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The last post on Tesla quality had people stating that real consumers didn’t care about the quality issues and it was mostly car snobs whining about panel gaps.

by Closi 6y ago

The last post on Tesla quality had people stating that real consumers didn’t care about the quality issues and it was mostly car snobs whining about panel gaps. I expect similar quotes in here about how it’s totally normal for glass to shatter within 2 minutes of delivery. Before everyone else says it - no Tesla won’t make its own glass - but it will specify it and should be QC testing it. Maybe glass occasionally does the same for other vendors, but this does seem to be another data point in the weekly series of ‘Embarrassing QC issue that gets defended’.

FireBeyond 6y ago
Just look at the title of one of the references linked in the article: > Owner Says Tesla Model 3 Window Shattered By Itself, Accused Of FUD I'm sure she was short $TSLA ...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
shiftpgdn 6y ago
It /is/ totally normal for large sheets of safety glass to shatter. Ive owned lots of enthusiast cars and in the enthusiast pickup truck world it's completely normal to have your rear glass or sunroof explode. I think people get so wound up about this because they've driven budget cars their whole life and a Tesla is their first big purchase and don't have any contextual understanding of advanced car parts going wrong.
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  How is this normal? In my 36 years I've never heard of anyone ever mentioning this happening to them,even though people have gone through multiple cars,etc. Is that a thing with the American cars?
  - jdxcode 6y ago
    Of course it's not normal. Well, unless you park on the street in the mission district.
- miked85 6y ago
  I must be very lucky, I have owned many vehicles and never had rear glass or sunroof explode on me.
  - akmarinov 6y ago
    To be fair, sunroofs are known to explode from time to time - https://jalopnik.com/here-are-all-the-cars-reported-to-have-exploding-sunroo-1819815183 https://jalopnik.com/here-are-all-the-cars-reported-to-have-... That said, Tesla’s QC is horrible, even more at the end of each quarter. They don’t care since they sell every car they make for now.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  That's one of the silliest things I've ever heard. It's not normal for safety glass to spontaneously shatter absent manufacturing or installation defects.
- zrobotics 6y ago
  OK, no it is not. I worked as a mechanic for 6 years at an off-road shop, and I never heard of this being normal. You would need to provide some sort of citation for this being a normal phenomena. E: the only times I have heard of glass shattering like this for enthusiast vehicles is the people who compete in audio competitions, but if you have 10k watts of subwoofers in a car then windows shattering isn't exactly spontaneous.
  - shiftpgdn 6y ago
    News Story on F150 exploding glass: https://fordauthority.com/2017/12/another-ford-f-150-owner-claims-the-rear-window-shattered-despite-no-impact/ https://fordauthority.com/2017/12/another-ford-f-150-owner-c... Over 1000 post results on this specific F150 Forum: https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS840US840&biw=1818&bih=1992&sxsrf=ALeKk014tlg7ed3uyhyfaHz5yjTnziTzmQ%3A1610226511002&ei=Thv6X9fPPMHmsAWZkAo&q=exploding+glass+ford+f150+site%3Awww.f150forum.com&oq=exploding+glass+ford+f150+site%3Awww.f150forum.com&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQR1DvQFjvQGDWQ2gAcAN4AIABLIgBLJIBATGYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6yAEIwAEB&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjXrsiZ4Y_uAhVBM6wKHRmIAgAQ4dUDCA0&uact=5 https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS840US840&biw=1... Lawsuit against mercedes for exploding glass: https://www.consumernotice.org/legal/mercedes-benz-exploding-sunroof-lawsuits/ https://www.consumernotice.org/legal/mercedes-benz-exploding... Class action against vw for exploding sunroofs: https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2017/volkswagen-exploding-sunroof-lawsuit-glass.shtml https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2017/volkswagen-exploding... Saftey glass is created under extreme tension. It is normal for it to explode. It is only newsworth because it happened on a Tesla.
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      Yes, and you'll note that in every case, an installation defect was at issue: for the F150s, defective rear defrosters created unnatural stresses on the rear windows, causing them to shatter; for the sunroofs, improper installation was identified as the cause in the lawsuits. Importantly, across more than 100 million cars and 20 years, fewer than 1000 combined cases of shattered rear windows or sun roofs were recorded. Tesla has had more than a dozen reported cases of shattered rear windows in the last 2 years alone. That's industry leading, and not in a good way.
