I’m having severe problems with my new Model SR+ that has only 2,000 miles on it. It has broken down twice with the “Yellow Triangle of Death,” you know, the dreaded YTOD that says “…vehicle needs service, may not restart.” The first time this happened the odometer was only at 1,710 miles. I had to stop for an appointment 70 miles away and when I tried to return home, the car would not start. It was towed to the nearby service center and after two weeks they replaced the rear motor. This part of the YTOD story has probably been told many times on this Forum.
What seems unusual is that at a mere 300 miles later the vehicle again displayed the Yellow Triangle of Death (I know some people say the YTOD sometimes goes away if you reboot; not for me). The vehicle is towed back to the SC and four days/96+ hours later they text me back telling me “…diagnosis complete and this time the front motor will be replaced, and it will be 10 days to get the parts.” As everyone here likely knows, there’s no way to actually talk to the SC. You get these texts issued by a humanoid chatbot with verbose stock phrases that seem to be coming from a Tesla app that couldn't care less about analyzing customer sentiment. The SC is keeping my vehicle for half a month and there is no offer of a loaner whatsoever. It’s like the polar opposite of Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, etc.
We’ve been under a 100+ degree heatwave and I requested by text that they keep the vehicle inside to protect the screen and interior like I diligently do at home. No response so I called the Tesla HQ main number and after being pinged around endlessly in their automated system, I finally got through to a real human being. That person assured me that they would call the SC and that my vehicle would be kept inside out of the blistering sun. When I texted the SC to ask if that was done, half an hour later I get a text “no can do.” I immediately texted them back telling them, “I paid $400 for a Tesla Model S cover; let me bring it to you.” I get a text back 20 minutes later saying “You have to get here in the next half hour.” If any of you are familiar with Houston, you know how bad rush hour is. I texted back that I needed more time to get there, and btw, why is it taking you 20-30 minutes every time to respond?” I then get a text message that “all customer messages have to go through our system.” Now think about this for a moment. This is Tesla, where Elon has lately been bragging that “we’re very near Level 5 autonomy,” and it's the same company that lands rockets back on their launchpad, but yet their SC communications system has the latency of a 1980’s 1200-baud Hayes modem. Just incredible! They said that they would not be there to receive my cover and to come back after the weekend on Monday.
The worst part of this is that my wife will no longer drive the car. The second time it broke down with the Tesla YTOD, she was just three miles away at the grocery store. She calls me frantically asking, “it’s that Yellow Triangle of Death again; what should I do?!” to which I said, “whatever you do, don’t turn the thing off…come straight home.” She later told me that she was scared about being stranded and having to deal with tow-truck drivers who refuse to wear a mask during the pandemic…and that she will never again drive the Tesla, sticking instead to our second car, a BMW. I’m thinking, that’s just great; I’ve dropped $100k+ of my wife’s and my hard-earned money on a vehicle that she refuses to set foot in again.
My apologies for the tl;dr, but I’d appreciate the advice of the Forum members. Given my wife’s disdain and my frustration, I’m thinking about getting rid of our Tesla, selling it at a loss, or pursuing a Lemon Law remedy. Some questions: Concerning the frequent occurrence of the Tesla YTOD, is this a systemic defect, or does my vehicle happen to be a true lemon, or is it possible that our nearby service center simply does not know what it’s doing? Concerning the SC, have any of you experienced the same noncaring and abysmal treatment, and their inability to quickly diagnose and correctly resolve a problem? We’ve all seen this phrase: “when it’s working, it’s great, when it’s not, well…”. I can’t really say that our Tesla SR+ has ever worked for any appreciable amount of time. All it has done is inject a bunch of stress during an already epic stressful time with the pandemic. I would very much appreciate your candid advice.
What seems unusual is that at a mere 300 miles later the vehicle again displayed the Yellow Triangle of Death (I know some people say the YTOD sometimes goes away if you reboot; not for me). The vehicle is towed back to the SC and four days/96+ hours later they text me back telling me “…diagnosis complete and this time the front motor will be replaced, and it will be 10 days to get the parts.” As everyone here likely knows, there’s no way to actually talk to the SC. You get these texts issued by a humanoid chatbot with verbose stock phrases that seem to be coming from a Tesla app that couldn't care less about analyzing customer sentiment. The SC is keeping my vehicle for half a month and there is no offer of a loaner whatsoever. It’s like the polar opposite of Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, etc.
We’ve been under a 100+ degree heatwave and I requested by text that they keep the vehicle inside to protect the screen and interior like I diligently do at home. No response so I called the Tesla HQ main number and after being pinged around endlessly in their automated system, I finally got through to a real human being. That person assured me that they would call the SC and that my vehicle would be kept inside out of the blistering sun. When I texted the SC to ask if that was done, half an hour later I get a text “no can do.” I immediately texted them back telling them, “I paid $400 for a Tesla Model S cover; let me bring it to you.” I get a text back 20 minutes later saying “You have to get here in the next half hour.” If any of you are familiar with Houston, you know how bad rush hour is. I texted back that I needed more time to get there, and btw, why is it taking you 20-30 minutes every time to respond?” I then get a text message that “all customer messages have to go through our system.” Now think about this for a moment. This is Tesla, where Elon has lately been bragging that “we’re very near Level 5 autonomy,” and it's the same company that lands rockets back on their launchpad, but yet their SC communications system has the latency of a 1980’s 1200-baud Hayes modem. Just incredible! They said that they would not be there to receive my cover and to come back after the weekend on Monday.
The worst part of this is that my wife will no longer drive the car. The second time it broke down with the Tesla YTOD, she was just three miles away at the grocery store. She calls me frantically asking, “it’s that Yellow Triangle of Death again; what should I do?!” to which I said, “whatever you do, don’t turn the thing off…come straight home.” She later told me that she was scared about being stranded and having to deal with tow-truck drivers who refuse to wear a mask during the pandemic…and that she will never again drive the Tesla, sticking instead to our second car, a BMW. I’m thinking, that’s just great; I’ve dropped $100k+ of my wife’s and my hard-earned money on a vehicle that she refuses to set foot in again.
My apologies for the tl;dr, but I’d appreciate the advice of the Forum members. Given my wife’s disdain and my frustration, I’m thinking about getting rid of our Tesla, selling it at a loss, or pursuing a Lemon Law remedy. Some questions: Concerning the frequent occurrence of the Tesla YTOD, is this a systemic defect, or does my vehicle happen to be a true lemon, or is it possible that our nearby service center simply does not know what it’s doing? Concerning the SC, have any of you experienced the same noncaring and abysmal treatment, and their inability to quickly diagnose and correctly resolve a problem? We’ve all seen this phrase: “when it’s working, it’s great, when it’s not, well…”. I can’t really say that our Tesla SR+ has ever worked for any appreciable amount of time. All it has done is inject a bunch of stress during an already epic stressful time with the pandemic. I would very much appreciate your candid advice.
