If you bought a new car and its bumper suddenly came off while driving, you’d probably be upset and want the problem fixed under warranty.
Unfortunately when that happened to Logan Derouanna and his Tesla Model 3, he was reportedly told it was an “act of god.”
We talked to Derouanna and he told us, he was driving his Model 3 in the rain and was decelerating while attempting to get into the right turn lane. As this was happening, he heard a “huge noise” and eventually discovered the rear bumper was nearly ripped off.
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As you can see in the video, everything appears fine until Derouanna hit a puddle and kicked up a large stream of water. Shortly thereafter, the bumper goes flying off.
While its natural to assume the force of the water caused the bumper to come loose, Derouanna told us he was going less than half the speed limit and the weather was “nothing out of the ordinary.” The front view camera also doesn’t show a huge puddle as you would expect.
We asked Derouanna if he noticed anything on the road. “No debris or potholes at all. I even walked to where it happened and watched several cars drive over the same spot,” he said.
Regardless of what caused the bumper separate, Derouanna pulled over and contacted Tesla Roadside Assistance. He told InsideEVs, he waited around for over an hour but they never showed up.
Derouanna eventually called back and was told they were emailing him a quote for the tow. “They told me they were emailing me a quote for the tow they were sending, I was angry they were making me pay for the tow as I thought it was a design flaw and not my fault,” he said.
Derouanna then asked for Tesla to cover it and was reportedly transferred to multiple people.
“Honestly, I was just on the phone with normal salespeople and the service people. The manager wasn’t available because it was already 5PM. One person on the phone told me it was “An Act Of God,” Derouanna told us.
In the end, a lawyer got involved and contacted the service center manager. This seemed to have worked as the manager reportedly said he was aware of issues with bumpers coming off and promised to take care of everything.
“We had to email the service center manager with our lawyer and he immediately called us and told us he would take care of everything. He knew about this issue with the Model 3s. He handled the situation very well,” explained the Tesla owner .
While it’s nice to hear things worked out in the end, it seems like a pretty big hassle to get the issue resolved.
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