This is an incredible story that this family experienced a few weeks ago during their vacation in Spain. What they saw as a low-cost stay had far more costly repercussions than they thought. Indeed, since August 10, they have no more news of their Tesla Model X, which broke down in the Spanish valleys. The car with the butterfly doors has since disappeared. Left in the dark by her insurance, Shabnam therefore pushed the orange button to shed light on the mismanagement of this affair.
It was a summer almost like any other. A sunny destination, warm weather, an idyllic setting… But the Spanish dream finally turned into a nightmare, a few days before the end of their stay (around mid-August). “We decided to drive a friend back to the airport. I was with my husband and our daughter. Happiness. So far, everything was fine.” After that, the family sets off for Santiago de Compostela, to return to their hotel. On the way, they stop to take a break at a gas station. And that’s where it all gets complicated:We went to get food. During this time, we had put our electric car to charge. Only, when restarting, the car stopped responding.“.
The holidays are then completely turned upside down: “We called the insurance directly to see if we might get a tow truck. They told us that they were going to manage the repair on their side and that they were going to repatriate the car to a garage specialized in Tesla in Madrid. At that time, we were assured that it would be sorted for the day of our departure. We had no idea what was to follow. We were confident.”
Unfortunately, a few days before departure, the family is still in the dark: “We mightn’t really enjoy our vacation. I felt that the situation was more complicated than they wanted us to believe.” And Shabnam is right, since taking a look at the geolocation service of her Tesla, she notices a strange thing: “I wanted to check that the car had been taken care of, but I saw that it had not moved an inch. She was still in the parking lot where we had left her. That meant they still hadn’t taken steps to fix the problem..”
Return to Belgium compromised…
Still not having any news regarding the condition of her car, she then decided to call her insurance: “It was the day before departure and we had no news, no response, nothing. This is where they finally ended up telling me that they still hadn’t found a solution to properly support my Tesla and that it wouldn’t be fixed in time for the next day“.
Every day we changed rooms
The family then finds itself completely destitute, torn between two choices: “We didn’t know if we should stick to our departure date and fly back or wait a few more days and come back as planned with our car. We had professional obligations so it was complicated to extend our stay, but we did it anyway. Every day, we changed hotel rooms.”
Shabnam then finds herself completely blocked: “We started to book hotel nights little by little. I really felt like they were leading us on. After a week, we were offered to buy our plane tickets to return to Belgium. We ended up accepting because we mightn’t afford to lose our jobs either.”
In total, the family stayed over 7 more days. An extension of the stay, which is not without consequences, particularly in terms of the budget: “In addition to the hotel nights to pay, we also had to review our entire organization since we were no longer leaving by car. We had way too many bags. We had to group everything together and buy suitcases to be able to take the plane. There are plenty of things that we had to leave behind.“
In the end, we spent 3,000 euros on hotel and car rental costs.
Back in Belgium, it’s the big deal: “Right away, we were lucky that a couple of friends volunteered to lend us a car while we waited to resolve the problem. Only, following a week, I understood that it was going to last longer. So we had to rent several cars, one following the other. All this, in a hurry.“
In total, the family had to pay almost 3,000 euros for hotel nights and for all car rentals: “We wanted a low-cost vacation and ended up spending 3,000 euros on hotel and car rental costs. All this without any certainty of reimbursement from the insurance. As soon as everything is fine they are adorable but as soon as there is a problem they are no longer there“.
And it’s not for lack of trying. Shabnam and her husband take turns every day asking for news: “It is mainly for that they don’t forget us. Eventually, following 40 days, our insurance finally provided us with a replacement car. It’s already a good start, but you have to know that our car was an electric car. Now we have to pay for gas and that’s a big extra budget that we didn’t used to have“.
The car still hasn’t moved
The family is now especially in the misunderstanding since nothing has finally been done yet: “The location is always in the same parking lot. This means that the car hasn’t been turned on anyway, so it hasn’t been repaired yet. We are so confused that we finally called Tesla to try to understand the problem with our car. They did a remote analysis and they detected that there was simply a ventilation problem that might have been resolved in an hour. Hearing this, we are even more frustrated“.
We can at least count another good month
Contacted by our teams, Allianz did not wish to communicate, as is generally the case on specific files. On the Shabnam side, it was then necessary to make some daily arrangements. Indeed, in addition to their granddaughter Lalie, they had undertaken to welcome five unaccompanied Ukrainian minors. They are now eight at home: “We need to stabilize this situation more than ever. All we want now is for the car to be repatriated to Belgium, and for everything to be in order. Unfortunately, we are told that they have still not had the agreement of the company which is to take charge of our car. Anyway, we still have a long time to go since obviously there is a delay between taking charge of the mission and the final repatriation of the car. We can at least count another good month“.