- sockittome 6y ago
  enthusiast car and pickup truck in the same sentence unironically. lol “One of these things is not like the other things...”
uncledave 6y ago
Sound about right. I know a former model 3 owner. The factory paint job was absolutely terrible. I mean really bad. You could see runs and patching. About two months after getting it he finally acknowledged this and it hurt. Posted a complaint about it on one of the forums and everyone jumped to Tesla’s defence and said he was making a drama out of it. Eventually all the stupid little QC issues add up. He’s not a Tesla owner now. Bought a Citroen C5 aircross.
kemiller 6y ago
I think it's not so much that, it's that things like this really do happen to all car manufacturers, but anything Tesla always makes news. Not to say they don't have quality issues — they totally do — but they tend to be overblown because of the massive attention they get.
- loganfrederick 6y ago
  Part of the reason for Tesla's quality issues getting extra attention is because their brand positioning is very much about how they are superior than the competition and more of a "tech" company than a car company. So for an alleged "tech" company to have equal to or worse quality issues in an old industry, and possibly lagging its competitors in this quality regard, is inviting critics to call Tesla and Elon out as hypocrites. I am not currently short Tesla and not all criticism against them is fair. My point is more along the lines of "If you make big claims and brag about yourself, the onus is on you to deliver."
jdxcode 6y ago
My guess is the glass is fine. The panel gaps are probably a symptom of the same problem of general misalignment putting too much strain on the glass.
- Ekaros 6y ago
  I would also venture to guess that it is either installation problem or issue with body part.
miked85 6y ago
It looks like your expectation was correct; it is amazing how many people in this thread are saying that it is totally normal for glass to spontaneously shatter in vehicles.
- Closi 6y ago
  Amazing but entirely unsurprising! I mean a Tesla is still my dream car even considering the obvious quality issues, but I’ll wait until they are more mature at manufacturing before one is my next car.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
gumby 6y ago
There are two different issues. Yes QC should be catching this, and perhaps is (this might be one either not sampled or which passed). QC isn't magical, and as I learned from working in the pharma business: "You can't test quality into a product". This seems from reports to be a more serious QA issue. Incoming materials QC is part of QA and presumably this passed (the automotive glass suppliers are pretty used to making auto glass and most cars don't have this problem). But QA should have reviewed the design so that breaking stresses can't occur. That (lack of proper design review) is the problem, and appears from reports to be chronic through certain parts of the Tesla process. When I say "certain parts of the process", for example I mean battery fires are pretty rare so presumably that team takes QA seriously (batteries are no joke!). While body defects and failures are rampant and very widely attested. (I believe the big touchscreens also have a lot of problems but as I don't follow it closely I might have just seen an unusual number of complaints.) So: fixable, thought there doesn't appear to be a culture of addressing these things.
- Closi 6y ago
  You are absolutely right. To go one step further, in my original post I should have really referred to the total quality system, because this also involves extending back to supplier processes and tolerances.
buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
> I expect similar quotes in here about how it’s totally normal for glass to shatter within 2 minutes of delivery. So.. remind me why it’s a problem if people don’t care about panel gaps but do care about windows shattering? How exactly is that inconsistent?
- Closi 6y ago
  Both are symptoms of poor quality, which is the underlying issue.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    But you’re allowed to be ok with one thing of poor quality and be annoyed by a different thing of poor quality.
    - Closi 6y ago
      I’m saying that they aren’t mutually exclusive, and that they are both parts of a total quality system and result from high variation and low manufacturing precision. Put another way, fridges that are well made don’t have wobbly doors. If you don’t care about wobbly doors, it’s still not a good idea to buy a fridge with wobbly doors - Fridges with wobbly doors tend to be more likely to have other issues than just a wobbly door. If you buy a new fridge from a company that is known to have wobbly doors because of low manufacturing precision, don’t be as surprised when your fridges glass shelves spontaneously shatter - you bought something that had high variation and was manufactured with low accuracy and a poor quality system.

by Closi 6y ago

FireBeyond 6y ago

Just look at the title of one of the references linked in the article: > Owner Says Tesla Model 3 Window Shattered By Itself, Accused Of FUD I'm sure she was short $TSLA ...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

shiftpgdn 6y ago

It /is/ totally normal for large sheets of safety glass to shatter. Ive owned lots of enthusiast cars and in the enthusiast pickup truck world it's completely normal to have your rear glass or sunroof explode. I think people get so wound up about this because they've driven budget cars their whole life and a Tesla is their first big purchase and don't have any contextual understanding of advanced car parts going wrong.

cosmodisk 6y ago
How is this normal? In my 36 years I've never heard of anyone ever mentioning this happening to them,even though people have gone through multiple cars,etc. Is that a thing with the American cars?
- jdxcode 6y ago
  Of course it's not normal. Well, unless you park on the street in the mission district.
miked85 6y ago
I must be very lucky, I have owned many vehicles and never had rear glass or sunroof explode on me.
- akmarinov 6y ago
  To be fair, sunroofs are known to explode from time to time - https://jalopnik.com/here-are-all-the-cars-reported-to-have-exploding-sunroo-1819815183 https://jalopnik.com/here-are-all-the-cars-reported-to-have-... That said, Tesla’s QC is horrible, even more at the end of each quarter. They don’t care since they sell every car they make for now.
gamblor956 6y ago
That's one of the silliest things I've ever heard. It's not normal for safety glass to spontaneously shatter absent manufacturing or installation defects.
zrobotics 6y ago
OK, no it is not. I worked as a mechanic for 6 years at an off-road shop, and I never heard of this being normal. You would need to provide some sort of citation for this being a normal phenomena. E: the only times I have heard of glass shattering like this for enthusiast vehicles is the people who compete in audio competitions, but if you have 10k watts of subwoofers in a car then windows shattering isn't exactly spontaneous.
- shiftpgdn 6y ago
  News Story on F150 exploding glass: https://fordauthority.com/2017/12/another-ford-f-150-owner-claims-the-rear-window-shattered-despite-no-impact/ https://fordauthority.com/2017/12/another-ford-f-150-owner-c... Over 1000 post results on this specific F150 Forum: https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS840US840&biw=1818&bih=1992&sxsrf=ALeKk014tlg7ed3uyhyfaHz5yjTnziTzmQ%3A1610226511002&ei=Thv6X9fPPMHmsAWZkAo&q=exploding+glass+ford+f150+site%3Awww.f150forum.com&oq=exploding+glass+ford+f150+site%3Awww.f150forum.com&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoECAAQR1DvQFjvQGDWQ2gAcAN4AIABLIgBLJIBATGYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6yAEIwAEB&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjXrsiZ4Y_uAhVBM6wKHRmIAgAQ4dUDCA0&uact=5 https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS840US840&biw=1... Lawsuit against mercedes for exploding glass: https://www.consumernotice.org/legal/mercedes-benz-exploding-sunroof-lawsuits/ https://www.consumernotice.org/legal/mercedes-benz-exploding... Class action against vw for exploding sunroofs: https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2017/volkswagen-exploding-sunroof-lawsuit-glass.shtml https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2017/volkswagen-exploding... Saftey glass is created under extreme tension. It is normal for it to explode. It is only newsworth because it happened on a Tesla.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Yes, and you'll note that in every case, an installation defect was at issue: for the F150s, defective rear defrosters created unnatural stresses on the rear windows, causing them to shatter; for the sunroofs, improper installation was identified as the cause in the lawsuits. Importantly, across more than 100 million cars and 20 years, fewer than 1000 combined cases of shattered rear windows or sun roofs were recorded. Tesla has had more than a dozen reported cases of shattered rear windows in the last 2 years alone. That's industry leading, and not in a good way.
sockittome 6y ago
enthusiast car and pickup truck in the same sentence unironically. lol “One of these things is not like the other things...”

