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Our Tesla Model 3 Suffered a Failure While Parked
- remmargorp64 7y agoOn the flip side, how cool is it that cars are now smart enough to diagnose themselves and prevent you from driving before what could potentially be an unsafe situation has a chance to occur?
- mfer 7y agoWhat about this situation said it was unsafe to drive? Not able to drive and not safe to are different things. I’m reminded that many gas engines can drop into a degraded mode and still run when there is a problem like a sensor failing. Even a small oil leak can still be driven with. Degraded but not stranded.
- sneak 7y agoI don’t think it’s cool at all that this happened on a car with 5200 miles. That’s a bug, not a feature. If they can do all this real-time surveillance, why not have a conditional somewhere to send a loaner for the case when you sold someone a lemon?
- saulrh 7y agoThat was my thought too. And the article even says that the first evidence they had of a potential problem was when it was charging slowly earlier, so this is less "suffered a failure while parked" and more "suffered a failure while driving and diagnosed itself while parked".
- izacus 7y ago"Now"? This has been implemented for years - most people just call it "Check engine light" ;)
- RandallBrown 7y agoThe check engine light doesn't send a notification directly to your phone with a diagnosis of what's wrong.
- o-__-o 7y agoSo, yes, car manufacturers do exactly this right now. But if you want exact details, or if you have an older MY car you can plug in your own odb-ii reader and download one of the many apps to get those details. My car just threw a CEL and it was because I put low octane gas in. I knew this but also found this by using the handy Forscan app
- izacus 7y agoNo, it doesn't send your car location to the cloud and tells it to everyone involved, true. The diagnosis however is available for retrieval via industry standard connector - OBD2.
- hprotagonist 7y agoWith the right OBDII reader it does.
- jessaustin 7y agoIt also doesn't leave you stranded. Some cars have been driven for tens of thousands of miles with this light on.
- droithomme 7y agoI put 60,000 miles on a Jeep with a check engine light. Also spent thousands on trying to fix it at various shops which would replace all sorts of things, to no effect, including about 5 attempts to replace a costly computer board. Eventually had a redneck guy working out of the back of his pickup truck have a go at it. After hearing about the history he spent hours unplugging, cleaning, and replugging every single wire connection and socket. And the light stayed off.
- ilikepi 7y ago
- thaumasiotes 7y agoThe check engine light doesn't prevent you from driving.
- nerdwaller 7y agoTrue, though some cars fall into “limp mode” making it challenging to drive very far. That typically limits the max RPM if a potential catastrophic drivetrain issue is detected while not also stranding you.
- AngryData 7y agoIf a car is in limp mode though you probably shouldn't be moving it at all unless you have already committed to writing it off.
- nerdwaller 7y agoI don’t think that’s true, though it may depend on the make and model - the related service manual should be consulted. Limp mode is intentional and is mostly meant to limit function while sensors may be disabled, compromised or uncertain. There’s a sensitivity to drivetrain timing that narrows as RPMs increase (e.g. approach redline), limp mode seems to mostly use sane defaults for everything to avoid catastrophic failure in that type of scenario.
- gleenn 7y agoWhich people drive around with for weeks without care because it usually feels like a light that indicates the dealer would love to extract some exorbitant service fee from you light.
- jdsully 7y agoThe check engine light is only for emissions related failures which is why in most cases the car is still driveable. In serious cases like this most cars will flash the CEL but AFAIK that is not legally required. The whole point of the CEL is that when the emission system is compromised its not immediately obvious, in fact the car may even perform better depending on the fault.
- bsagdiyev 7y agoSo just a nitpick, but the CEL is not exclusively for emissions related codes. There are a wide range of things that can fail that do not affect the emissions output of the car, but will still trigger a code and light. All of them can fail you in an emissions test, but not all of them are emissions related. Edit: All of them will fail you -> All of them can fail you. Not all codes will trigger an immediate fail in CA smog testing anyways, depending on if they are manufacturer specific, or what they effect. I passed my most recent smog with a few codes.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dehrmann 7y agoDepends what the false positive rate is, and it's no excuse for proper engineering and quality control.
