Model S, seat rattle problem

[DX-MS21]

I have Dec 2016 built Model S. Few months back, I started noticing very annoying rattle from bottom of front passenger seat. On July 31, I took car to Rockville, MD service center, tech test drove the car with me and agreed noise was coming from the seat. They said they would have to order the whole new seat. I said fine.. let's get this fixed.

I kept asking for updates on this, they kept saying seat is on order, it takes a while since each seat is hand sewed !

Around Oct 5, service center sent me an email asking for seat pics, no idea why after 2 months ?? but I sent pics to them and they said they will order the seat.

Every few weeks, I keep asking them for update, and they keep saying seat is on order. I even sent an email to Tesla HQ, they responded back saying they forwarded my email to "Rocklin" service center.. I guess a wrong service center in CA !

It's now 3 months and 20 days, I am still waiting for seat. Rattle is so annoying, I can't drive the car with radio off... No idea what's going on, but I don't think it should take Tesla 4 months to fix this issue ! Very frustrating.

 

[Romand]

It’s not the seat it’s probably the seatbelt buckle I had the same problem as u

 

[jjh1234]

Others here have waited many months for replacement seats as well. So strange that it takes so long.

 

[kev1n]

probably because if they take a seat off the line, it delays a new car/sale for them.

 

[Safari]

I had the same issue: my problem was a broken seat bracket that rattled but also allowed the seat to rock back and forth under braking and acceleration. S90D made in July '16. It took Tesla four minutes to agree it was a defect under warranty, four months for them to get the seat ordered/made, and about 40 min to install it. The wait was frustrating but I was given similar rational: they had to wait for an opportunity to manufacture a single seat when the production line was making entire vehicle sets. Not sure how true that was/is but I have no reason to disbelieve them. In the end the wait was worth it, the new seat feels great and is rock solid. Should not have happened on a car this privy but the customer service was excellent, upfront and friendly. Hope your seat gets fixed as well as mine, though I'm guessing it won't be any faster.

 

[DX-MS21]

It's not the seat belt buckle because I checked for that specifically. Sound appears to come from bottom of the seat, strangely it's not there 100% of the time. Sounds like something is loose and wobbling in the bottom of the seat.

 

[David.85D]

Pretty funny. I am in the midst of the same thing with the Rockville service center. Took the car in for a rattling/wobbly seat, told me it would be replaced. Waited a month, emailed for an update and then they asked me to send photos. Really makes me wonder what was happening during that month. Been another 2-3 weeks since then. Will wait until early December to check again.