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Tesla Model 3 Owner Discovers Car Was Delivered Missing a Brake Pad

• zibzab 5y ago
  Given the horrible working conditions at Tesla, I am surprised we haven't seen far worse things yet.
• xyst 5y ago
  If other manufacturers adopt the direct to consumer model, they need to take note of how bad TSLA has executed. What a terrible customer experience. Then TSLA reps have the gall to gaslight this person saying it’s normal. TSLA as a speculative instrument for trading is fine. But I am avoiding them as a consumer.
• Syonyk 5y ago
  I've been critical of Tesla before for various reasons, "Building throwaway cars" being one, and people keep insisting that, no, really, this year, Tesla has fixed their problems and such. If you can deliver a car without a brake pad, that speaks to epic quality control failures (EDIT: A comment in the article points out the green "quality control" mark that is obvious on the caliper, which should indicate that everything was assembled properly - so things are seriously broken if it can be assembled wrong and then have a QC mark applied while still being entirely wrong). I cannot imagine Honda or Toyota shipping a car without a brake pad. I can't imagine Ford or GM doing it either. I'd be down into the "Uh... I think I've heard of you once..." non-western car manufacturers before it wouldn't surprise me. Then, the absolutely horrid service center experience of "Oh, no, you don't know what you're talking about, that's normal, and we can't fix it any time soon anyway" is just absurd. I know Tesla likes to rag on the horrors of the dealership model, but, seriously, I can't imagine getting this treatment with a legacy automaker. Not that I worry about them forgetting to put pieces in, either.
  • jahewson 5y ago
    > Not that I worry about them forgetting to put pieces in, either. Google suggests that you should: https://www.google.com/search?q=missing+brake+pad+recall https://www.google.com/search?q=missing+brake+pad+recall
    • AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      • kristjansson 5y ago
        I’ll await Teslas recall of all units possibly affected by this issue
        • AnthonyMouse 5y ago
          Goalposts wherever you like. Is there even any evidence that there are any other units affected by this issue?
          • bch 5y ago
            > Is there even any evidence that there are any other units affected by this issue? If their QC is that broken, aren’t the cars that passed through it suspect? Edit: within a proper timeframe window.
          • kristjansson 5y ago
            One instance is evidence their process failed at least once. At a minimum they need to identify the process failure and the cars the could have been affected, and issue a recall or TSB to verify none of those cars are missing brake pads.
      • joezydeco 5y ago
        https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna54596 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna54596 "General Motors knew about a defect in its ignition switches eight years ago and changed the design of an internal part, but never told federal regulators or the drivers of its cars, according to evidence from a recent lawsuit filed by the parents of a Georgia woman who died in a 2010 GM car crash"
        • AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  • Tade0 5y ago
    > I can't imagine getting this treatment with a legacy automaker. I can. My friend drives a 2016 VW Touareg which he got used - I was present during the purchase and the previous owner told us that the coolant needs to be topped off from time to time - nothing big, but he said that the authorized service center shrugged this off as something they won't bother fixing.
    • Syonyk 5y ago
      How much, and how far apart? There's a difference between "half a cup or so ever few months" and "I have to carry coolant around with me." The reserve tank will comfortably make up the first in any reasonable driving situation, the second is a problem. Water pumps not weeping a tiny bit is a rather new innovation in cars. They typically use coolant to lubricate the seal, and some will get through.
      • Tade0 5y ago
        > How much, and how far apart? About a litre every 4-7k km. Was like that from the start according to the previous owner. I found it unusual, because I never had to think about such things in any of my cars, including my old 2000 Corolla.
      • KennyBlanken 5y ago
        I don't know of a single car made in the last 10 years where it's normal to lose "half a cup over every few months." Every car I or my family have owned in the last thirty years has never needed coolant added to it over years of ownership. Water pumps "weeping" coolant is a sign of failed seal, not by design. The GP commenter's buddy was sold a car by someone who was trying to pass off a needed repair; likely a leaking radiator or failing head gasket if they were unlucky. If they were lucky: a bad radiator cap or a failing coolant system hose. If they were really, really unlucky: a failing heater core.
        • FireBeyond 5y ago
          Very very much so. Or poor or plastic welds on the coolant manifolds, as plagued my Jaguar, whose coolant system shit the bed catastrophically several times, and even with a factory tech replacing as much as he could with heavier duty aftermarket parts, was only reduced to "needs a top-up every couple of months"
  • tessierashpool 5y ago
    yeah, this is within Tesla's normal QC parameters. they've had roofs fall off, they've had cars catch fire while parked, they even had a car which caught fire while self-driving in the middle of the night with nobody in it. just goofy bullshit. the discussion in this thread will end up on Elon sooner or later, but the thing to realize is that Tesla the company needs it that way. electric vehicles will definitely replace the ICE, but Tesla's not going to be Google when that happens. it'll be Alta Vista or even Minitel. buying one of these cars is just a much bigger QC gamble than it shoild be.
    • solarkraft 5y ago
      Actually the Google comparison fits quite well. They also frequently deliver sub-par software while still having an over-all hard to beat ecosystem.
    • ajross 5y ago
      > they even had a car which caught fire while self-driving in the middle of the night with nobody in it. You realize that turned out to be a stunt, right? The car was a brand new plaid owned by a hedge fund manager who turned out to be heavily short TSLA. It was seized by his lawyers and never inspected for what the fault might have been. And the "driving itself on fire" story changed several times over the first 24 hours. One of the weirdest things about buying one of these things and suddenly finding myself in the culture/counterculture war over the brand is how suspect so much of the coverage is.
      • FireBeyond 5y ago
        Most of the coverage is from Whole Mars. So if you're going to call out some hedge fund manager as being "short Tesla", with the implication of ulterior motives, then it's equally worth mentioning that Whole Mars is extremely bearish, unapologetically very pro-Tesla cheerleading, too.
