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

[apaloma]

My car had the milling noise. I brought it up months ago and was told the usual "nothing to worry about, just a nuisance, fine to drive, we have a fix for this coming out and will put you on the waiting list."

Last week while I was making a turn on a city street, a loud clunk came from the back of the car and pushing the accelerator would no longer move the car forward. Pushing the accelerator would make a noise like pulsing a blender. I coasted off the side of the road and had to get a tow. The car showed no alerts the whole time and it sounded like the tech on the phone saw nothing interesting in the logs. The service center replaced the drive unit the next day and drove me from my house which was nice. I wish Tesla would be a bit more proactive about this problem though.

26,800 miles

 

[Freudianly]

Another article, another conclusion :
http://www.electric-vehiclenews.com/2014/08/tesla-model-s-drive-unit-now-has.html

"When you take into consideration how common transmission failures are within the automotive industry and how high performance the Tesla Model S is, it's not so surprising to find the powertrain needs some mechanical debugging. For example, Subaru have been making the Impreza WRX since 1992 yet after two decades in production this high performance model is still prone to transmission failure. The only sure way to avoid mechanical transmission issues / losses is to delete all gearing and differentials from the vehicle by using direct drive wheel motors."

 

[evp]

One thing I did not see clearly delineated in this thread is the difference between motor bearings and transaxle bearings. I believe the discussion about thrust loads and gears applies to the transaxle bearings and the discussion about voltage induced failures would apply to the motor bearings, which, being ceramic, should not happen. My assumption has always been that the noise issues are related to the transaxle bearings.

Disagree. Driving at low speed (like 2 MPH), you can clearly hear that the repetition rate of the noise is at motor RPMs, not wheel RPMs. Given a gear ratio of 9 to 1, it's not at all ambiguous.

 

[JRP3]

Disagree. Driving at low speed (like 2 MPH), you can clearly hear that the repetition rate of the noise is at motor RPMs, not wheel RPMs. Given a gear ratio of 9 to 1, it's not at all ambiguous.

The input gear in the transaxle is turning at motor speeds. Each gear in the transaxle has it's own bearing.

 

[mknox]

Yeah, I don't believe it's occurring because of launches. There have been several members here that have had multiple replacements and drive very calmly.

Yep. Me for one. My SC told me the problem is more prevalent on P cars, but mine is just a basic S85 and I do drive very sedately.

 

[kort677]

FWIW: I wouldn't put much faith into what you are told by an SC person, they sometimes are not in the "loop" and will say things just to placate you.

 

[evp]

Disagree. Driving at low speed (like 2 MPH), you can clearly hear that the repetition rate of the noise is at motor RPMs, not wheel RPMs. Given a gear ratio of 9 to 1, it's not at all ambiguous.

The input gear in the transaxle is turning at motor speeds. Each gear in the transaxle has it's own bearing.

OK, good point. It didn't occur to me that there might be a bearing in the transaxle immediately next to the one in the motor.

 

[qwk]

My car had the milling noise. I brought it up months ago and was told the usual "nothing to worry about, just a nuisance, fine to drive, we have a fix for this coming out and will put you on the waiting list."

Last week while I was making a turn on a city street, a loud clunk came from the back of the car and pushing the accelerator would no longer move the car forward. Pushing the accelerator would make a noise like pulsing a blender. I coasted off the side of the road and had to get a tow. The car showed no alerts the whole time and it sounded like the tech on the phone saw nothing interesting in the logs. The service center replaced the drive unit the next day and drove me from my house which was nice. I wish Tesla would be a bit more proactive about this problem though.

26,800 miles

It sounds like the rotor shaft splines stripped in your drive unit. Did you have a "clunk" when going between acceleration/deceleration before the failure?

 

[evp]

My car had the milling noise..... Last week while I was making a turn on a city street, a loud clunk came from the back of the car and pushing the accelerator would no longer move the car forward......
26,800 miles

Great. I talked to the service center today, they have drive units back in stock, gave me a service date a month from now to swap it out. Given I'm 12,000 miles farther along than you, I hope I don't hear that "clunk" sound before then.

 

[MikeC]

Milling Through the Mire - Tesla Model S Drive Unit Woes. - EVTV Motor Verks
Conclusion of this interesting article : "I fear the ultimate solution is a 6 second acceleration rate – which I could live with just fine actually. I believe they will find the answer is a few lines of software code, but the answer will not be very satisfying to those who liked the performance claim on this car."

That article is over a year old and time seems to have disproven the fears. They have decreased the acceleration rate and there does not seem to be a higher incidence of the milling noise. The drive unit obviously does not need to be changed every "8000 or 10,000 miles" as stated in the article.

