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Another front suspension control arm failure
- Thread starter RDoc
- Start date
Well I’m practically positive this happened to me as well.
I just bought the 2017 90d a month and half ago at 59k miles now at 65k miles and heard a pop as I was pulling away from the curb at 3-5 mph. Thought it sounded weird but may have just been a water bottle or something. Unfortunately I was on a road trip back home from the Bay Area with my daughter.
I stopped on the freeway for a bathroom break and heard my front wheel drivers side grinding against the wheel well. After speculation it looked as though while facing the wheel it offset to the right. I asked for a call from the SC via text after making an appointment and he said to bring my car in ASAP as it could be a safety issue. An hour longer into driving I braked Lightly because a car came into my lane on I-5 and then there was a louder pop, grinding noise followed by a loud screech, and steam coming from the wheel well. I immediately pulled over and had the car towed to Costa Mesa service center with me, my 5 year old, and girlfriend in a tow truck.
SC said that there’s signs of impact and that it cannot be covered under warranty. Though their “signs of impact” are clearly wear and tear and curb rash from Parking margins( which I’m positive were there when the car was sold to me) I didn’t hit anything and if I did the 4 cars in front of me would’ve too.
And even more unfortunately Tesla started the repairs before insurance got out there and now they’re talking about not covering it. So I may be out 5k that I was quoted because Tesla decided it’d be great to replace the front bumper and get it painted
Attached below are the photos Tesla provided
and yes I will be filing a complaint with the NHSTA.
I love my car but disappointed in my ownership so far. The drivers door latch broke after 4 days, the key fob was given to me dead, the 12v battery was dying after 3 weeks and when the door latch got fixed they then broke the ambient lighting in the drivers door so I had to go back again for that.
if anyone found a way to argue with Tesla about this please let me know
I just bought the 2017 90d a month and half ago at 59k miles now at 65k miles and heard a pop as I was pulling away from the curb at 3-5 mph. Thought it sounded weird but may have just been a water bottle or something. Unfortunately I was on a road trip back home from the Bay Area with my daughter.
I stopped on the freeway for a bathroom break and heard my front wheel drivers side grinding against the wheel well. After speculation it looked as though while facing the wheel it offset to the right. I asked for a call from the SC via text after making an appointment and he said to bring my car in ASAP as it could be a safety issue. An hour longer into driving I braked Lightly because a car came into my lane on I-5 and then there was a louder pop, grinding noise followed by a loud screech, and steam coming from the wheel well. I immediately pulled over and had the car towed to Costa Mesa service center with me, my 5 year old, and girlfriend in a tow truck.
SC said that there’s signs of impact and that it cannot be covered under warranty. Though their “signs of impact” are clearly wear and tear and curb rash from Parking margins( which I’m positive were there when the car was sold to me) I didn’t hit anything and if I did the 4 cars in front of me would’ve too.
And even more unfortunately Tesla started the repairs before insurance got out there and now they’re talking about not covering it. So I may be out 5k that I was quoted because Tesla decided it’d be great to replace the front bumper and get it painted
Attached below are the photos Tesla provided
and yes I will be filing a complaint with the NHSTA.
I love my car but disappointed in my ownership so far. The drivers door latch broke after 4 days, the key fob was given to me dead, the 12v battery was dying after 3 weeks and when the door latch got fixed they then broke the ambient lighting in the drivers door so I had to go back again for that.
if anyone found a way to argue with Tesla about this please let me know
Attachments
Tell them if they want to replace it, they can do it at their own expense. Otherwise your insurance can pay for it when that side breaks too....which of course will be a lot more costly especially if there's bodily injury involved to someone in your car or another vehicles passengers...or a pedestrian....or a ...... etc.
Technically I doubt insurance covers these "mechanical" failures, but in this case where Tesla claims that an impact caused the failure they would.
But would you really want to wait for the other side to fail and file a second insurance claim? I suspect your rates would be significantly impacted...
But would you really want to wait for the other side to fail and file a second insurance claim? I suspect your rates would be significantly impacted...
Yeah that’s what I’m gonna say, no way I should have to pay outta pocket for this. I find it ridiculous I’m paying in the first place when service spealist told me to drive the sum 200 miles to Carlsbad to take it get serviced when only 60 or so miles in is when the full breakdown occurred. Probably could’ve prevented a ton of damage had I just gotten it towed in the first place.
Update; Tesla is saying there has been a revised part and that’s what they are needing to install on the right side because it won’t match the left. I argued back and forth how that should’ve been replaced before I bought the car or that then this should be getting paid by Tesla and not me. A lead technician should be calling me before 5. We’ll see. I also didn’t find anything on the TSB regarding this and was hoping to have it as ammo, so if anyone does please send it over.
Right. And between Tesla and the insurance company, they can't have it both ways. It was either due to a defect or an impact. I'd let Tesla argue it out with the insurance company.
