Model 3 Rear Drive Unit Failed?

[MikeBur]

Yes,

They towed the car at no cost to me about 200 miles away. They also provided a free rental from enterprise. Ironically a GMC Yukon . I think I’m getting about 11mpg lol!


At first they were going to tow to the closest SC but when I told them it would be inconvenient for me to drive back to pick it up, they offered to tow it to my local SC.

Both times I’ve had to use Tesla’s roadside assistance they’d been exemplar. When you tell them what works, and if something doesn’t, they’ve exceeded expectations.

 

[DrLegoHair]

As a note. My car was on 2018.4.6, the same version that @MarkS22 was told fixes the firmware 12v charging issue.

 

[Eclectic]

You should have seen how my BMW i3 was delivered and how many times it went back to the shop for things that a 100 year old premium car company should have gotten right.

I'll go to the BMW i3 forum for those stories.

 

[insaneoctane]

It's almost time to start a poll! JK. I hope this isn't as common as it appears that it might be, and I hope Tesla can troubleshoot this quickly. These issues actually worry me more as a stock holder than as a prospective buyer!

 

[jelloslug]

I'll go to the BMW i3 forum for those stories.

Thanks for the tip...

 

[Adam3]

It's almost like some owners are creating emotive thread titles on TMC before they've even contacted Tesla technical help.

Who cares? This is the only forum I've seen where an "emotional" thread title leads to mods changing the wording. So strange.

 

[Jays200]

I care.

This is the only forum where careless, emotive and hasty threads and content are picked up by outside sources and used to adversely effect Tesla.

I'm not blind to Teslas growing pains but I'm not going to help feed anti-Tesla sentiment.

 

[cwerdna]

This is the only forum where careless, emotive and hasty threads and content are picked up by outside sources and used to adversely effect Tesla.

I doubt this is the only forum and brand where this happens. I'm reasonably certain numerous other forums for other auto brands and makes have seen similar activity.

 

[TexasEV]

I doubt this is the only forum and brand where this happens. I'm reasonably certain numerous other forums for other auto brands and makes have seen similar activity.

Really? Name one other car company with even a tenth of the negative press. When a Tesla catches fire, it’s a headline even though there are 19 car fires per day in the US on average. When a Tesla crashes it’s a headline, etc., etc.

 

[cwerdna]

Really? Name one other car company with even a tenth of the negative press.

Not necessarily now but in the past.

Toyota was in TV news almost every day (not in a good way) during the SUA ("Sudden Unintended" Acceleration) PR disaster esp. including the times in which Akio Toyota was testifying in front of Congress, dealers were staying open extra hours (e.g. Toyota dealers extend hours to fix faulty pedals). etc. I remember that time and vaguely recall separate lines at Toyota service depts for recall vs. non-recall work.

My other car is a Toyota which I've had since Jan 06. Since it was made in Japan, it does not use the faulty CTS accelerator pedals that could become stuck. But, as a precaution, dealers trimmed the bottom of the pedal to help prevent entrapment by floor mats. A dealer did that for me w/o asking when I'd brought it in for maintenance. They told me after the fact.

The Toyota Recall Crisis - A chronology of the Toyota pedal, floormat recall - Motor Trend isn't a complete timeline but look at the dates. Toyota dealers extend hours to fix faulty pedals is from Feb 3, 2010. Toyota president testifies before Congress - CNN.com is from Feb 24, 2010.

Notice the orange bars in the graph at It's All Your Fault: The DOT Renders Its Verdict on Toyota's Unintended-Acceleration Scare – Feature – Car and Driver, once the recall was out there.

GM has had waves of periods of negative PR that have come and gone numerous times relating to their ignition switches that could slip out of the run position (usually caused by the key being on a key chain + a ton of other items and keys) and thus cut power to the engine, power steering, power brakes and supposedly the air bags.

It's tended to come and go due what info has surfaced when, settlements, whether current GM is responsible via "old GM" (Shell of Old G.M. Surfaces in Court Fight Over Ignition Flaw), etc.

When a Tesla catches fire, it’s a headline even though there are 19 car fires per day in the US on average. When a Tesla crashes it’s a headline, etc., etc.

I do agree on this. It's ridiculous. Actually, given the stats at NFPA statistics - Highway vehicle fires by year, it's more like 476/day.

GM also had a bunch of negative PR related to Chevy Volt Catches Fire After Crash Test, Investigation Under Way - The Truth About Cars.

 

[RayK]

You missed Audi for unintended acceleration and Ford for their Pinto. Talk about car fires....

 

[dm33]

The tow driver actually got stuck in the car and I had to remind him to use the emergency release.

This!
This is what scares me the most. Passengers in the rear seats have no emergency release. No way to get out at all other than climb through the car out the front doors using their emergency release or fold down the rear seat and climb out the trunk.

For those saying the 12v system can never die, these stories tell otherwise and will trap passengers seated in the rear. Tesla needs to add an emergency release for the rear seats as well.

 

[cwerdna]

Back to the GM badly designed ignition switch, stories like these pop up every now and then:
GM ignition switch deaths hit 124
Ten times more deaths linked to faulty switch than GM first reported
Death toll for GM ignition switch: 124
GM Settles Faulty Ignition-Switch Death Case Just Before Trial

The dates in 2014 Timeline: A History Of GM's Ignition Switch Defect sound right. I do recall waves of negative GM publicity around the time Mary Barra went up to testify.

