Here is a tesla model s in the salvage yard. The back wheel has whomped about and knackered the wheel well and the door. This is clearly a self inflicted injury. The extruded aluminum torque link has stretched until it snapped allowing the wheel to whomp about and smash the begeezus out of the door. This is doubleplus ungood. Please investigate. Thank you. Keef
2015 Tesla Model S suspension complaints
Page 4 of 6: complaints 71 to 100 of 150, newest first, as owners wrote them.
This is a complaint about a 2015 tesla 85d the full VIN of the affected car is unavailable so I have used the VIN of a similar car in order to make the complaint. Reason being that this matter is urgent. Here is a long thread of complaints about broken tesla suspensions. Https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/another-front-suspension-control-arm-failure.114967/page-10#post-4272985 a uk owner has posted this: ** driving down the motorway in the uk, a new smooth flat straight road, I touched the brakes to avoid a car cutting in, heard a sudden pop and then a crunch and grinding as I headed towards the crash barrier at 70mph! I managed to regain control by letting go the the brakes! I was very lucky that the car in front didn't slow down - it would have been a choice between the crash barrier & the car in front to hit! Fortunately it was late evening but still had a number of near misses getting across 5 lanes to the hard shoulder. I waited 9 hours on the side of the road to get recovered by the aa. The aa was convinced I must had hit something for this type of damaged to have occurred, he had a closer look and was shocked that he couldn't find any sign of any impact. This happened at 4yrs & 11hrs old / 55,000 miles and just passed an mot two weeks prior, so no sign of any damage then. Mine is a nov 2015 85d VIN 96,xxx my car is just out of warranty and the sc manager was quite rude & abrupt. They repeated 5+ times that my car is out or warranty. I'm lucky not to have injured myself or others. Critical suspension arms shouldn't fail so early on, considering this is known issue I expect tesla to fix this foc & replace the other front forearm as precaution. **** it is unlikely that this uk owner will file a the federal safety agency report. This is a known defect and the subject of a tsb. The new parts are no better. There needs to be a recall. Thank you. Keef.
Another model x in the junkyard. Https://www.copart.com/lot/56210209/photos no crash.... Just the usual whompy wheel. Please please please get these things off the public roads. They are unsafe at any speed. Thank you. Keef
Here is a model x in the junkyard. Https://www.iaai.com/vehicledetails?itemid=34369828&rownumber=4&similarvehicleitemid=&isnext=&loadrecent=true it has been in a rollover crash and has bio-hazard stickers. Occupants have certainly been injured. The left hand side of the car is almost completely undamaged but the left hand rear suspension has snapped off. That wheel is lying on the ground next to the wreck. It does not have so much as a broken spoke or damaged tire. It is highly likely that the cause of the rollover was the left hand suspension failure. In any other make of car even if a wheel received a hard impact it would be the wheel itself that would break and not the suspension itself. This is not a one off freak accident. There have been hundreds of similar cases of suspension breakage on teslas. If tesla needs to use alloy suspension parts for weight reduction in order to achieve ludicrous acceleration then at least it should be using better quality castings and regular inspection and crack testing. Same thing applies to tesla employees and officers. There is a child seat in the back of this tesla. How many dead children does it take for you to launch an investigation? Please do your job and demand a recall of these cars which are simply unsafe at any speed. Thank you. Outraged citizen.
That's the whompiest tesla I ever did see. Https://www.copart.com/lot/55588059/photos please investigate. Perplexed citizen.
Excessive corrosion on steering u-joint causing lockup and excessive force to turn wheel, requiring repair. Excessive corrosion on control suspension arms, requiring repair.
Left front control arm broke at 70mph on highway. Was luckily able to get to the side of the road. It caused damage to inside wheel well and wore through causing battery to lose all coolant. Car is 3 1/2 years old with 113,000 miles.
I just joined the broken forelink club. My 2015 s p90d developed an erratic low "thump" sound from the front end while driving home - fortunately on low speed streets. Next day I planned to take it to the service center to have it checked, but while backing out of the driveway, turning the wheel to the right to join the street, it made an ominous crunching sound and shut off. Finally, the car rebooted and I slowly moved up the driveway and stopped. When I turned the wheel to the right, I could see the tire hitting the rear of the wheel well - the car again shut itself off. I called tesla roadside service, a flatbed came, the car rebooted long enough to straighten the wheels and get the car on the truck. The truck driver said he had seen this before, and that whole wheel wells had disintegrated. They replaced both forelinks with "improved" parts. It is frightening to think of what would have happened at 75 MPH on the freeway! I'm not sure how much I trust the repair from what I have read in the tesla forum - numerous such failures - but I will certainly keep an ear out for low-frequency thumps - another vigilance task. This should have been a recall. Shame on tesla . . .
