2018 TESLA MODEL 3 Complaints

When driving on the highway and using the "autopilot" lane assist feature the care will automatically change the set speed limit and hard brake which puts my passengers and I in danger of being rear ended due to the abrupt stop. For example I have been driving on the highway with the autopilot set to 65mph and all of a sudden the speed will change to 35 and execute a hard braking maneuver. To compensate for this I have learned to hover my foot over the accelerator to counteract this phantom braking. When this happens there are no alerts that there is something in my path that I need to slow for. Other times there are forward avoidance alerts, but there is nothing in the path. The manufacturer has done nothing to remedy this issue.

While on Adaptive Cruise Control on a highway at 70mph, the vehicle’s autonomous system triggered an emergency brake causing the speed to drop down. Reacted and immediately sped up to avoid any possible collision from vehicles in the same lane. No obstructions in the lane or the immediate lanes at the time of the incident. No weather related occlusions (no rain, haze or fog)

My car Breaks as if i got in to an accident. This has happened more than two times. Car breaks so badly and it drops everything from seats. Very scary. Most of the time i was driving at 10-15 miles per hour in parking lots looking for parking. I always wear seatbelts. Not sure why this happens but it is very scary and had there been cars very close to me i could get rear ended. I did take the car to Tesla Dealer. They always come up with some excuses.

The front Undercarriage/ Aero Tray on My Model 3 started to tear apart after driving in the rain on the freeway. This is a part of the existing SB-19-12-001 Tesla Service Bulletin. While driving on the freeway on a rainy day in Los Angeles, I heard the undercarriage tray start dragging on the freeway. Did not hit or run over any objects to cause the tray to rip. Contacted Tesla and showed Tesla several photos along with the service bulletin affecting 2017-2018 Model 3’s which my Model 3 is a August 2018 Build and Tesla did not want to honor the Service bulletin and they wanted to charge me $441 for replacing both front and back Aero trays. This needs to be reported that Tesla Service centers are not honoring Service bulletins about defective parts. This can be a safety issue, if the part we’re to rip off and hit another car and cause an accident, it can be avoided if tesla honors the service bulletin.

This is regarding NHTSA Recall Number21V-00D. This recall is from December 21, 2021 -- i.e., over a year ago. I scheduled an appointment with Tesla in August 2022 to get this taken care of, but at the time Tesla canceled the appointment. They told me that the parts aren't available yet, but they would reach out via email or the Tesla app "soon". It has now been 4+ months, yet they still have not reached out to me. On my Tesla app, when I click "Rear Harness Recall" button, it says "You will receive a notification in your Tesla App when parts are available for your vehicle." It is difficult to understand that it takes over a year to put in a simple cable harness.

We're a US Military family and are going to be stationed overseas. The US Army WILL NOT take our Tesla Model 3 into a storage facility while we are gone because there is still an outstanding safety recall notice associate with this vehicle. NHTSA Recall # 22V702. We are leaving in less than two weeks and we can't get our vehicle into storage without all safety recalls being fixed (even though it is only an over-the-air recall). We also can't even sell our car because it is illegal to sell a car that still has unfixed recalls! Argh!!! Can you please put pressure on Tesla to fix this issue and send out an over-the-air fix? We're stuck and stressed right now and we have to go overseas regardless of this Tesla matter being fixed or not. And no, we can't even leave our Tesla with someone without getting a power-of-attorney to let them put it into US Military storage in the future. This is a mess! Please get Tesla to fix the safety recall #22V702.

Cabin heating unit failure during winter with temperatures in the 10-20F range, loss of front window defrosting/defogging leading to poor visibility. Problem was confirmed by dealer and heating unit replaced at dealer service center, dealer now has possession of the broken heating unit. There were no indications that the unit was about to fail, until it stopped making hot air and reported a "climate system fault" when trying to select heat/defrost, it stopped working while the car was in use. The heating system stopped working around 12:30 on Friday and did not work all day, tried rebooting the head-end computer to no effect. Started working at 9am the next morning for a few hours, but stopped working while driving around 12:30 again and didn't work for rest of day, worked for an hour or so the next day and again an hour or so the day after that. The vendor was able to get an appointment on Monday to replace the unit and had the part in stock so this was failed from Friday mid-day to Monday afternoon, the new unit is installed and is now working so far. As far as I know, the heating in this model is a simple electric resistive heating element, so it is not clear to me how it could fail without a manufacturing or design defect, the car is only 3y old.

This summer while driving on interstate highways the Adaptive Cruise Control (with and without all other driver assistance/autopilot features enabled or disabled) would unexpectedly brake the car, slowing down by 10 or more MPH over 1-2 seconds, with no obstructions or vehicles in front of the car for hundreds of meters at least. This happened repeatedly, and we believe we correlated it to cases when the car came up over a low rise or bridge, and there was bright sun creating a small mirage in the distance on the highway in front of the car without any other vehicle in between to block the view. This seems to be a safety issue because at highway speeds, unexpected braking is very disruptive and startling to the driver, the passengers as well as anyone following behind who may not react in time especially on a clear sunny day with no obvious obstructions to take extra care of. * component: Adaptive Cruise Control (with or without other Autopilot ADAS features) * safety: Braking at highway speeds is disruptive to traffic and can cause accident (rear-ending, startling driver) * reproduced: Problem has not been reproduced by the vendor and I don't see any way to report it to the vendor * inspection: The components have not been inspected by others to my knowledge, this is based on software produced by or licensed by Tesla * warnings: no warnings were produced before or during the event, just .5g or so (not measured) of braking unexpectedly

The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V702000 (Visibility) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The contact stated that the front driver's side and passenger's side windows failed to operate as needed intermittently. There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to Tesla Service Center where it was diagnosed that the failure was related to the recall. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. Additionally, the contact stated that he had been receiving notifications on the center display indicating that the visual ability of the camera on the front driver's side of the vehicle was faulty. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure, but no assistance was provided. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was unknown. Parts distribution disconnect.

Vehicle failed to detect object in HOV lane while traveling at 73 mph north on I-280. Vehicle impacted object with no warning or braking, causing car to become airborne and resulting in $19000 in damages. Note: please use ZIP code as password to access the insurance report (CSAA attachment)