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3 weeks, less than 900 miles, being towed to Service Center

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My brand new M3 Performance was picked up and towed to a service center out of state today (I'm in a state that doesn't have any service centers). I've had it less than a month, and with less than 900 miles.

Yesterday, I started getting Parking Assist Disabled alerts, then additional safety system disabled/reduced alerts. The turn signals stopped working. I could not get the car to reliably get into gear w/out doing soft reboots, Power Off. I was finally able to get it back home and called Roadside Assistance. We worked through some troubleshooting - Power Off, soft reboot (steering wheel scroll buttons), cycling through these. Eventually, after about an hour, the alerts cleared up, the turn signals were working, things looked good. The rep I was working with requested a mobile service appt; someone would contact me w/in 24 hrs. Later that evening I took the car out for a drive to make sure things were still working and had no issues. Plugged her in, and tucked her in for the night.

This morning I get in and no disabled/reduced alerts. Cool. Time to turn onto a main highway, turn signals don't work. Ok, that's better than it was yesterday and the car is still driveable. Get to work, park and go about my business, plan on reporting the turn signal issue.

Time for lunch. Get in the car, and all of the safety system disabled/reduced alerts start popping up, can't get the car into ANY gear, stuck in Park. Do the Power Off, soft reboot hokey-pokey for a couple of cycles but nothing clears up, seems to get worse. I'm stranded at work, can't even get my car out of my parking spot.

Call Roadside Assistance again. They have no record of a mobile service request from yesterday. I go over what transpired yesterday and what's going on today, what I've tried. At this point I'd taken an Uber home because I had to let my dogs out and so I could pick up my other car. I basically had a $60k brick. The person I talked to was awesome and she got stuff done, was fantastic with follow up and follow through. She contacted mobile service, they confirmed that there's likely nothing they could do to fix the issue so it needs to be towed to a service center which, of course, is out of state.

Before 2019.36.2.1 everything seemed to be working marvelously. Not sure if the update is the issue or coincidence.
 
Just out of curiosity, are they charging you for the tow?

I live in a province in Canada without a service centre and when I had an alert pop up they said I would have to pay for a tow 7 hours away to the neighbouring province. After some back and forth I eventually decided to just sit on it since the alert said "OK to drive" and it went away the next day.

I was just surprised towing wouldn't be included under warranty
 
I'm in the US. I was not informed that I would have to pay for towing. I used Tesla Roadside Assistance through their support number. The person I talked to contacted a "Tesla approved" tow service. There's a minimum distance where they provide towing/delivery w/out charge. If I remember correctly it's something like 300 miles? Your situation sounds terrible :( Maybe it depends on the severity of the situation?
 
You have brass cojones to buy a Tesla in a state without a service center. That’s a compliment.
LOL, thanks...I think :D We have acquaintances and friends that own Teslas in this state and talked very highly of the service response, as well as reliability. We definitely asked around before taking the plunge, knowing we'd be in a no-mans-land of service centers.
 
Time for lunch. Get in the car, and all of the safety system disabled/reduced alerts start popping up, can't get the car into ANY gear, stuck in Park. Do the Power Off, soft reboot hokey-pokey for a couple of cycles but nothing clears up, seems to get worse. I'm stranded at work, can't even get my car out of my parking spot.

Sorry to hear this, Tesla's can certainly have their quirks but there are many other things you dont need to worry about (like engine/transmission problems). You should hopefully not have to pay for the tow, Tesla is normally very good at taking care of people in situations like this when it's clearly Tesla's fault.

I had a similar problem where my Power Converter had a fault and then it stopped converting 12V power until the control system died, they explained it was a known fault in early units and they replaced it. Makes sense to me and i'm happy, no other problems after that since i had a new unit.

Definitely push them to tell you exactly what failed, they normally don't provide a ton of technical details at first and personally i think it's always good to understand exactly what happened and they should tell you if you ask. Oh and then come back here and tell us what happened too, it's always good to learn how these things break ;)
 
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Sorry to hear this, Tesla's can certainly have their quirks but there are many other things you dont need to worry about (like engine/transmission problems). You should hopefully not have to pay for the tow, Tesla is normally very good at taking care of people in situations like this when it's clearly their fault.

I had a similar problem where my Power Converter had a fault and then it stopped converting 12V power until the control system died, they explained it was a known fault in early units and they replaced it. Makes sense to me and i'm happy, no other problems after that since i had a new unit.

Definitely push them to tell you exactly what failed, they will not provide technical details at first and personally i think it's always good to understand exactly what happened and they should tell you if you ask.
Thank you! And, yes, I agree. It's very disappointing, and very embarrassing - brand new car towed from my work parking lot, especially with EVERYONE so excited about a Tesla! I'm trying to remain optimistic that everything will be taken care of and then I can go on for years w/out issues. It just quantifies issues when there isn't a local service center. It hurt seeing my car yanked up on a flatbed to be driven, uncovered, almost 300 miles.

I do intend to press them on what failed and, if possible, why. I know this is not the norm and I'm an outlier, but it's still really frustrating and disappointing. Thank you for your words of encouragement :)
 
This is almost exactly what happened to me in October 2018. The car died a week after delivery, they picked it up and transported it to the service center 250 miles away, then spent ten days awaiting parts followed by repair and delivery back to me. In the thirteen months and 12,000 plus miles since, the car has been flawless.
 
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This is almost exactly what happened to me in October 2018. The car died a week after delivery, they picked it up and transported it to the service center 250 miles away, then spent ten days awaiting parts followed by repair and delivery back to me. In the thirteen months and 12,000 plus miles since, the car has been flawless.

You left us hanging. What was your issue and what parts were needed?
 
Thank you! And, yes, I agree. It's very disappointing, and very embarrassing - brand new car towed from my work parking lot, especially with EVERYONE so excited about a Tesla! I'm trying to remain optimistic that everything will be taken care of and then I can go on for years w/out issues. It just quantifies issues when there isn't a local service center. It hurt seeing my car yanked up on a flatbed to be driven, uncovered, almost 300 miles.

I do intend to press them on what failed and, if possible, why. I know this is not the norm and I'm an outlier, but it's still really frustrating and disappointing. Thank you for your words of encouragement :)

So sorry to hear this man. That is awful. I'd feel exactly the same way. I'm the first one to have a Tesla at work. If it got towed so soon I'd never hear the end of it!
 
You left us hanging. What was your issue and what parts were needed?

The on-board charger, the charge port and several related modules were replaced. The car was fine at the end of the day, but the next morning it displayed multiple alarms and it wouldn't move. Reboots and restarts had no effect. At the time, I was worried that I might have a lemon, but the car has been great since that initial failure.
 
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