Accidents happen, that’s why we all – or most of us, anyway – have insurance. And while it can be a pain ringing around organizing things after a wreck, it’s usually only a few weeks of pain before we’re either back on the road in our repaired car, or wondering how to spend the money we were given to replace it.
But that’s not the experience some Tesla drivers are reporting in online communities. Some claim they’re being forced to wait up to nine months just for someone to assess the damage to their EVs, with the actual repair time adding weeks or months to that timescale. And just to rub salt in the wound, some of these cases were no-fault accidents.
Posted under the heading “Seriously regretting my purchase now,” on the r/TeslaModelY subreddit, one owner explained how he clipped the rear end of another car when it ran a red light at an intersection. The Model Y driver says there were no injuries and he was going so slowly that his car didn’t register the accident and deleted the footage, but the earliest he can get an estimate close to his Seattle base is May 2024, six months from now.
Related: Tesla Wins Repair Monopoly Lawsuit, Customers Left Facing High Costs And Long Wait Times
“This doesn’t include the time needed to order and wait for parts and then actually install them. I could be without my car for an entire year due to this minor accident, all the while making the monthly payment,” he said.
“I really enjoyed the car before this, but in hindsight I wish I would have bought something less specialized,” concluded the Model Y owner, and he’s probably not alone in feeling that way. Another Y owner posting on the same forum says he was rear-ended in August, and the only repair shop willing to take a look at it can’t cast an eye over it until…next August.
“Same happened to me, exact same spot,” wrote another Tesla owner in the comments under that post. “Waited nine months then they totalled it anyway.”
Not every Tesla owner seems to be suffering a huge wait to get their car repaired. One says his EV also required bodywork and he was able to get an appointment with a shop in his local area within two weeks. But a recent Tesla victory in a court case brought in California has the potential to leave customers facing high repair costs and long wait times.
The plaintiff claimed that Tesla was charging exorbitant prices for parts, and that wait times for repairs were unreasonably long because of its alleged monopolization of service options, but the judge found for the automaker, deciding that customers should have known better when they bought their EVs.
