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Car and Driver suffers Model 3 failure on 12/25, but car told them about it remotely

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Tesla fan-boy's response: "Wow, this is so cool, your Tesla messaged you over the air to get service. And dispatched a tow-truck on top. Tesla rocks!"

Everyone else: "WTF - your $50+K car left you stranded after only 5K miles on the odometer! And no loaner on top. Tesla sucks!"

a

Wow. Drama much. :)
The first person to jump on this with the same dramatic fashion is yet another Tesla complainer. :)
Bashing fan boys, and Tesla at the same time, and claiming fan boys suck because look a car broke down. Lol.

Short sellers and Tesla whiners are really stressed these days. :)
 
On the plus side. It has ways to go to surpass their Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

How Reliable Is the 2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio?

Ironically, I had severe issues with my 2019 Model 3's paint, so I returned it and bought a Giulia QV - fully expecting to spend many of my days in a Stelvio loaner. But I'm happy to say it's been flawless and truly one of the most enjoyable vehicles I've ever owned. Now I must go find a large pallet of wood to knock on. ;)

C/D is hard on their cars and they enjoy writing sensationalistic headlines. This is among their first for the Model 3 so hopefully the car will be fixed - and the updates will be limited to the car's overall greatness along with the treacherous Michigan roads the poor thing's subjected to.
 
I'm a car guy too and I subscribed to C&D for a long time. I stopped though due to the obvious bias against Tesla. Maybe that is changing but I doubt it. I picked up the last Lightning Lap issue at the Y a while back and the P3D was nowhere to be seen. The best car to come out in the last decade and C&D leaves it out of the LL? I don't trust anything they say about Tesla at this point.
 
Every brand has issues with early failure units. It's part of a normal distribution. Shitty that they got a dud, but someone was bound to get it.
But C&D's 3 is not early.

Their lease began it seems in Oct 2019 (Our Tesla Model 3 Long-Term Test Begins). The first "production" Model 3's that were delivered to employees happened at end of July 2017.

1st model year of Prius c, a brand new model got Consumer Reports says Prius C most reliable 2012 vehicle, despite CR not liking the car and not recommending it (didn't do well on their road tests).
 
I hope this results in improvement for service in MI. I have had great interactions with mobile techs, but, I haven't NEEDED the service because I was never immobile, and, I have a second vehicle. If I had a major issue, me, having to transport my vehicle to Toledo, and not getting a loaner is a major issue that needs to be resolved with creative thinking on Tesla's part.
 
Tesla fan-boy's response: "Wow, this is so cool, your Tesla messaged you over the air to get service. And dispatched a tow-truck on top. Tesla rocks!"

Everyone else: "WTF - your $50+K car left you stranded after only 5K miles on the odometer! And no loaner on top. Tesla sucks!"

a

First off, I wouldn't call it a "catastrophic failure". What was the catastrophe? So the car died. "Never happened to me before!!!!" I call B.S. It wasn't many years ago that I was reading of a BMW that burned to the ground in a parking lot. And I see cars by the side of the freeway almost every trip, and cars on tow transports most every day.

It happens to any car, no matter what the price, but it happens WAY less often on an electric. The price does not guarantee eternal life, my friend! Gas cars have a lot more problems. That's why they're called burners.

I've had my S for 97000 miles now, my old S for 82000, and my 3 for 14000 miles with never any maintenance, never an oil change, never, oh, wait. I did put some new wipers on this winter, nearly a hundred thousand miles. I've had the S in for service ONCE, for a new 12 volt battery, and no Tesla of mine has ever been towed or flat bedded. Tell me about your gas car.
 
But C&D's 3 is not early.

Their lease began it seems in Oct 2019 (Our Tesla Model 3 Long-Term Test Begins). The first "production" Model 3's that were delivered to employees happened at end of July 2017.

1st model year of Prius c, a brand new model got Consumer Reports says Prius C most reliable 2012 vehicle, despite CR not liking the car and not recommending it (didn't do well on their road tests).

From the article:

...with merely 5286 miles on the odometer.
 
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Anything mechanical is prone to breakdown at any point in time. Although, unfortunate that this breakdown occurred so early, at least the software in the Tesla is sophisticated enough to alert of a breakdown such as this and the road service was responsive. According to the article, it’s an issue with the rear drive unit, pyro fuse, and 12V battery. I’m sure Tesla will resolve it expeditiously.

But, but Tesla vehicles are so reliable and maintenance free. Lol.
 
I'm not talking about a car magazine documenting their experience. I'm talking about the total cars out there that have defects. In this case, it's just bad luck that it's a car magazine that experienced the problem. Cars are physical items made up of many other physical items. Sometimes, there are just defects. Extrapolating a single incident - especially because it happened to get completely documented by a magazine - into a bigger issue is the absolute definition of an anecdote. Unless someone is arguing there's a systemic problem with Model 3s.

What you're asking for is a practical impossibility. Every time someone posts a problem, someone will say that it's just 1 example out of many other cars with NO problem. Then someone will say let's see how many problem cars there are, compared to no-problem cars. How in the world can someone compile this statistic? We can't just brush off an issue by saying "oh that's just a single example", it's statistically insignificant. When your car dies on you after 5000 miles, it's not insignificant. When you get a warning that the car is about to shut down, just a few miles from a supercharger stating, when the range meter clearly shows there's more than enough range left to get there, that's not insignificant.

In the end, all we can do is gather info from what we're seeing on this forum, and from friends/aquaintances and form our own opinions.
 
Following.. This sounds similar to some the errors I got when I got stranded over a year ago. I was over an hour and a half from home, but fortunately I wasn't with my family. They towed to service center and paid for Uber, but no loaner. Fortunately was fixed in about a week and a half if I remember correctly. There are others who have gone through similar situations, but we just didn't get notified via app. I hope to not have anything happen again.
I do love my M3. It has been fine ever since (knock on wood).
 
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My new x5 died on me twice and had to be flat bed out of my garage. But I wasn’t writing for a car magazine. So no one knew. Either way bad luck to have a model 3 failed and failed for car and driver mag. This is going to get the press that Tesla don’t want.