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[Resolved] My P85 has developed the milling noise and Tesla won't fix it.

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I wonder.

It seems to me that the Eastern US Tesla service centers have way poorer service than we have in CA. And I am not trying to smug, honestly. But when I read through all these posts, it always seems like the Eastern SC's are jerks about this stuff. Now, yes, I do live right next to Silicon Valley and I do use the Sunnyvale SC. But I have never gotten anything but the most amazing service. Also in Burlingame...both are close to HQ and the factory. They never argue with me at all, pick the car up for free and give me an equal or BETTER loaner, keep me updated at LEAST once a day and deliver on their promises. I even had a Pano roof seal issue for which they brought in a "glass specialist from the outside because we couldn't figure it out". I'm not kidding. For free. As it should be.

It really pisses me off, actually. Because it sounds like the good old dealer model all over again is happening as they get farther from the Mother Ship. Typical, I guess. My recommendation would be to call HQ in Palo Alto:

Tesla Corporate Office Headquarters HQ
Tesla Motors
3500 Deer Creek
Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA
Corporate Phone Number: 1-650-681-5000
Fax Number: 1-650-681-5101
Customer Service Number: 1-877-798-3752

and raise hell. We ALL deserve the best service, no matter where we are. If there are SC's out there that suck. They need to know. And you deserve to have your needs met.

Period.

Lets not generalize. The Raleigh service center has been the absolute best. With so many issues I've had with my car over two years, they have always been extremely accomodating even with the 5 DU replacements (all for either milling or loud hum issues).
 
Tesla didn't replace mine until the car stopped moving in the middle of the road... Even going I told them about and they had heard the milling noise.

So by not replacing your DU, they turned an annoying issue into a dangerous one. Nice.... If it's any consolation, Consumer Reports says the issue is DU insignificant so that should make a lot of S owners feel better.
 
So by not replacing your DU, they turned an annoying issue into a dangerous one. Nice.... If it's any consolation, Consumer Reports says the issue is DU insignificant so that should make a lot of S owners feel better.

I agree that it was kind of strange on their part. Kind of a funny story... The milling noise was getting worse and worse. And that morning, my girlfriend drove me to the airport. I told her on the way that if the car dies, here's the number to call, etc... cuz I suspected that it was almost done.

While I was boarding the plane, I got a call from my girlfriend: "The car died in the middle of the street."

She called Tesla and the service center picked up and it was ready with a new DU that afternoon.

But still, they could have changed it once they'd heard the sound, and avoided the whole ordeal. In the end, it cost them more what with the tow/loaner/etc.
 
I just got my car back from its annual service visit (1st visit, a tad over 20k miles). A couple weeks ago I started hearing the drone noise, it would occur at low speeds and only when power was applied. It would go away after 35 mph (or at least I wouldn't hear it above that speed). The service advisor said they heard it, but it wasn't the "bad" sound and I should be okay. I wasn't thrilled with the answer and I will be bringing it back to them if the sound gets worse. I've made alot of long trips in this car and now a worry is kind of hanging over my head. I've also managed to convince two people to buy the car after short test drives but I can't see giving anyone a test drive while the car is making this noise.
 
I wonder.

It seems to me that the Eastern US Tesla service centers have way poorer service than we have in CA. And I am not trying to smug, honestly. But when I read through all these posts, it always seems like the Eastern SC's are jerks about this stuff. Now, yes, I do live right next to Silicon Valley and I do use the Sunnyvale SC. But I have never gotten anything but the most amazing service. Also in Burlingame...both are close to HQ and the factory. They never argue with me at all, pick the car up for free and give me an equal or BETTER loaner, keep me updated at LEAST once a day and deliver on their promises. I even had a Pano roof seal issue for which they brought in a "glass specialist from the outside because we couldn't figure it out". I'm not kidding. For free. As it should be.

It really pisses me off, actually. Because it sounds like the good old dealer model all over again is happening as they get farther from the Mother Ship. Typical, I guess. My recommendation would be to call HQ in Palo Alto:

Tesla Corporate Office Headquarters HQ
Tesla Motors
3500 Deer Creek
Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA
Corporate Phone Number: 1-650-681-5000
Fax Number: 1-650-681-5101
Customer Service Number: 1-877-798-3752

and raise hell. We ALL deserve the best service, no matter where we are. If there are SC's out there that suck. They need to know. And you deserve to have your needs met.

Period.

Ive noticed this too, living in the same area as OP, ive talked to the people at the SC, one thing i noticed when asking about the loaner if i needed the car fixed/serviced, and they told me they never had MS loaners. I thought this was odd since thats all i hear about on here is getting really nice loaner cars, usually better than the owners actual car. Small gripe i guess, but there does seem to be a difference in service levels.
 