 

[smrtasp]

I bought a 2013 P85+ 3 weeks ago with 26k miles on it and noticed a low drone on the freeway right away. Knowing that it needed to go in to have the battery shield installed I mentioned the drone to my service advisor when I dropped the car off Tuesday morning. They did the road test and recording and got a replacement approved within 24 hours. I pick it up tomorrow morning. I didn't think the noise was all that bad but apparently enough to warrant replacement. The tech I talked to said its more common on P85's and said the new motors have a few design changes to prevent this from happening again.

 

[tornado7]

So I have been following this thread for a while now very closely and it ultimately made me sign up on TMC.

I plan on buying a CPO car in spring 2016 and this whole DU swapping is quite unsettling to me. Ok, there is the 8 year unlimited warranty on the drivetrain and battery, but still. The issue is still here even on the very new 70D's. And taking your tesla to the SC for replacement of the motor (!) every 20'000m surely is not a longterm solution. Earlier it has been mentioned by ConsumerReports via user vgrinshpun that only a very small number of cars (1-3%) are affected of all these different kind of noises finally leading to Tesla replacing the DUs of your cars. But my impression by following this thread is a very different one. Especially if there really is a design flaw not only some poorly manufactured units.

There must be PLENTY of owners not experiencing this problem at all. – Is that true? (Or did it just not yet happen to them?)

And are there any statements yet of staff newly trained to fix units on site on what the issue really is about?

 

[ecarfan]

Earlier it has been mentioned by ConsumerReports via user vgrinshpun that only a very small number of cars (1-3%) are affected of all these different kind of noises finally leading to Tesla replacing the DUs of your cars. But my impression by following this thread is a very different one. Especially if there really is a design flaw not only some poorly manufactured units.

There must be PLENTY of owners not experiencing this problem at all. – Is that true?

Yes of course there are, they just don't bother to post: "Another day driving and my Model S isn't making any funny noises, just thought I would post about that because it's so interesting."
People who perceive a problem with their car are far, far more likely to post than people who are not having a problem. This has been pointed out over and over again on TMC.

 

[supratachophobia]

I've noticed that it takes longer for some to notice than others. And other peoples threshold of what they consider a problem is different too. I think all will enentually have a drive unit swap before that 8 year mark....

 

[Ingineer]

I'm also hoping that this is the case. If it's not and many owners continue to need DU replacements after warranty, I suspect even if Tesla doesn't step up and handle it "goodwill" then there will likely be a class-action. I was worried at first but after thinking about it, I'm less worried.

After experiencing a handful of quality issues with my car when new, my conclusion is that they have likely fixed the main problems, but when a new owner experiences this failure now, it's probably due to sloppy assembly.

It's clear to me that many cars roll off the assembly line with lots of little issues that should have been caught by QC or not have happened in the first place if they had proper procedures. If you happen to be an unlucky one who had their DU assembly rushed, then maybe you'll experience the early failure. There are too many people not having issues for it to be a gross engineering failure.

 

[scaesare]

My 5/2013 vintage S85 is under the knife for it's second DU replacement due to noise as we speak. First "DU warranty" work on the vehicle, as it's now @ 55K miles...

 

[scaesare]

And to follow up, my car is back from the Service Center and is nice and silent.

I had a good conversation with the one of the service managers there, whom I've now known for nearly 2.5 years, about some of the concerns raised in this thread.

While I want to respect the fact that it was a private conversation, and thus not quote it on a public forum, suffice it to say I remain convinced that Tesla as a whole, including HQ, is committed to doing things right by their customers... including dealing with issues such as the pesky drive unit noises.

As always I was taken care of with excellent service, and I came away confident that Tesla will continue to treat us right.

 

[apaloma]

It sounds like the rotor shaft splines stripped in your drive unit. Did you have a "clunk" when going between acceleration/deceleration before the failure?

I've seen the videos of the noise when going between acceleration and regen breaking, but I had never noticed anything like that. Never got a chance to double check though

Tesla service told me in an email followup that the humming noise is unrelated to the splines and that the failure I experienced was unrelated to the humming noise I had reported. Not sure what makes them say that or how they know that for sure, but that's what they said.

 

[smrtasp]

I replied earlier in this thread about my DU getting replaced as well last week. I drove the car a bit hard today and also noticed that Im not getting the same rear end squat I used to under hard acceleration. The first time I accelerated in full from about 40 MPH on the freeway I almost lost control of the car because the front end jumped so much it caught me off guard. I had noticed that under hard acceleration a pretty noticible lift in the front which I attributed to the rear squatting so much. Today with similar conditions on the same stretch of road, the rear barely squats which keeps the front from jumping so much. It feels like a normal high power/torque RWD vehicle again. I did this a few times at different speeds and that rear drop is definitely nowhere near as bad as it was before. Im going to check the invoice and look at all the parts. I know the motor mounts were replaced but wasnt familiar with the other half dozen part numbers.

 

[kenkamm]

When the DU is replaced, are certain suspension components replaced as well?