I believe the right steering knuckle failed after hitting a bump. The failure cause the suspension to crash into the road causing a large amount of suspension damage.
I was driving my tesla model s slowly on a busy downtown street lined with parking spaces. Speed was less than 25 miles per hour. I braked to allow a car to pull out of a parking spot and my car made a loud noise. I tried to continue driving but the noise continued so I pulled into the parking spot that had been vacated by the other driver to see what happened. There was windshield wiper fluid leaking from the front wheel well and a visibly broken control arm at the front left wheel. I think that is what the part is called but I am not certain. There is a picture of the broken part attached. The wheel well was damaged and the trim at the bottom of the door was loose. There appears to be no cause for this failure as there was nothing in the road, no pot holes, no objects, no bumps. The car was driving fine before this occurred. The failure occurred about 3 minutes after I started the trip. Speed was low the entire trip as I was leaving a restaurant in a downtown area full of pedestrians, stop signs and parking spaces. The car was not drive-able following this failure since the front wheel was no longer supported. Tesla sent a tow truck to take the car to their nearest service center.
Here is another tesla in the junkyard: https://www.copart.com/lot/26110488 it has not been in a crash but the suspension has collapsed and the front wheels have gone all cross-eyed and whompy. This would tend to make it difficult to steer. Please do something about these ridiculously unsafe electric jalopies. Thank you. Concerned citizen.
Here is a tesla in the junkyard: https://www.copart.com/lot/28880838/photos there is no damage to the bodywork and it has not been in a collision but the suspension has collapsed jamming all the wheels up into the wheel wells and causing the car to stop so rapidly that the air bags have deployed. It is only by good fortune that this did not cause a collision with another car. It is a proven fact that the air suspension on teslas does not have limit stops and is prone to this kind of failure. The auction listing for this car notes that it has suspension damage. This car is a danger to road users. It is badly designed, shoddily constructed, and the culture at tesla discourages problems like this from being reported so that the issues can be addressed at the source. Please take action. Thank you. Concerned citizen.
Here is another tesla in the junkyard:https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=27797817&rownumber=76&loadrecent=true it has not been in a crash except that another car seems to have given it a very slight bump up the clacker. What is very interesting is that the lh front wheel is pointing straight ahead but the lh wheel has gone all whompy. This probably caused the tesla to slow down unexpectedly causing the car behind to boink it up the rear quite vigorously. Please be so kind as to investigate this. Thank you
Another tesla in the junkyard: https://www.copart.com/lot/26275078/photos photograph shows clearly that the absurdly fragile suspension link has snapped apart. It is a near certainty that this breakage was the cause of the crash and not merely the result of it. The wheel and tire are undamaged. It is highly unlikely that a blow to the wheel would break the suspension without the wheel being damaged. Please investigate. Thank you. Perplexed citizen.
Broken front suspension fore link I noticed a clunking sound at slow speed when going over small bumps, so I stayed off the expressway and slowly drove home on local roads. After arriving home, I backed up while turning the wheels to the right and the car abruptly stopped as the back of the right front wheel jammed solid against the inside wheel well lining. The right front wheel was an inch or two back from where it should be. I looked under from the front bumper and saw that I had a cracked fore link and a piece of the fore link was laying in my driveway. I still have that broken piece. Tesla sent a flat bed truck to get the car and replaced the fore link. This failure sure looks like it could cause a serious accident. I feel very lucky this didn't break at high speed on the expressway in traffic or on a jug handle. The attached photos show the fore link before and after replacement.
Here is a tesla in the junkyard. Https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=27048301&rownumber=13&loadrecent=true it has been in a major accident and is extensively damaged. The rh back wheel has gone whompy. The tread on that tire is completely worn down to the canvas. The car must have been driven for several miles with the tread rubbing against the bodywork until eventually the suspension broke off completely. This exact same failure has been reported many times. A high quality photograph of an incident that occurred in china is also attached for purpose of comparison. The same result, driver is unaware of the problem until the wheel finally snaps off. This is a design/manufacturing failure. Please investigate. Concerned citizen etc.