Yeah that’d be great but Tesla is trying to have me fork up money and not proving their case with the insurance well enough to have them cover it. It’s all pretty ridiculous to me.
update: I told them I was going to get written documentation from CHP that there was no debris in the road that day and I am going to speak with a supervisor if there’s by end of day.
Supervisor called me and is covering the full expense. Insurance claim cancelled. All is well, and headaches are gone. It sucks I had to have the bad experience but it is what it is and I’m glad they’re making it right even though I had to twist their arm multiple times today.
Supervisor called me and is covering the full expense. Insurance claim cancelled. All is well, and headaches are gone. It sucks I had to have the bad experience but it is what it is and I’m glad they’re making it right even though I had to twist their arm multiple times today.
Excellent. I was going to suggest to offer to pay 50% at least but 100% is obviously sweet. Now if Tesla did CPOs, they should have already done this.
Today making a sharp turn into my work driveway the car started making an awful grinding sound. I've read enough threads to suspect a suspension failure. Was able to limp into a parking spot, found a broken control arm (hope I have right term), and the force of the car as it was turning and moving ground the wheel into the wheel well, exposing metal framing and gouging the tire.
Sending it off to Tesla...
2017 Model S March production date. 37,377 miles on it.
Sending it off to Tesla...
2017 Model S March production date. 37,377 miles on it.
Attachments
BigNick
Infamous Fat Sweaty Guy
Should be a warranty repair but, yikes! Good thing it wasn’t at highway speed.
Not good. Sorry to hear that happen Des to you. Following to hear Tesla’s response. Shouldn’t happen and makes me concerned that these suspension components are not sufficiently well engineered as it’s not the first time I’ve heard of this failure. Does anyone know if there have been any parts changes to beef up this part in more recent production?
Figured I'd add a bit more detail about the event.
I was traveling roughly 35mph in a straight line on a clear road with no discernible debris. Same road I travel every day to get to work. To get up our driveway there is a right hand turn and you cannot take it at much more than 5-10 mph.
Since everything happened so quickly I'm not 100% confident on this, but I think I started to brake to reduce speed and then the grinding/shuddering started and I started turning. In the heat of the moment (seconds) I realized that even though the sound was awful I needed to slow down or I'd end up on the sidewalk. So I continued to brake and turn.
When I completed the turn and was stopped the grinding noise stopped. At this point I still wasn't sure I had not had something get caught up in the car or what the source of the noise was. I inched forward and the car moved just fine and made no sounds. I accelerated a little more, still no problems, then I braked and that was bad grinding-shuddering. I stopped and looked around/under the car but didn't see anything beyond the wheel well damage, no thing was caught and dragging.
End up slowly driving the car into a parking spot, drove ok enough, only problem was with even mild braking the wheel would start rubbing the rear of the wheelwell, so I slowed down without braking for the most part, and then when required the lightest of touch to stop the car.
When parked the damage was most clear when I turned the to the left and could see the broken lower control arm pictured above. The tire is really gouged. With this particular failure I think that the best thing I probably could have down would to have been to reduce braking force.
If looking at your own car I think you'd need a mirror to the see the back side of the control arm where it attached to look for fatigue. Tesla roadside assistance picked up on the car and its at a service center now, will update with the results. Given how many of these I've seen I already reported to the NHTSA as an incident so that it can be tracked.
I was traveling roughly 35mph in a straight line on a clear road with no discernible debris. Same road I travel every day to get to work. To get up our driveway there is a right hand turn and you cannot take it at much more than 5-10 mph.
Since everything happened so quickly I'm not 100% confident on this, but I think I started to brake to reduce speed and then the grinding/shuddering started and I started turning. In the heat of the moment (seconds) I realized that even though the sound was awful I needed to slow down or I'd end up on the sidewalk. So I continued to brake and turn.
When I completed the turn and was stopped the grinding noise stopped. At this point I still wasn't sure I had not had something get caught up in the car or what the source of the noise was. I inched forward and the car moved just fine and made no sounds. I accelerated a little more, still no problems, then I braked and that was bad grinding-shuddering. I stopped and looked around/under the car but didn't see anything beyond the wheel well damage, no thing was caught and dragging.
End up slowly driving the car into a parking spot, drove ok enough, only problem was with even mild braking the wheel would start rubbing the rear of the wheelwell, so I slowed down without braking for the most part, and then when required the lightest of touch to stop the car.
When parked the damage was most clear when I turned the to the left and could see the broken lower control arm pictured above. The tire is really gouged. With this particular failure I think that the best thing I probably could have down would to have been to reduce braking force.
If looking at your own car I think you'd need a mirror to the see the back side of the control arm where it attached to look for fatigue. Tesla roadside assistance picked up on the car and its at a service center now, will update with the results. Given how many of these I've seen I already reported to the NHTSA as an incident so that it can be tracked.
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