Huh?
Drive by ANY service center for ANY auto maker and guess what you will see? Alot of the cars that they sell and service.
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Model 3 reliability so far?
- Thread starter taraquin
- Start date
Huh?
Drive by ANY service center for ANY auto maker and guess what you will see? Alot of the cars that they sell and service.
Lhshockey24
Member
5,200 miles - zero issues. Given that many people sign up on the forum in the first place to post an issue makes this thread heavily tilted. Same on the BMW, Audi, etc forums. You’d think every BMW M3/4 had a driveshaft issue a few years ago given that forum. Here on TMC it looks like everyone has water leaks and 12V battery failures, and so on.
srs5694
Active Member
In terms of the Consumer Reports numbers, as I noted, the problem areas for the Model 3 are "body hardware" (the worst of the three), "paint and trim," and "in-car electronics." OTA updates won't affect either of the first two categories, either positively or negatively.
I don't recall the exact phrasing, but CR asks respondents to note issues that have caused significant problems in terms of downtime or cost, so I'd expect that a new bug that's fixed with the next software release would not show up in the survey unless it was really bad -- say, if an update caused the center console to stay black and not respond to a reset, thus necessitating a tow to a service center. "In-car electronics" is a broad enough category that it could include both hardware and software, and so we can't know how many of those problems fall into each of those two sub-categories.
All that said, the CR results come from a survey and so are somewhat subjective; there's no way to prevent somebody from reporting the "dancing cars" in the display as a serious electronics problem. Survey research is also subject to a host of difficulties and limitations, but those are well-known by people who do such research. There are statistical tools that can help spot insincere responses, but to some extent, survey research is protected simply by large numbers of responses. CR has a lower limit of a certain number of responses before they'll include a model in their survey results. (I don't recall what that number is, offhand.)
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
The Model 3 does not have any scheduled maintenance in the first couple years so I suspect all the cars are there for warranty repair. Obviously unscientific but of the the 7 Model 3 in our office 4 have required service so far.
Funny, taking the CR survey right now. The survey defines serious as: "If you had any problems with your vehicle in the past 12 months that you considered SERIOUS because of cost, failure, safety, or downtime, select the appropriate box(es) for each.
INCLUDE PROBLEMS COVERED BY WARRANTY.
DO NOT INCLUDE: 1) problems resulting from accident damage or
2) repairs due solely to recalls, if your vehicle wasn't experiencing the associated problem(s)."
INCLUDE PROBLEMS COVERED BY WARRANTY.
DO NOT INCLUDE: 1) problems resulting from accident damage or
2) repairs due solely to recalls, if your vehicle wasn't experiencing the associated problem(s)."
jelloslug
Active Member
We have had ours for just over a year and have about 18k miles on it. The only issue that we have had is a rattle that was fixed by a mobile tech.
I've had mine for almost 1.5 years. I've gotten service several times to fix fit/finish/rattle issues. Only one visit was for a real usability issue, which was for the driver's door handle getting stuck in the open position for several seconds. Had I done it all again, I would have delayed my purchase by 3 months to let Tesla work out the manufacturing/design issues. Nonetheless, I love my 3 and can't imagine driving any other car.
jdcollins5
Member
17k and 1 year, no failure type issues. Had 3 initial quality issues that I finally got around to fixing after 3mo. Slight high-frequency rattle in the dash vent (turns out there was a clip lost down there somewhere). My wife couldn't hear it, but it drove me nuts. Glovebox never opened from new. Service tech said likely the actuator was not plugged in, or accidentally plugged into one of the speaker connectors, as there are 2 identical-looking connectors down there in the same area. 3rd issue, rear window defroster had 2 wires burned out. Didn't see it till winter rolled around.
11 months 14,000 miles P3D+
Zero warranty issues or quality complaints. Mechanically and electrically car has worked as advertised. No paint problems. Took a while to get spoiler and badges, but SC installed perfectly (no gaps on spoiler, really looks great).
I - however - am unlucky. Proving - you can still spend a lot on repairs having nothing to do with quality issues.
Had plastic piece in charge port pins get pulled out by Gaithersburg supercharger on road trip - SC fixed next day when I dropped in
Drove over screw and had flat in snow tires - local shop fixed
Curbed rims and one was bent - Michigan potholes - had them fixed locally
Scraped front bumper in garage - body shop fixed in about 4 weeks (3 weeks waiting for bumper)-perfect paint match
June - Rock hit windshield with 2 foot crack - replaced at SC
July - Another rock hit windshield with 2 monster star craters - replaced at SC
Lost a key card, SC gave me new one free!
Zero warranty issues or quality complaints. Mechanically and electrically car has worked as advertised. No paint problems. Took a while to get spoiler and badges, but SC installed perfectly (no gaps on spoiler, really looks great).
I - however - am unlucky. Proving - you can still spend a lot on repairs having nothing to do with quality issues.
Had plastic piece in charge port pins get pulled out by Gaithersburg supercharger on road trip - SC fixed next day when I dropped in
Drove over screw and had flat in snow tires - local shop fixed
Curbed rims and one was bent - Michigan potholes - had them fixed locally
Scraped front bumper in garage - body shop fixed in about 4 weeks (3 weeks waiting for bumper)-perfect paint match
June - Rock hit windshield with 2 foot crack - replaced at SC
July - Another rock hit windshield with 2 monster star craters - replaced at SC
Lost a key card, SC gave me new one free!
5_+JqckQttqck
Active Member
I agree, we don't really know how people will respond to the survey.
I'm still suspect though. Didn't Tesla claim the number one reason for service center visits was people wanting to learn how autopilot works?
TomT
Technical Maven
Our M3 Midrange now just over 7 months old. An issue in the high voltage system in week two. It took about two weeks to get an appointment at the Sunnyvale Service Center but the issue only cause slower charging so that was not a problem and the issue was fixed in one day with the appointment. Since then nothing requiring any service or repair. Just the frequent but non critical software glitches.
RayK
Active Member
Have owned my 3 exactly 13 months to the day. 13,212 miles. Been to the service center 4 times for minor issues and not all of them due to "reliability":
- TPMS reset due to some problem the car had since delivery
- Remove drywall screw and patch left rear tire
- Replace both rear tires as left rear received what looked like a 1/4 bolt and both were worn enough to warrant replacing
- Re-align left rear window as it started hitting the rear quarter window when opening and closing the door (the only real problem I would ascribe to reliability)
- Had an OTA re-format of the SD card as I was having problems installing new firmware
- Screen blanking out at random times; usually corrects itself
- Screen corruption; blocks/lines of random colors; re-booting fixes
- Radio (FM, not streaming) not playing when it should; comes back on its own
- Smartphone as key not 100% but I now almost always use a fob
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Combination of paint, body panel alignment, rattles, missing bolts, one 12V battery.
Now of course you could argue that all of those were cosmetic except the 12V. It seems way too early to be predicting the long term reliability of the Model 3.