Here is another tesla in the junkyard: https://www.copart.com/lot/46307367/photos the suspension on the front lh side has broken. The wheel is jammed up and back in the wheel arch. The tread on the tire has been badly worn away which means that the wheel has rotated many times whilst the tire was rubbing against the bodywork. This can only have happened if the suspension broke before any collision occurred. The headlight on that side is not even broken. It looks as though all the damage to the vehicle is self-inflicted due to suspension failure. Please note that this is a rear wheel drive only model so that it was not the power of the drive motor that wore the tread away. The car must have driven for several miles with the tire rubbing before the suspension failed completely. The evidence pointing to a design/manufacturing failure in these teslas is overwhelming. If no action is taken it is a certainty that more deaths and injuries will occur due to suspension failures. Please take action urgently. Thank you. Concerned citizen etc. Date of incident is an approximation.
Here is a tesla in the junkyard: https://www.copart.com/lot/44784947/photos it has been in a major collision and judging by the condition of the wreck it is almost certain that occupants have been killed. Given the many reports that have been made already it is highly likely that mechanical failure played a part in this crash. The attached photograph of the front tire appears to show the tread worn away over most of the width of the tire. This is consistent with a suspension component failure causing the tire to rub up against the wheel well whilst the car was travelling. It would be impossible for such tread wear to occur post collision as the wheel would need to have rotated hundreds of times to cause the tread to be worn smooth. Please take action to prevent more deaths and injuries being caused by these teslas. There have been so many crashes in which mechanical failure appears to be a probable cause of the accident that an investigation is overdue. Any mechanical engineer can confirm that the alloy suspension parts do not have sufficient margin of safety for such a heavy and powerful car. Details of injuries, speed etc. Are estimations based on the severity of damage to the wrecked car. Thank you. Concerned citizen.
Here is a tesla in the junkyard. Https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=26516457&rownumber=54&loadrecent=true wheel fallen off again. Photo attached. This is becoming rather boring for me and for you. The solution is to have these dangerous cars recalled immediately. Please do so. Concerned citizen etc.
Here is a tesla in the junkyard: https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=26419239&rownumber=95&loadrecent=true it has been hit from the rear but the attached photographs show a skewed rear wheel and broken suspension linkage which is very likely the reason that the car suddenly slowed/swerved causing it to be hit from the rear. The alloy lower suspension arm has snapped. The wheel and tire are undamaged. It is highly improbable that collision damage was the cause of the broken suspension arm since the tire would have absorbed most of the impact. From the crash testing videos it is evident that the tesla wheels are very fragile and ought to have broken before the suspension did. This looks once again to be the fault of poor design and manufacturing of the cast alloy suspension parts in the tesla. Please investigate. Concerned citizen etc. Date of incident is an approximation.
Here is yet another tesla in the junkyard with a broken suspension: https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=26267542&rownumber=88&loadrecent=true multiple components of the suspension have snapped. The steering knuckle has broken in half and the lower arm ball joints have failed. There have been many other examples of this kind of failure and it is apparent that tesla is quietly fixing some customers cars without even informing other owners of the danger. Example - http://bit.ly/2y5uqcc and also https://seekingalpha.com/news/3299876-truth-catching-tesla-wsj?v=1507546600 ***mine has had numerous suspension replacements done during servicing (not requested by me, but printed on the job sheets). I also know several others with similar vintage cars (pre-2015) that have had similar proactive work done. So it may not be wholesale throughout the fleet, but it does appear they have been doing "recall-lite" on something suspension related on at least part of the fleet.**** please take action. Concerned citizen etc.
Here is another tesla in the junkyard : https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=26176475&rownumber=47&loadrecent=true the suspension has collapsed and the front wheel has gone whompy. No air-bags have been deployed. There is no damage to the bodywork, not even a broken headlight. This is another example of tesla spontaneous suspension collapse. The alloy suspension components are too weak for the purpose. They have insufficient margin of safety. The cast alloy parts are prone to casting defects making them dangerously weak. Please investigate. Concerned citizen etc.
Front left control arm suffered a failure causing it to break loose from the ball joint and causing the wheel to push back into the body of the car. The failure caused the car to lift up and come to a dead stop. This was at ~5mph after after backing out of the driveway of our house on a residential paved street and starting to drive forward. There were no noises or warnings until the failure of the control are occurred. The photo of the wheel shows it pushed back all the way to make frame contact. The other photos show the control arm completely disconnected from its mounting point. There was some damage to the wheel well liner and lip of the fender thanks to the slow speed that it occurred. The car had to be driven backwards onto a flatbed trailer and then dolly's put under the front wheels in order to get the car to roll forward into the repair shop. It could not be driven forward at all. This failure is very concerning and had it occurred at high speed could have resulted in injury.