- jessriedel 7y agoThe fraction of serious accidents that are caused by mechanical failure is just 12%. Of mechanically induced accidents, two-thirds were caused by the failure/degradation of the tires, wheels, or brakes. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811059 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... So for diagnostics other than tires, wheels, and brakes, we are talking about a system that can prevent at most 4% of accidents, and probably much, much less. Given the huge number of false positives, I'd much rather cars notify the driver in detail (not just a vague "check engine" warning) and let the driver decide how to proceed, rather than irrevocably disabling themselves. Consider: we could also probably eliminate 20% of accidents by prohibiting drivers from driving in wet conditions, but instead we reasonably instruct drivers to drive more cautiously and accept that some wetness induced accidents will occur nevertheless.
- alphabettsy 7y agoIn what world is preventing 4% of serious accidents trivial? That’s likely hundreds or thousands of crashes per year given the numbers involved.
- jessriedel 7y agoSee "probably much, much less" (since diagnostic systems have many false negatives, and only work on some subsystems) and my argument about wet conditions (which causes greater than 4% of accidents). Furthermore, the absolute number of accidents is not a sensible number to look at unless you're also totaling up the absolute number of drivers inconvenience. Both the absolute number of accidents and the absolute number of downsides (wasted time, driver frustration, unnecessary repairs) will be proportional to the number of cars, so you should divide out by the number of cars.
- alphabettsy 7y agoProbably much, much less is meaningless since it means nothing. I’m pretty sure if there are 20,000 serious accidents per year and some lines of code alone prevent 100 (0.5%) that’s noteworthy.
- aquova 7y agoI have the exact opposite reaction. There are very few things that can go wrong with a car that are dangerous enough for the car to automatically refuse to be driven. For what is the equivalent of the check engine light coming on, the car refuses to even be driven to the mechanic. I've had a history of older jalopies, but I've driven for probably a decade with a check engine light on. The odds of having your Tesla deciding to strand you in the middle of nowhere seems a lot higher than it saving itself from bursting into flames.
- sneak 7y agoI think the general level of abysmal service from Tesla these days, plus the inability to casually sever the network connection/tracking, is the reason I will cancel my cybertruck order.
- o-__-o 7y agoMy wife saw a Kia Stinger in a parking lot the other day and started drooling over it. “Why didn’t you get this one??” I asked her to remember the horror stories we have gone through with our Ford dealership, I told her Kia service would be worse by 5 orders of magnitude. You are being downvoted, but poor customer service is a real reason to avoid certain car brands..
- chc 7y agoAnd by all accounts I've heard, Tesla customer service for the Model 3 is legitimately poor. The car needs much less routine maintenance, but if anything goes wrong, it seems to take anywhere from several weeks to months to get the car back.
- Marsymars 7y agoSeems like more of any issue with your local dealership than the manufacturer. In my area, dealerships for entirely separate manufacturers will often have the same owners, so from that perspective, it hardly matters where you go.
- o-__-o 7y agoI don't disagree. Except this was dealing with Ford HQ to resolve an extended warranty disagreement. I also had to do something similar with the first luxury car I dealt with. You see, extended warranties climb up the food chain since the manufacturers have made the decision it's cheaper to fix the problem than to ignore it (A * B < C in the famous fight club reference). They also need to authorize it. Luxury car was a fight but they caved relatively quickly. Ford is an ongoing saga that has now taken longer to simply prove there is a problem than it took for luxury car to resolve the whole ordeal. Kia would likely be worse since they were selling Stingers at a huge markdown for awhile. I'll pass and stick to Toyota which hasn't had any major reliability problems in the past decade on their vehicles and have great service centers (in my very large metro area)
- travelton 7y ago"Catastrophic Failure" sounds a bit dramatic.
- chc 7y ago"Catastrophic failure" is a common engineering term that essentially means "complete and irreversible failure."
- Gibbon1 7y agoFor a regular car when I hear catastrophic failure I think scrap metal in the oil pan.
