2ND Brand new M3LR Highland with vibration ! Anyone else with the same car?

[Pagemakers]

I’m going to cancel my service. The initial vibration I had on collection is no more. Seems to corrected itself in a couple of hundred miles (or it was in my mind all the time)!

 

[rincewind]

I took delivery last Saturday, and I've now done an 80 mile round trip to Luton Airport and back, If there was any vibration there it was so small I'm hard pressed to notice it - anything I felt was probably all due to road surface differences. So, seems all good with mine.

 

[EVFan786]

Slight flat-spotting certainly doesn't mean you always have to replace the tyres. All the tyre manufacturers have advice on this if you do a bit more research.
As I said above, it could be the newer EV tyres are more prone to it, but if the easiest fix is to take some air out and drive on them for a bit I don't think it's too unreasonable for them to tell you that. I do think 27 psi is a bit low though.

Would you expect a car dealer to replace all your tyres if you parked it up for a month and got flat spots that way?

Flat-spotting | Continental tyres

Flat-spotting occurs when a tire has been stationary under vehicle load for a prolonged period. Let’s explore the causes, plus tips on how to prevent it.

www.continental-tyres.co.uk

Tire Flat Spotting | Michelin

Notice your tire is flat-spotting? Diagnose your flat tire symptoms and get it back in healthy condition with Michelin's tire assessment.

www.michelinman.com

So what would you do if you just spent £54k on a new car and flat spots are causing vibrations at 70mph and Tesla service say that to fix the issue you need to drive for 50 miles at 50-70mph but that and road force balancing do not fix the issue but you know its the tyres because when the car was driven with the previous 19" alloys the car drove perfectly ? Maybe its what Michelin refers to as "semi permanent: flat spotting and recommend to replace the tyres.

Temporary or semi-permanent tyre flat-spotting?​

There are two types of flat-spot tyres: temporary and semi-permanent. In most cases, a temporary flat spot occurs on the tyre after standing for a prolonged period (from a few days to several weeks). It disappears after driving only a few minutes and is not associated with any particular danger.

Semi-permanent tyre flat-spotting occurs after a complete standstill of at least four weeks. It can be aggravated if your car has had to withstand an additional weight load for a longer duration of time. This situation should not be taken lightly, as flat-spot tyres have a significantly higher chance of puncturing when driving.

Our expert advice: If your tyre shows signs of flat-spotting, make an appointment to service your car at a garage immediately. If it is not possible right away, change the tyres as quickly as possible to avoid irrevocable damage.

 

[Dangerous Fish]

So what would you do if you just spent £54k on a new car and flat spots are causing vibrations at 70mph and Tesla service say that to fix the issue you need to drive for 50 miles at 50-70mph but that and road force balancing do not fix the issue but you know its the tyres because when the car was driven with the previous 19" alloys the car drove perfectly ? Maybe its what Michelin refers to as "semi permanent: flat spotting and recommend to replace the tyres.

Temporary or semi-permanent tyre flat-spotting?​

There are two types of flat-spot tyres: temporary and semi-permanent. In most cases, a temporary flat spot occurs on the tyre after standing for a prolonged period (from a few days to several weeks). It disappears after driving only a few minutes and is not associated with any particular danger.

Semi-permanent tyre flat-spotting occurs after a complete standstill of at least four weeks. It can be aggravated if your car has had to withstand an additional weight load for a longer duration of time. This situation should not be taken lightly, as flat-spot tyres have a significantly higher chance of puncturing when driving.

Well, personally I would drive it for 50 miles and see if it went away, but then I'm mechanically minded and have worked on, prepped, driven and raced a variety of cars for >40 years so a little thing like that doesn't phase me like it seems to a lot of people these days (not wanting to sound like an old git, you understand).

I've sorted several issues on the Teslas we've owned which would have been covered by warranty, but because they were either DIY fixes costing next to nothing or parts I've wanted to upgrade with better ones, I've done it myself. One upside of this approach is I don't have to drive to a SC and spend most of the day there while the job's done (or sometimes not!).

This tyre issue is not a safety concern and I'd just cover those miles with the normal day to day driving I do so it wouldn't inconvenience me. And I do know the difference between temporary flat-spotting and permanent, so I'd use my judgement to determine whether it was worth escalating the issue within the SC and insisting on the tyres being changed or just trying their suggestion. I've had to escalate a problem with a noisy fan bearing on one of our Model 3s and although it was a bit irritating having to spend time in the SC explaining to them why I was in the right, it got done in the end. I do understand why SCs push back on jobs and it's certainly not unique to Tesla. I could tell you my Porsche and BMW horror stories both of which were far worse than most complaints I read about Tesla service.

Here's another way of looking at it - If the tyre issue solution is a choice between the customer driving on them for 50 miles or the SC spending time and money taking off the tyres (to be recycled, we hope) and fitting a new set, I'd choose the former, because it's the better solution. There's a common problem with LED rear light clusters misting up. It happens with Teslas (and other cars). You can either get them replaced under warranty or apply a very simple, low cost fix yourself. It happened on both our Model 3s and I chose the DIY fix because I don't want Tesla to waste time replacing them and throwing all those units into the recycling bin when the original units are perfectly serviceable and Tesla techs should be doing more important warranty work which can't be fixed by someone like me.

