ball joint failure on 2015 MS70D at 11K miles - Tesla won't cover

[Electricfan]

Find out who your regional service manager is and talk to him/her about it. I did that once and got my issue resolved. I"m not a mechanic, so I have no idea whether hitting a pothole can damage a ball joint or not. But I've been driving daily since 1976, hit thousands of potholes, never had a ball joint fail on any car I've owned yet, so I'd definitely pursue it with Tesla, aggressively. j

PS, welcome to the forum, and this type of question and request for advice is exactly why the forum exists. Good first post!

 

[K-MTG]

When I had this tire blow out a few week ago from something on the road (tree branch?). Tesla noted on their service invoice that customer blew tire from hitting curve, when that did not occur (as you can see from the video). I don't think this is a big deal as I don't have any suspension problems, though I have a rumbling noise when making left turns from the drivers wheel/suspension area (it was very noticeable on my curvy mountain drive a few days ago).

I just hope the guy that changed my tire (Tesla Roadside) didn't damage any suspension components, he didn't even tell me to put my car in jack mode. Though I did it as I read the owners manual.

I did have this rumbling issue resolved earlier this year when my car was leaking refrigerant but it came back a few days ago!! I just hope I don't develop any other subsequent issues with my X, reliability is the reason I considering a CT6 instead of an S for my ELR replacement.

 

[Tampaukfan]

You hit a pothole that blew a tire AND damaged the TPS sensor? UMM... Me thinks you cracked the ball joint and and it finally failed.
Hitting a pothole with enough force to blow out the tire and damage a TPS sensor is going to cause additional damage.

Yes there are stories and pics of questionable Telsa suspension parts but in your case it appears you are at fault.
You cant drive a car with low profile tires in the same manner as one with 18's or 19's... there is not enough sidewall to rebound from hard impacts.
Im amazed how people bitch and moan about wheel/tire damage when they are driving on super low profile tires.

 

[xborg]

You hit a pothole that blew a tire AND damaged the TPS sensor? UMM... Me thinks you cracked the ball joint and and it finally failed.
Hitting a pothole with enough force to blow out the tire and damage a TPS sensor is going to cause additional damage.

Yes there are stories and pics of questionable Telsa suspension parts but in your case it appears you are at fault.
You cant drive a car with low profile tires in the same manner as one with 18's or 19's... there is not enough sidewall to rebound from hard impacts.
Im amazed how people bitch and moan about wheel/tire damage when they are driving on super low profile tires.

I'm amazed how people bitch and moan about others but not read the thread properly.

Read it again.
Blown tyre: left
Broken Ball joint: right

These are totally unrelated.

@MountainMS You should get those fixed under warranty unless Tesla proves it's caused by an accident.

 

[davidc18]

Keep pressing them until they fix your car.

 

[weradln]

Wow! You are one lucky gentleman to have the break occur in such a safe manner. My plan of action would be to pay to have the piece examined for the cause of the failure. Then it should be easy to follow up with Tesla should it be a manufacturing defect.

 

[jeffro01]

Once again... A new member posts something that's oddly identical to other past claims and "everyone" immediately gives said new member the benefit of the doubt without even remotely considering the obvious elephant in the room...

Jeff

 

[sorka]

Call your insurer and report it as an accident. Tell them about the pothole incident. Tell them you don't know if it was an accident or warranty issue but you're not an engineer and Tesla's potion is that it is accident related. Then they can fight with Tesla or pay the cost to repair, less your deductible. Your insurance rates may also be affected so also keep that in mind.

Might be effected some but comp payouts don't normally effect your rates and if they it's usually tiny...nothing compared to collision which hitting a pothole isn't.

Have you had a recent alignment since you hit the pothole? Before and after on the printout might be evidence of how severe the pothole impact was.

Any any rate, Tesla hasn't presented you with any real evidence that you got into an accident that would have resulted in this so they pretty much have to cover it.

If you want to avoid the hassle, then go through your insurance which will treat it like a comprehensive claim. If you want to fight Tesla, go through the BBB and whatever state level consumer level protection agency you have that deals with auto makers who refuse to cover mechanical failures under warranty.

