My 4 day old M3LR dead in the water

[gcm3]

Update. After waiting for 25 minutes in the queue to be answered by Manchester South's service dept, Tesla Bristol answered. Apparently, after so long the telephone system diverts to ANY available line in the Tesla estate, regardless of location. The chap at Bristol told me that they'd rather customers got to speak to someone than no one. Fair enough.

Anyway, back to topic. He looked into the system for my VIN and said that it completed the diagnosis phase and was awaiting parts. Or to be more specific, one part - a rear drive unit motor assembly.

Am I right in understanding that's quite a large piece of kit to fail?

I'm sure I've read on here others that have had similar, though I can't find those threads right now. The Bristol agent also admitted that they had a new LR in the same batch as mine fail under the exact same circumstances.

 

[TomD]

Exact same issue posted a few days ago:

Vehicle shutting down - PULL OVER SAFELY

Looks like his car was fixed within a couple of days which does bode well but if you read the thread he has had multiple issues with his car including 3 new 12 volt batteries within 7 months.

I would still he considering rejecting the car...

 

[gcm3]

I think rejecting it would be a net negative experience for me for several reasons including:

- I'd have to go and buy or quickly lease another car as I need it for work
- I've already had 6 months of on/off hire cars as I delayed my original Tesla delivery
- The monthly price through my salary sacrifice scheme is too good to walk away from
- My employer has paused ordering of new cars under the scheme because of the financial impact of COVID-19 (I work in the aviation sector which has been decimated by all this)
- I had 3 days with the car where I couldn't stop smiling. It would be hard to give that up

So my approach will be to let them fix the issue and prove to me that all is safe and good.

None of this is how I thought driving a Tesla would go but sadly it seems more common than I first thought.

 

[gangzoom]

None of this is how I thought driving a Tesla would go but sadly it seems more common than I first thought.

Which recently showed Tesla is one of the most unreliable cars you can buy, and my personal experience echos that.

Buy one thinking you are getting Lexus build quality and reliability and you will be disappointed, buy one anticipating it might not start in the morning and you will be fine .

Our X is the best car I have ever owned or even driven, but its also the most unreliable. Reliability I've realised isn't actually all that important to me interms of ownership experience.

 

[pgkevet]

Update. After waiting for 25 minutes in the queue to be answered by Manchester South's service dept, Tesla Bristol answered. Apparently, after so long the telephone system diverts to ANY available line in the Tesla estate, regardless of location. The chap at Bristol told me that they'd rather customers got to speak to someone than no one. Fair enough.

Anyway, back to topic. He looked into the system for my VIN and said that it completed the diagnosis phase and was awaiting parts. Or to be more specific, one part - a rear drive unit motor assembly.

Am I right in understanding that's quite a large piece of kit to fail?

I'm sure I've read on here others that have had similar, though I can't find those threads right now. The Bristol agent also admitted that they had a new LR in the same batch as mine fail under the exact same circumstances.

It only has to be one wee part within the mass of the thing such as a bad batch of thermostats? Tesla service tends to swap whole units rather then mend them and let main factory analyse/refurbish. Someone on facebook snapped a connector to a speaker with DIY and as told he needed a whole new loom section ($700)as the speaker wasn't avalable as a separate part...soldering iron

 

[pdk42]

Well, it's obviously your choice, but unless you want to change your mind entirely over buying a Tesla, I'd not cancel. There's no guarantee the next one will be fault free, and I'd guess you'll be into a decent wait for another one. Components can fail, it's just how it goes. I'm sure they'll fix it just fine.

If it's any consolation, mine's almost a year old with 13,000 miles on the clock. Apart from some minor trim issues on delivery, it's been completely reliable (well, apart from the occasional software glitch and a few bugs introduced via updates ).

 

[Altes]

It's like we're beta testers or something

Hate to be the one to break it to you but we are

 

[TomD]

I think rejecting it would be a net negative experience for me for several reasons including:

- I'd have to go and buy or quickly lease another car as I need it for work
- I've already had 6 months of on/off hire cars as I delayed my original Tesla delivery
- The monthly price through my salary sacrifice scheme is too good to walk away from
- My employer has paused ordering of new cars under the scheme because of the financial impact of COVID-19 (I work in the aviation sector which has been decimated by all this)
- I had 3 days with the car where I couldn't stop smiling. It would be hard to give that up

So my approach will be to let them fix the issue and prove to me that all is safe and good.

None of this is how I thought driving a Tesla would go but sadly it seems more common than I first thought.

Probably makes sense then not to reject it in your situation. Ownership would obviously be a different kettle of fish.

 

[Js1977]

Which recently showed Tesla is one of the most unreliable cars you can buy, and my personal experience echos that.

Buy one thinking you are getting Lexus build quality and reliability and you will be disappointed, buy one anticipating it might not start in the morning and you will be fine .

Our X is the best car I have ever owned or even driven, but its also the most unreliable. Reliability I've realised isn't actually all that important to me interms of ownership experience.

Thats the spirit! ... bet you own a Ducati as well

 

[gcm3]

Hi all. Forgot to post an update apologies.

Got the car back last week. Rear motor unit replaced. The car functions as it should now but there's an annoying clunk/creak coming from the rear somewhere, generally on anything other than a super smooth road. Happens when the suspension is traveling and wasn't there before the car died and the rear motor was replaced.

Assume it's connected so booked back in.

Manchester South were mega busy with new car deliveries when I picked mine up. I counted four transporters unloading whilst I was there. They omitted to fix a paint scuff which I'd reported when the car was first delivered to me which is probably testament to how busy they were (not that in any way should be an excuse!). Definitely got the impression that they were prioritising new car deliveries than corrected faults with existing customers' cars. Most annoying.

They provided me with a full set of all weather mats as compensation but there's a problem with them too - see separate thread.

 

[-monky-]

Sorry to hear about your experience

That's interesting that the rear motor failure on a LR caused a total vehicle failure. I thought one of the advantages of LR or P was dual motor ie resilience in event of failure. Am I the only one who dreamt that?!

 

[gcm3]

I think that would have been if we were moving. It would have let me pull over I think, based on other similar sounding incidents.

We were stopped in lane 1 due to a police incident ahead so it just decided to completely die there. Couldn't move it.

When the recovery people arrived they put it into tow mode to get it on to the flatbed which released the parking brake. When asked if I could have just done that to get it to the side of the road they said yes but the last person they recovered who'd done that didn't realise that in that mode you have no brakes, got more momentum going than they bargained for and it ended up rolling into the crash barrier. So you win some you lose some!

 

[Jason71]

Sorry to hear about your experience

That's interesting that the rear motor failure on a LR caused a total vehicle failure. I thought one of the advantages of LR or P was dual motor ie resilience in event of failure. Am I the only one who dreamt that?!

there was some discussion of that somewhere might have been this thread. I'ts been suggested that there was a software bug that caused it and it should indeed be able to run on one motor but its not something people can really test out until they have to.