- LoSboccacc 7y agoyeah, they got the 2020 equivalent of a blinking engine check light, but !on a Tesla! so it's a blog post and on the front page nonetheless
- newnewpdro 7y agoAccording to you the 2020 equivalent of a blinking engine light is an immobilized vehicle. That alone is worthy of a blog post on the front page if it were true (it's not).
- LoSboccacc 7y agoyou are supposed to call a tow with a blinking light, so yeah. hardly different
- newnewpdro 7y ago> you are supposed to call a tow with a blinking light Citation needed.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
- rangewookie 7y agoNot only is this the first time we've ever had a long-term car suffer a catastrophic failure while parked, it's also an extraordinarily rare case of any car leaving us stranded, something unacceptable for any new vehicle, particularly one that costs $57,690 and with merely 5286 miles on the odometer. Can anyone shed light on if this is a widespread issue, or is this an edge case? This article reads like a rant. Not too long ago, you discovered out your vehicle was dead because it wouldn't start. It would flash a light if you were lucky. This time, there was no offer of a loaner or any kind of temporary transportation That sucks, maybe the only notable comment in the entire article.
- bigcloud1299 7y agoRecently my bothers Ford Focus had service engine light that had come on and vehicle was shut down. He had it towed to ford. which let him know that they recently had a recall on the model and they knew the exact issue. He was neither given rental nor Uber or loaner etc. he had to talk to his insurance company which also did not include recall as a clause so he had to rent. This sort of shit happens to all cars. Although Lexus has been generous with loaner as they try to push you to trade in or buy newer version on Lexus.
- MBCook 7y agoDid the focus cost $57k?
- ceejayoz 7y agoExpensive cars tend to be more finicky, not less.
- close04 7y agoI don't think the problem is that a car broke down (happens to any car). But the higher end the car, the higher end the service you expect. A Ford Focus is anything but premium so I'm sure few people expect premium services attached to the purchase. A ~$60.000 car is a different story.
- happycube 7y agoFord gives pretty much no service for 201x Focus's when the transmission goes to pot. https://jalopnik.com/fords-dual-clutch-transmission-continues-to-be-a-disast-1837238730 https://jalopnik.com/fords-dual-clutch-transmission-continue... https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/cars/2019/12/27/ford-focus-transmission/2755719001/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/cars/2019/12/27/ford-f...
- Dylan16807 7y ago
- dehrmann 7y ago>...the pyrotechnic battery disconnect... What the?! Sounds sorta awesome.
- _ph_ 7y agoI don't know about the Model 3, but at least in the Model S Performance, the main breakers are some short cables with a pyrotechnic charge. When the maximum current is exceeded, the explosives blow up the cables... After all, they are only triggering in excess of 1500 amps. Seems to be difficult to build traditional breakers good for up to 1500 amps which react fast enough.
- AnssiH 7y agohttps://insideevs.com/news/334322/tesla-patents-pyrotechnic-battery-safety-device/ https://insideevs.com/news/334322/tesla-patents-pyrotechnic-... tl;dr There is a "pyrotechnic charge" to disconnect the battery in case of danger.
- alphabettsy 7y agoBMW has been using them for 20 years or more. When the Airbags are deployed the primary battery connection servers power to fuel pump, etc. leaves only the lights and some other accessories working.
- ogre_codes 7y agoI was very disappointed that the author's idea of Catastrophic was far less interesting than what I pictured in my head. It's definitely not the only time an expensive car has failed in the first 6,000 miles of use. Also, the author's assumption that ICE cars don't fail while parked is a bit of hairsplitting. This isn't much different from any of the dozen or so times I've driven somewhere and discovered my car won't start when I go to leave.
- nerdwaller 7y agoThe difference to me of the Model 3 not being able to start and an ICE car, is there’s a nonzero chance one (either alone or with help) can get back on the road in the latter.
- teachrdan 7y agoI am honestly surprised by your blasé reaction. To make an apples to apples comparison, have you ever had a: 1. New car, 2. Which cost almost $60,000, with 3. Fewer than 6000 miles, 4. Suffer a catastrophic failure (i.e. couldn't start with a jump), 5. While parked, 6. And had the manufacturer not communicate the source of failure, 7. Or how long it would take to fix? That, to me, seems almost unbelievable. I have entertained the idea that our family's next car would be a Tesla, but stories like this make me want to wait another generation or longer.
