2021 Model 3 LR broke down and wouldn’t drive

[KenC]

They’re still working on my car and upon asking what went wrong they don’t have an answer yet and tell me that the engineers are still working on it and that they are waiting on approval to replace the rear inverter (I’m guessing that’s the rear drive unit?) it’s almost been a week and they still don’t have an answer as to what went wrong and the service team just gives me super vague answers.

I have mixed opinions on how I should feel with this car moving forward. I want to request for another car but it doesn’t look like they’d care or do that. Atleast request free supercharging miles as a compensation? What do you guys think?
I did get a loaner Model S in the time being but I like my model 3 way better than this 2017 75D Model S.
I’ve lost all my trust from Tesla. Every time I park my car somewhere and put it in drive after I’m always scared now if it will even start back up and take me home safely and I try to stay as close to home as possible. I really hope this anxiety goes away soon but it sucks having that constant fear all the time that the car might not go into drive again and I’ll just be stranded in the middle of no where. Just feels super unreliable.
Thank you for all you guys’ support though. I hope I’m able to trust these cars again.

Terrible. Driving an unreliable car is a real strain on your mental well-being. I think, until they find out the root cause, you'll feel unsure. If it's something small, that caused a cascade of issues, like a bad 12V, then I would be okay with it, once it was ID'd and fixed. If they never truly ID the problem, then I'd want to get rid of the car. The rear inverter should be a plug and play type of fix, so replacing one shouldn't affect future reliability.

I had a 2016 Chevy Volt, and on the Volt forums there was a rash of Shift-to-park errors, which inevitably occurred on interstates. Very scary for the driver. It seemed like it happened so often that it felt like a ticking time bomb, enough so, that it helped me decide to get the Tesla. I couldn't afford to drive an unreliable car.

So far, I've owned my Model 3 for 2 and ¼ years, and I've yet to have any Tesla service. In fact, I've never talked to anyone from Tesla, since my vehicle was home delivered and my delivery agent only emailed me. Hopefully, yours will be fixed and it'll be something that gives you enough confidence that the car will be just like new.

 

[MikeyC]

One thing I noticed when I was researching the Model 3 (and Tesla in general) is that while service centers can be a pain to deal with, slow, etc., they seem to know what they are doing and in the end, appear to do quality work. I too am hoping yours is a simple fix and once that is fixed, you'll be good to go.

Mike

 

[Hydrocarbon302]

At some point, if they want to use your car to find the root cause of failure, and it takes a substantial amount of time... then they should just replace your car. That way they can dissect your (old) car and test it all they want. Otherwise they should just throw in a new drive unit and battery, or whatever it takes to get you back on the road. you shouldn’t be ”paying“ with your time for them to do engineering tests.

 

[boiler81]

then they should just replace your car.

Yeah, I don't that would every happen.
I agree it may seem that Tesla Service is slow, but from my experience, I think they genuinely want to get it right.
Sounds like you've got an equal or better loaner car, so I'd give them the time to find the root cause. If you ask for some supercharger credit that would be fair, but don't count on it.
Remember "if you want it bad, you'll get it bad"

 

[pure9]

Thank you everyone for your support. This is the update from SC (screenshot attached).
Hopefully they replace the rear drive unit and everything is back to normal. Still yet to find out what actually went wrong with the car. They keep saying “engineers are working on it”. Once I find out what actually went wrong after they fix it, what are some questions I can ask them to ensure my car doesn’t break down in the middle of a trip? Can I ask to be compensated for this? Maybe get the $2k acceleration boost upgrade or free supercharging? Has anyone had experience doing this?
Thank you again!

 

[XPsionic]

Gotta say, the service is pretty lousy at Tesla. You shouldn't be the one who needs to proactively ask when the car will be ready. Hope it'll all be sorted out for you. Wouldn't hurt to ask for freebies, you miss every shot you don't take!

