Right, Montreal Service Centre rarely has loaners as well. They sent me a 400$ Uber voucher.
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Model 3 clicking sound near the rear wheel area
- Thread starter Falcon3
- Start date
Did they do anything the first time they looked at it? My SC said it was normal wear and the sound was within spec. They only retorqued (no lube) and now it happens more often than before. Initially it was just randomly at low speed acceleration or decelerations. Now I'm hear a sound when accelerating out of turn and going over bump (both happen randomly, ie not every time)
groovyd
Member
so far my impression of the repair is good. second day around town and no clicking and it both accelerates and slows much much smoother. in fact it wasn't just a sound after all it affects the entire experience of the drive. even feels smoother and more controlled changing speeds and cornering. hope it lasts.
Translation: tell him something that will get him out of here.
They know there's nothing they can do for you, without admitting the truth, which would expose Tesla to significant liability.
There are axles that are clunking on many low-mileage cars, as well as on near-new cars (my old one included). Why? Bloody easy!
Same as with most things in science and life, the simplest answer is often the correct one: They're not sized properly and the material is not good enough for the application.
Electric motors have immediate torque, so, in Tesla's application, those splines take a far more substantial beating than those on an equal-power ICE car, because of the shape of the torque curve. The correct engineering choice would have been to make them a lot beefier and/or out of stronger steel or otherwise to roll off the torque application.
Tesla goes for the wow factor, full beans as soon as you push the go pedal. It works wonders for the sales department but the cost of that is premature component wear. For eample, unlike Teslas, my eTron does not have the initial whack of torque and therefore accelerates almost a second slower to 60, compared to my ex Model 3, despite having more power. Why? The prevailing sentiment here would be because of Audi's inferior engineering abilities. In fact, they know damn well what they're doing. They are not allowing those splines to slam at full torque, rather they roll off the input current a bit to give the axles a chance to start rotating properly before applying full torque. The outcome is slightly slower off-the-line acceleration in return for a much longer component life.
Tesla are always pushing the envelope and they can only succeed by pulling engineering stunts that other manufacturers would not feel comfortable with (or get away with). This has worked well for them so far, because the exceptional novelty of their product has attracted customers that would tolerate things like a third drive unit in as many years. With the Model 3 being a more mainstream offering and with such failures occuring this early in the life-cycle, this will get interesting if Tesla does not solve this and other such problems sooner rather than later. As of now, it's pretty obvious they can't afford to admit to the problem and issue a recall, so they're playing dumb and stalling. Greasing and such are just band-aids that will last a few miles, as some here have already discovered.
Oh, and, to my limited knowledge, no road car has audible differential clicking that is "within spec".
OK, that's just wrong. Under normal circumstances, you should put that many Km on a new car in like two days.
That would be perfectly acceptable if they accepted only half the payment due for the car.
You're going to let that slide?
TeeEmCee
You seem to know more about this from a technical perspective so curious your thoughts:
1) safety concerns with this?
2) will the clicking get louder?
3) will more damage occur over time?
4) previous poster says his car drives smoother now...placebo or makes sense?
5) after only retorquing my model 3 axle nuts (no lube) the accel and decel sound is still there (which i'm cool with...could hardly hear) but now I'm getting a random pop like sound over bumps or accelerating out of turn...is this related?
You seem to know more about this from a technical perspective so curious your thoughts:
1) safety concerns with this?
2) will the clicking get louder?
3) will more damage occur over time?
4) previous poster says his car drives smoother now...placebo or makes sense?
5) after only retorquing my model 3 axle nuts (no lube) the accel and decel sound is still there (which i'm cool with...could hardly hear) but now I'm getting a random pop like sound over bumps or accelerating out of turn...is this related?
5_+JqckQttqck
Active Member
I had the rear service for the clicking noise in Mid August and it made it occur less frequently, however it's still there. However, now the front is clicking also. Gonna schedule an appointment and get it looked at again.
groovyd
Member
all they did on mine was re-grease the spline and hub and re-torque it and it is silent now. how long it will stay that way is another question.
I really don’t. I’m just an inquisitive engineer that tends to annoy the crap out of everybody by attempting to learn enough about others’ trade and calling them out when they’re full of it. These things are a lot less complicated than they make them sound.
By the way, when they tell you the clunk is “within spec”, ask them where they think the term “clunker” comes from.
I’m not exactly “qualified” to answer these, but, in my best Vulcan voice, logic dictates that:
1. Unintentionally loose things are never good in a mechanical system. In the best case, more damage will occur, in the worst case something will snap or bend to the point where it will be a safety hazard.
2. Possible. Depends on how loose the axle is already. As more damage is created, that does not necessarily mean more noise (although it probably will get louder).
