2021 TESLA MODEL S Complaints

The 2021 and beyond Tesla Model S comes installed with camber arms that cause the wheel to be tilted in and thus wears the tire on the inside to the point of wearing out within 6 months. This is a flaw in the building and pertains to all the model S's 2021 and greater. This is a safety issue and is not addressed by Tesla. I think Tesla should be forced to provide a recall for this.

I have had my Tesla to their shop FOUR times to try to fix a safety airbag issue in the drivers side which they have had my car for weeks and weeks on end, only for me to get it back with the same issue after only a few days of repair! I asked them for a refund and other things and they have done nothing! They still make me pay full price for my lease even though they have had my car in their shop more than I have driving it.

Tire tread delaminated from the body of the tire, leading to loss of pressure and dangerous loss of vehicle control. Both rear tires had the same issue. 295 /30 R21

Rear passenger seat belt came unattached from receiver on braking. 7 year old in booster seat lunged forward

After backing out of a parking space and turning the steering wheel, the steering wheel locked up. I could still drive forward and reverse but had no ability to steer the car. I left the car in order to turn it off and when I returned and turned it back on, the steering unlocked. I had this happen two times today.

My rear driver side tire failed on the interstate and lost pressure so quickly I had to pull over immediately. Thankfully the tire remained intact enough for me to safely pull over and no one was injured. After realizing this wasn’t just a puncture, I was shocked. This is either a major defect with the tire or with Teslas installation of the tire. The inner part of the tire was shredded but the rest of the tire has significant tread left. These tires are less than 1 year old and less than 16500 miles of use. The tires offer a 30,000 mile warranty.

Vehicle braked without warning with cruise control engaged. Luckily there were no other vehicles near us when this phantom braking occurred.

The horn is a tiny button on the steering wheel. Several times when someone inadvertently started entering my lane I couldn't find the horn fast enough to warn them so had to veer away and brake suddenly to avoid them as I couldn't warn them.

The adaptive cruise control has had phantom braking issues from day 1 of ownership (and through every software release from Tesla as I always update when a new one is available). Most of the time it's not possible to identify exactly what triggers the event. However, on July 27th 2023 I drove from Phoenix to Sacramento via I10, I210, I5 and had 6 phantom braking events. 5 were directly correlated with passing a semi with me in the #1 lane and the semi in #2. I had the car in adaptive cruise control mode, but I maintained steering control. The car approached the semis normally, but as soon as the car was completely alongside the truck it began braking aggressively. More than just allowing regenerative braking to slow the car, the brakes were applied. This did not happen with every passed truck, maybe 1 in 10. One of the 6 phantom events could not be correlated with any clearly identifiable cause. There is no warning when the car begins decelerating so it is a surprise to the driver. Further it is an extreme hazard to following vehicles who WILL be forced to react. I have not directly reported my specific events to Tesla. For one thing they have no reasonable way to do this (online access, phone access. The number they give to report problems hits an automated phone tree where there is no option for reporting issues). Clearly Tesla is well aware of their phantom braking issues. I'm reporting this to you now in order to apply more pressure to Tesla to finally resolve this. In general, considering some of the other phantom braking episode beyond this one specific trip, I have occasionally noticed the car displays a yellow signal light on the driver's display but only while phantom braking has already begun. I believe this is case where the car believed it saw a caution sign or signal light in it's cameras and was reacting to that. There were no signal lights, but the sun was either coming in that direction or reflected off of other vehicles or buildings.

The horn is a small button in a very small area of the steering wheel. The center of the steering wheel which acts as a horn on almost all other vehicles, does not work. In the event of an emergency, and the horn needs to be activated, it is difficult to find and press the small button, and the instinct would be to press the center of the steering wheel, which would not work and the horn would not activate.