Guides
14 guides on the same subject from two sides: what happens when someone else holds your Tesla, whether that is a body shop for three weeks or a valet stand for forty minutes. 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 14 guides
Where to leave your Tesla key card at a shop, and what happens to it
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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How to activate and use a Tesla key card — and how to remove one
Where to tap on each model (the driver's side pillar on Model 3 and Model Y, the wireless phone charger area on Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck), the two-minute authentication window before the brake pedal, and the touchscreen path that adds and deletes keys. Also the honest checklist for a card that will not read, the 19-key and 4-fob ceilings, and why deleting a card at the touchscreen is the only thing that ever ends its access.
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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 turn Valet Mode on (and off) on a Tesla, and what it changes
The touchscreen path (driver profile icon, Valet Mode, a four-digit PIN) and the app path (any time the car is in Park, no PIN needed). Then the full restriction list, the manual's own wording on PIN to Drive being disabled and the Glovebox PIN override, why a key card still drives the car, and the one question — what Sentry Mode does during a valet window — that nobody, Tesla included, has answered.
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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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Garage liability vs garage keepers
They are not two products to choose between. ISO's Business Auto form excludes property damage to property in the insured's care, custody or control, which is precisely the customer car sitting in your bay — and the Garagekeepers endorsement is the instrument that puts it back. Covers the exclusion that creates the gap, the coverage grant that fills it, the four exclusions the endorsement keeps, and the schedule condition that makes coverage per location and per coverage type rather than automatic.
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What evidence a garage keepers claim requires
Garage keepers is an endorsement, and the endorsement carries no duties after a loss — so the answer sits in the commercial auto form underneath it. ISO CA 00 01 Section IV.A.2 asks for prompt notice, police notification for a theft, steps to protect the vehicle, and inspection of the car and the records proving the loss before its repair. Covers what that undefined phrase means at a shop, why quietly fixing the damage can breach the same condition, the employee-theft and contractual-obligation exclusions, and the appraisal clause that settles the amount without settling whether anything is owed.
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Garage keepers insurance when you are not a repair shop
The endorsement never asks what trade you are in — it asks whether the vehicle was in your care, custody, or control, so a hotel valet stand, a parking garage, or a multi-location retailer with service bays can sit squarely inside the class. What changes by segment is everything underneath the trigger: whether a carrier writes you at all, how the limit is counted per site rather than per company, and what a custody record looks like when nobody opens a repair order. Covers the per-location arithmetic, the appetite sheets that exclude a class outright, and the gap an NFC key card leaves in an attended parking operation.
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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 Valet Mode: what a valet stand needs to know
The same mode, argued the other way. At a stand every restriction is doing useful work: the 70 mph cap, the locked frunk and glovebox, hidden Home and Work destinations, disabled HomeLink, a hidden key list. Covers the manual's own wording on PIN to Drive being disabled in Valet mode and the Glovebox PIN override, the fact that an owner can enable it remotely after handover, why a key card still drives the car, and why nobody — including us — can tell you what Sentry Mode does during a valet window. With two documented valet crashes and what settled them.
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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 how streaming and polling are priced by usage. Also the commands that do not exist, and the connected-car privacy enforcement now shaping what any vendor should collect.
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Can you track a Tesla key card? No — here's what you can track
The honest answer is no: a Tesla NFC key card is a passive, unnetworked credential with no per-card usage log, no remote wipe, and no way to locate a lost one. What can be tracked instead is the vehicle itself, through owner-authorized Fleet API telemetry — a different credential entirely, and the reason a shop needs both a named custodian for the card and a separate, time-boxed record of what the car did.
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How to become a Tesla certified body shop
What Tesla's Approved Collision Center program actually requires: factory training, I-CAR structural welding certification covering aluminum and steel, a facility audit, and Tesla's own General Terms and Conditions signed before a shop can order restricted parts or use the name. Also what the certification is not — I-CAR credentials alone do not make a shop Tesla-approved — and where to start the real application.
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Shorter formats
If you want one answer rather than an argument, the answers hub holds 35 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.