        • ajross 5y ago
          Here's some post-hoc coverage of the controversy: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/04/more-details-about-tesla-model-s-plaid-fire-lead-to-more-questions/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/04/more-details-about-tesl... Make your own decisions. But (especially since it happened just weeks after the refreshed S's started shipping and that we haven't heard squat in the six months since) that just smells off to me. Certainly it wasn't "driving itself around on fire", no further report on the fire exists (contra the Texas crash where the NTSB had lots of interesting things to say) and all the actual witnesses went silent (we don't even have confirmation of who was driving!)... Just be realistic. It's almost certainly a setup. Something very similar happened when FSD beta was released. Not two weeks in the NHTSA had a weird-sounding report leaked to the media claiming behavior (that the steering couldn't be overpowered) that the hardware can't produce. Then the next release, we all had an annoying waiver where we had to allow Tesla to save and upload non-anonymized data for any safety-related incidents. And... no more weird reports! This company just drives people completely bananas, and I genuinely don't know why. The actual cars are fantastic.
  • foepys 5y ago
    The only reason why Tesla hates dealerships is because they don't want to pay them, full stop. All those horrors can also happen without dealerships, see above. Tesla wants people to pay the sticker price without being able to haggle and wants to keep all the profits for itself. VW can deliver EVs for a similar price even with a dealership network. Although, they also started to block haggling by demanding customers to place their orders online via their car configurator. As long as you sell it as innovation, people will jump on it, even if this innovation is costing them more money.
    • fallingknife 5y ago
      You think haggling is going to come out in your favor? The dealership does it every day.
      • foepys 5y ago
        If that's the case, why should auto makers now demand you pay sticker price? Public companies don't do anything in your favor, ever. It's always because they think that they can now extract even more money from you.
      • VBprogrammer 5y ago
        At the moment it's hard enough to get hold of a car even if you walk in with the money to pay for it. As such, haggling is unlikely to work. At other times when the dealers are desperate to make a specific quota a good deal is more likely.
      • bityard 5y ago
        People who pay the dealerships asking price on a new car are paying at least a couple thousand more than they have to.
        • blitzar 5y ago
          People who pay for a new car are paying at least a couple thousand more than they have to.
    • 5y ago
  • warning26 5y ago
    I agree that this is emblematic of Tesla's terrible QC, but your second point about how traditional auto dealerships would mitigate it strikes me as questionable. Being sold a "lemon" has been possible for years, even with the traditional dealership model; that's why so many US states have "lemon laws" specifically to deal with that scenario.
    • serf 5y ago
      I did pre-delivery inspections on vehicles for many years at an automotive dealership. one of the numerous things I had to do was test drive every single vehicle. Yes a dealership would have caught this issue before the customer -- absolutely.
    • jacquesm 5y ago
      Yes, but a lemon is a car that is unreliable due to intermittent issues, not a missing part in a safety critical system that should have resulted in a 'stop the line, we have an excess brake pad at the end of our shift', followed by an inspection of all vehicles built on that shift and a serious upgrade of QA processes. Really, this stinks.
      • ajross 5y ago
        > Yes, but a lemon is a car that is unreliable due to intermittent issues Actually it's a term of some precision, and that's not it. "Lemon" laws define the problem as a car with an inherent defect that can't be fixed by the manufacturer or dealer within some reasonable amount of time (often "three attempts", depending on statute). The purpose of the law is that consumers shouldn't be on the hook for expensive but faulty products. This isn't a lemon by any of those laws. They fixed the brakes and the car is fine now. It's fine to make pronouncements about Quality Culture or whatever, but lemon statutes aren't really at issue here.
        • pdonis 5y ago
          > They fixed the brakes and the car is fine now. Did they? The latest status I get from the article is that the ETA was pushed back again to January 19.
  • Andys 5y ago
    As a counterpoint to "throwaway cars", when they don't need repairs they do seem to be able to do a million miles or more with comparitively little maintenance. The throwaway effect can an does happen to any ICE vehicle easily, when the engine is not economic to repair. We should have laws covering all types and brands of vehicles to make them more repairable, but ultimately this should be easier with electric (recycling batteries in bulk is cheaper than mining more lithium)
    • kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      An ICE vehicle can last 15+ years. Even more in a benign environment. Tesla doesn't make anything that will last that long.
      • MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        That's why the auto industry is anticipating that leasing will eventually be the standard model. Nobody is going to want to pay half a new car's price just to have a new battery installed.
    • DenseComet 5y ago
      Isn't that a function of being an EV rather than an ICE? I'd expect an EV from any of the traditional automakers to also require comparatively little maintenance.
    • Syonyk 5y ago
      > As a counterpoint to "throwaway cars", when they don't need repairs they do seem to be able to do a million miles or more with comparitively little maintenance. It was a reference to an old post of mine (https://www.sevarg.net/2016/03/05/is-tesla-building-throwaway-cars/ https://www.sevarg.net/2016/03/05/is-tesla-building-throwawa...) - and, I actually agree with you that they do have million-mile grade drivetrains. It's just that the rest of the car is poor quality. That's fine if it's cheap and easy to fix, but it's not. You can't get the parts, you can't install the parts if you can get them because they have to be paired with the car, and, in general, they're like a lot of modern ICEs that fall apart around a running drivetrain. Except worse, because they're luxury cars and you can't even do the repair work yourself.
  • jolux 5y ago
    It's not about the dealership model, it's about taking quality seriously and not just slapping things together and pushing them out the door with minimal QC like a software startup in a tight market. It's clear by now that Elon thinks it's more important to ship more cars than to ship quality cars, and he may be correct, but he also has yet to prove that he is actually capable of the latter.
    • afarrell 5y ago
      Elon’s job isn’t to make sure that the cars actually have brake pads. Elon’s job is to ensure he’s hiring leaders who won’t repeatedly use racial slurs for the people whose jobs are to make sure the cars actually have brake pads. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58807212 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58807212
      • HWR_14 5y ago
        It's also Elon's job to make sure that cars have break pads. He is supposed to do that by delegating, but it's definitely his job.
