It’s now 5 months since my car was authorised for repair. I actually ended up calling Tesla and pushing for them to investigate the delays and why there had been no update given to the body shop. This is where it gets weird.

Tesla did investigate and came back to me saying it was in fact, the body shops fault for never finalising the order, therefore the parts were never dispatched. Obviously this was an absolutely huge issue if true, and I had been waiting 4 months for no reason. So I got my insurance involved to let them know of what I thought was a clear performance issue with the body shop.

The body shop came back to me and explained that since all my parts were on back order, they were never actually ABLE to “finalise” the order with Tesla, due to Teslas own limitations on stock ordering (I.e you can’t actually order a back ordered item. They also have a direct contact with Tesla they speak to weekly about parts, so it was not like Tesla didn’t know these parts were needed, this would have been clearly communicated to Tesla. This story was also corroborated by insurance, and I strongly believe the body shop as they are extremely reputable in WA, and clearly have been experiencing the same frustration as me during this time.

My issue now is that Tesla have effectively lied to me about who is is the wrong here, claiming that they had absolutely no knowledge of the order when they clearly did. Since this (about a month ago), Tesla sent me a list of about 20 parts required for my order. One of the parts had an estimated shipping date, every single other one was empty, with absolutely no update since.

I’m absolutely furious at this point – to a reasonable extent I can acknowledge issues with parts delays, but it has been 5 months and I am still completely in the dark. Tesla has taken no responsibility for what seems to clearly be a parts problem on their end.

If I had known that repairs and parts would not be reasonably available for this car, I would NEVER have bought it. If this goes on for much longer I’m strongly considering lodging an ACCC complaint on this basis.

Apologies for the rant, It’s very frustrating and saddening not being able to enjoy a brand new car I worked so hard for. I feel like I’ve hit a wall in terms of what I can do at this point, but any advice is appreciated.