 

[dm33]

Really? Name one other car company with even a tenth of the negative press. When a Tesla catches fire, it’s a headline even though there are 19 car fires per day in the US on average. When a Tesla crashes it’s a headline, etc., etc.

Tesla gets an enormous amount of positive press as well. Any move from Tesla is scrutinized.
In general I think trying to hide problems will make it worse. The truth will set you free. Tesla isn't a small time brand any more. They're trying to go mainstream. These issues need to be known and resolved quickly. Quietly covering it up will result in worse publicity when it does get out.

That said, all EVs tend to be targets of anti-environmentalists or those protecting Detroit. My wife and kids were yelled at by some old guy at a McDonalds while they were charging our LEAF with some line about the government paying for our car and other irrational rants. The GM Volt has had more than its share of attacks, so much so that their forum is super protective and in the past didn't allow anyone to say anything negative about that car. Hides problems and issues, not healthy.

 

[03DSG]

This!
This is what scares me the most. Passengers in the rear seats have no emergency release. No way to get out at all other than climb through the car out the front doors using their emergency release or fold down the rear seat and climb out the trunk.

You mean like every 4 or 5 seat 2 door coupe ever built?

 

[Kant.Ing]

Tesla should put one in a glove box for an emergency. Wait.... M3 needs power to open glove box.. $%$#$%!!

Of course you need to tape the thing on the trim and wires soldered!

Total Luxury Care:

 

[dm33]

You mean like every 4 or 5 seat 2 door coupe ever built?

Besides everything else, you normally enter the back seat of a two door car by folding the front seats. You don’t normally or easily climb into the back seat of the model 3 through the front seat.

 

[DaveT]

Ok - so now I actually have a few minutes to type out a coherent post.


I had been trying to post here in between multiple phone calls to Tesla and trying to stick to my Saturday evening plans!


Before anything else I want to say:


If you find yourself in a similar situation to me and you NEED to move your car - at your own risk you may JUMP the 12v battery. Tesla advises against it - but it was the first thing the Tesla preferred tow driver did. He told me has seen this issue already on several model 3s (! There can’t be more than 100 delivered in my region). He jumped the battery and was able to get the car into drive. It’s easy to access the 12v battery in this car, I won’t go into it here but you can look it up easily. If you do decide to jump - do it quickly and immediately move your car somewhere safe. My 12v battery completely failed shortly after we got it into drive and could not be fully jumped again.


Okay - so here is the full timeline.

I took delivery of my beautiful model 3 on Friday. I went over it with a fine tooth comb and was shocked to find absolutely NO issues. Exterior fit and finish was absolutely perfect. I was impressed, I had expected issues. The car is much better nicer than pictures - as others have said. I can’t wait to get it back.


I decided to do a little road trip to work out any issues before my work week started. Everything was going great - we drove about 200 miles, stopped to charge at a friends house and two hours later got the error message:


Rear drive unit needs service - exiting and reentering the vehicle may restore operation.


We tried all the normal techniques to reboot the car - the strange thing being the car wouldn’t actually ever sleep. For example - if we tried to power off from the touch screen - the screen would just flicker and come back on. In hind sight, this may be because the 12v battery didn’t have enough power to disconnect the HV pack. At this point I called Tesla and they recommended to leave the car alone and arranged a truck to tow my car 200 miles home to my local service center.


While I was waiting for the tow truck, I continued trying different reset techniques. At this point the error message changed to: “Car needs service - car may not start” and “Systems powering up - shift into drive when this message disappears“ Now the AC blower motor was also failing to start - this really should have clued me in to it being a 12v issue but I was thinking it was a firmware problem.


Finally, about thirty minutes after the tow truck driver arrived - the message changed to “12V battery needs service”. He jumped it - was able to shift into drive/neutral and line up the car with the truck. At this point the remaining systems started to power down. The tow driver actually got stuck in the car and I had to remind him to use the emergency release. He was unable to re-jump the 12v battery to a sufficient charge to shift the car into drive again, in fact he couldn’t even release the parking brake. Eventually we couldn’t even get the touchscreen to come back on - although strangely the car was still responsive on the Tesla app for another 15 minutes.


As widespread as this issue seems, I hope this post will help someone understand what is happening if they get a series of confusing error messages like I did. And, if you get the car to start by jumping it, move it quickly to a safe place and then be prepared to lose all power to the vehicle!


Can’t wait to get the car back!

Keep us posted. Hope you get your car back quickly.

 

[jelloslug]

Was it the REx version? If so, I'm not surprised.

Actually, it was a BEV. I knew what I was getting into when I leased a BMW but good grief, that thing was in the shop constantly. It was Chrysler level bad.

 

[DrLegoHair]

Received a phone call from Tesla Service today. They were very considerate and apologized for the inconvenience.

According to the logs on the car: The DC inverter failed and prevented the HV pack from charging the 12V battery. They are currently working on the car to verify this is the issue and will update me later today. They asked for patience as this is the first Model 3 they have done significant work on.