They were not fake. They were submitted by a none US citizen who was open about the fact the address he used were not his as the NHTSA requires a US address. They were labeled as fraud by NHTSA because of they false addresses yet the NHTSA is looking into the reports
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Here's the chronology:
~3,weeks before incident: OP takes car to Sears service center where a Tesla Ranger meets him to perform some kind of vehicle service.
April 24: OP had the incident. Vehicle towed to Tesla SC.
April 28: OP filed NHTSA report. Also, created this thread and posted the message below which disclosed his incident, discusses safety and asks if anyone else had the same problem. He also notes that the car is out of warranty.
May 3: OP expresses his first sense of outrage about Tesla paying only half the repair cost.
First thread message:
I have owned my Model S since May of 2013 and truly love the car. With that said, I must tell everyone about a recent problem I experienced this past Sunday while driving on a back road at a very low rate of speed, about 5 MPH. The road was rough so my air ride was at it max lift. As I was proceeding down a steep hill I heard a snap and felt my steering wheel pull to the left. I stopped the car for further inspection only to discover that my left front hub assembly separated from the upper control arm. Needless to say the car was inoperable due to a loss of steering. Thank goodness I was not traveling at a high rate of speed. This could of been a tragic accident causing injury or even death.
I contacted Tesla and they towed the car to a service center. They just informed that this is not covered under warranty, stating that the cause was due to normal wear and tear. I have owned many cars in my life and have never experienced such a failure. My car has been driven 73000 miles.
Has anyone experienced this failure on their car?
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JohnSnowNW
Active Member
No, NHTSA has not said that themselves. Elon Musk labeled them fraudulent on his Twitter account.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
Because they ARE fraudulent...we don't need to wait for the NHTSA to acknowledge that...the guy that wrote them has admitted to it.
TMC has labeled them as fraudulent for years before Elon, because Keef keeps coming back here and posting those complaints. Not to mention the guy admitted to it. Posting pictures of wrecks/collisions and claiming design defect is fraudulent.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
The 2 weeks I refer to (and likely mkjayakumar also) is when he disclosed he filed the report. It was on May 13, two weeks from the start of the thread:
Suspension Problem on Model S
I don't want to quote bit by bit (in order to not "call out" the OP, which is not my intention), but the OP ended the original post by saying Tesla refused to pay for the fix. Then in subsequent posts he discusses his fight with Tesla get Tesla to pay for it. From reading the posts in the start of the thread, I think it is reasonable for people to doubt that if his car was still under warranty (or Tesla agreed to fix it for free), would the OP still have posted this thread?
That's pure supposition.
The fact is that he posted about what happened four days after the problem occurred and on the same day he filed the NHTSA report. Why did he wait four days? I don't know. Perhaps that was the first time that the Tesla SC got back to him with details of their evaluation? We all know that Tesla service centers have been busy dealing with other issues recently.
I don't get why it matters that he waited 2 weeks to disclose to TMC that he acted responsibly by quickly filing a NHTSA report?
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You are correct. He took it to Sears 3 weeks prior to the incident where a Tesla Ranger performed some other service and failed to notice the condition of the ball joint and other suspension parts.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
If I take my car in to have them inspect the electric motors in the seat, I'm not going to expect them to notice that my headlight is out.
Hmm.. I don't understand your comment. When I take my MB in for any type of service they check the entire car. One time I took it in for them to put air in my tire and they fix a oil seal.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
Going to assume you quoted the wrong reply.
Do you take your MB into Sears, and have an MB tech come out to inspect you're vehicle? The OP has yet to state what he asked of the Ranger...if it was to do a wheel alignment then that's what he performed. As has been stated, not all wheel alignments are done with the wheels suspended.
I'm not going to speculate any further than that. Until we have some actual information, it doesn't seem reasonable to blame the Ranger.
Never because they do not offer that service but if they did I'm sure that would check the entire car as they always do at least here.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
This whole thread is mainly supposition, since only the OP would know his own motivations. The issue with the disclosing of the report to the forum is mainly related to people's trust in the OP's statements and his motivations for posting this thread in the first place. There are two factors specifically for the NHTSA report:
1) People view it as the OP not being upfront about the details of his situation to this forum (esp. in the context of the later media reports). The timeline of the disclosing of the NHTSA report by itself would not be the major factor in this, but rather as a part of the big picture in terms of how the OP discloses information (for example the types of roads he drove and the condition under which the car was towed by Tesla).
2) As related to safety, given he knew to file an NHTSA report, why would he not mention it and suggest others file one also?
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I think his point was the Ranger would be pressed for time given the location (not Tesla's facility). It is not necessarily reasonable to assume the Ranger should give a complementary full vehicle inspection for every call that happens.
So the context (what type of issue was the Ranger addressing) is very important.
chipmunk
Member
Well, may I suggest that transparency goes two ways. If you want the OP to be more transparent, Tesla needs to release him from the portion of the "Goodwill Agreement" I'm sure he ended up signing that prevents him from discussing the events.
It doesn't seem fair to me that once the article was published, Tesla gets to publicly provide their side of the story, including criticism of the Tesla owner, and the owner is legally prevented from talking about it and defending himself.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
chipmunk
Member
Most of that information was likely provided before he signed an agreement. You did read the Goodwill agreement he posted when he wasn't happy with the offer right? It's pretty restrictive.
BTW, I edited my last post with additional thoughts.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
The owner provided "privileged" information up until 2 days ago...but I guess he could have signed it since then. The issue being that anytime before the signing of the document he should have provided more transparency...which again, was at least up until Mon.
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