These delays are caused by a shortage of qualified shops to repair Tesla’s, a shortage of parts, and poor part procurement system. I’ll discuss how that the Tesla model 3 parts delays are improving.
Tesla’s Certification Process
The popularity of the Tesla, in certain regions, has been so high that Tesla’s plan to control the vetting of the repair shops became a much bigger task than they expected. To be on the Tesla authorized shop program the process can be lengthy. It starts with the shop sending Tesla and application that they meet or are close to some strict minimum critiria. Then Tesla contacts the shop and discusses with them the additional equipment and training that will be required to be on the program. This required equipment list is large and expensive. The tools have to be ordered, shipped and installed before Tesla can verify. Once the equipment is ready, Tesla will do a virtual tour and verify the tool serial numbers to validate the shop has the equipment available to repair the car correctly.
After the tooling is all set, Tesla will require that the shop personnel receives the training to repair the Tesla correctly. Most of the Technician training can be done online, but it is extensive and usually takes weeks. When the shop is complete, Tesla will give the shop final approval and list them as a certified collision repair facility on their website. (List Tesla site). This can take a few weeks between approval and website update.
Tesla recognized the shortage of shops very early. However, even though they added staff to address the issue, the demand to buy the model 3, has remained extremely high and it’s been hard for them to get out in front of this. The repair standard at Tesla is very high and I don’t think they were prepared for the number of shops that couldn’t meet the minimum requirements. As of today, Tesla has made great headway and in most areas this is no longer an issue.
Tesla Parts Shortages
Parts shortages that plagued the Tesla company early on were for multiple reasons, but none greater than just high demand. The blistering pace they were selling Tesla’s has made it very difficult to stay up on parts demand. Body shops were seeing delays for even months on some parts. The staff at Tesla has done a good job and finding their bottlenecks and getting them fixed. The Tesla model 3 parts delays are improving significantly, but they aren’t where they should be yet.
With most Tesla model 3 parts, we are able to get them in the shop within a couple of weeks. That may seem like a long time, but by the time you get approval from an insurance company and fit into the body shops repair schedule, it takes a couple of weeks anyway.
The problems for parts still remain in certain areas, but Tesla gets a bit of an unfair rap on these parts. I’m talking about interior parts and some inner structural parts. Basically, the less popular parts. These parts take all car manufacturers a long time to get. Tesla, being a new company, can struggle with this even more than more established brands. But, they aren’t the only company with long delays on rare parts.
The Tesla Repair Learning Curve
At Collision Pros, we have learned that repairing Tesla’s is a learning curve to understand the what parts get damaged in certain types of collisions. This isn’t something you can learn any other way than to work on these cars. As one of the early repair shops, we have had to work hard to make sure we find every damaged part as early as possible, to avoid these delays. At Collision Pros, we disassemble the car as early as possible to identify all the damaged parts that we can to avoid the extra parts delays.
Even though it may be difficult to get your car into a certified Tesla auto body repair shop, it will be well worth the wait in the end. Certified shops have the experience and tooling to assure the process is right. Click here to learn more about why to choose a certified Tesla repair shop.
