March 14, 2017—Tesla plans to add 300 approved body shops in the next few weeks, wrote Jon McNeill, president of global sales and service.
In addition, the company said it will "eliminate" underperforming body shops and "will have individuals on our team personally manage each car on behalf of our customers that are in third-party body shops."
McNeill included his post in a thread devoted to a discussion about a blog post written by former Tesla employee and Model S owner Evan Niu for The Motley Fool earlier this week, CNBC reports. Niu said in his post that his Tesla sat in a certified third-party body shop for seven months (and counting), due in part to delays in obtaining the parts needed for the job. Niu placed most of the blame for the problem in Tesla's lap, saying the incident had "profoundly shaken our faith in Tesla as a company and an investment."
McNeill said that problems have persisted in some certified Tesla body shops, even after the company claims it had reduced parts delays by 80 percent.
"Even though we reduced part wait times," he wrote, "we continued to dig into the body shop complaints. What we found was astounding—cars sat at body shops for weeks and sometimes months before the body shops took action and, more often than not, the body shops blaming Tesla for parts delays were the very shops that hadn't even ordered parts or started the repair."
"We are applying brute force to this immediately," he added.
He finished by urging customers to message him directly if they have problems with long waits for service, "and our team will advocate and manage your repair."