Worst day ever. Dealer or repair shop?

[jazzmanmonty]

Just over a month into ownership and the day i feared may one day come is here. She's been injured!

Wife was driving from work in slow construction traffic. Car plowed into her going between 40-50mph. The truck took the hit great compared to the other car. Gonna need new rear bumper, hitch, and possible tailgate replacement from what's visible. Not seeing much damage from underneath but who knows until bumper removed. Also gonna need a new American flag hitch cover. (You think it's still returnable to Amazon in this condition? Lol j/k)

Normally I go to a local third-party shop that does awesome work. But being that parts are scarce right now and this is a brand new model, should I see if the dealership can repair it? I'm sure they can do a more thorough inspection to make sure nothing related to battery is messed up. Never had a dealership do collision repair. Would appreciate your thoughts. I'll be sitting here with a broken heart waiting.

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[BennyTheBeaver]

For your parts you should be fine with a normal repair shop. The parts you have injured are common ICE parts...

 

[swesson]

So sorry to hear about this! Hopefully, everyone is okay. I agree that the damaged parts appear to be all ICE so it could be okay.

 

[LUXMAN]

I don’t know man. With that independent rear suspension you don’t know if anything‘s been knocked out of whack between the motors and those drive axles. I would take it to the Ford dealer and have a Ford warranty on that repair

 

[jazzmanmonty]

I don’t know man. With that independent rear suspension you don’t know if anything‘s been knocked out of whack between the motors and those drive axles. I would take it to the Ford dealer and have a forward warranty on that repair

Ya that's the kind of crap I'm worried about where it may look like nothing's wrong but internally something's out of whack. But then again, I've been reading and many dealers outsource their collision repairs. And as we all know from these forms, many Ford mechanics are still a bit clueless with fixing EVs because of lack of hands on time. Im going to swing by the dealer tomorrow after work and feel them out on how they'd repair it.

 

[LUXMAN]

True. But Ford will have to do any battery repairs. Plus there could be coolant line damage or something internal to the pack. This way you are covered with Ford for mechanical problems and if they farm the body work out, they are on the hook for that too.

 

[F-150 Prius]

I think Ford will want to see that vehicle for inspection of all the new and unique hardware in the rear of the Lightning. From the rear suspension to the battery enclosure and the forces "shunted" through the whole vehicle, there's a lot to be examined and potentially some lessons to be learned in the design of the vehicle when inspecting the early real world crash outcomes.

 

[Arthur]

Lightning seemed to only suffer from some surface damage but still to get it checked out fully. Hope nobody got hurt.

 

[ExCivilian]

I've been reading and many dealers outsource their collision repairs.

That's why you specifically choose a dealership with onsite body shop that is EV certified.

When someone dinged our eGolf a number of repair shops wouldn't service it. In fact, one of them started taking the bumper off before realizing it was an EV and called me and said I had to come back and get it. I eventually had to take it to a dealership who then sent it to a different dealership because VW had only authorized specific body shops to work on the vehicles.

I would be surprised if Ford wasn't similar.

 

[Theo1000]

Definitely take it to large knowledgeable Ford dealer. It is 4 years and I still take my Etron to AUDI dealer for service. Despite the high cost.

While dealerships outsource some of the grunt work a lot of the final testing, alignment and verification needs very custom tools on EV's which often is shared between dealers and sometimes comes from mothership. A miss on an EV repair is very very unforgiving. Honestly even an independent shop is likely to send it to the local dealership for delicate bits of work.

EV's are not for just general shop repair. Even now I top off my Volt coolant, esp, battery coolant at the Chevy dealership. Good reasons why.

 

[jazzmanmonty]

I think Ford will want to see that vehicle for inspection of all the new and unique hardware in the rear of the Lightning. From the rear suspension to the battery enclosure and the forces "shunted" through the whole vehicle, there's a lot to be examined and potentially some lessons to be learned in the design of the vehicle when inspecting the early real world crash outcomes.

Great idea! I'll take it one step further. Not only can Ford engineers study the real-world effects of a 40-50 mph rear impact on a static Lightning, they can do further tests on it if they wish instead of having to build a brand new test vehicle and crashing it into a wall. If @Ford Motor Company wants to swap me with a new one, I won't fight it. All I ask is that it's the same color to make the wife happy.

I wasn't able to make it to the dealer today to have them check it out because of the kid's extra curricular activities, but after reading all your posts and concerns many of you raised, it'll definitely be going there for an inspection by weeks end. Thanks a lot guys!

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