Glossary

The period from a vehicle's check-in to its hand-back. GuestLot records this visit window and discards its stored Tesla connection tokens at close-out. Closing the visit is separate from removing Tesla account permissions or paired keys; review those at pickup.

The shop's view of available vehicle status and activity during a visit. GuestLot displays the last-reported authorized location with its timestamp, and keeps manual parking notes separate. Missing or stale data cannot establish that a car stayed on the lot. Continuous monitoring and alert delivery require provisioned supporting services.

An owner-facing visit report available through a private tokenized link after the shop explicitly enables sharing. It includes recorded visit details and available readings, with missing information labeled 'not recorded'. Link access can be disabled; the retained shop record is separate from the shared link.

The staff-facing side of GuestLot: the counter app for check-in, staff-recorded key handoffs, condition documentation, available readings, and visit closure. Staff-only notes remain separate from any owner report the shop chooses to share.

An owner authorization started before an appointment. The shop confirms connection status and arrival before using it for the visit. GuestLot close-out discards its stored connection tokens; Tesla permissions and paired keys remain separate controls for the owner to review.

The recorded state associated with a completed visit. It preserves available readings and visit timestamps for later review. A closed record is not a certification of accuracy or proof that all Tesla access was removed. Report sharing and retained shop documentation are separate controls.

A cryptographic key an application adds to a Tesla so that its commands can be signed and accepted by the vehicle. The owner must add it through a tesla.com/_ak/<domain> link or QR code; Tesla states this requires a trusted user-in-the-loop, preventing even Tesla's backend from accessing these capabilities. It is removed from the car's Locks screen like any other key.

Owner-side walkthrough: give a shop access to your Tesla.

A paired phone running the Tesla mobile app, acting as a key over Bluetooth so the car unlocks and drives on proximity. It occupies a slot in the vehicle's key list like a card or a fob, and it is removed the same way, at the car's Locks screen. A phone key is a Bluetooth pairing between one handset and one vehicle — it is not an account permission, and it does not travel with a login.

A shop tablet or phone running GuestLot in a browser is not a phone key: it holds no Bluetooth pairing with the car and cannot unlock or start it by proximity. GuestLot’s lock, unlock, and temporary keyless driving travel over Tesla’s authenticated command service using an owner-approved virtual key, which is a different mechanism with different limits. Source: Tesla vehicle keys.

The OAuth grant an owner gives an application through Tesla's own consent screen, expressed as named scopes: vehicle_device_data, vehicle_location, vehicle_cmds, vehicle_charging_cmds, and offline_access for refresh tokens. Applications cannot escalate their own scopes. Owners revoke at Tesla Account > Security > Third-Party Apps.

Tesla's authenticated interface for third-party applications: vehicle data endpoints and roughly 60 vehicle commands, among them lock, unlock, actuate trunk, set valet mode, set sentry mode, and set pin to drive. Commands must be cryptographically signed against a virtual key the owner added — Tesla's documentation states that if a command is not signed, the vehicle will reject the request and perform no action. There is no command that enters or exits Service Mode.

Fleet API is the request-and-response half; the streaming half is Fleet Telemetry, and the two are provisioned separately. GuestLot keeps vehicle controls disabled until signing infrastructure is configured, and code that compiles is not a verified live rollout. Technical detail: Tesla Fleet API for shops. Command list: Tesla vehicle commands.

Tesla's streaming channel for authorized vehicle signals. Signal availability depends on vehicle support, permissions, and a configured receiver. Tesla currently lists 150,000 streaming signals per dollar; actual cost depends on signal volume. A polling snapshot is not a continuous telemetry stream, and GuestLot's streaming receiver must be provisioned before continuous monitoring is offered.

Technical detail: Tesla Fleet API for shops.

The plastic card that unlocks and starts a Tesla by NFC — supported on Model 3 and Model Y and on 2021-and-newer Model S and Model X. Tap the B-pillar to unlock, then tap the console and press the brake within the two-minute authentication window to drive. It cannot be remotely wiped, produces no verified per-card usage trail, and is removed only from the vehicle's Locks screen.

Full guide: key cards at the shop.

Tesla's optional accessory key, bought separately from the card that ships with the car. A vehicle holds up to 19 keys in total, of which no more than 4 may be fobs. For custody purposes it behaves exactly like the NFC card: it is a full drive credential with no expiry, it cannot be remotely wiped, it produces no verified per-key usage trail, and it is removed only at the vehicle's Locks screen.

