Tesla Upper Control Arm CRACKED

[mongo]

The suspension was not affected by any accident or was previously repaired without my knowledge. When it arrived in Europe after small body work, It passed the technical inspection and was found compliant with the EU safety standards. The left side suspension seams to experience the same problem, the tire is severely worn on the inner side. I'll check that upper arm, I bet it is cracked. Don't try to hide the garbage behind the carpet just because your suspension didn't brake yet. It's time to brake will come!

Regarding repairs within your knowledge: is this, or is this not, the car that required a new right rear ABS sensor? If so, what happened to the previous one? How do you know there was no suspension damage?

If the rear toe alignment is off, both rear tires will wear faster. Inner wear indicates toe out, which can be caused by the the rear side of the right rear tire being impacted and pushed toward the center line. Is that perhaps the same area the body work was done?

 

[GeorgeCM]

Abs sensor had a bad connector. It made imperfect contact, probably because water was leaking inside and it was rusted. Since then the car was driving normally for about one year, except some air conditioning and many other small but annoying issues. The body work was done in the rear bumper and trunk area. I really don't think it has any connection with this thin suspension arm that cracked.

 

[RDoc]

All this talk about how aluminum suspension parts are inherently weak and prone to failure is complete BS by armchair engineers. Many high performance sports cars, e.g. my NSX, have all aluminum suspensions and don't have cracked suspension parts as an often reported failure. Of course companies like Honda actually design their suspension parts not to fail even in very stressful situations.

 

[sorka]

Did you forget you posted pictures of the damage? Here let me highlight them for you. This wheel has seen battle. Many times. I don't even know how you pulled off the damage on the spokes...

Not sure curb rash from parking counts.

 

[jaguar36]

I really don't think it has any connection with this thin suspension arm that cracked.

The forces involved in a crash are insane and since you have no idea what occurred in the crash (or if anyone had rebuilt it previously) there is no way you can make that statement. In addition based on the fracture surface it appears that this failure occurred in two parts. It seems quite likely the first crack occurred during the accident. Course it also could have happened during whatever happened that wrecked your wheel and took a chunk out of your tire too.

Later failures that occur on a salvage vehicle have no bearing on the initial design of the part, the whole vehicle is compromised. There is a reason cars with damage like this will have branded titles in the States.

 

[sorka]

Ya I agree... this is more than a pothole hit. Take a step back... look at the misalignment of panels in the rear quarter..

Has this car has been dropped from a crane or rolled off a loading dock !??

I think the photos speak volumes. Now, I'm actually amazed that's the ONLY LINK to have broken after this accident.

Driver and occupants should probably also visit dentist looking for chipped teeth.

View attachment 301579

My hatch was worse than that at delivery.

 

[sorka]

Salvage? I take it all back. All bets are off at that point.

 

[GeorgeCM]

The forces involved in a crash are insane and since you have no idea what occurred in the crash (or if anyone had rebuilt it previously) there is no way you can make that statement. In addition based on the fracture surface it appears that this failure occurred in two parts. It seems quite likely the first crack occurred during the accident. Course it also could have happened during whatever happened that wrecked your wheel and took a chunk out of your tire too.

Later failures that occur on a salvage vehicle have no bearing on the initial design of the part, the whole vehicle is compromised. There is a reason cars with damage like this will have branded titles in the States.

We don't have in Europe this "salvage" notion. No matter how the car was damaged, if it was repaired and it passes the inspection, it is a normal car. In US the salvage status is given by insurance companies based on financial evaluation, and not by safety evaluation. There is no reason to believe that if tesla charges 20k to replace a bumper and a trunk lid, the whole car is compromised! Of course it doesn't make sense for insurance companies to pay that, but this has no connection with safety. The car must be safe to drive once it passes the technical inspection. According to your statement, any car can get severe shock, get a suspension arm cracked, then later get it broken because of the first crack that appeared earlier. This may happen, but this is actually the problem. The accumulated fatigue of that part poorly designed!

 

[Lloyd]

The "salvage title" is to protect the consumer from unscrupulous sellers that try to pass off a vehicle that was severely damaged. This determination is made by the insurance company as being "not financially repairable" so any future owner can't just throw some lipstick on it and make it look like a good vehicle and resell it to an unsuspecting buyer.