    • ericbarrett 5y ago
      Dealers usually have to prep a new car on the lot—a quick inspection of lights, brakes, steering, leaks; aligning the headlights; stuff like that. I'd argue the dealership model is relevant here.
      • jolux 5y ago
        Yes but there’s no reason it has to be a dealership doing that. The manufacturer could do that before they deliver the car. The manufacturer could run the dealership themselves. There’s not a ton of great reasons to preserve this institution in law.
        • badlucklottery 5y ago
          >The manufacturer could do that before they deliver the car. Cars do get jacked up in transit. Like "a large piece of metal road debris pierced the window and seat" bad (personal experience). So, even if it leaves the factory in pristine condition, someone at the end of the line will need to look at it to make sure it's 100%. Tesla has decided that final check responsibility falls on the end user. Also I suspect it's more efficient for the manufacturer and dealerships to just roll all of that into the end-of-the-line inspection instead of splitting it over two locations. >The manufacturer could run the dealership themselves. This would work if there was a way for states to ensure the manufacturers had some serious skin in the game so they'd fear legal action.
  • idop 5y ago
    Cutting corners is how these so called "tech companies" disrupt markets. They remove all the bloat; the bloat being safeguards and processes created through years of experience and evolution. And we flock to them, praising them for "showing the traditional companies how it's done". But sooner or later the cracks start to form. The random driver picking you up from that app turns out to be a rapist. That house you found at that other app turns out to be falling apart and you die. That shiny new car turns out to have had zero quality control and is dangerous to drive. So they have to make changes. They have to introduce the same safeguards that have been standard in their respective industries for decades. They have to raise prices. And before you know it, the only thing that separates them from the traditional companies is that stupid app.
    • chx 5y ago
      Well yes and no. The app is not always stupid. I can't say I am fond of Uber and its business practices but in Vancouver at least the taxi apps are lacking some vital features Uber have -- despite Uber operating briefly in Vancouver in 2012 so it was clear they will be back and indeed in 2020 Uber/Lyft indeed started. Features include easy changing of pickup point which is quite important in the warren of one way streets where I live -- as I see where the car is approaching from, I can easily walk like 1-2 minutes to the next corner to save like five minutes (seriously) of driving around after pickup. Also it works with GPS coordinates -- when I meet with friends it's often at a beach on the weekend and public transit is a bit lacking so I prefer calling a cab/uber and it's practically impossible with cabs because those want a street address, even the app. And then there's the ability to safely communicate with the driver -- and this only needs wifi which makes airport pickups so much easier because I only need airport wifi. Taxi companies couldn't build these features in eight years. Pound sand.
      • idop 5y ago
        That's true, the apps are sometimes good and they do make certain things easier and more accessible than traditional solutions. I know I didn't mention it explicitly, but the "stupid app" was actually me venting my anger over the rampant, unnecessary tracking and snooping that these apps do.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • oxplot 5y ago
  • tempestn 5y ago
    That quality control sticker could have been for the assembly of the caliper itself rather than the final installation of the brakes to the vehicle, which is when the pads would go in. Still obviously utterly inexcusable QA though. (Not to mention it takes them weeks to simply procure a new rotor, caliper and pads, which as the article mentions they need for every new car they build!)
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • mxschumacher 5y ago
    what I don't understand is how even high profile tech people don't seem to be able to see through these lies. Reading the Wikipedia article "Criticism of Tesla, Inc." [0] is openly shocking (accounting fraud, insider trading, pressuring whistleblowers, endless lies and missed predictions among many others). Just today another crazy investigative article was published in the Wall Street Journal [1]. Sam Altman and others rally to defend Tesla [2]. Elon Musk is lionized and can do no harm. Criticizing Musk is like criticizing technology itself - a blasphemous act; the believers are undeterred. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29947890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29947890 [2] https://twitter.com/sama/status/1130913917864034304 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1130913917864034304
    • bhauer 5y ago
      > Elon Musk is lionized and can do no harm. Criticizing Musk is like criticizing technology itself - a blasphemous act; the believers are undeterred. You must be delusional. Look at this thread, or any thread reporting on Tesla problems on Hacker News or Reddit's car forums. More than 95% of comments are critical of Tesla, many nearly hysterical in their criticism. Any defense, or even doubt of the overwhelmingly negative narrative, is met with accusations of being a "fanboy." Yes, there are forums that are vehemently pro-Tesla, but you're not on one right now. Stop pretending that you're in an area where "Elon Musk can do no harm."
      • mxschumacher 5y ago
        on Twitter, Seeking Alpha, Youtube and the vast majority of traditional media reporting and in analyst reports of the large banks, I see overwhelming praise and support for Musk. It helps to weigh by views/clicks, I like Hacker News but assume that it's quite small in the greater scheme of publication platforms. The CNBC Cybertruck video has 32m+ hits, I invite you to go through the comment section [0] The stock price also tells a story about what most people think. I do concede that the tone has shifted recently, but I still don't feel that the full picture of Musk's deeds are known to most people. In my perception, he has achieved a religious status [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ZuKkbHdqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ZuKkbHdqM
  • avereveard 5y ago
    "let's buid car in a tent to meet quotas" - and people lauded that.
  • rasz 5y ago
    >I cannot imagine Honda or Toyota shipping a car without a brake pad. I can't imagine Ford or GM doing it either. oh please, someone already linked GM forgetting pads on 4000 cars. There was also this gem in 1972: https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/23/archives/young-workers-disrupt-key-gm-plant-young-workers-disrupt-plant-on.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/23/archives/young-workers-di... "sabotage, such as breaking windshields, breaking off rear‐view mirrors, slashing upholstery, bending signal levers, putting washers in carburetors and breaking off ignition keys." Tesla Fremont facility saw its own wave of workers sabotaging own products back when it was called NUUMI https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a5514/4350856/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a5514/4350856/ It was the reason behind GM decision to close it.