Whoa, whoa, whoa.... Columbus, Ohio is top-notch and we are close to the east coast. Now, you west-coasters have Denver bringing you down. Go take care of them before you start ragging on the east coast. :)

The west coast considers Denver to be "east coast" and the east coast calls it "west coast." I would prefer not to be associated with a coast myself. :smile: Regardless, I've found Denver service to be good on multiple occasions, even before ownership.
 
Not exactly the same, autopilot cars have another Drive Unit revision. The part number must end with -M or later. Also in the part catalog it is described as high speed (for 155mph use). Another difference is the motor mounts.
Tesla have many revisions of the drive unit so it has been improved.

My guess on this is because on the dual motor setup, the rear unit is not operating at the same high level the single motor cars need to. This either stretches out or eliminates the stresses that cause the problems.
 
Whoa, whoa, whoa.... Columbus, Ohio is top-notch and we are close to the east coast. Now, you west-coasters have Denver bringing you down. Go take care of them before you start ragging on the east coast. :smile:

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Originally Posted by AnOutsider viewpost-right.png
:smile:



I will admit that one should not have to post on here in order to get something done. There are a lot of things going on in every service center. I don't want to make-up excuses, but I find it hard to believe they flat out refused service on a clearly bad drive-unit. And by 'bad', it could simply be out of spec, but that is still unacceptable since it didn't always do that.

1: Perhaps it is just some SCs that are not up to snuf. As a heavy investor (for me), I am happy to hear this.
2: I actually posted a question about my aforementioned Pano problem and Tesla looked up my VIN from my signature, found me and emailed me about bringing the car in for service. I had not called them yet. Now, THAT is service. I was stunned.
 
The first video posted is not the milling noise, it's the "drone". The second video is the milling noise.
Still love this car after 30mos but, my milling noise seems worse than the video. At slow speeds, it's almost a power-steering screech and a bad advertisement for the quiet power of an EV.
Also have a tolerable "drone" but recently developed a slight clunking. During my last annual service, the Van Nuys SC explained the noise was "within tolerance".
Perhaps there's no geographical correlation with service attentiveness.
I recently completed a 700 mi trip and now the milling is noticeably worse. Two emails so far to Van Nuys SC asking them to schedule another visit to look at this again.
Crickets.
I have a cross country trip coming up in Nov and each day am a little more concerned about the car dying somewhere on the way.
I guess I'll try getting someone on the phone next.
 
FWIW: it took a lot of effort for me to get the drive unit replaced, only after moving up the chain of command at Tesla did the service center begin to make the proper moves in order for them to get the problem attended to. It is a shame that sometimes you need to become that "squeaky wheel" in order to make people do their job properly but if that is what it takes that is what has to be done. Congrats to the OP and hopefully the mother ship will get ALL the satellites into proper orbit so people don't need to go through an ordeal to have a very common and well known issue resolved.
 
Excellent description. There is no thrust bearing--they use deep-groove radial ball bearings, hence the worn bearings and noise. The thrust load changes directions axially on the gear shafts when going from accel to regen and vice versa, so the bearings on either end of the shaft see this load reversal, but one end is carrying most of the load under acceleration and likely gets worn first. If the wear gets great enough then the shaft can slide such that the gear makes contact with the inside of the gearbox housing--that makes a milling sound and leaves aluminum flakes in your gear oil.

This theory of failure suggests the bearings were undersized for the thrust loads, or perhaps a bearing manufacturing quality problem.

It also suggests that owners can prolong life by accelerating gently, with perhaps occasional hard acceleration events. Reality can often be more complicated, but this theory sounds likely, to me at least.

GSP

PS. It also suggests that Yobigd20, with about 4-5 drive units replaced so far, is a hard driver. Who would have guessed? LOL. Nothing wrong with that, of course. :smile:
 
Still love this car after 30mos but, my milling noise seems worse than the video. At slow speeds, it's almost a power-steering screech and a bad advertisement for the quiet power of an EV.
Also have a tolerable "drone" but recently developed a slight clunking. During my last annual service, the Van Nuys SC explained the noise was "within tolerance".
Perhaps there's no geographical correlation with service attentiveness.
I recently completed a 700 mi trip and now the milling is noticeably worse. Two emails so far to Van Nuys SC asking them to schedule another visit to look at this again.
Crickets.
I have a cross country trip coming up in Nov and each day am a little more concerned about the car dying somewhere on the way.
I guess I'll try getting someone on the phone next.

Maybe if we keep bumping this thread up, you'll get a phone call from a SC like the op did.

:smile: