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2010 2.0 Roadster won't reverse or even work in neutral gear

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No warning lights are going on, either. The gear indicator indicates I'm in these gears, but the car's wheels just won't move. The car's stuttered and stopped abruptly when reversing for the past few days, but now won't reverse at all. So now I'm waiting for a tow truck.

Has anyone experienced this?
 
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I hope so too! This car is my daily ride, so I'll be Lyfting until Tesla can deal with this brake issue. Hopefully brakes are less expensive than gear boxes.

Also, I encountered what seems to be a recurring problem servicing the car. I had 3 Tesla customer service reps and 2 towing company reps who supposedly worked with Tesla and with roadsters all the time tell me my car needed to go to the Burbank shop because the Burbank shop was closest to where I live. I had one Tesla guy at an afterhours call center in Utah tell me I could have my roadster serviced anywhere "because [all the Teslas] are the same." He, like the several others I spoke with, and like the service rep I made my annual service appointment with a couple of months ago, simply assumed I'd be going to Burbank. But LA roadsters are serviced only at the Torrance shop, and no one seemed to know that but me.
 
A photo of my rear passenger damaged brake.
 

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  • 2018 03 20 Rear passenger brake failure.jpg
    2018 03 20 Rear passenger brake failure.jpg
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Very happy to hear that you're back on the road with a relatively simple fix.

But missing a caliper bolt...and the car was last touched by Tesla Torrance?!? I have been going to Torrance for years and they have been good thus far...but hearing this issue is a little disconcerting because I have an annual service due on my Roadster coming up. Did Torrance (Mark or Anthony?) say anything more about the issue...or give you an explanation as to why this happened? Thanks in advance for the feedback.
 
You were right, Mlauto, it was a missing caliper bolt, which Tesla has now replaced, and all is well again. Best, Pamela

Missing caliper bolt? That's...frightening. I've had that cause a wheel to lock up on the freeway in another car. It's also a little concerning that Tesla seems to be forgetting how to service our cars.

BTW, my dentist is in your building, so if you ever happen to see a Glacier Blue 2.0 parked a couple aisles over from you in Visitor parking, it's mine.
 
A little concerning? Yeah,. I think that's an understatement. The 24/7 hotline (who you call when your car is missing a caliper bolt and won't go in reverse and needs towing) doesn't even know WHO services roadsters, let alone how to do it. In SoCal, only Torrance services roadsters. So why doesn't every Tesla service employee know this? I was was told repeatedly I should go to the Burbank facility because it was closer to my home.

I'm now dealing with a TPMS issue - my 5th one in 5.3 years, 24K miles of driving. I've heard the 2.0 has a history of TPMS problems, but this is crazy.

The Torrance "specialist," Anthony Medina, came to the W. LA facility to work on my car because W. LA is closer to me than Torrance, but either this "specialist" 1) failed to re-set my TPMS on my car when replacing my wheels, 2) did something else to my TPMS when replacing my wheels that caused my TPMS warnings to go on, or 3) I had my 5th TPMS failure due to an old battery or another bad TPMS or another repeated problem caused by something in the 2.0.
 
A little concerning? Yeah,. I think that's an understatement. The 24/7 hotline (who you call when your car is missing a caliper bolt and won't go in reverse and needs towing) doesn't even know WHO services roadsters, let alone how to do it. In SoCal, only Torrance services roadsters. So why doesn't every Tesla service employee know this? I was was told repeatedly I should go to the Burbank facility because it was closer to my home.

I'm now dealing with a TPMS issue - my 5th one in 5.3 years, 24K miles of driving. I've heard the 2.0 has a history of TPMS problems, but this is crazy.

The Torrance "specialist," Anthony Medina, came to the W. LA facility to work on my car because W. LA is closer to me than Torrance, but either this "specialist" 1) failed to re-set my TPMS on my car when replacing my wheels, 2) did something else to my TPMS when replacing my wheels that caused my TPMS warnings to go on, or 3) I had my 5th TPMS failure due to an old battery or another bad TPMS or another repeated problem caused by something in the 2.0.

Yes, definitely an understatement.

I get intermittent TPMS Error warnings. They come, they go...it seems entirely random. Sometimes the car goes months without it happening, sometimes the error lingers for a week. At the last Annual Service in Torrance, I mentioned it as an issue, but it wasn't manifesting at that time, so they dismissed it by saying one of my tires was a little low on air. Intentionally conflating a tire pressure warning with a Tire Pressure Monitoring System error.

Since TPMS warnings/failures is an issue that *every* 2.0 owner deals with, you would think they would say "oh, ok yes, we know what that is and can repair it by...and it will cost...". Why that wasn't their response, I have no idea. Honestly, I grew up with cars that didn't have TPMS and consider it a superfluous luxury --I'm fine with checking my tire pressure now and then. I might just see about disabling it if they can't make it work reliably.
 
Yes, definitely an understatement.

I get intermittent TPMS Error warnings. They come, they go...it seems entirely random. Sometimes the car goes months without it happening, sometimes the error lingers for a week. At the last Annual Service in Torrance, I mentioned it as an issue, but it wasn't manifesting at that time, so they dismissed it by saying one of my tires was a little low on air. Intentionally conflating a tire pressure warning with a Tire Pressure Monitoring System error.

Since TPMS warnings/failures is an issue that *every* 2.0 owner deals with, you would think they would say "oh, ok yes, we know what that is and can repair it by...and it will cost...". Why that wasn't their response, I have no idea. Honestly, I grew up with cars that didn't have TPMS and consider it a superfluous luxury --I'm fine with checking my tire pressure now and then. I might just see about disabling it if they can't make it work reliably.
1) In the US TPMS are a requirement, so (as far as I've read and discussed with Tesla) you will not be able to get it disabled.

2) The "randomness" of the error in your perception may be due to the system allowing for 20 minutes of "searching" for TPMS transmissions prior to creating the error. If your drives are not consistently over 20 minutes the error can seem to be random. As someone who commutes 30 minutes each way I can 100% confirm that when I have my winter tires on (without TPMS) I get the error at the 19-20 minute each day (each way). On occasion the error carries over to the next drive (I have not been able to figure out when and why).

3) The TPMS system on the 2.# cars is notoriously fragile, with many threads about this already.
 
Now they're telling me (this is Ricardo from Torrance) that the problem is old parts that they believed were not old because they were unused. Now, however, they've come to realize that even unused parts that sit on a shelf in a warehouse still age and become unreliable, and their testing equipment falsely indicated that these parts/batteries were in good enough condition to install as if they were truly new parts.

I'm told they've realized that their tests on installation were misleading, and that the sensors/batteries quickly lost efficacy when put into use.

I'm told this as if this is new information to them, and I'm supposed to believe that the 4 "new" TPMS being installed in my roadster right now are actually new.

Can't help but be skeptical about all of this. If all 2.0 parts are designed only for the 2.0 or even the newest 2.5 roadsters, then they're all, by definition, old, and there's no such thing as a new TPMS for a 2.0 roadster. So my car's being equipped with yet more sensors/batteries that will fail in a few months or a year. Disabling this unnecessary warning when tire pressure is easily checked seems like a good workaround. Or Tesla can keep replacing these, if they want to perpetuate this charade.