    • trog 5y ago
      It occurs to me that 1972 is now 50 years ago
      • nexuist 5y ago
        Yes, am a Tesla owner, this incident is inexcusable and the fact that it happened 50 years ago (or even 10 years ago in the case of the Sonic incident) does not matter. This is a 2022 model! None of this should have happened!
      • userbinator 5y ago
        My daily driver is that old. It was also built by GM. In the last four weeks a lot that holds about 2,000 cars has often been filled with Vegas that had to be taken back into the plant for repair work before they could be shipped to dealers. That sentence from the article alone demonstrates the huge difference between that and Tesla's response. GM actually cared about these problems and tried to fix them, instead of just letting faulty products reach customers and attempting to deny responsibility. It also wasn't "GM forgetting pads on 4000 cars". They acted on one report, recalled ~4000, and only ~20-30 were actually affected: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29951540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29951540
    • deleted 5y ago
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  • zionic 5y ago
    My parents bought a brand new BMW X5 once. One of the back doors wouldn’t open and they didn’t find out until they got home. Somehow the car was built, shipped, etc and no BMW employee ever tried to open all 4 doors. BMW had to replace the entire door. Of course, stories like that never hit the front page of hackernews.
    • josefx 5y ago
      Did BMW tell your parents that the door not opening was normal and expected behavior?
      • macinjosh 5y ago
        This is just a lie. The Tesla rep said it sounded normal but that they would confirm so when the vehicle was brought in for the appointment. They never said a missing brake pad was normal and expected.
        • JaimeThompson 5y ago
          Except it isn't factually correct to say that a grinding sound is normal. Either the rep wasn't honest, made a call they should not have, or isn't trained correctly.
          • macinjosh 5y ago
            Or the crappy audio from the smartphone video didn’t portray the sound well and isn’t a good tool for diagnosing vehicle issues.
            • tekknik 5y ago
              no, it’s quite clear from the audio that there’s metal on metal contact. even with metallic brake pads they don’t sound like this.
          • schmidp 5y ago
  • throwaway81523 5y ago
    I'm also bothered by the unavailability of a replacement brake pad. Why are brake pads not interchangeable between cars anyway? I understand there are different sizes and stuff, but a few standard types like there are for tires, windshield wiper blades, and other consumables should be enough. Tesla looks pretty stupid in this story.
    • userbinator 5y ago
      Tesla is known for its NIH syndrome, but I think the reason for better parts availability with other brands is also because they have far more models and an appreciation for working at that scale, so tend to use no bespoke parts unless absolutely necessary. I agree that these well-known wear parts parts should be standardised. There's no need for each model of car to have slightly different brake pads. There are also entire companies like Bendix which specialise in braking systems (and may be most known for the vacuum boosters for a ton of vehicles). (I made the same comment here but got downvoted too. Maybe by some designer who thinks they need to be "unique".)
  • vba616 5y ago
    >I can't imagine Ford or GM doing it either. I think this is a great example of how generalizations based on guesses are almost always wrong. If you want to guess and be right, question generalizations. "GM is recalling 4,296 U.S.-market Chevy Sonic models—all assembled at the automaker’s Orion Township, Michigan plant, for a possible assembly issue that leaves the subcompact lacking either an inner or outer front disc brake pad." https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1071185_missing-brake-pads-prompt-gm-to-recall-2012-chevy-sonic-models https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1071185_missing-brake-... I did not do a comprehensive search, so it would be unwise to assume this only ever happened to GM, too.
  • schmidp 5y ago
    Well, a few of my friends worked at Mercedes plants during summer time. Also on stations doing brakes. From the stories they tell, at least in Germany, I can absolutely imagine cars being delivered like that as well. I had a small accident with a Range Rover some years ago that made the side airbag in the driver seat go off. I had it repaired at an official Land Rover dealer. When I got it back I only noticed at home that the seat leather is not well in place so I removed it to adjust it. To my surprise i find the new Airbag held ok pace with with multiple rounds of strong duct tape. So far I trust Tesla more than the legacy automakers.
  • dekhn 5y ago
    the model Y had a spate of qc problems a while ago and it's still recommended that you do an extensive inspection before accepting delivery. I thought it was really funny that I'd have to drive over to Fremont and spend a couple hours inspecting a car for major problems like that (and cancelled my order). Instead, I went to a Toyota dealership, bought a car on the spot, and will drive it, without quality problems, for at least a decade if I want to.
• cromka 5y ago
  "(...) and finally request a video of the issue. Gillmore recorded the above video to send to her Tesla service advisor, who claims multiple technicians listened to the video, only to declare "the brakes sounded normal for a performance Model 3." Watch the video. It's incomprehensible how could anyone who has some experience with cars say that such sound, while breaking, is normal. If I was Elon, I would seriously question whoever at Tesla had said so. And by that, I mean, literally just fire them, because, damn, how can one be so ignorant when it comes something so crucial to safety?
  • sixothree 5y ago
    I have an Audi Q5 that has brakes that have been squeaking for over 6 months. Dealer does nothing. I hate this car. I hate this car so freaking much.
  • Syonyk 5y ago
    Seriously. That's insanely obviously metal on metal, which shouldn't be a sound you find in the brake system, especially under what's clearly mild low speed braking. The next obvious question: If multiple people think that's "normal for a performance Model 3," how many others are being delivered without brake pads?
    • cromka 5y ago
      Yeah, on top of that, as someone pointed out in the comment section on the page linked: "See that green dot on the top of the right picture? That is an assembly inspection mark that someone put there at the factory to indicate the caliper was 100% correct and inspected. Guess that person is bad at their job."
      • jacquesm 5y ago
        That's two people bad at their job. Both the person that assembled it and the person that checked it. When you build a car you do it from very precisely controlled sets of inventory, there is no way that you could build a car and have leftover parts and not know which car they belonged to at any build step.
• MauroIksem 5y ago
  I picked up my model 3 long range in december also and it was also missing parts. Mine was missing USB ports in the center console and the wireless charging pad for the phone. When i questioned them about they tried to lie about it and said that my phone was the problem. I demanded to speak to the manager who admitted right away that the car was indeed missing a part and that they would fix it later. My front bumper was also scratched and missing paint. They fixed that by replacing the entire bumper. Buying from them is a nightmare.
  • Syonyk 5y ago
    > I demanded to speak to the manager who admitted right away that the car was indeed missing a part and that they would fix it later. That sounds suspiciously like, "We were aware of that and were hoping you wouldn't notice, but we can't get the parts. If we promise to call you later, will you stop bothering us?"
    • hn8788 5y ago
      It wasn't even just that dealership, it was every Model 3 shipped during a certain time period. Back when it was happening, there were posts about it on the Tesla subreddit. Nobody was told their car wasn't going to have the features they paid for, and Tesla blamed it on the chip shortage and said they'd install the missing features once they had the supplies.
      • erwincoumans 5y ago
        You would expect Tesla to make sure customers are well informed about certain features are missing, and being added when they become available. The missing USB was known (due to unavailability). For missing brake pads, you hope q&a catches that, and some electronic alert shows up if brake pads are missing (or worn beyond being useful).
  • mkmk 5y ago
    I know somebody who had the exact same experience with their usb ports on a different model Tesla. This is either a recurring QA issue or a way to “deliver” cars despite supply chain issues.
• draw_down 5y ago
• yellow_lead 5y ago
  > Since Tesla no longer has a media relations department, The Drive was unable to reach out to the automaker for comment. This makes them look really unprofessional, despite how cool Elon thinks it is.
  • KennyBlanken 5y ago
    It's not a matter of being cool. It's a matter of going next-level with "no comment." Tesla has some bad PR, the press can't get anything out of Tesla so the story is dead out the door, and Telsa's PR team comes up with some stupid stunt to get social media trending on the stunt...problem solved. "Oh, you see that thing about Tesla?" is about their cars blinking their headlights to Christmas music, and not, say, the feds ramping up their investigation into Teslas slamming into roadside emergency vehicles. Standard corporate "disaster management" is essentially "hide everyone, don't say a fucking word, wait to get out of the news cycle."
    • vkat 5y ago
      They do have a way of creating distractions to bury the stories that they don't like. The Cyberwhistle was launched just around the time of the whistle blower stories that were coming out. Kind of smart and I did not realize the connection until after a while.
    • jopsen 5y ago
      > Standard corporate "disaster management" is essentially "hide everyone, don't say a fucking word, wait to get out of the news cycle." Usually, they throw in a lightweight apology. Saying something like: "we deeply regret the experience this particular customer had." Before they go to "no comment". I guess Elon innovated by simply saving "apology" part :)
    • nexuist 5y ago
      Elon is clearly on some galactic brain game theory with this move because, despite firing all his PR people, people like you still think they have a PR department and not only that but their PR department runs the entire company and their product / software update release cycle! And they're apparently proactive enough to have the right card to pull for any given corporate disaster they may find themselves in! Why pay for a PR department when people still think you have one even without one? 0.02 - I don't think it's great that Tesla got rid of their media relations department, but I also don't think that they have people cracking the whip on holiday update deadlines so they can cover up NHTSA investigations or whatever. You don't get cool on social media by forcing it. Now, the Cyberwhistle is a different story... (disclosure: Tesla owner, no stock held)
• blinkingled 5y ago
  This is also a point against online ordering cars - if I can walk into a car dealership, inspect and test drive the car before committing to buying it, that helps everyone - I can have peace of mind, dealership or manufacturer can fix identified defects before putting the car out again and the process works - manufacturer has incentives to ship as perfect a product as they can considering the dealer is putting their money on the line, Dealers can address minor defects in the pre delivery inspection etc. None of that is possible with Tesla's model - they basically have to get a car looking thing out the door as fast as they can, there's no dealership to cross check and the customer is left with the pieces or the option of waiting in the hope that next one will be better.
  • vkat 5y ago
    I did not buy my car from the dealership lot. They had to put in an order and I waited 3 months for it to be finally available for me to pick up. I could track everything happening with the car. The car was sitting in the container port for an usually long time (2 weeks) so when I asked my dealer he tracked it down and said there was curb damage to the wheel and they had to wait for replacement. Now, I don't expect this kind of service from Tesla but my point is it doesn't matter if you are able to test drive it or not from the dealership and inspect for defects; the manufacturer should have a rigorous quality process that doesn't let these kind of slip ups to happen and if it does happen make it right by the customer.
    • blinkingled 5y ago
      > so when I asked my dealer he tracked it down and said there was curb damage to the wheel and they had to wait for replacement. So having a Dealer deal with it helped? As in they did the inspection for you and got it fixed? It's practically equivalent to buying off a lot if you think about it without the extra step of you doing another inspection to catch what the dealer might have missed. With Tesla it's between you ordering and the factory shipping. No additional independent QC like the Dealership and no chance to pre-inspect.
      • vkat 5y ago
• hnburnsy 5y ago
  GM issues 2012 Chevy Sonic recall for missing brake pads The new brake pad recall for the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic affects 4,296 vehicles sold in the United States while another 577 were sold in Canada, with all of the vehicles included in this recall built between June 2nd, 2011 and November 21st, 2011 at GM’s Orion Township Assembly Plant just north of Detroit. On these recalled 2012 Sonic hatchbacks and sedans, General Motors believes that the vehicle could be missing either an inner or outer brake pad on the front end. Https://www.torquenews.com/106/gm-issues-2012-chevy-sonic-recall-missing-brake-pads
  • MBCook 5y ago
    Nothing in the article indicates that GM told the customer this was normal or OK and that they didn’t need to worry about it. That’s the most egregious thing to me.
    • trulyme 5y ago
      Also: > ...but luckily, GM has caught the problem and is recalling them right away…thus removing the safety risk and the cost of repairing the problem from the owners. Quite different from the way Tesla is handling this.