The car will tell you that it moved. Nothing tells you which of its keys moved it — see can you track a Tesla key card. Source: Tesla vehicle keys.

A Tesla restriction profile that caps speed at 70 mph, limits power, locks the frunk and glovebox, disables HomeLink, voice commands and Autopilot conveniences, hides driver profiles and the key list, and blocks new Bluetooth or WiFi pairing. It can be set remotely by an authorized application. It is the wrong default for PPF, wrap, and collision work, where crews need every opening available.

An owner-set four-digit PIN the car demands before it will drive, even from a valid key. Tesla's owner's manual states that in Valet mode the car can be driven without the need for the valet to enter a driving PIN, and that the PIN to Drive setting is disabled whenever Valet mode is active — the two features are mutually exclusive by design. Fleet API exposes a set pin to drive command, which requires Tesla's vehicle command protocol.

The drop-off failure mode worth naming: an owner who leaves PIN to Drive on and does not share the PIN has handed over a key that unlocks the car but will not move it. GuestLot cannot read, recover, or bypass a drive PIN, and does not record one. Ask at check-in.

Tesla's camera-based security state for a parked car, which watches the vehicle's surroundings and records to a connected drive. Unlike Service Mode, it is remotely settable: Fleet API carries a set sentry mode command, so an authorized application can turn it on or off without anyone at the car. Tesla says Sentry can increase power consumption and is unavailable in Low Power Mode on the current Model Y, and behavior varies by vehicle and software.

Two honest limits. Sentry is not a guarantee that an incident will be recorded or prevented, and what it does during a Valet Mode window is unsettled — nobody, Tesla included, has documented it. GuestLot never infers Sentry state from another setting; an absent reading stays not recorded. Discuss Sentry and a charging plan with the shop before a long stay: Valet Mode vs Service Mode.

The technician state that gates Tesla calibration and diagnostic routines, including the recalibration required after windshield, bumper, sensor, and structural work. It is entered on the vehicle touchscreen — Controls > Software, hold MODEL, type the service password — or through a cable-connected Toolbox 3 session. No Fleet API command enters or exits it; software can only read the state.

Comparison: Valet Mode vs Service Mode.

Tesla's subscription diagnostic and service software for technicians, delivered in a browser and run against a vehicle over a cable-connected session. A Toolbox session is one of the two ways into Service Mode; the other is the vehicle's own touchscreen. Both require a person physically at the car, which is why no shop's software — GuestLot included — can put a vehicle into Service Mode over the network.

Toolbox is a diagnostic tool, not a custody tool: it does not record who held the keys, and GuestLot neither runs nor replaces it. What each one is for: Valet Mode vs Service Mode.

A Tesla setting that lets someone drive the vehicle without gaining access to the owner's personal settings, saved profiles, or key management. GuestLot may record an intended policy and an available mode reading separately. A saved preference does not establish that a command succeeded or the car is in that mode.

Tesla's designation for an independent body shop it has trained and audited to perform Tesla repairs — the title a shop is usually asking about when it searches for "Tesla certified". Shops that have completed the program describe five separate gates: factory training through Tesla's collision-center training program, Tesla-specific tooling for the aluminum, steel, and other advanced materials in the body structure, structural welding certification through I-CAR covering aluminum and steel separately, a facility audit covering equipment, secure vehicle storage, and high-voltage handling, and Tesla's signed General Terms and Conditions for Collision Services. Holding four of the five is not the designation. Tesla does not publish its operating-standards document, so treat that list as a well-corroborated outline rather than a verbatim requirements list, and note that Tesla Preferred Collision Center is a separate tier above it. Certification governs who may perform the repair. It says nothing about who holds the keys, or what is recorded while the car sits on your lot.

The full program: how to become a Tesla certified body shop. Current status for any shop: Tesla’s collision-center locator.

The category of physical key-accountability systems — electronic cabinets, tagged fobs, check-out logs — that enforce who may take a key and record when it left. KeyTrak is the best-known example. The defining property is enforcement: a key control cabinet can refuse to release a key. GuestLot is not key control and is not a substitute for it. It records the visit the vehicle goes through, including staff-recorded key handoffs, which is documentation rather than enforcement, so a shop that already runs key control keeps it. Neither kind of system can tell you which Tesla key actually unlocked or drove a car, because Tesla publishes no per-card usage log.