 

[Breyannanava]

Hi guys, I took delivery of my 2021 model 3 long range 4 days ago. Long story short, 450 miles in I pull up to a super charger for the second time ever and start charging. 5-10 mins in it stops charging and reports the following three errors BMS_a035, BMS_a151 and VCFRONT_a192. The car wouldn’t go into drive and after about 1 hour of waiting for the tow truck car completely turns off including the screen and won’t even go into tow mode. Car is still not charging and solid red Tesla logo shows up when trying to charge. SOC is at 28% after few mins of charging. Initial SOC was 25% when I got to supercharger and the battery was preheating for fast charging. The car also starting making weird clicking noises from the back.

called the service center to see what’s going on but no one helped me since it’s Sunday and the service center opens tomorrow. Do you guys know anything I can do or ask the SC tomorrow? This is my first Tesla and I’m super disappointed and I’d really want to get a new car since i feel like mine is a defective car and will always give me problems (When I first accepted delivery and got inside the car the screen turned off completely for a min or two which was super weird idk if this has to do anything with what happened) I didn’t even get the chance to get my panel gals resolved since my appointment for that was another couple days in but Tesla service said they will merge both appointments and take care of it in one.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a recall or a bunch of defective cars? I picked up my car from Costa Mesa, CA location on March 24 around 4:00PM. Can I use the lemon law to my advantage here? Any tips or suggestions will be appreciated. I’m super upset since I was loving the car and it’s my first Tesla and I’ve heard their customer service is bad but I didn’t know the quality of the car is this bad. There was a major panel gap in the back door where water would leak inside the car and cause a lot of wind noise and I was already scheduled to get this fixed but my car broke down before that.
I’ve attached pictures of the error codes.

This is happening to my car now. I only have 600 miles and just took delivery last Monday. It broke down and won’t turn on got a bunch of error codes and Tesla said they will tow it to nearest service and give me a loaner. Very disappointing tho I love teslas and this is embarrassing. I don’t even want to bring it up to others because I’m always talking about how great teslas are and then this happens :/

 

[Hydrocarbon302]

I told my wife our MYP is like an abusive spouse. You tell everyone how great they are, and how wonderful they treat you then....BAM! Pushed down a flight of stairs with a black eye and a new rear drive unit.. but we still love it, and it was just this one time... things will be different now... BAM!! Drank too much, slapped us around, and needs a new super manifold. Our friends and family tell us ”your car has been in the shop a lot for a new car“, but we make excuses... it’s really not that bad, you don’t know what it’s like the other 99% of the time, it’s treats us so good, and we would never even think of getting rid of it! BAM!! got whiskey drunk and drug us by our hair outside and the door latch sensor needs to be replaced.... still love it!

 

[Gasaraki]

They’re still working on my car and upon asking what went wrong they don’t have an answer yet and tell me that the engineers are still working on it and that they are waiting on approval to replace the rear inverter (I’m guessing that’s the rear drive unit?) it’s almost been a week and they still don’t have an answer as to what went wrong and the service team just gives me super vague answers.

I have mixed opinions on how I should feel with this car moving forward. I want to request for another car but it doesn’t look like they’d care or do that. Atleast request free supercharging miles as a compensation? What do you guys think?
I did get a loaner Model S in the time being but I like my model 3 way better than this 2017 75D Model S.
I’ve lost all my trust from Tesla. Every time I park my car somewhere and put it in drive after I’m always scared now if it will even start back up and take me home safely and I try to stay as close to home as possible. I really hope this anxiety goes away soon but it sucks having that constant fear all the time that the car might not go into drive again and I’ll just be stranded in the middle of no where. Just feels super unreliable.
Thank you for all you guys’ support though. I hope I’m able to trust these cars again.

I would just sell the car and cut your loses. If you don't trust the car and brand, what's the point.

