2019 TESLA MODEL 3 Complaints

The car will not allow me to use the cruise control, or put the car into auto-steer. Tesla says it do to a coax cable that is damaged or gone bad. Additionally the day a camera repeater also needs to be replace. The car has only 62,000 miles and is 4 year old. Which is out of Warranty.

At just 10 days over 4 years of ownership, which is out of warranty, and at about 44,360 miles, I noticed noise when going over small bumps, moving from stop to go and while turning the steering wheel. It appears that the upper control arm, a recall on about 3000 Tesla Model 3 and Y, was the culprit. I contacted the service center and right away, over the Tesla Mobile App, the knew it was the control arm going bad. They said it was safe to drive, however, it is a bit scary to hear the squeaking and noises when driving and turning the steering wheel, especially at highway speeds. The problem was fixed by Tesla's service center, however, because I was 10 days or so out of my 4 year/50,000 miles warranty, I was charged about $190 for the repair. I feel that since this is a know issue and has happened to many other non-recalled vehicles by Tesla, this would/should be a know defect and safety concern that should have been repaired under warranty.

The contact owns a 2019 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while driving at various speeds with the Autonomous Self Driving or Adaptive Cruise Control feature activated, the vehicle experienced phantom braking, causing the vehicle to abruptly stop in the middle of the roadway. The contact stated that the failure had occurred on several occasions without any other vehicles or objects nearby. The cause of the failure was not yet determined. The local dealer and manufacturer were not yet notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 28,000.

While driving, the AEB randomly and repeatedly activates while there are no obstacles in my path. It will slow on the interstate from 70 mph to 30 mph.

In the Tesla Model 3 vehicle's newest software update, there are text blurbs over 15 words that show up when autopilot is engaged. While I was trying to read this text blurb, the autopilot was attempting to change lanes. I had to prevent this while attempting to read the text blurb. This is because the car was making a dangerous maneuver and had not realized that the cars in the next lane over it was switching to was fully coming to a full stop. The car did not realize this and assumed that the next lane was faster, so it sped up. I turned off autopilot, re-corrected the steering, and re-engaged autopilot. The car continued its previous behavior, turned on the turn signal and went towards the next lane while keeping me busy trying to speed-read 15+ words in half a second. Keep in mind, that this is an issue easily preventable with the removal of the text blurbs. This was a distraction to me, the driver, while the car's automated system assumed it was making the right decision. This put the safety of the passengers in my vehicle at risk and the safety of others, behind me, at risk. As in the incident description above, I replicated the issue once. The dealer (Tesla) has remained silent since my report to them. The vehicle or component has not to my knowledge. There were no warning signals, messages or other symptoms of the problem prior to the distraction.

Drivers side rear door is stuck shut. After some research, there is no manual release. This is a significant safety issue and needs to be resolved for all cars that lack the release. I shouldn’t have to visit a service center to open a door. I will refrain from having rear passengers in the car as this is a blatant safety risk.

In autopilot or cruise control, this vehicle will brake unexpectedly with no vehicle or obstacle in front of it. This has happened primarily on highways, and it has happened between 10 and 15 times, such that now the driver cannot trust either autopilot or cruise control because if someone is following close behind, it could cause a wreck. We reported it to the dealer in Wexford PA prior to a service appointment, and they have not been forthcoming with a solution. We do not believe they inspected the system. There was no warning that this failure was about to occur. Below I report the date of the last 3 occurrences.

On long, straight interstate highway roads where speed limit is 80mph in GOOD to EXCELLENT weather and visibility conditions the vehicle on average would apply emergency braking at least 10x per 1,000 miles when no hazard or obstruction was present. This was often caused by asphalt color changes, slight hills, or shimmer in the distance…all of which are normal conditions for average driving. If vehicle was being followed closely by another car it had potential to cause high speed collision and injury or death.

Driving on US 395 near Mojave, CA, with cruise control enabled, the car braked suddenly twice within a 20 minute period. There were no other cars on the road but there was still a "phantom brake" that came out of nowhere.

The lane keeping assistance will send the car jerking left or right without reason or warning. (I’m not sure if the car is reacting to a shadow on the road or for some other reason.). This has occurred a number of times with an abrupt and violent movement. The last time this occurred was at around 6:50pm on Wednesday April 5, 2023 while driving westbound approaching the northernmost Palm Beach Island bridge. The car made a violent and completely unnecessary shift out of the lane and I had to make a forceful corrective steering response that scared both myself and my passenger.