  • KennyBlanken 5y ago
    The Sonic is also the car that had defective ignition switches that led to numerous deaths because the engine would suddenly shut off while driving, disabling the electric power steering...and even worse, the airbag system would get disabled and not work in an ensuing crash. In a civil suit a family's attorney found GM's supplier dramatically changed the ignition switch, and GM claimed that they had no idea why or that it even happened (which is ludicrous to anyone even proximate to the auto industry. Any time a part is revised, even slightly, it tends to get a part number suffix.) Sonic's product manager claimed he had no knowledge of ignition switch changes. "I put my own son in a Sonic" etc etc. Eventually the whole mess blew up to the point that Congress got involved, subpoaenaed a battleship's worth of documents from GM and...lo and behold, what comes out? Lots of emails from the same Sonic product manager about the ignition switch. There was an NPR/APM/etc show episode about it...wish I could remember which one.
• Animats 5y ago
  It's amusing that Tesla now promises the car by Jan 19th, just before the 30 days of most "lemon laws" kick in.
• jacquesm 5y ago
  That's got to be a first. I've never, ever heard of a critical safety component not installed on a car while supposedly passing QA. The first time you brake with that car you'll know something is off, so even if it wasn't detected in the factory (which should be the case) it should have been detected by the shipping process. Hm. Ok, point in Tesla's favor: who knows what dealers find in terms of missing bits and pieces on cars they pass to customers. But with direct-to-consumer there is no such middle man who has their own reputation to uphold. Regardless, this should have never ever happened.
  • LilBytes 5y ago
    I regularly frequent https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/ (I'm a grease monkey at heart before I switched to SWE), cars coming out without oil, break fluid, breaks or similar are not uncommon. HOWEVER, as others have commented. The one part that concerns is the lack of accountability shown by Tesla here.
    • jacquesm 5y ago
      That makes for some interesting reading, thank you for the pointer. That 1 mm thick brake disc is probably a record.
• savant_penguin 5y ago
  If this was apple fanboys would say: "You know how much energy you save by not breaking?? Think of the planet!" "If you need to break you're not using the car as intended!" (Rip overheating macs)
• maxdo 5y ago
  • dymk 5y ago
    The drama isn't because of a parts shortage, it's that Tesla forgot to install brakes on this car. If you don't have break pads, don't deliver the car back to the owner.
    • maxdo 5y ago
      • Larrikin 5y ago
        How much are you invested in Tesla, so that you're willing to vigorously argue for and justify delivering a car that is missing brakes in multiple comments. Elon fanboyism doesn't make sense in this case.
    • vkou 5y ago
      The three-week waiting period to install a break pad once the issue was identified is a parts shortage. It hearkens back to Soviet auto manufacturers. For obvious reasons, Soviet central planners wanted to get cars into the hands of consumers. For obvious reasons, Soviet auto manufacturers were driven to get as many cars into the hands of consumers as they could. The obvious outcome of this incentive was that the manufacturers had zero interest in shipping any spare/repair parts for any of their vehicles. Why ship parts, when you can ship cars instead? Nobody at the politburo is going to give you a pat on the head for supporting aftermarket auto repairs...
      • dymk 5y ago
        Not really sure I'm getting your point, or at least, I don't follow how this is super relevant to the GP comment about how they don't get the "drama" around this issue. If Tesla took a month or two to install new brake pads, that would be pretty bad. But they forgot/cut corners and failed to install brake pads entirely, which raises this to outrageous.
• fortran77 5y ago
  Tesla never should have branded the "Model 3" a Tesla. It brings the whole brand down. You can't have a "luxury brand" and have a cheap model. They need to rebrand it the "Strive" or the "Dream" or the "Yearn" and remove Tesla branding and have separate dealers.
  • speedgoose 5y ago
    To be honest Tesla is not a luxury brand. The old roadster based on a lotus is far from the luxury world and while a model s or x are very premium, it’s not luxury level where being overpriced is a feature.
    • maxdo 5y ago
      hm, luxury car simply splits into 2 categories performance and comfort. Many brands lives exactly in this paradigm. Entire Audi, BMW, Porche, Ferrari etc. sells you performance with some degree of comfort. Model S Plaid beats any of this cars. If you pick top 10 cars that can do 0-60 in 2.2 seconds, tesla will be also the most comfortable. Yet you have this sweet combo in a fraction of the price. You have a car that outrun any bugatti in the world, yet it's a decent family car. So I'm not sure how is it overprices? Just because it decided not to do a real leather options?
      • fortran77 5y ago
        Of course, there are "superluxury" cars, like Bently and Rolls Royce. But my "Plaid" does 0-60 in 1.99 seconds, and it's comfortable. That's luxury.
• albertopv 5y ago
  Shit can happen (this is a bad one though), how it is managed makes quite a difference. 9 years ago my father bought a new Mercedes B-class. Having been a truck driver for decades, he knows how to look at details. When he got the car he discovered front wheels brakes where different, on each wheel there was a different type of brake(I don't exactly recall the issue). Obviously he didn't accepted the car, Mercedes gave him a temporary car and repaired the new B-class at no cost.
• cblconfederate 5y ago
  It could be some new friction-based regenerative braking, we ll have to wait to hear from TSLA
• mattacular 5y ago
  Once you understand that Tesla exists to sell EV tax credits and hold a massively overinflated stock valuation based on ...apparently nothing... and so therefore making cars is actually far down their list of priorities stuff like this should not come as a surprise. These vehicles are objectively bad: Poor design and even poorer manufacturing. Every one I've seen up close in person has numerous exterior fit and finish problems. The interiors feel very very cheap for a vehicle in their price range. They catch fire. They don't work well in extreme weather. Bumpers fall off randomly. If you think these sorts of problems don't extend to the mechanical and software components, well, I've got a Tesla to sell you.