3. You bet!
4. Think of what the axle is. It’s a glorified rod with splines at the ends, used to transfer rotational motion from a gearbox to the wheel. Each end of the axle is shoved into a socket, and it’s held in by the pressure exerted by a nut. If that nut works itself loose, the axle will work itself out of its socket to some degree, the splines will press less tightly against each other and will bang (getting deformed in the process). The more deformation, the more space is created between the splines, so there’s even more room to accelerate them before they make contact, i.e. they will slam into each other with even more force. Every bit of damage, creates the conditions for further, more significant damage.
If you then re-torque the nut, it pushes the axle back in tighter, the splines make better contact with each other, and the clunk is diminished or eliminated.
There are two issues with this: at least some damage (wear/deformation) of the splines would have already occurred. Re-seating the axle in properly will hide that for a while, but the lifespan of the axle is now definitely reduced (to what degree, we don’t know, but any mechanic who deals with such things could probably give you a good guesstimate). The other unaddressed issue is why the nut worked itself loose to begin with and what have they done to prevent that from happening again (my solid guess would be nothing).
5. Yeah, what are the odds of having two similar symptoms, in the same area, from two different conditions? Just as in medicine, the chances of those symptoms being unrelated are slim.
Think of why it happens in turns or over bumps. The force exerted over the wheel/axle changes, because of either the centrifugal force (in turns) or gravity (over bumps). That change in force must be equalized by the shocks/springs, so, until the suspension fully counteracts the change in said force, there will be some vertical acceleration. That acceleration means force applied to the axle within its socket. If there’s room for it to move, it will bang/clunk. You hearing that noise means there’s already plenty of damage there.
Conclusion:
While it’s fun to wax lyrically and semi-scientifically here about such issues, it’s an effin damaged axle that any responsible manufacturer would quietly replace. Attempting to pretend that it’s normal is quite astonishing.
What’s even more astonishing is that Tesla seems to get away with it, at least for now. As far as I can imagine, that can only be explained in one of two ways:
a) they’re exceptionally well connected and
b) the authorities that normally look into this type of thing (NHTSA?) were made aware of their precarious financial situation and instructed not to rock the boat.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
Model 3 clicking sound
I could believe it is the differential but it seems a bit suspicious on my car...so probably not normal is my guess. At the least, the lash is not optimally adjusted.
See video above. At least for me, I’m reasonably certain that this is not my issue. In any case, what you are suggesting here I have a hard time believing, unless things are really loose. I’ve removed a few half shafts, and usually the splines are EXTREMELY tightly mated in the inner race of the wheel bearing and/or the rotating portion of the hub assembly - often the axles have to be pressed out with an axle puller, and I can’t see how the axle nut is anything other than a formality, at least in some vehicles (though critical for safety in all vehicles, of course). I also have hard time believing that the axle backing out a tiny bit, as undesirable as it may be, would actually create much play on the splines - they usually are not tapered, at least in my limited experience, so there would be minimal additional play introduced with axial slippage. It WOULD potentially result in tapping as the nut taps against the rotating portion of hub assembly on turns, or whatever, if the axle is actually not tightly bonded to the inner race splines and is free to slide axially (the nut making contact would set the end point of the slide). But that would not hurt the splines as long as the play is minimal...not saying it is good though...seems like some stress on the threads for the nut at a minimum, and they probably are not designed for shock loads quite like that.
Do you have a Tesla, and have you actually assessed a problem like this in person?
It seems like there might be two different types of issues here, and I am just trying to understand this axle one (even though it is very likely not my issue - though I have speculated on a dubious connection earlier in this thread).
I could believe it is the differential but it seems a bit suspicious on my car...so probably not normal is my guess. At the least, the lash is not optimally adjusted.
See video above. At least for me, I’m reasonably certain that this is not my issue. In any case, what you are suggesting here I have a hard time believing, unless things are really loose. I’ve removed a few half shafts, and usually the splines are EXTREMELY tightly mated in the inner race of the wheel bearing and/or the rotating portion of the hub assembly - often the axles have to be pressed out with an axle puller, and I can’t see how the axle nut is anything other than a formality, at least in some vehicles (though critical for safety in all vehicles, of course). I also have hard time believing that the axle backing out a tiny bit, as undesirable as it may be, would actually create much play on the splines - they usually are not tapered, at least in my limited experience, so there would be minimal additional play introduced with axial slippage. It WOULD potentially result in tapping as the nut taps against the rotating portion of hub assembly on turns, or whatever, if the axle is actually not tightly bonded to the inner race splines and is free to slide axially (the nut making contact would set the end point of the slide). But that would not hurt the splines as long as the play is minimal...not saying it is good though...seems like some stress on the threads for the nut at a minimum, and they probably are not designed for shock loads quite like that.
Do you have a Tesla, and have you actually assessed a problem like this in person?
It seems like there might be two different types of issues here, and I am just trying to understand this axle one (even though it is very likely not my issue - though I have speculated on a dubious connection earlier in this thread).
