Scariest experience! Car suddenly stopped while driving!

[Hattie]

Hi all, first time posting. Forgive me for not being able to remember most details of what happened last night but I was freaked out and trying to stay calm for my 5 year old son in the back! I have a Performance 3, only for about a month...

We're driving home last night when all of a sudden, the car bucks/lurches a few times, and essentially powers down so fast that I can't even crawl to the shoulder. Three red triangle/! alerts come on the main part of the screen: one says something like exiting/re-entering may restore operation, one says to call roadside assistance, and i can't remember the 3rd. Kicking myself for not taking a picture of the screen, but panic got the better of me....
The P,R,N,D gears are no longer visible and replaced by dashes.... I get a yellow alert on the left screen, with a turtle on it, saying power reduced or something like that.
I request roadside assistance through the tesla app and meanwhile calmly get my son and any valuables out of the car in case we get locked out, wait a minute or so, and re-enter. All alerts disappeared and I was able to drive home safely.

Anyway, tl;dr- car stopped suddenly, causing me to lose a year off my life from the stress....service center took care of it right away but I'm still not sure exactly what happened. The SA didn't really explain to me what was wrong, but here's the notes from the invoice:

Technician verified customers concern regarding alerts stating “Power Limited” due to high impedance on front body controller. In order to address issue technician torqued front body controller to spec. Upon completion extensive test drive was performed, no alerts present at this time. No further service is needed at this time.

Can anyone translate this for me? He told me they replaced a connector but looks like they just adjusted it? I'm so nervous that this will happen again. :/

 

[ewoodrick]

It happens to ALL cars, not just Teslas. I've had a few to die in the middle of the Interstate.

 

[aStCrNmdStela]

We're driving home last night when all of a sudden, the car bucks/lurches a few times, and essentially powers down so fast that I can't even crawl to the shoulder. Three red triangle/! alerts come on the main part of the screen: one says something like exiting/re-entering may restore operation, ....

Same thing happened to my new car.

The first message is "power reduced, exiting/reentering car may restore operation", which is about the strangest way to resume from some sort of drive failure. Then it said it lost a motor, and then shook and shuddered and completely lost all drive.

I rebooted the car, recharged it, and it seemed to operate as normal again. It's been covering the last 500km or so normal, as if absolutely has happened.

But obviously it is a traumatizing type of failure as you're really unsure of the cause and repeatability of the cause. I'm yet to take it to a service center, but the tech over the phone said it should be fine, according to the vehicle logs.

 

[TLLMRRJ]

Technician verified customers concern regarding alerts stating “Power Limited” due to high impedance on front body controller. In order to address issue technician torqued front body controller to spec. Upon completion extensive test drive was performed, no alerts present at this time. No further service is needed at this time.

Can anyone translate this for me? He told me they replaced a connector but looks like they just adjusted it? I'm so nervous that this will happen again. :/

That's hard to decipher. Tightening down a body controller could mean a connector was loose going into the controller, or the controller itself wasn't tightened down properly and therefore was not making a good ground connection with the chassis. Bad grounds can cause very strange problems in any electrical system. And Telsa not tightening something down in their factory full of misfit assembly line workers sounds about right.

Or that could just be a bunch of gibberish on the invoice to pretend like they actually fixed something so you would feel better, but they only poked around and tugged on some parts and never found a problem.

 

[mswlogo]

It happens to ALL cars, not just Teslas. I've had a few to die in the middle of the Interstate.

I've probably had 30 cars. 10 of them rusted out $400 beaters with over 100K on them when I bought them. Not one car has ever stranded me on the highway. I'm not saying they never broke, but there are usually lots of warning signs, smoke, steam, noise etc. I don't recall ever being towed in 40 years. Except one accident in an ICE Storm. My wife's car never needed a tow either accept an accident also in an ICE storm.

No, it should be a pretty rare event and seems to be posts daily on similar events to OP (more often in driveways).

I used to be a regular on Jeep and VW forums. I can recall a hand full of Jeeps having catastrophic failures, none that you can't even make it to the shoulder of the road in 5 years. I don't recall any on VW forum. Plenty of problems mind you. But stopping in the middle of the highway, no. And Jeep and VW sold a hell of lot of Jeeps. And we are not talking Toyota and Lexus that rarely break.

Seems quite a few failures in the UK with Model 3's. Something to do with water getting in the steering column and requiring a new steering rack.

Still a lot of gremlins in Tesla's. Not sure if Model 3 is statistically bad given how many are selling. But it sure feels like a common theme lately.

 

[Hattie]

It happens to ALL cars, not just Teslas. I've had a few to die in the middle of the Interstate.

Maybe; I didn't imply that it is just a Tesla problem, but was looking for helpful input as to what might have happened to my Tesla.
Incidentally, I drove a model S prior to this, for 3 years, and never had this problem. Just sharing my own experience.

 

[Hattie]

I've probably had 30 cars. 10 of them rusted out $400 beaters with over 100K on them when I bought them. Not one car has ever stranded me on the highway. I'm not saying they never broke, but there are usually lots of warning signs, smoke, steam, noise etc. I don't recall ever being towed in 40 years. Except one accident in an ICE Storm. My wife's car never needed a tow either accept an accident also in an ICE storm.

No, it should be a pretty rare event and seems to be posts daily on similar events to OP (more often in driveways).