uncledave 6y ago

Sound about right. I know a former model 3 owner. The factory paint job was absolutely terrible. I mean really bad. You could see runs and patching. About two months after getting it he finally acknowledged this and it hurt. Posted a complaint about it on one of the forums and everyone jumped to Tesla’s defence and said he was making a drama out of it. Eventually all the stupid little QC issues add up. He’s not a Tesla owner now. Bought a Citroen C5 aircross.

kemiller 6y ago

I think it's not so much that, it's that things like this really do happen to all car manufacturers, but anything Tesla always makes news. Not to say they don't have quality issues — they totally do — but they tend to be overblown because of the massive attention they get.

loganfrederick 6y ago
Part of the reason for Tesla's quality issues getting extra attention is because their brand positioning is very much about how they are superior than the competition and more of a "tech" company than a car company. So for an alleged "tech" company to have equal to or worse quality issues in an old industry, and possibly lagging its competitors in this quality regard, is inviting critics to call Tesla and Elon out as hypocrites. I am not currently short Tesla and not all criticism against them is fair. My point is more along the lines of "If you make big claims and brag about yourself, the onus is on you to deliver."

jdxcode 6y ago

My guess is the glass is fine. The panel gaps are probably a symptom of the same problem of general misalignment putting too much strain on the glass.

Ekaros 6y ago
I would also venture to guess that it is either installation problem or issue with body part.

miked85 6y ago

It looks like your expectation was correct; it is amazing how many people in this thread are saying that it is totally normal for glass to spontaneously shatter in vehicles.

Closi 6y ago
Amazing but entirely unsurprising! I mean a Tesla is still my dream car even considering the obvious quality issues, but I’ll wait until they are more mature at manufacturing before one is my next car.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

gumby 6y ago

There are two different issues. Yes QC should be catching this, and perhaps is (this might be one either not sampled or which passed). QC isn't magical, and as I learned from working in the pharma business: "You can't test quality into a product". This seems from reports to be a more serious QA issue. Incoming materials QC is part of QA and presumably this passed (the automotive glass suppliers are pretty used to making auto glass and most cars don't have this problem). But QA should have reviewed the design so that breaking stresses can't occur. That (lack of proper design review) is the problem, and appears from reports to be chronic through certain parts of the Tesla process. When I say "certain parts of the process", for example I mean battery fires are pretty rare so presumably that team takes QA seriously (batteries are no joke!). While body defects and failures are rampant and very widely attested. (I believe the big touchscreens also have a lot of problems but as I don't follow it closely I might have just seen an unusual number of complaints.) So: fixable, thought there doesn't appear to be a culture of addressing these things.

Closi 6y ago
You are absolutely right. To go one step further, in my original post I should have really referred to the total quality system, because this also involves extending back to supplier processes and tolerances.

buzzerbetrayed 6y ago

> I expect similar quotes in here about how it’s totally normal for glass to shatter within 2 minutes of delivery. So.. remind me why it’s a problem if people don’t care about panel gaps but do care about windows shattering? How exactly is that inconsistent?

Closi 6y ago
Both are symptoms of poor quality, which is the underlying issue.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  But you’re allowed to be ok with one thing of poor quality and be annoyed by a different thing of poor quality.
  - Closi 6y ago
    I’m saying that they aren’t mutually exclusive, and that they are both parts of a total quality system and result from high variation and low manufacturing precision. Put another way, fridges that are well made don’t have wobbly doors. If you don’t care about wobbly doors, it’s still not a good idea to buy a fridge with wobbly doors - Fridges with wobbly doors tend to be more likely to have other issues than just a wobbly door. If you buy a new fridge from a company that is known to have wobbly doors because of low manufacturing precision, don’t be as surprised when your fridges glass shelves spontaneously shatter - you bought something that had high variation and was manufactured with low accuracy and a poor quality system.