Perhaps after your repair, you will appreciate the protections our system offers.

 

[Az_Rael]

The body work was done in the rear bumper and trunk area. I really don't think it has any connection with this thin suspension arm that cracked.

I agree that Tesla suspensions aren't the most robust design. Our P85D just spent 3 weeks in the shop having both left and right rear knuckles, hubs and bearings replaced. I don't expect that kind of suspension work at only 40K miles on a normal car.

However, your car having been in a prior accident muddies your case. I was once rear-ended in my prior Chevy Volt at a stoplight. The rear hatch and rear bumper was damaged and replaced for $7500 total work - no airbag deployments. Car was repaired and returned to service, no salvage title. It developed a noise from my rear suspension a few months later. Took it in and they found my rear axle tube needed replacement, an unusual failure but one that had occurred on a few other Volts. Because of the prior accident, I will never know if my axle had been damaged and failed early due to that, or if my car was experiencing something that may have been from a poor design.

 

[JRP3]

This car has only 30000 km! This is by any standard unacceptable. They must recall all of them and fix them.

Since there are over 300K Model S and X on the road, many with far higher mileage than yours, the small number of reported issues suggest there is as of yet no need for a recall.

 

[GeorgeCM]

Unfortunately, I am not the only one, just look here:
tesla suspension arm - Google Search

Tesla was investigated for forcing clients to sign agreements to not talk about the issues in exchange for covering part of repairs. The main question here is if they release an updated version of that part. On my car the part number ends with a "B". Searching for it I found there is a "C" ending part as well. Does anybody know what do they improved to this part ? If they considered that the part needs improvement, probably they realized it may fail!

 

[mongo]

@GeorgeCM
Seriously, give it up. You bought a post crash Tesla. You assumed the suspension was undamaged. You claimed the unaligned bodywork was like that from Fremont, when you also state the cars had body work done before you recieved it. Finally, your attempts to hide the history of the car are most disingenuous.

You have no data to support that this is anything other than a collision induced failure. Do you even know for certain what it looked like post accident/ pre repair? Can you assert that this link was neither damaged nor replaced with another used part? Did you ever think to yourself: "why is this ABS sensor leaking? What caused this simply sealed device to loose integrity? "

You also imply the tire wear is Tesla's fault. Did you ever get an alignment on this post crumpled vehicle?

And now you are trying to resurrect the NDA for silence claim. Research better, that has been debunked. A Grain of Salt

If you have a beef, it should be with the person who sold you the car, not Tesla.

Mongo is out.

 

[GeorgeCM]

I have told you this car passed the technical inspection and I know for sure they did it right. We have also inspected the car last year. We are engineers here, we know what we are doing. There was nothing wrong with that suspension arm one year ago. I am not claiming anything from anyone, and not trying to demolish Musk's statue. I am just making people aware of that suspension problem at least in early versions. I was asking what changes did they do in the revised version of the suspension, why don't you focus on the problem instead of trying to discredit me? There are others who reported similar issues, you will not manage to discredit everybody.

 

[JRP3]

You discredit yourself when you try to claim that all control arms are defective and need to be replaced. Possibly some earlier versions may have higher rates of failure but still not be at a level requiring a recall.

 

[GeorgeCM]

Sure, tell this to these 100 guys. Unfortunately you can not tell this to all of them, because some of them died in accidents claimed to be caused by the failing suspension.
Tesla suspension Hall Of Shame!

 

[JRP3]

Wow, you don't even realize you're linking to a site set up by that lunatic Keef who takes photos of every crashed Tesla he can find and then reports it to nhtsa.

 

[GeorgeCM]

But why somebody would do this ? How that guy became so against Tesla, what did they do to him ?

 

[bhzmark]

But why somebody would do this ? How that guy became so against Tesla, what did they do to him ?

Tesla squeezed his short position. The poor thing.

Or he's just a unibomber type. Tesla seems to attract them.

The story behind the ‘false’ Tesla suspension complaints to NHTSA

 

[JRP3]

But why somebody would do this ?

Mental illness most likely. He's never owned a Tesla and as far as I know never owned the stock. He's just a lunatic obsessed with Tesla.