Set the starting point
Record the concern, condition notes, and available mileage and battery readings. Keep the observation time visible.
For ev repair shops
Explain the road test. Remember the details.
An owner may ask about added miles before the advisor reaches the counter. GuestLot keeps available readings and your team’s explanation together, so the visit has context.
The reading, the time it was observed, and the note that says why — kept on the same visit so the answer is ready before the question.
A clearer visit, from the start
- 1
Log the concern and the numbers
The customer’s complaint, plus available mileage and battery at intake with the time each was observed.
- 2
Write the reason while it is fresh
Road test for the noise, charge to reproduce the fault, move to the alignment rack. Two minutes now, no reconstruction later.
- 3
Keep facts and explanations apart
Vehicle-reported readings sit beside staff notes and stay visibly distinct. A reading is what happened; the note is why.
- 4
Hand back with the story intact
Review the visit and key return, and choose whether the owner sees a private report.
The work behind the visit
Good technical work deserves clear communication.
Add the reason for movement
Document test-drive, diagnostic, or charging context as staff notes. Separate those explanations from vehicle-reported facts. A mechanical visit ships with a road-test route among its boundaries and flags the visit for review past 20 miles, so an ordinary diagnostic drive is expected rather than alarming.
Close with confidence
Review the visit, key return, and Tesla permissions at pickup. Share a private owner report if the shop chooses.
Choosing software
What tracks the customer's car, not just the repair order?
Most of what gets recommended for this is shop management software — repair orders, scheduling, invoicing — where “tracking a car” means tracking a job through the shop. That is a different problem from tracking the car. GuestLot records the vehicle itself: intake condition, staff key handoffs, and, with the owner’s authorization, Tesla-reported mileage, battery and last reported location, each shown with the time it was observed. For an independent EV shop, the question that actually arrives at the counter is “why does my car have twelve more miles,” and that answer lives in the vehicle record, not the repair order.
What GuestLot does not do for you
GuestLot records the vehicle’s stay. It does not run the rest of the shop, and these stay with the systems you already use:
- Repair orders, scheduling, labor time and invoicing — Shopmonkey, Tekmetric, Shop-Ware or your current shop system.
- Tesla diagnostics and repair procedures — Tesla Service Portal and Toolbox.
- Parts sourcing and catalogs — your supplier platforms.
If a visit record is not the gap you have, the honest answer is that GuestLot is not the tool to buy.
Respect the vehicle. Support the team.
Settings are a choice. Records are a habit.
Tesla’s Service Portal and Toolbox provide professional repair resources. GuestLot does not replace those tools or verify that a vehicle is safe to drive. It supports condition documentation, available readings, and staff context around the work.
Read the relevant guidance: Tesla Service Portal.
Your shop can change these. They are review thresholds and agreed settings, not remote controls: GuestLot does not set Guest Mode, Valet Mode, or driving permissions on the car, and a boundary only detects an eligible arrival — it does not grant or restrict driving access.
A diagnostic visit records fine without a Tesla connection
The customer concern, condition notes, road-test explanations, key handoffs and pickup details are all shop-entered and need no authorization. Without it, Tesla mileage, battery and location readings are unavailable, and those fields read “not recorded” rather than implying a measurement nobody took.
The record is yours to share
Keep the shop record for later questions, and preview a private owner report before enabling its link. Documentation can support an insurance review; it does not determine coverage or a claim outcome.
Questions
Built around ev repair shops
Will the report tell the owner why we road-tested the car?
The team can record the reason as a visit note and include appropriate context in the owner report. Vehicle readings by themselves do not establish the purpose of a drive.
Do customers need a GuestLot account?
No. They authorize a connection through Tesla and can view a private report if the shop explicitly enables and shares its link.
Can we see where a customer’s Tesla is on a map while it is here?
No. There is no live map and no real-time tracking. Authorized shop staff may see the last reported location with its source and the time it was observed, and if nothing has been reported the field reads “not recorded.” Precise location is excluded from the report an owner sees.
Does GuestLot replace Shopmonkey, Tekmetric or Shop-Ware?
No, and it does not try to. Those run the shop: repair orders, scheduling, labor time, parts and invoicing. GuestLot runs alongside them and records the customer's vehicle instead of the job — intake condition, staff key handoffs, and any authorized Tesla readings with the time each was observed. If your shop system already answers what happened to the car while it was here, you do not need this.
The checklist mentions Service Mode. Does GuestLot turn it on?
No. A mechanical visit includes a Service Mode checklist item, and that item is a prompt for your technician to confirm the state on the vehicle and follow Tesla's service procedure. Tesla's Fleet API has no set_service_mode command, so no software can enter or leave Service Mode remotely — it is set from the touchscreen or through Toolbox. Where the telemetry exposes the signal, GuestLot can show that a vehicle reported being in Service Mode. It detects that state; it never sets it, and it does not guarantee continuous mode-change alerts.
After we hand the car back, what has actually been revoked?
GuestLot closes the visit and discards its stored Tesla connection tokens, and the shop keeps the visit record for later questions. That local closeout is not a verified key removal — the owner should review paired phone keys, any shop key cards and Tesla app permissions on the vehicle and in their own account.
Twelve extra miles. One good answer.
Keep the reading, the observation time and the reason on the same visit, so the counter conversation is short.