But of course, there are plenty of Tesla owners who say "Why should I do that when I've spent £54k on a car and Tesla should sort these things out for me?"
Those people don't think about the bigger picture and what might benefit them, Tesla and the environment by taking a different approach to some issues.

 

[Pagemakers]

It happened on both our Model 3s and I chose the DIY fix

Had mine replaced twice on my old 3. What is the DIY fix?

 

[Dangerous Fish]

Had mine replaced twice on my old 3. What is the DIY fix?

Four years since I did it and no misting on either car. I've read of some owners having them changed 3 or 4 times. The bins must be full to the brim out the back of the SCs

 

[rincewind]

Four years since I did it and no misting on either car. I've read of some owners having them changed 3 or 4 times. The bins must be full to the brim out the back of the SCs

Yep, I got the SC to change one, which didn't solve the issue as the condensation crept in to the new one too. I did the DIY approach after that and the issue went away.

 

[Big_Al]

so I went to Wolverhampton service centre and the service technician and the manager were both extremely helpful and I wish I had met them when I bought my highland in march as I am sure I would not had ending up rejecting the car (they only opened in may). the reason I say this is because when I was visiting the other service centres during march I had suggested to the service centres that we should try the 19" alloys of the previous model 3 and see if I had any vibrations but they chose to ignore me, which meant the problems were not fixed so I ending up rejecting the car and ordering a new model 3.

As you know from the initial thread even the new highland that I collected on Wednesday had the exact same issues but this time when I visited the Wolverhampton service centre and I was able to show the technician the fault on a test drive and suggested that we swap the wheels with the previous gen model 3 they agreed and when we went for a test drive the vibrations had felt like they had gone. Now I am not 100% sure of that and that's because I need to be doing 67mph plus and due to the traffic on the motorway I was only able to achieve that a few times and for about 10-20 seconds but I am confident that swapping the wheels has made a big difference. When I returned to the SC I was advised that first all the wheels will be balanced using the newer road force machine and also the wheels will be checked for alignment because I feel the steering is not perfectly level and then I need to try the car and if the vibrations are still there then the service manager will get approval to replace all 4 tyres (long winded but that unfortunately for me is the process)

If it does turn out that replacing all the tyre fixes the issues for me then I will be so cheesed off at Tesla as I asked them to try the older wheels and they ignored me, which meant I had to reject the car then I had to buy a cheap run around for a few thousand and pay for insurance, cancel my Tesla insurance etc until my new Tesla come and all this could have been avoided had they did what Wolverhampton SC are now doing/done. so far I have lost about 4K and will be writing to Tesla for some sort of compensation as all this happened because there service centres were not competent enough to apply some common sense in trying to diagnose a fault.

hopefully next week I will know 100% if the vibrations have finally been cleared.

ps I personally think that these new generation hancook tyres are to blame as my previous 2022 LR had the 19" hancook tyres and I had 2 years of trouble free driving and those same tyres were also on the donor car we took the wheels from for our test drive. I am pretty sure the old generation were T0 and the new gen tyres are T1 and the new gen have an issue with flat spots during transportation as other members have suggested.

I had the same issue as you, firstly they re-balanced the front tyres, issue wasn’t fixed, told me to drive it hard and brake hard for the next 100 miles, not sure why, as the brakes are ok. So booked in for a second service, and they confirmed I had flat spots on all tyres, so all will be replaced under warranty, they had none in stock, so had to wait 4 weeks for them to arrive. Once they were changed, the car was perfect, as it should have been when delivered, I have now covered at least another 2000 miles, and all is still great.

So, I am confident, your issue is flat spots, yes, if you do the mileage this may disappear on their own, but if they are happy to replace under warrantee, get them done. My car has now covered just over 4000 miles, took delivery on the 12 March.

Happy M3H LR driver

 

[Pagemakers]

Can somebody who’s has this issue describe exactly what happens?

Does anybody have video footage?

 

[EVFan786]

I had the same issue as you, firstly they re-balanced the front tyres, issue wasn’t fixed, told me to drive it hard and brake hard for the next 100 miles, not sure why, as the brakes are ok. So booked in for a second service, and they confirmed I had flat spots on all tyres, so all will be replaced under warranty, they had none in stock, so had to wait 4 weeks for them to arrive. Once they were changed, the car was perfect, as it should have been when delivered, I have now covered at least another 2000 miles, and all is still great.

So, I am confident, your issue is flat spots, yes, if you do the mileage this may disappear on their own, but if they are happy to replace under warrantee, get them done. My car has now covered just over 4000 miles, took delivery on the 12 March.

Happy M3H LR driver

Hello Mate, can I ask which Tesla service did you go to ?

 

[Big_Al]

Hello Mate, can I ask which Tesla service did you go to ?

Northampton, this is my local one

 

[EVFan786]

Northampton, this is my local one

Wolverhampton said that Tesla Europe advised them to drive for 50 miles between 50-70mph and at 27psi. I was not happy with that. After I collected the car the vibrations were still there and this is my 2nd brand new highland. It seems that they are just basically trying different methods to get rid of the flat spots. My service mentioned nothing about drive the car and we will check for flat spots and replace. A bit disappointed at that as your service centre seem very helpful and thorough were as mine with my history are not. I am now returning my car and ordering another and am hoping third time lucky !