- Robotbeat 7y agoNo, but any specific cherry-picked anecdote won't happen to more than a handful of people. That shouldn't be surprising. (also, 1 and 3 are the same thing.)
- bryanlarsen 7y agoSure, just 2 weekends ago I tried to boost a friend's Highlander. A few more miles but otherwise met all conditions. They spent several hours on the phone with the help desk, but nobody could do anything on a Sunday. They ended up staying an extra night in the hotel without any sort of assurance it would be a quick fix the next day. And yet Toyota is considered one of the good brands.
- _ph_ 7y agoActually I strongly prefer catastrophic failures while parked to catastrophic failures while driving... Of course, having a defect in a basically new car is very annoying, but that is the curse of any technology. At least with an almost new car, there is little argument about whether it is carried by warranty. Tesla will either fix it or give them a new car and then they can hopefully enjoy it.
- Proven 7y ago> Actually I strongly prefer catastrophic failures while parked to catastrophic failures while driving... Certainly something to consider when owning a Tesla car!
- dehrmann 7y agoI know Teslas have a history of reliability issues, but I thought they've gotten better recently.
- slenk 7y agoAnd one story will convince you otherwise?
- tus88 7y agoElectrical fails harder than mechanical. The problem with EVs is they are 100% electrical.
- johnbrodie 7y agoTo me, the scariest part of the article is the last image showing the Tesla screen: "Schedule an appointment on your Tesla Mobile App". No ability to take it somewhere else, no ability to diagnose and attempt a fix yourself, you just have to hope that Tesla will fix it quickly for you. I like Tesla as much as anyone else here, but that last image, imho, takes a bit of ownership/agency away from the owner of the car. I don't trust any company enough to have a $50k+ asset that _only they_ can work on.
- jasonhansel 7y agoThis is why we need strong Right to Repair laws in all 50 states--not just for cars, but for all expensive technology.
- m463 7y agoNo ability to call and make an appointment.
- FDSGSG 7y ago> To me, the scariest part of the article is the last image showing the Tesla screen: "Schedule an appointment on your Tesla Mobile App". >No ability to take it somewhere else, no ability to diagnose and attempt a fix yourself, you just have to hope that Tesla will fix it quickly for you Why would a message on a screen prevent you from doing any of those things?
- Dylan16807 7y agoThe screen is attached to a computer that is able to prevent the car from turning on. And there's no way to get diagnostic manuals.
- FDSGSG 7y ago>The screen is attached to a computer that is able to prevent the car from turning on Ok? That computer isn't particularly adversarial. Presumably if you're capable of fixing this car yourself the computers will present you with no difficulty, if you don't know how to fix cars with computers then the Tesla probably isn't for you. > And there's no way to get diagnostic manuals Yeah, there is https://service.teslamotors.com/ https://service.teslamotors.com/ Or you know, just pay some random guy on a forum $20 for a copy.
- taurath 7y agoThat experience certainly makes me really think about the value proposition. If I’m buying a $60k car, it breaks after 5k miles, and they can’t get me a loaner?
- neuro_image3 7y agoWhilst Tesla's engineering is impressive, their customer service is terri-bad. As just one example, I was unable to start my new model 3 on a cold morning after owning it for 3 months (which in itself is horrendous). The entire system shut down and would not start. This was particularly problematic for me as I am required to get into the hospital in under 30 minutes in order to treat stroke patients. As such I ended up having to use an uber to make it to my surgical list. As is typical for uber, it was impossible to get hold of a human to resolve the situation and the replies (from whatever it is that replies to you on their app) refused to help me unless I waited at my car for their service to show up. When I finally got hold of someone I was told that in order to prevent this, I should prewarm the car using the app prior to using the car. No-one ever explained this to me prior to this happening. I would like to say this has been the only incident but there have been innumerable problems at every point as a new owner.
