Guides
Six guides on the same subject from two sides: what happens when a shop holds someone else’s Tesla. Every claim here is sourced to Tesla’s own developer and service documentation, to published insurance and bailment references, or to named practitioners.
Where the answer is “that is not possible,” we say so. Most of what shops are sold about locking down a customer’s Tesla does not exist.
All six guides
What happens to your Tesla key card at the shop
An NFC key card is a full, permanent drive credential. It cannot be remotely wiped, it produces no per-card audit trail, and it keeps working until someone standing in the car deletes it from the Locks screen. This guide covers what the card does on Model 3, Model Y, and 2021-and-newer S and X, the 19-key limit, why a stack of identical white cards in a drawer is an anonymous credential, and the drop-off routine experienced owners actually use.
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Tesla Valet Mode vs Service Mode at a shop
Valet Mode caps speed at 70 mph and locks the frunk and glovebox — which is exactly wrong for PPF, wrap, and collision crews who are in and out of every opening all day. Service Mode gates the calibrations collision work depends on, and no app can set it: Tesla's Fleet API has no such command, only a read-only telemetry signal. Includes the full comparison of which mode belongs on which job.
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How to give a shop access to your Tesla — and take it back
Four options, ranked by what you give up: leave a key card, authorize a third-party app through Tesla's own consent screen, turn on Valet Mode, or stay with the car. Covers the exact OAuth scopes an app can request, why a virtual key always requires you to tap approve, the two revocation paths, and what pre-authorization looks like when a shop supports it.
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Garage keepers liability, explained for specialty shops
Legal Liability, Direct Primary, and Direct Excess pay very differently, and most disputes trace back to a shop that bought one and assumed it bought another. Covers per-location limits, per-auto deductibles that stack in a single event, the exclusions that surprise shops most, broker-published premium ranges, and the bailment rule that puts the burden of proving reasonable care on you.
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A customer car was damaged at your shop. What decides the outcome?
In the widely reported joyride cases — Darien 2024, Milford 2024, Silverdale 2023, Wales 2018, Naperville 2025 — the deciding evidence came from the vehicle or the owner rather than the shop's records. This guide walks the pattern, what a defensible custody file contains, the first hour after a damage claim, and the separate problem of 12V batteries dying during long body-shop stays.
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Tesla Fleet API for shops: what it can and cannot do
A shop-side reading of Tesla's developer documentation: the roughly 60 published commands, the OAuth scopes a custody use case needs, why signed commands require a trusted user in the loop, and why Fleet Telemetry costs about 94% less than REST polling. Also the commands that do not exist, and the connected-car privacy enforcement now shaping what any vendor should collect.
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Shorter formats
If you want one answer rather than an argument, the answers hub holds about twenty questions with every answer visible on the page. The glossary defines the vocabulary these guides use — custody window, virtual key, bailee, closed snapshot — once, in one place.
For the product rather than the subject: how it works, pricing, and the limits we will not hide. Owners who were sent here by a shop should start at the owner page.
By shop type
Window tint shops
Short visits, a 3-mile odometer default, key cards everywhere.
PPF shops
Frunk and trunk open all day — which rules Valet Mode out.
Vinyl wrap shops
Multi-day dwell and the same every-opening problem.
Collision and body shops
Weeks of custody, road tests, calibration, dead 12V batteries.
EV repair shops
Toolbox 3, Service Mode, and the EV skills gap.
Comparisons
KeyTrak, Standard Fleet, Urable and Tint Wiz, Tessie.