I am filing this complaint on behalf of the owner who has indicated that she has not yet filed a complaint and may not do so if she is satisfied with the response from tesla. Here is the discussion thread: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/cracked-forelink.95637/ snip : jenniferq, saturday at 7:15 pm was driving yesterday on the freeway in ap in heavy traffic with 3 kids in the car, and the car stops suddenly and successfully, but then a terrible sound emanates from the left front wheel. Kids crying so I pull off the freeway thinking something is caught on the wheel/tire to find the back of the lf wheel well cover lifted up and pressing against the tire. Once roadside gets there, the tech shows me how the "a arm" has split and come off of the ball joint and dropped down and is interfering with the wheel. Wow! Service was exceptional. I was about 1 hour away from the nearest service center in friday afternoon traffic, but roadside and a loaner tesla (o.g. From 2011, so now I understand a lot more about the posts from before 2015!) showed up and we were back on our way out of town within about an hour. But, this could have been a serious accident. I wonder what caused the failure. The tesla tech says maybe improper torqueing of the forelink. Just wondering if this has happened to anyone else? My car has almost 30k miles and has had no other mechanical issues. Very unnerving, to say the least, at what could have been a serious accident if we'd been going at speed and the suspension had come apart like this then. Thoughts?
While stopping quickly on the freeway, a terrible sound emanated from the left front wheel. I pulled off the freeway thinking something was caught on the wheel/tire to find the back of the lf wheel well cover lifted up and pressing against the tire. Once roadside got there, the tech showed me how the "a arm" had split and come off of the ball joint and dropped down and was interfering with the wheel. Service says "more than likely the forelinks were not appropriately torqued, so while drive (sic) they became loose and cracked" this could have been a serious accident if the a arm had come loose at speed. What caused this?
Here is another tesla in the junkyard. Https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=24196330&rownumber=59&loadrecent=true the front rh suspension has collapsed. The rh front wheel is sliced in half. The tire on the rh front wheel has the tread badly worn away. This is not consistent with the normal wear pattern on such a relatively new car. It looks far more like it was caused by the suspension collapse forcing the wheel up against the bodywork. There is a ridiculous number of teslas showing up as salvage wrecks. The insurers would probably place the blame on tesla having a mechanical defect. It is my belief that tesla is making deals with the insurers and owners to cover up these problems. Please investigate.
Here is another tesla in the junkyard with a snapped off back wheel. Https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=25122928&rownumber=51&loadrecent=true pictures show that no airbags have deployed, car has not been in a crash. The suspension components have simply snapped off as has happened many times before on tesla cars. The suspension giblets are far too weak for a car of this power and performance. Please investigate.
Here is a report of a tesla involved in a crash. Http://bgr.com/2017/05/23/tesla-crash-photos-walk-away/ I am filing this report as a concerned citizen because I think the owner will not make a complaint himself since tesla owners are often tsla shareholders and are unwilling to make any criticism. Two things to note: the back wheel flew off and nearly killed a bystander. The airbags failed to deploy and a passenger was seriously injured. Please see attached files from a facebook page in which the owner describes the crash.
Here is a burned out tesla in the junkyard. Https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=24822571&rownumber=40&loadrecent=true the front lh wheel is jammed back in the wheel arch. The front lh tire shows signs of having been gouged while it was still rotating. The lower suspension arm is lying on the ground. A wheel liner is lying inside the car but it is not fire damaged. This strongly suggests that it was recovered from the roadway and is further evidence that suspension failure caused the wheel to jam up into the well and was the main cause of the crash. The tesla suspensions are failing far to often and the fire problem has not been solved by the flimsy titanium battery shields. Please investigate.
Here is a tesla in the junkyard. Https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=24470024&rownumber=21&loadrecent=true the suspension has collapsed on all four wheels. The front rh wheel and suspension has been completely wrenched off. The front of the car is virtually undamaged. This is almost certainly another case of the air suspension failing and (due to the badly designed suspension not being fitted with bump stops) all the damage to the car is self-inflicted. There is a pattern of failure in these cars which is placing lives at risk. Please investigate. (not the owner, just a concerned citizen)
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