{"id":1213749,"date":"2023-12-20T13:49:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T18:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1213749"},"modified":"2023-12-20T13:49:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T18:49:57","slug":"tesla-knew-some-of-its-parts-had-high-failure-rates-but-reportedly-blamed-drivers-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1213749","title":{"rendered":"Tesla knew some of its parts had high failure rates but reportedly blamed drivers anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reuters<\/em> published an explosive investigative report<\/a> Wednesday chronicling Tesla’s alleged patterns of deliberate neglect and shifting blame onto customers for parts failures. The damning expos\u00e9 accounts the Elon Musk-led company\u2019s alleged long-running tendency to claim vehicle owners had engaged in \u201cdriver abuse,\u201d charging them for repairs over failures caused by parts the company discussed internally as being flawed. The issues are often related to suspension and steering. Externally, Tesla\u2019s portrayal of the problems has ranged from flat-out denial to partial acknowledgment.<\/p>\n

Several accounts in the story document Tesla owners who were told their car’s issues stemmed from prior damage or driver abuse. In some cases, they had just bought the vehicles:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of the drivers Reuters<\/em> interviewed, Shreyansh Jain, suffered a suspension collapse in a 2023 Tesla Model Y he had owned for less than 24 hours. When the automaker told him a lower control arm separating from the steering knuckle caused the failure, he expected Tesla to cover the repairs. A service rep who inspected the car said they found \u201cno evidence of any external damage,\u201d as revealed in a text message.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About a week later, Tesla sent a letter to Jain, skirting blame and citing \u201ca prior external influenced damage to the front-right suspension\u201d as the cause.<\/p>\n

Jain said he was the only person to have driven the car on its first day of ownership, and he hadn\u2019t had an accident before the suspension failed. \u201cI was like, \u2018Bloody hell, how can metal just snap like that when I know for sure the car has not hit anything?\u2019\u201d he said to Reuters<\/em>. Three months later, the repairs were complete, and Jain paid a $1,250 deductible (with his insurance covering the rest). He says his rates then spiked dramatically on another car he owned.<\/p>\n

\"A
Tesla CEO Elon Musk stands behind the Model Y at its 2019 unveiling.<\/figcaption>
Tesla<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Cincinnati surgeon Trace Curry paid $110,000 for a 2016 Tesla Model X. He replaced the SUV\u2019s control arms twice, once covered by warranty and a second time at his expense. After the warranty ran out, Reuters<\/em> reviewed invoices showing Curry paid around $10,000 for failed suspension and drive-axle parts. Then, in 2018, he replaced the front half shafts (under warranty); he replaced them again (at his own cost) for $1,500.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/em>\u2019 investigation suggests Tesla knew that many of the parts that required replacing in Curry’s Model X \u2014 control arms, suspension and front half shafts \u2014 had high failure rates.<\/p>\n

Andrew Lundeen was driving his wife\u2019s 2018 Model 3 in August when the car\u2019s power steering failed while driving over a speed bump. The Santa Rosa, California, resident told Reuters<\/em> a Tesla service manager told him a power steering connector had corroded \u2014 and attributed it to a car wash, which the employee cited as a known problem.<\/p>\n

Lundeed paid $4,400 out of pocket to replace the steering rack and a wiring harness, allegedly thanks to his bold decision to visit a car wash. \u201cThis is the only car I\u2019ve ever heard of where a car wash can damage the wiring,\u201d he told the Tesla manager. Lundeed described the employee as saying, \u201cAll I can tell you is we\u2019re not a 100-year-old company like GM and Ford. We haven\u2019t worked all the bugs out yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
Tesla’s Model 3<\/figcaption>
Photo by Roberto Baldwin \/ Engadget<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The investigation also documents Tesla\u2019s can-kicking and inconsistent responses to part recalls<\/a> in different regions<\/a>. For example, the company\u2019s engineers identified the aft link, part of the suspension, as having snapped in several incidents while owners drove at low speeds (similar to Jain\u2019s account). A former Tesla employee \u201cwith direct knowledge of the matter\u201d told Reuters<\/em> that between 2016 and 2020, Tesla \u201cresolved\u201d around 400 aft link complaints in China \u2014 either through in-warranty repairs or through \u201cgoodwill repairs\u201d if they were out-of-warranty.<\/p>\n

The Musk-led automaker delayed a recall for four years, only agreeing to one after Chinese regulators applied pressure. The country\u2019s State Administration for Market Regulation described a \u201crisk of accidents\u201d as part of the rationalization.<\/p>\n

However, despite global reports of failures, Tesla never recalled the part in the US and Europe. The company told US regulators the problems resulted from \u201cdriver abuse.\u201d Reuters<\/em> also viewed a 2019 \u201ctalking points\u201d memo urging service centers to blame \u201cvehicle misuse,\u201d like \u201chitting a curb or other excessive strong impact,\u201d as the culprit. \u201cAbuse\u201d and \u201cmisuse\u201d are conditions in the Musk-led company\u2019s contract, giving the automaker leeway to reject in-warranty repairs for incidents it labels as such.<\/p>\n

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been investigating Tesla since 2020 for the fore link (a suspension part) in Model S and X, and it began looking into power steering failures<\/a> in the 2023 Model 3 and Model Y in July. Reuters<\/em>\u2019 nearly 5,000-word report<\/a> is worth a read, especially if you\u2019re a Tesla owner who has paid for repairs out of pocket. The NHTSA will likely find it an equally compelling read.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/tesla-knew-some-of-its-parts-had-high-failure-rates-but-reportedly-blamed-drivers-anyway-184957494.html?src=rss
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\nSource: Engadget – Tesla knew some of its parts had high failure rates but reportedly blamed drivers anyway<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reuters published an explosive investigative report Wednesday chronicling Tesla’s alleged patterns of deliberate neglect and shifting blame onto customers for parts failures. The damning expos\u00e9 accounts the Elon Musk-led company\u2019s alleged long-running tendency to claim vehicle owners had engaged in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1213749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1213749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1213749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1213749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1213749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}