 

[kindofblue]

I told my wife our MYP is like an abusive spouse. You tell everyone how great they are, and how wonderful they treat you then....BAM! Pushed down a flight of stairs with a black eye and a new rear drive unit.. but we still love it, and it was just this one time... things will be different now... BAM!! Drank too much, slapped us around, and needs a new super manifold. Our friends and family tell us ”your car has been in the shop a lot for a new car“, but we make excuses... it’s really not that bad, you don’t know what it’s like the other 99% of the time, it’s treats us so good, and we would never even think of getting rid of it! BAM!! got whiskey drunk and drug us by our hair outside and the door latch sensor needs to be replaced.... still love it!

Time to invoke the lemon law?

 

[Hydrocarbon302]

Time to invoke the lemon law?

NEVER! It loves us and we love it! How dare you try to separate us! Besides, i do not think we meet the requirements for lemon law. Honestly service has been good to us, much better than most of the stories i read on here. I just wish the service center wasnt 5 hours away...

 

[LarryB.]

NEVER! It loves us and we love it! How dare you try to separate us! Besides, i do not think we meet the requirements for lemon law. Honestly service has been good to us, much better than most of the stories i read on here. I just wish the service center wasnt 5 hours away...

Model 3 2021 LR duel motor HP 3,000 miles. Error code BMS_a035 plus mobile app won't work and Car wont drive, I called service and was told a tow truck would pick the car up in 90 Min. and it would need a battery replacement. I was told it should be covered under warranty. I have read where quite a few people are having the same or similar warning messages. I was able to pull the car out of the garage where it dies in my driveway. I guess I was lucky it decided to break down in my driveway. I tried a soft and hard reset but it didn't help. If you get the same error alert I would not drive the car. I'm new here and this is my first post. I'm 65 years old and trying hard to do everything right. Love my Model 3 and hope to get it fixed soon.
I think I posted in the wrong section so I am putting it here instead in hopes it may help another Tesla owner.

 

[TiSLA500]

Got the same error codes last August 18th, HV harness and PTC heater replaced at my cost. 2018 M3 AWD. 3,600 miles later same problem. Both times got stuck far from home. Thank got Tesla extended warranty up to December for same issue. Let's see how it is handled in Decatur Atlanta SC

 

[alondon8210]

@pure9

Any update? My 2022 lr is doing the same thing same codes and same noise >>>>>

 

[ODWms]

Hey, I remember in the beginning, Elon was saying the cars can drive with only one drive unit. Has anyone experienced this?

 

[danarcha]

Hey, I remember in the beginning, Elon was saying the cars can drive with only one drive unit. Has anyone experienced this?

The dual motor cars can drive if the front motor fails. However the car cannot drive if the rear motor fails. For years the Tesla website stated that dual motor cars could drive with only one motor but didn’t mention that was only true if it was the front motor that failed.

 

[MikeyC]

The dual motor cars can drive if the front motor fails. However the car cannot drive if the rear motor fails. For years the Tesla website stated that dual motor cars could drive with only one motor but didn’t mention that was only true if it was the front motor that failed.

Seems like something they could update to improve. I can't see any mechanical or electrical reason why you couldn't run the car off the front motor alone, albeit with reduced power. It could at least get you home or to a TSC.

Mike

 

[Kide]

Obrigado a todos por seu apoio. Esta é a atualização do SC (captura de tela anexada).
Espero que eles substituam a unidade de tração traseira e tudo volte ao normal. Ainda não descobri o que realmente deu errado com o carro. Eles continuam dizendo que “os engenheiros estão trabalhando nisso”. Depois de descobrir o que realmente deu errado depois que eles consertam, quais são algumas perguntas que posso fazer para garantir que meu carro não quebre no meio de uma viagem? Posso pedir para ser compensado por isso? Talvez obtenha a atualização de aumento de aceleração de US $ 2 mil ou o supercharger gratuito? Alguém já teve experiência fazendo isso?
Obrigado novamente!

Hello, I'm also with some vcfront errors in my car, tesla fixed your problems?