Side by side: GuestLot vs KeyTrak. For dealerships: key tracking for dealerships.

A written and photographed record of a vehicle's exterior, interior, and mechanical condition at a specific moment — usually intake, sometimes also pickup. It exists to settle a later disagreement about whether a scratch, a dent, or a low tire was already there when the car arrived, and it is most useful when it is timestamped, specific about location on the vehicle, and completed before any work begins. What it is not is a custody record: it documents one or two moments and says nothing about what happened in between — whether the car left the lot, how far it moved, or when access to it ended. Those are two different documents answering two different questions.

What belongs on one: vehicle condition report. Free printable: template.

Damage the customer caused, as distinct from damage the shop caused while the vehicle was in its care. The phrase gets used two ways and they are not interchangeable: shops and insurers use it for damage that arrived with the car, while manufacturers use it in warranty decisions for damage that is not a defect. Neither use is a coverage determination. Garage keepers responds to damage to a customer's auto in the shop's care, custody, and control, so what settles the argument is rarely the label — it is whether the condition was recorded before work started.

When a car is damaged on your lot: customer car damaged at the shop.

A mark, dent, chip, or scuff that was already on the vehicle when it arrived. It is the most contested fact in a customer damage dispute and the cheapest one to establish, because the only moment it costs nothing to capture is check-in — a photograph taken before work begins settles what a photograph taken after the argument starts cannot. GuestLot keeps arrival notes and photos attached to the visit. Where a check was not performed, the record reads 'not recorded' rather than implying the vehicle arrived clean.

The intake form: vehicle condition report.

A bailment is the temporary transfer of possession of property without transfer of ownership; the party holding it is the bailee. A shop holding a customer's car is a bailee with a duty of reasonable care. The evidentiary presumptions and burdens vary by jurisdiction and the facts; the cited guides discuss examples rather than a universal rule.

Context: a customer car was damaged at your shop.

The industry phrase for property a business is holding but does not own. It is worth reading where it actually appears. In the general liability form it appears in an exclusion: ISO CG 00 01 bars property damage to 'personal property in the care, custody or control of the insured' at paragraph j.(4) — which is the hole garage keepers coverage exists to fill. The garage keepers endorsement itself never uses the phrase. ISO CA 99 37 covers a customer's auto 'left in the insured's care while the insured is attending, servicing, repairing, parking or storing it.' The trigger there is an activity, not an address, and parking and storing are on the list — so a car doing nothing in your lot all weekend is still inside the grant. Keep the visit record and review the actual policy terms, location schedule, and exclusions.

Form text: CG 00 01 12 07, exclusion j. and CA 99 37 10 01, Section B.1. The product-side counterpart is the custody window.

The coverage that answers for bodily injury and property damage arising out of a shop's own operations and premises — and not for the customer's vehicle. That gap is written into the standard form rather than left there by accident: ISO CG 00 01 excludes personal property in the insured's care, custody or control, and a car in bay two is exactly that. Garage liability and garage keepers are sold together and confused constantly, but they answer different questions. One is about what your business did. The other is about the car you are holding.

The distinction in full: garage liability vs garage keepers. The same exclusion appears on the auto side at CA 00 01 Section II.B.6.

The garage keepers coverage form that pays only when the shop is legally liable — that is, negligent — for damage to a customer's vehicle in its care, custody, and control. Insurers and brokers abbreviate it GKLL. It is the default grant on the ISO endorsement and the cheapest of the three forms, and it can deny a theft claim entirely if the insurer concludes security was adequate. The alternatives are elections you have to ask for: Direct Primary, which pays regardless of fault, and Direct Excess, which pays after the owner's own policy.

Forms and limits: garage keepers liability.

One of two direct coverage options printed as a checkbox on the ISO Garagekeepers endorsement schedule. Checking PRIMARY INSURANCE changes the coverage to apply 'without regard to your or any other insured's legal liability for loss to a customer's auto' and makes it primary insurance — it responds after the deductible whether or not the shop was negligent. It costs more than the legal liability default and it produces the fewest arguments with the customer. If neither box on the schedule is checked, you do not have it.

Schedule and elections: CA 99 37 10 01.