I used to be a regular on Jeep and VW forums. I can recall a hand full of Jeeps having catastrophic failures, none that you can't even make it to the shoulder of the road in 5 years. I don't recall any on VW forum. Plenty of problems mind you. But stopping in the middle of the highway, no. And Jeep and VW sold a hell of lot of Jeeps. And we are not talking Toyota and Lexus that rarely break.

Seems quite a few failures in the UK with Model 3's. Something to do with water getting in the steering column and requiring a new steering rack.

Still a lot of gremlins in Tesla's. Not sure if Model 3 is statistically bad given how many are selling. But it sure feels like a common theme lately.

Thank you. I do feel like this could be due to the rush to fulfill orders by year-end. Sloppy work, perhaps. I drove an S prior to this and never had this issue, or anything remotely close to it. Hope it never happens again.

 

[Hattie]

That's hard to decipher. Tightening down a body controller could mean a connector was loose going into the controller, or the controller itself wasn't tightened down properly and therefore was not making a good ground connection with the chassis. Bad grounds can cause very strange problems in any electrical system. And Telsa not tightening something down in their factory full of misfit assembly line workers sounds about right.

Or that could just be a bunch of gibberish on the invoice to pretend like they actually fixed something so you would feel better, but they only poked around and tugged on some parts and never found a problem.

Thanks for trying to translate! I agree, the assembly line probably got a whole lot sloppier during the year-end rush. Crossing my fingers it doesn't happen again, and if it does, at least not with my kid in the car!!

 

[Hattie]

Same thing happened to my new car.

The first message is "power reduced, exiting/reentering car may restore operation", which is about the strangest way to resume from some sort of drive failure. Then it said it lost a motor, and then shook and shuddered and completely lost all drive.

I rebooted the car, recharged it, and it seemed to operate as normal again. It's been covering the last 500km or so normal, as if absolutely has happened.

But obviously it is a traumatizing type of failure as you're really unsure of the cause and repeatability of the cause. I'm yet to take it to a service center, but the tech over the phone said it should be fine, according to the vehicle logs.

Same thing happened to my new car.

The first message is "power reduced, exiting/reentering car may restore operation", which is about the strangest way to resume from some sort of drive failure. Then it said it lost a motor, and then shook and shuddered and completely lost all drive.

I rebooted the car, recharged it, and it seemed to operate as normal again. It's been covering the last 500km or so normal, as if absolutely has happened.

But obviously it is a traumatizing type of failure as you're really unsure of the cause and repeatability of the cause. I'm yet to take it to a service center, but the tech over the phone said it should be fine, according to the vehicle logs.

You must have been home when this happened? Lucky you. It was definitely traumatizing. Hope it never happens again to either of us!

 

[cwerdna]

Since you stated it was scary in numerous ways and you have a receipt showing what they claimed they did to resolve, if you agree this is a safety defect, I'd file a safety complaint with NHTSA (assuming you're in the US) at Home | Safercar -- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Include the symptoms and what they did to resolve.

 

[aStCrNmdStela]

You must have been home when this happened? Lucky you. It was definitely traumatizing. Hope it never happens again to either of us!

I was actually 2000km away from home, on the freeway, near midnight, single-digit temperature, in a country that does not have a Service Center. So it was definitely bad news.

 

[PianoAl]

essentially powers down so fast that I can't even crawl to the shoulder.

So, was it stopped in the roadway?

 

[Nocturnal]

I've probably had 30 cars. 10 of them rusted out $400 beaters with over 100K on them when I bought them. Not one car has ever stranded me on the highway. I'm not saying they never broke, but there are usually lots of warning signs, smoke, steam, noise etc. I don't recall ever being towed in 40 years. Except one accident in an ICE Storm. My wife's car never needed a tow either accept an accident also in an ICE storm.

I've had it happen, and obviously the cars you see on the side of the road had it happen to them.

 

[Hattie]

So, was it stopped in the roadway?

Yes, it stopped in the middle of the road. Hope it never happens again!

 

[FoverM]

Obviously a serious and scary situation. I'm not sure whether the diagnosis means an issue with the low power computer controller or the high power drive system.

This reminds me of something my MechE prof said way back in the early 80s when I was an EE student. He complained about how a mechanical system, e.g. a gear, could lose a "tooth" and continuing functioning at some level while an electronic controller could lose a single transistor (one of thousands or millions) and be dead in the water.

 

[Brexpat]

It happens to ALL cars, not just Teslas. I've had a few to die in the middle of the Interstate.

This is unlikely story. I've been driving ICE cars for 36 years and never had one die on me in a dangerous place like that. The ones that failed were non-starters. An ICE whilst moving will allow you to just coast to get to the safety lane if the engine dies.

Glad you were all okay.

 

[Sutton 3P]

I’m pretty sure in plain English the note says they didn’t securely connect some wiring at the factory and it disconnected while driving, causing some serious errors.

 

[Futuresystem]

I’ve had two ICE vehicles have catastrophic failures on the highway. One was a valve through a piston, the other a major electrical fault in the engine’s main computer. Both were instantaneous and left me totally stranded.
It’s no fun, and it DOES happen to ICE vehicles.... pretty regularly actually. I saw three vehicles parked on the side of the highway on a two hour drive a few weeks ago, and two of them were not old. (People don’t park their car on the side of a highway and abandon it in the middle of nowhere for no reason!)
I hope your Model 3 is good from here on.