2016 Tesla Model X: doors won't lock, open or latch

Filed May 6, 2025 · Locks · CA

My 2016 Tesla Model X has a persistent and dangerous issue with the electronic parking brake. The brake frequently fails to disengage properly, and the car becomes jerky when attempting to move. When the vehicle is parked, a warning appears stating: “Parking brake not engaged. Vehicle may roll,” even when the brake is set. This poses a significant safety risk, especially on inclines. Additionally, the driver-side door latch mechanism has failed again. Tesla previously repaired this exact issue and charged me, but the failure has returned. The door sometimes fails to latch securely or does not open and close properly, creating a safety hazard. These issues have made me concerned about the safety of driving or parking the vehicle. I believe these components should be investigated as potential manufacturing or design defects.

Filed Oct 23, 2022 · Body · CA

Vehicle's "Falcon Wing" doors would malfunction when exposed to direct sunlight where door panels would become hot. Doors would not open remotely due to the sensor believing an object was blocking the door, the message on screen would read "Obstacle detected" when no object was present. Occupants would manually have to hold down the open button on screen or the physical button in order to open the door. Which would open very slowly or stop oppening halfway due to a phantom object being detected. This would pose a risk for rear occupants unable to exit the vehicle in a timely manner in case of an emergency. The vehicle was taken into service 8 different times to address the issue. Service center claims they could not recreate the problem but found the tripod mounts for the infrared door sensor to be misaligned. Each time a temporary fix was performed and the problem would reappear not long after. Contact sent a certified mail letter to the manufacturer demanding a resolution or compensation for the issue. No response was ever received from the manufacturer. A 9th visit to the Tesla service center for the same issue netted a result where new tripod mounts that hold the infrared door sensor were installed. Since this repair, the Falcon wing doors operate normally most of the time but will still occasionally malfunction if the doors are exposed to direct sunlight for extended periods of time.

Filed Dec 30, 2021 · Body · NC

My vehicle was being repaired by a collision repair shop to replace the front bumper and grill. When they finished the repair and were calibrating all the sensors, they discovered that the driver door would not latch consistently. When it did latch, during test drives by the collision employees it would fail while driving down the road and the door would open on the highway. They could not return the vehicle to me until the door issue was fixed. They attempted to fix it by replacing the door actuator once that part arrived from Tesla. That also did not fix the problem. After contacting Tesla they were told it is a known problem for which a retrofit latch kit is needed. Tesla would not repair the latch without payment for the kit parts and labor to install it as the car was out of warranty. The total bill was $820, including $310 for parts and $455 for labor. In my opinion this should be a required safety recall for the Model X as it allows the driver and passenger doors to open while the vehicle is underway. Note: As I was not driving I can not report the approximate speed. The mileage and date is an estimate as the vehicle was under the care of the collision repair shop when the incident occurred and was reported to me.

Filed Jun 24, 2020 · 97,000 miles · VA

Model x's mcu touchscreen completely gone dark. This basically disable all back-up camera, turn signal sounds, GPS, navigation, vehicle controls: door locks/unlocks, lighting, AC, etc.. In my instance, the vehicle's screen did not boot upon start up of the vehicle. The car is drivable but unsafe because of all the above mentioned disablement. Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efa7eldsamy.

Filed May 16, 2019 · Body, Electrical · CA

The falcon wing doors of the vehicle would not close. After trying to troubleshoot the vehicle, all the doors of the car would lock and the car door would not open either from the remote or the door handle. Luckily there were no kids or pets in the car and the car was almost near the driveway of the home. This happened after the car was put in the parked mode in a city street after a short 10-mile trip.

Filed Dec 8, 2017 · Suspension · 10,000 miles · CA

Here is a model x in the junkyard: https://www.iaai.com/vehicle?itemid=26856901&rownumber=55&loadrecent=true suspension has collapsed on all four wheels causing the wheels to jam up into the wheel wells and damaging the bodywork around the wheel wells. No air-bags have deployed. There is no collision damage. This is yet another example of tesla suspension collapse caused by bad design, shoddy construction, and gimmicky software control of every function in the car right down to the ridiculous door handles. Please take this dangerous toy away from its owners before more people get killed. Thank you. Very concerned citizen.

Filed Jun 10, 2017 · Body · 5,400 miles · CA

Driver side falcon door opened while driving on highway with my 6 y.o. Sitting next to door. On june 2, 2017 we were at toy r us with our parents and our 6 year old son, a total of 5 people. For context, my son sits next to the driver side falcon door, me in the center and my mom on the right. My husband and father are in the front. As we were leaving, the left side falcon door was stuck again. We immediately called the service center due to it being friday but since it was late in the day we left a message as they were already closed. We started to drive home because through our previous experience we were always advised to drive the car back to the service center as the car is still drivable. During the ride, I was calling the roadside assistance to write up a ticket to reinforce to the service center to call us to schedule service first thing in the morning. While on the phone with roadside assistance, I head a click in the door and the motor as the door started to lift open. I grabbed onto the door with my left hand and held on and the door had about a 2-3 inch gap. We had been on the road for approximately 15 minutes at this time and were on the 5 north freeway right before the tustin ranch exit. We immediately exited and parked in the tustin auto center. The door opened once we parked and clicked closed once the button was pressed. As we were close to home and can drive home via local streets, we drove home. We informed roadside assistance to immediately set up a tow first thing in the morning on saturday. This is the fourth time the door has malfunctioned, the other three times occurred on jan .28. April 23, and april 25 and their attempts to fix door has been unsuccessful but this last incident added on the door opening on highway would lead to serious bodily injury had I not grabbed onto the door. Please contact us for more detail timeline.

Filed Jan 7, 2017 · Electrical · 929 miles · OH

Falcon wing doors would not close. I tried multiple times to get the door to close and lock and all attempts to close and lock the door failed. Tesla had to have the car towed to a service center for repairs.