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4 year MOT - Fail!

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Both front lower control arms on the Model 3/Y are prone to the rubber bushes tearing or delaminating. There's a lot of force going through these bushes and the range of movement they have to deal with is part of the issue. If you only use your car in town or on good quality roads, or you drive like Miss Daisy, they'll last for years but for a lot of us these arms are going to need replacement every few years unless you upgrade them to something like Powerflex poly versions. Even going to metal spherical replacements isn't going to sort it forever as they wear out too.

My advice is if you are coming out of warranty soon, get all the suspension arms and knuckles examined as some may already be torn or worn enough to need replacement. If you're out of warranty, there are lots of choices in the aftermarket now, but I'd avoid anything that looks too good to be true price-wise and anything from no-name Chinese factories. Cleevely supply good quality OE-spec. arms made in Denmark, which are a very fair price.

Replacing any of these front arms does not mean you'll have to pay for a 4 wheel alignment. At the very most, you may have to have the front tweaked, but you shouldn't be paying for a 4 wheel alignment anywhere. Take it to a decent indy who should charge you a small amount to check and then price accordingly depending on the actual work carried out.
In any case, you can do the service test yourself for nothing to see if any alignment is required. It's called the EPAS test and is in the hidden service menu.

As costs are being discussed a lot in this thread, here are the Tesla Model 3 parts costs as of a couple of weeks ago:
All prices ex-VAT
Front Upper control arm (new version to fix the ball joint issue) £65.63 each side
Front lower compliance link £135.63 each side
Front lower lateral link £188.43 each side

Model 3 Performance brake parts:
Front discs £125
Rear discs £95.98
Front pads (axle set) £166
Rear pads (axle set) £310

You can't get front M3P discs from anywhere other than Tesla currently. It's a bit easier for the M3LR, MY and MS/X as the calipers are used on other makes/models. Beware of typos on many motor factor websites. There are a lot of websites claiming to offer M3P front discs, when they are actually M3P rears or M3LR/SR discs. Same with pads. Even the likes of Brembo, who make them, have typos on their website!

But, as pointed out to me by M00cow, Cleevely do offer M3P pattern pads and rear discs and everything for the other models and you can save a lot of money if you go with those parts.

The work involved to change anything to do with the brakes or suspension arms is not at all difficult. If you have done car maintenance before you could do this. Any garage worthy of your business can do this sort of work. No special tools, diagnostics or ADAS calibrations required other than what you could do using the service tools built in to the car's software.

Hopefully that answers some questions but ask away if you have any more!
Cleevley apparently don't do pattern rear discs at the moment.
Just been quoted £110 + VAT each for OEM Tesla rear discs. It seems they have had a price increase.........or...........
 
Looks like an apology is in order. I wasn't aware Cleevely were offering those pads, but I am now!
Another learning day and I'll amend my previous posts to withdraw my disparaging remarks!
Sorry :rolleyes:

No worries at all - I hadn't seen them that cheap before either when I last looked mate. To be fair, it was a year ago I last looked prices on common DIY fit parts when I was working out if I could afford the P model 3 - and then found out that they are so infrequently replaced that it was not worth worrying about :D

Apologies on my part too - when I said for all 4, it was because not everyone knows that they are sold as axel sets with pads so thought I would clarify that it wasn't per pad so to speak. Ask my dad, the last time I helped him do brakes on his van he bought 4 COMPLETE sets from Eurocarparts when he just wanted one box :D
 
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Cleevley apparently don't do pattern rear discs at the moment.
Just been quoted £110 + VAT each for OEM Tesla rear discs. It seems they have had a price increase.........or...........
I've got a quote from 31st Jan p/n 1044636-00D @ £95.83. I've seen some price discrepancies between different SCs before and haven't been able to explain them, but maybe the price has increased. I think I'll put a service request in now and see what I get back...
 
No worries at all - I hadn't seen them that cheap before either when I last looked mate. To be fair, it was a year ago I last looked prices on common DIY fit parts when I was working out if I could afford the P model 3 - and then found out that they are so infrequently replaced that it was not worth worrying about :D

Apologies on my part too - when I said for all 4, it was because not everyone knows that they are sold as axel sets with pads so thought I would clarify that it wasn't per pad so to speak. Ask my dad, the last time I helped him do brakes on his van he bought 4 COMPLETE sets from Eurocarparts when he just wanted one box :D
Those are such good prices for pads I have to admit, which is why I doubted them in the first place!
They are all R90 approved. If you're on a budget and you don't drive like you stole it, I can't see much downside.
 
Also, thought it might be interesting to reference some other Tesla owners I've come across and how their brakes have held up.
Model S/X brakes are really no different to M3/Y. Apart from the earlier models the discs and pads come from Brembo and are made of the same materials.

Here are examples from four model S owners I know:
* 7 years and 92,000 miles on the original pads/discs
* Front discs changed at 120,000 miles, rears at 150,000 miles
* 113,000 miles on original discs and pads
* 8 years and 167,000 miles on original pads/discs

Why could this be more of a Model 3 issue?
My guess is a combination of more being sold, less being garaged overnight, owners less obsessive about the general state of their cars, younger owners with less experence of maintaining cars. Just IMO.