- selimthegrim 7y ago*Typical for Tesla
- m463 7y ago> When I finally got hold of someone I was told that in order to prevent this, I should prewarm the car using the app prior to using the car. They gave you a bullshit answer - the car would have had to start to pre-warm too. The advice I would give is not to park with a low battery in cold weather, since it will lose range. That said, the car should warn you: Battery Low There will be significantly less energy available from your battery if it gets colder. We recommend charging now. Of course, regular cars have cold weather problems too. Never park a gas car in freezing weather with an almost empty tank (since there is some water in the tank, and it might freeze the fuel pump or lines).
- alphabettsy 7y agoMichigan is a bit of a unique situation in Michigan, not having the ability to do many repairs in state due to laws meant to favor traditional automakers. The fact that loaners are not available as readily is probably an unfortunate side effect of the Model 3’s success; however, many companies don’t offer loaners for vehicles in the price range (starting <$40k), but I think Tesla should do better especially since most with options are selling for the same money as the MB, BMW or Lexus compacts. Obviously being an electric car it fails as gracefully as an ICE car with a fuel system issue.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bsagdiyev 7y agoMost companies do actually offer loaners. Honda does, Toyota does, VW does. They're all under $40k for the most part.
- Proven 7y agoSmall price to pay for supporting a noble cause. Now that it doesn't work and suck coal- and oil-generated electricity, it protects the environment even better.
- jeffnappi 7y agoI rented a 2018 Ford Explorer AWD with ~8k miles on it last year. It suffered a persistent "Terrain Management System Fault. Service AdvanceTrac." error while parked, stranding me on a mountain for 2 days. This is apparently a shockingly common problem with Ford vehicles equipped with AdvanceTrac. It's getting tiresome that any similar issues Tesla encounters are somehow newsworthy... For example fires - according to FEMA, there's ~171,500+ highway car fires per year and if a Tesla ever catches on fire it's big news
- taurath 7y agoOTOH it’s a car and driver long term test car, so one would hope that entropy wouldn’t affect it much. If you’re saying it’s common for many vehicles to just die while parked, I don’t think that’s really a thing yet.
- jeffnappi 7y agoI'm saying if they had a Ford Explorer (or any other mundane model) that suffered a similar failure they would likely not bother to write an entire article highlighting that event. It just isn't quite the click bait that a Tesla article brings.
- fgonzag 7y agoThey would absolutely bother writing about it. They do a ton of long term car reviews, many good, some bad, some horrible (like this one). You can search their long term car reviews, they tell it exactly as is, including any maintenance costs or inconveniences (they even mention other luxury brands at least providing full tOW truck pick up service and a loaner, unlike Tesla which expects you to do it itself)
- jeffnappi 7y agoCan you point me to the article they wrote about the drivetrain failure they had in their long term Ford Raptor[1]? 1. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a23888636/2017-ford-f-150-raptor-reliability-maintenance/ https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a23888636/2017-ford-f-1... "it ate a costly drivetrain part at only 40,000 miles."
- londons_explore 7y agoSpeculating in the failure cause here... I would guess the Tesla constantly checks the isolation between the high voltage system and the car chassis. If it is ever compromised, it blows single-use pyrotechnic fuses as a safety measure (to protect a person who may have their hands in the high voltage system). That event then makes the car useless till serviced. Since it is a kind of 'catch all' event, it happens quite frequently, so it was worth Tesla building an error message into the app for it.
- castratikron 7y agoWhat's worse, your car won't move or your car gives you a 400V shock when you touch it? It's obvious what the better solution is so that's how it was designed. Things happen sometimes and its always better to fail safe. Now if the failure mode had been the opposite this would be an entirely different story, even possibly brand ruining.
- rasz 7y ago>no offer of a loaner or any kind of temporary transportation Why would you expect that from Tesla? Its part of every decent insurance in Europe.
- serf 7y ago>Why would you expect that from Tesla? because literally every manufacturer that sells cars that are more expensive than economy sector vehicles offers loaners at their dealerships fairly casually (in the US). Granted, it's usually a function of the individual dealership, but it's extraordinarily common. >Its part of every decent insurance in Europe. it's a common coverage in the US, too. What's uncommon is involving insurance for warranty work. It'd be more common if the repair work triggered some kind of extended insurance contract from a third party.