The other checkbox on the same ISO Garagekeepers schedule. Checking EXCESS INSURANCE leaves the coverage 'applicable on a legal liability basis' and adds payment without regard to legal liability 'on an excess basis over any other collectible insurance' — so the customer's own auto policy responds first and yours pays what is left. It is cheaper than Direct Primary. The trade is that a loss which happened at your shop pulls in your customer's deductible and their claims history.

Schedule and elections: CA 99 37 10 01.

The numbered policy condition that says what a shop must do once a customer's vehicle is damaged, and the reason a garage keepers claim can be denied on paperwork rather than on facts. Garage keepers is an endorsement and does not modify the condition, so it arrives unchanged from the commercial auto form underneath: ISO CA 00 01 Section IV.A.2 requires prompt notice of how, when and where the loss occurred, prompt police notification if the vehicle is stolen, all reasonable steps to protect the vehicle from further damage, and permission to inspect the vehicle and the records proving the loss before its repair or disposition. The condition opens by stating the insurer has no duty to provide coverage unless there has been full compliance with it. It never says how those records are supposed to get made.

Clause by clause: what evidence a garage keepers claim requires. Form text: CA 00 01 03 10.

The garage keepers deductible rule that surprises shops most: the deductible is owed per customer auto, not per event. One hailstorm across six customer cars means six deductibles, not one. Limits run on a different axis again — they are written per location rather than per company, and an aggregate caps what the policy pays across the whole term. The practical consequence is that a single event can cost a multiple of what the declarations page appears to cap, which is why the limit worth buying is the total value of every vehicle on your lot on your busiest day rather than an average one.

Limits and forms: garage keepers liability.

The policy provision that resolves a disagreement about how much a loss is worth without resolving whether the insurer owes anything at all. The cited ISO CA 00 01 edition allows appraisal of the loss amount while preserving the insurer's ability to deny coverage — so a shop can prevail on the number and still be denied on the claim. Check your own policy's process; invoking appraisal does not necessarily resolve a coverage dispute.

Clause by clause: what evidence a garage keepers claim requires. Form text: CA 00 01 03 10.

The first report of a loss to the insurer, and the event that opens a claim file. It is a duty, not a courtesy: the commercial auto conditions underneath a garage keepers endorsement require prompt notice of how, when and where the loss occurred, together with the names and addresses of any injured parties and witnesses. Late notice is one of the ordinary reasons a claim is argued about, and the difference between a good FNOL and a poor one is usually whether the shop is reading from a visit record or recalling the week from memory.

The conditions in full: what evidence a garage keepers claim requires. Form text: CA 00 01 03 10.

A written, usually sworn statement of what was damaged, when and how it happened, and what it is worth, which an insurer can require before it pays. It is a separate step from first notice: notice opens the claim, proof of loss substantiates it, and the policy sets the window to produce one once the insurer asks. Every question it puts — dates, custody, arrival condition, value — is far easier to answer from a contemporaneous visit record than from recollection weeks later. Assembling documentation supports the insurer's review; it does not determine coverage or the outcome of a claim.

What a claim actually asks for: what evidence a garage keepers claim requires.

The insurer's right, after paying a claim, to step into the insured's position and recover from whoever was actually responsible. It is why an insurer keeps asking who had the vehicle and when even after the customer has been paid: the answer decides whether it pursues the shop, a subcontractor, a tow operator, or no one. Policies commonly also require the insured not to do anything that impairs that right. A record showing custody boundaries and handoffs with timestamps is what answers the question either way.

The loss, alteration, or destruction of evidence a party knew — or should have known — was relevant to a dispute. It matters to a shop because records are evidence: a photo set overwritten, a note edited after a complaint lands, or a log cleared at close-out can change how a dispute is viewed independently of what actually happened to the car. GuestLot retains the shop's record after hand-back and adds separately dated follow-ups rather than rewriting the handover. That is a description of how records are kept, not legal advice — what any particular duty to preserve requires is a question for your own counsel.

The distinction between a business that sells vehicles and one that only services, stores, or parks them — and the reason a repair shop, tint or PPF installer, body shop, or valet operation is written on the commercial auto form with a garagekeepers endorsement rather than on a dealers form. The word garage in these forms describes the exposure, not a dealership. A shop that never sells a car is still a garage risk in the policy's sense, and garagekeepers is still the endorsement that answers for customer vehicles in its care.

Forms and elections: garage keepers liability.