Tesla wants $2700 for safety restraint fault repair? Seems excessive

[BrianZ]

Due to a water spill, I got a front passenger safety restraint system fault and I took it to the service center. They said the whole seat has to be replaced and it won't be under warranty. I looked online and it seems like everyone got this fixed under warranty from either sensor replacement or a whole seat replacement. Service won't replace the sensor, must be the whole seat, and won't do it under warranty. This seems kind of excessive. Does anyone have any experience and tips for this issue? Thank you guys

 

[GtiMart]

The issue I've had was a bad sensor and was not caused by a spill. The sensor was replaced under warranty because it was defective. It's possible that they won't warranty it because it's not a bad part, it's caused by your action (the spill).

You could find a garage that specializes in EVs and could replace the sensor for you, assuming it's only the sensor that's defect. Would certainly cost less than what the dealer asks for.

Note that some people have reported that their problem fixed itself after the seat had enough time to dry. Have you waited long enough, ventilated the inside of the car and verified it still doesn't work?

 

[BrianZ]

I had the issue on the way to the service center for a different issue, so I didn't get a chance to wait for it to dry out since I thought it's perfect timing to get service to look at it. I'll see if I can get the car back and delay the seat replacement to see if the problem would go away by itself.

 

[fiehlsport]

My friend spilled water on his passenger seat and got the same error. It eventually went away, but mobile service replaced the sensor for him under warranty anyway. (The water spill was not disclosed.)

 

[fiveten]

I had this issue fixed on my model 3 three times under warranty. I can't believe something like this (which seems to be a very common) would cost so much. dang

 

[BrianZ]

I got the car back, and the problem went away by itself. I did dry the car out with the windows open for 2 days while it is sitting at the service center. Service was very kind to goodwill the labor for diagnostics as I technically had to pay it because it was out of warranty. I hope this issue doesn't come up again, otherwise it's going to be an expensive seat replacement.

 

[Sarabjitsidhu]

Due to a water spill, I got a front passenger safety restraint system fault and I took it to the service center. They said the whole seat has to be replaced and it won't be under warranty. I looked online and it seems like everyone got this fixed under warranty from either sensor replacement or a whole seat replacement. Service won't replace the sensor, must be the whole seat, and won't do it under warranty. This seems kind of excessive. Does anyone have any experience and tips for this issue? Thank you guys

Canadian or American ?

 

[Words of HABIT]

Model 3 owner since June 2018.
Received "System Restraint Fault" notification on dashboard.
No water spill, normal seat use only.

Tesla Service came out, mobile, and changed out the seat sensors free of charge. Message still displays. Now Tesla Service states that that the seat needs to be repaired at $2,900 CAD. They are stating 4 year warranty has expired (by two months). However, checking Tesla's web site, it appears that this repair is covered for 5 years or 100k kms, so have asked them for an expanation and have yet to approve their estimate.

This is a serious issue, as the sensors affected are linked to the activation deployment of the air bag. I'll report on the end result of my request for this work to be covered under warranty at no cost to Owner. Fingers crossed.

 

[Words of HABIT]

Great news. Just got back from Tesla service. They completed work under a five year, 100,000km warranty, free of charge. Excellent servic. Thank's Tesla!

 

[gaswalla]

Still not appropriate that you had to show them their own warranty and demand they reverse their plans to charge $3k for the fix

 

[DEAKBS]

Sounds like they're making a killing off this issue. I've been having this notification and issue for the last 2 years. I have a 2018 Model 3 Long range. I first got this notification about 2 years ago. The notification would come and go so initially I didn't take it in. Eventually I finally got tired of the notification coming and going and scheduled the appointment. They replaced the sensor on it, the notification went away for some time. Eventually it came back again. It kept coming and going again, disappearing sometimes for weeks at a time or even a month or more so I didn't make an appointment. Eventually I made the appointment again, they thought it might have something to do with a "3rd party device" (my radar detector) that could be causing the notification. They recommended I remove the radar detector and see if the issue comes back. Which is stupid to me because why wouldnt we be able to use 3rd party devices thats what that socket built into the car is for. I removed the radar detector for a time being and eventually the problem came back again. By then it had been more than like 13K miles since they initially replaced the sensor and I also was out of warranty so now they're trying to charge me over $2K to replace the entire seat. I told them why can't they cover it since it seems to be the same problem when it was under warranty but they claim that the notification doesn't indicate its the same problem and that there are many different potential issues with the seat related with that notification and that their diagnostics is recommending to replace entire seat this point. Needless to say they won't cover it. I picked my car back up and really don't want to spend the money to replace whole seat and feel like this is unfair and bad service. I spoke to a manager at the local Tesla dealership in great length. We went back and forth but ultimately she would not give in. I'm very unhappy about the situation. After I picked my car back up the notification did not come up for a couple of weeks but it's back now and super annoying. I wish there was a way to deactivate the notification at least.