 

[sorka]

What caused it could be proven with some crack analysis on the failed ball joint, but that is probably beyond the scope of a normal person to accomplish. (In my field, we can analyze cracks and tell how they started either by an overload event, which would indicate the pothole, or by a material flaw in the casting, corrosion or some other cause. Its pretty cool actually) I have no idea how much it would cost to have a lab or university perform that analysis. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgical_failure_analysis

That's a good idea but I'd broaden that to having the metal tested to make sure it's the right grade.

If you decide to pay for this yourself vs going through insurance, you might tell them that you'll require the part because you'll be sending it off for analysis. If they cover the repair and don't charge you, they don't have to give you back the part. This might be enough for them to save face by "goodwilling" the repair.

 

[John Stuckey]

In my case, I had two tie rods and one ball joint to change on an out-of-warranty MS 2013 and it costed me 3 k$ Canadian so about 2.3 k$ US. (So I guess only a ball joint will be ~1 k$). Initially, I had a similar reaction: how the tie rod on both sides could possibly be broken at the same time?!

Now here, just calling the insurance puts you at risk to see your premium increase. Since my deductible is at 2 k$, I would certainly not call them.

So I just paid, and got over it. I've put it in the same category as my Sienna steering wheel that got almost stuck while driving. Quite dangerous if anything but no way to argue with Toyota that given the safety side of things, how they could possibly charge me 1200$ for that repair. Got over that one too. I'm quite sure you will receive the same treatment at Mercedes.

Sold our Sienna after the steering sensor failed - lucky it failed at low speed.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I really wish that insane dude wouldn't have ruined the entire discussion regarding whether the suspension is prone to failures.

It's my number one concern with the car even though I don't have any issues yet.

I'm simply used to cars that you can drive over almost anything. Heck in a Subaru I've run over curbs on the side (not intentionally), and not even an alignment issue.

With the Tesla they want to realign it at every service.

Plus I'm more likely in this car to hit a pot hole not just from it's size, but that it practically drives itself. AP doesn't have pothole detection.

I do have the 19inch tire to give me more protection, but they're still pretty thin.

 

[dwavo]

I had a similar situation with a 2014 Model S. The car has not been in an accident. Had an OS upgrade the evening before - which warns that the air suspension will operate. Next morning, back out of the driveway and <boomp> the ball joint broke and the wheel is hanging there at an angle. The tow truck driver was smart - he didn't have the equipment to move it. And so Tesla found a company that had a dolly and they took it to the dealer. Dragging a car around with one wheel dangling can break lots of things.

Tesla originally said that maybe i had hit something in the road. Makes no sense. Lots of things will break before a ball joint, like the wheel, or suspension arms. There have been upgrades in the parts - so perhaps they found an issue. Also - it snapped while moving less than 1mph. I wonder if the OS upgrade the night before could have forced one of the pressed parts out a hole. And that's the second thing - there was no damage to any of the castings. Would be pretty hard to break a ball joint without damaging some of the aluminum parts around it. I had hoped to send the parts to have a metallurgist analyze them - but they kept all of the parts as it was covered under "courtesy repair" - they didn't use the word warranty. I'm happy that Tesla took care of this. Hope the new parts are better than the ones that shipped from the factory. Great car - and the service team is very capable.

 

[IchDochNicht]

I'm sorry to hear about this incident. I can't judge about whether this is related to the pot hole. But in my experience, Tesla is super sensitive to any physical damage to the car.

A few months ago, I scraped my right front wheel at a curb in a parking garage - at very slow speed. Didn't notice any pulling to the side afterwards, so I let it go. About 2k miles later, I noticed that my right front tire was wearing much faster than the other. So I contacted Tesla service for an alignment.

In subsequent interactions, I had to explain multiple times that I did not jump a curb, and that it was not a serious accident that needs to be reported to my insurance and taken care-of by a body shop.

So they did the alignment as part of the 2-year service. When I picked it up, they said there was nothing wrong with my car.

I hope that was the end of it.

 

[ehua329]

Hey guys,

I am having the same issue, here is my link:

Model X arm control disconnects from wheel at low speed

What do you suggest that I do now?