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No longer have the Tesla, but, while I did, I had experienced similar clunks that went largely unresolved (in my case, they were classified as suspension issues). And no, I’m far from being a shade-tree mechanic, even though I do various types of service on my own cars and garden tractors on occasion. My rant was pure (arguably reasonable) speculation based on my understanding of the respective bits.
I am quite curious though about these issues and why Tesla seems to be dancing around them. Too many occurrences for them to still have to speculate; I bet they know exactly what they are and are just playing dumb in order to avoid/delay service expenses.
I do vividly remember having our old Renault clunker fixed all the time, when I was a child. Any mechanic worth his salt in those days would only need a few seconds of listening to a noise and would immediately know what it was. It can’t be all that different for an experienced Tesla mechanic.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
Maybe. I’ll have to take a look. I don’t think your spline wear speculation makes much sense, based on the half-axles I have dealt with. See above for the details. It is possible the Tesla design is somehow different, of course. We’ll see. Or I guess I’ll see, since you got rid of your car...
Hard to know what they actually did, they are pretty sketch. They claimed to have done something. I’ve asked twice for details, yet to get specifics.
Don’t plan to, but I’ll give em credit, they string you along until you just give up. Been busy, so for now all I did was give a honest post service online review. Got me a call but I missed it. To be continued...
Appreciate the input, but I’m not convinced (your first point). This was an issue as soon as it rolled off the production line. To me that rules out longevity issues.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
If the axle nut is actually really loose, in a way that leads to significant play, I figured the distance from the end of the axle to the top of the nut should be shorter on cars where it is loose. I suppose. Could be completely wrong. Anyway, I measured mine. I also inspected for play/gaps; found none. I've torqued the axle nuts in the past, so they aren't loose (but I certainly did not tighten to the torque spec, since I don't know what it is...). Based on my video referenced elsewhere above, my noise appears to be coming from the differential or the inner CV joints, anyway.
But, here are the pictures, showing the ~11.7mm measure and how it was measured using the caliper depth gauge. FWIW, which is not much.
But, here are the pictures, showing the ~11.7mm measure and how it was measured using the caliper depth gauge. FWIW, which is not much.
If you look at the top of the suspension springs you’ll notice that about half of the circumference is glossy and the other half is not. Could this indicate uneven contact and therefore possible clunking?
I always suspected that this was one of the issues with my car.
This thread is for the rear wheel area, but I think people have mentioned issues at the front.
Anyway, made a video, and it really seems like this is coming from the inner CV joint, or perhaps the motor unit itself, in my case. Hopefully the video works. Obviously this is from the FRONT axle. To be clear, the other wheel on the front axle is on the ground. So the motor is spinning. But it's an induction motor.
You can see with the rotor in particular, that some momentum develops, and after it stops turning, something else stops turning a while later (you'll see my hand jump as it hits). So there's definitely quite a lot of play here - a couple degrees for sure. In the slow motion you can see the jump as well. Not really visible when looking at the inner CV joint, but that's where the noise appeared to be coming from.
Slow motion goes for a while - you can always skip to about 1:12 for the inner CV clip.
Is this noise similar to what other people have been hearing? Obviously I'll have the service center take a look at some point in the indeterminate future when I am forced to bring it in.
tapping_axle by AlanSubie4Life
Just watched your video again and made this connection:
On my eTron, if I put it in park, there is a bit of play left and the car can rock back/forth a bit, unless I have also applied the parking brake. I’ve observed similar behavior in some non-VW/Audi/Porsche dual-clutch transmissions.
Assuming that your car was in Park when you took the video, It’s possible that the play is normal and the axle is allowed to rotate a but until it hits a stop inside the gearbox.
If the above is correct, then that’s not your issue.
As you rotate the hub, something sounds really dry there. If that was not the brake pad dragging, finding the source of that noise might point you in the right direction.
Interesting. Hard to say if it’s the same, but it certainly could be. Can you report back after you speak with Tesla?This thread is for the rear wheel area, but I think people have mentioned issues at the front.
Anyway, made a video, and it really seems like this is coming from the inner CV joint, or perhaps the motor unit itself, in my case. Hopefully the video works. Obviously this is from the FRONT axle. To be clear, the other wheel on the front axle is on the ground. So the motor is spinning. But it's an induction motor.
You can see with the rotor in particular, that some momentum develops, and after it stops turning, something else stops turning a while later (you'll see my hand jump as it hits). So there's definitely quite a lot of play here - a couple degrees for sure. In the slow motion you can see the jump as well. Not really visible when looking at the inner CV joint, but that's where the noise appeared to be coming from.
Slow motion goes for a while - you can always skip to about 1:12 for the inner CV clip.
Is this noise similar to what other people have been hearing? Obviously I'll have the service center take a look at some point in the indeterminate future when I am forced to bring it in.
silentcorp
Member
Any idea what this clicking sound is on my car at 5-6 seconds in the video? It doesn't sound at all like others in this thread but I'm wondering if it may be related.
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