  • nexuist 5y ago
    Have you tried asking car owners if they want a car with expensive interiors? Or cars that don't catch fire? Or cars that work well in extreme weather? Or bumpers that don't fall off? Maybe they'd tell you they do. But wallets, and recent sales trends, speak differently. The market clearly does not value these things as much as you think it does, at least in comparison to the other features Tesla promises. (source: happy Tesla owner, no stock held)
• cs702 5y ago
  A more accurate headline would be: "Tesla Model 3 owner claims car was delivered missing a brake pad" ...because the only evidence we've seen so far comes from the owner, and Tesla has not yet had a chance to investigate what happened and provide the media with an official response. All messages, photos, and videos I've seen are from the owner. If this is Tesla's fault, shame on the company. But we don't know for sure yet, and given how much hatred is directed at the company (and Musk, in particular) we have to consider the possibility that this could be: (a) a rare case involving unusual circumstances for a single vehicle out of a few million sold to date, or (b) a malicious hit job. I, for one, will keep an open mind, waiting to pass judgment until there's more information about what actually happened here.
  • asciimov 5y ago
    Either way, it shouldn't take Tesla more than 3 working days to remedy this situation. Breakpads are a common vehicle consumable that should be available at every dealership. The rotor and a caliper should also be common enough that they could be overnighted or second day shipped. The work itself is simple enough that any shop tech could accomplish in under 2 hours (even the new guys that just change oil).
  • Rebelgecko 5y ago
    Tesla intentionally doesn't have any sort of PR department, so IMO it's an ineffective strategy to give them the benefit of the doubt until there is an official response- they don't do official responses, because they feel like it legitimizes their detractors (whether the criticisms are warranted or not)
  • rrdharan 5y ago
    > Tesla has not yet had a chance to investigate what happened and provide the media with an official response. They have no communications department. No such response will ever come - there is no mechanism to request or be provided with one.
• theshrike79 5y ago
  I've said this multiple times and it still bears repeating. The current EV race can be summed up to this: Can Tesla learn to build a car around their computer faster than traditional car companies learn to add a computer in their car. So far the competition is neck and neck...
• sidcool 5y ago
  Has Tesla raised the bar of expectations so high that a mistakes that most car makers have made multiple times are like existential threats for Tesla?
  • FireBeyond 5y ago
    If I buy a Model S, I expect: - windshields that are actually mounted to the vehicle - no suspension failures - no heavy shaking at 35-40mph - all brake pads to be present - a dash that doesn't creak or sag when I put my hand on it - panels that aren't so misaligned that they leak into the body, or motors, leading to motors dying and Tesla saying "it was driven in rain that was too heavy" I'm not sure the high expectations you talk of. The Tesla, to steal from someone else in this thread, is an amazing state-of-the-art powertrain coupled to a distinctly subpar vehicle.
• aemreunal 5y ago
  I see a lot of "whataboutism" in the comments, mostly from people who (for some reason) feel the need to defend Tesla. What's the purpose of this? Criticizing a company or calling out their mistake does not detract from it, it pushes them to get better in fact. You can love something/someone and still recognize their shortcomings. Other car manufacturers making a mistake does not justify Tesla's mistake or their handling of the situation. We are supposed to hold all car manufacturers to the highest standards instead of justifying Tesla's mistake with someone else's.
  • nexuist 5y ago
    > (for some reason) Four letters, starts with T, ends with A. (source: Tesla owner, hold no stock)
  • beeboop 5y ago
    It comes across as pretty ridiculous for this to be a popular news article. It's only noteworthy because it's Tesla and news outlets know it generates hate clicks. Cars having problems on delivery, regardless of brand, happens all the time. People love to hyper scrutinize Tesla though
• userbinator 5y ago
  Besides the ridiculous failure of QA and the "not a problem" attitude, I'm also surprised at the lack of parts availability; are Tesla brake pads yet another proprietary design? I think standardisation of wear parts would be a good thing across the industry, and provide more aftermarket opportunities (not that there isn't plenty already), but of course manufacturers like Tesla would be against that. (I do brake jobs myself. It's not hard, and having "skin in the game", you'll definitely make sure to do it right.)
  • FireBeyond 5y ago
    > are Tesla brake pads yet another proprietary design Yes, they are, frustratingly.
• op00to 5y ago
  What happened to the pre delivery inspection?
  • ra7 5y ago
    It's outsourced to the customers themselves. Their QC is so bad every Tesla forum recommends customers perform delivery inspection using comprehensive checklists (example [1]) and either reject delivery or make follow up service appointments to fix them. [1] https://github.com/mykeln/teslaprep/blob/master/model_3_checklist.md https://github.com/mykeln/teslaprep/blob/master/model_3_chec...
    • FireBeyond 5y ago
      And it's time limited, typically to 20 or 30 minutes. And anecdotally, depending on where you are picking it up, may or may not allow driving of the vehicle, and only visual inspection.
    • op00to 5y ago
      oh my gosh who would put up with this?
• karlward 5y ago
  I’ve had a Model 3 for one year. Two months in, parts of the front suspension had to be replaced. Couple months later, same thing on the passenger front side. Eight months in I started hearing wind noise that sounded like there was a hole in the windscreen. Turns out the skuttle board or some such, a plastic part under the windscreen, often pops out of place. First fix Tesla tried was to replace the windscreen. After that time I got the car back with the frunk half disassembled and the wind noise still appearing and the plastic skuttle board still out of place. Now they want to replace the interior plastic moulding to the frunk. They think it is distorted. If so, this must have been from factory. All the time I have to push hard to get any attempted fix. I’ve bought several cars, Mercedes’ and Audis from new in the past and I’ve never had any issue that required remedial work. (Or any issue at all.) Now that there are good alternative electric cars I no longer recommend Tesla when anyone asks.
• newaccount74 5y ago
  Nobody is wondering that it apparently takes Tesla three weeks to fix a brake? When I had to take my car to the shop, and they needed to order a part, they get it the next day! I've never had to go without my car for more than a day.
  • FireBeyond 5y ago
    Holy cow, right? I used to own a Jaguar, that I recently sold because yeah, it was unreliable (cooling system mainly). It did have an entertainment system issue, and the whole thing needed to be replaced. Oh boy, I thought, when I heard they needed to order a new entertainment system, how long will that take? "Oh, overnight. Second day if we have to overnight it from the UK."
• pvaldes 5y ago
  The history is very strange. Many modern brake pads have a simple circuit of a wire connected to the computer. The wires are designed to break when the pad is worn out so the car computer detect a voltage return of zero in that electric circuit and will trigger a warning immediately. Hypothese 1. If the maker forgot to install the brake pad. Then we have to assume that neither the second employee nor the car computer noticed that something was wrong, and this is very strange because the computer at least -must- know it. Hypothese 2. The pad was installed but was loose or fell later. The seller or one of the seller employees had some fun driving the car before, hit a bump or something and the pad was dislodged and fell. They didn't noticed it or tried to hide the problem. Does not explain why the owner didn't noticed a warning in the dashboard from the minute 0. Hypothese 3. The owner hit a bump and lost the brake pad in the first days of driving the car. Maybe without being aware of that. So nobody see the warning light because there was not a warning light to be seen. Not until later. (we could also suspect that the structure that keeps the brake pad in place maybe is fragile in this car). There are other possibilities, but they are much less probable
  • prostanac 5y ago
    I work on my cars as a hobby (not a mechanic). All the brakepad sensors I’ve seen were only on one pad (usually the inner one, as that wears off first). As for your 2 and 3, there is simply not a chance that a bump will make a pad fall off, unless the whole brake system has major damage. The explanation is usually the simplest, they forgot to install it.
• pseudosavant 5y ago
  When my WRX started making an odd ticking sound guess what Subaru told me to do? "Bring it in right now." Ended up being a bearing in the engine, but Subaru sourced and replaced the entire engine quicker than Tesla has a rotor, caliper, and pad. I can't believe how people tolerate replacement parts taking so long for Teslas. Tesla is the only supplier. They are choosing to make more new mostly working cars instead of fixing the ones missing things like brake pads. They could just allocate more parts to repairs.
  • FireBeyond 5y ago
    > They could just allocate more parts to repairs. That is the crux of the matter. It's more important to Tesla to put those parts on the line, so they can tout quarterly delivery numbers. And now they're also seeing the downsides of incremental improvement. It's great in some ways, but for repair and maintenance not so much. At least with the "legacy" manufacturers you have parts separated by model year. With Tesla, they might have cycled through a few part models a year. That adds to the complexity of part sourcing, even before the delivery number issue.
• TedShiller 5y ago
  A friend if mine who is a huge Tesla fan became furious when I pointed out that his car is essentially coal powered, since he charges it at home, and the electricity in our area is primarily derived from coal as of currently. Note that he did not become curious or refuted the facts. He simply became furious that I pointed this out. I’ve found a lot of Tesla people are like that. Rather than being comfortable with some of the facts, it seems like they don’t like it when facts don’t match the narrative.
  • nexuist 5y ago
    Own a Tesla in a high-nonrenewable-mix area. Yes, you could claim my car is coal or natural gas powered, but I've also been curious about this and I found that it's still better than a regular gas car because the production source is centralized. A 1% efficiency gain for a power plant in my area translates to 1% cleaner power for every EV powered by that power plant. Likewise, if a new solar or wind farm comes online and starts powering my area, my car automatically becomes cleaner, and I didn't have to do anything. An ICE car will never gain MPG over time. Engines produced decades ago, like my last car from 2005, will never become more efficient or produce less pollutants than they did off the assembly line. Trying to make a fleet of ICE cars cleaner is like trying to overhaul one million tiny power plants at once; it is a much, much easier job to do when there's only a handful of power plants to operate on. Anyways, sorry about your friend, unfortunately not everyone can control their emotions when they buy expensive toys and get told off for it. I imagine he would've had the same reaction if he bought a Lamborghini and you asked him if it carried the same amount of groceries as a Rav4 or something. Regardless, am happy to have a productive debate with you if you want to discuss EV ownership in more detail. One thing I will put out there: I don't care if you buy a Tesla, and I hate Tesla owners who consistently put down EVs from other manufacturers without even watching a review or reading the spec sheet. I just want more people to buy EVs, it doesn't matter what badge they carry.
    • TedShiller 5y ago
      > I imagine he would've had the same reaction if he bought a Lamborghini and you asked him if it carried the same amount of groceries as a Rav4 or something. In that case most people would say yes or no. There would be no reason to get angry unless they were insecure about their purchase.
• sdze 5y ago
  That is why I buy cars from reputable manufacturers.
• maxdo 5y ago
  Just leave it here: https://www.google.com/search?q=missing+brake+pad+recall https://www.google.com/search?q=missing+brake+pad+recall https://www.google.com/search?q=ford+mach+e+roof+recall https://www.google.com/search?q=ford+mach+e+roof+recall https://www.google.com/search?q=bmw+fire+recall https://www.google.com/search?q=bmw+fire+recall ( 1 million) so yeah, Legacy auto is so amazing :)
• jb3689 5y ago
  Freaking brake pads and rotors had to be ordered at the Tesla dealer service center? And you're telling me it takes over two weeks? What the hell. I can go to Firestone or literally anywhere and pads and rotors are just in stock
• yawaworht1978 5y ago
  This is the same company people are supposed to trust with FSD? Good luck with that.
• 11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
  Hyper growth yields hyper growing pains.
• ericmay 5y ago
  Tesla is on my naughty list after the horrendous UI update, but I think the scrutiny around them (while deserved) is often blown way out of proportion. https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1071185_missing-brake-pads-prompt-gm-to-recall-2012-chevy-sonic-models https://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1071185_missing-brake-...
• calyth2018 5y ago
  PDI? What's that? Pad the Dealer's Income? While that might be the joke for a lot of car dealers and companies, you're supposed to pretend to give a shit about the quality of the car before you hand a multi-ton machine with a bunch of lithium to a customer.