Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

"Car needs service - power reduced"

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

MarcG

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,302
6,248
San Francisco
I just got this warning while driving through twisty mountain roads. I wasn't even driving aggressively, as I have in the past.
By the way, I just got my rear drive unit replaced earlier this week...

Has anyone seen this before? Can I continue to drive for the rest of the long weekend since I'm out of town?
 
Call Tesla ASAP and try to drive as little as possible. If the car says it needs service then I don't think Tesla can be held responsible for the car completely shutting down on you at an inopportune time if you continue to drive. You may need to have Tesla tow the car to the nearest service center and have them set you up with a loaner or rental car to finish your weekend.
 
Sorry I'm only seeing this now, Marc. I expect by now whatever decision you have made has been made. All I have to add is that if my recollection is correct, that first poster here who had his P85D wind up in a condition where it could not be driven at all had that message appear first. He intended to take it in to the service center the following day or something, and then was not able to. I'll look for that thread now to try to confirm this, and post the link if I find it.:

Edit: I'm wrong. The error message was "Front Motor Disabled. Power Reduced." There were posts in numerous threads. Here's the summary thread:

First P85D with major malfunction failure @ 221 miles -- story + repair
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the feedback guys. Turns out the warning message went away after I parked the car and got back to driving a few minutes later.
Since then, I've driven over 100 miles and the message hasn't come back since.

I did call Tesla as soon as it happened and they said they'd look at the logs. They called me back a couple of hours later and said they weren't able to see any errors in their logs.
However they did suggest this could be an inverter issue, and recommended I bring the car in as soon as I can. I'm out of town over the long weekend so I'll bring it in next week to see what they can find.

Many thanks again for all the support and quick responses.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. Turns out the warning message went away after I parked the car and got back to driving a few minutes later.
Since then, I've driven over 100 miles and the message hasn't come back since.

I'm really glad to hear this, Marc! I was worried about you and your car, and your trip being interrupted. Very happy to hear everything is OK.
 
I did call Tesla as soon as it happened and they said they'd look at the logs. They called me back a couple of hours later and said they weren't able to see any errors in their logs.
However they did suggest this could be an inverter issue, and recommended I bring the car in as soon as I can. I'm out of town over the long weekend so I'll bring it in next week to see what they can find.

This is becoming a recurring issue. Owner sees an error message, calls Tesla and they report back that the car isn't showing errors. They seem to only be able to look at the current status and can't actually "pull the logs" from hours or days before. If you bring it in to the SvC, sometimes, but not always are they able to actually "pull the logs" and find the source. This suggests a flaw in their remote diagnostics.
 
This is becoming a recurring issue. Owner sees an error message, calls Tesla and they report back that the car isn't showing errors. They seem to only be able to look at the current status and can't actually "pull the logs" from hours or days before. If you bring it in to the SvC, sometimes, but not always are they able to actually "pull the logs" and find the source. This suggests a flaw in their remote diagnostics.

I think it might have to do with the volume of data and their ability to sift through it all. I have been having TMPS errors and my SC called me to say that their remote diagnostics showed them which wheel sensor was the culprit... so it appears it can be done.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. Turns out the warning message went away after I parked the car and got back to driving a few minutes later.
Since then, I've driven over 100 miles and the message hasn't come back since.

I did call Tesla as soon as it happened and they said they'd look at the logs. They called me back a couple of hours later and said they weren't able to see any errors in their logs.
However they did suggest this could be an inverter issue, and recommended I bring the car in as soon as I can. I'm out of town over the long weekend so I'll bring it in next week to see what they can find.

Many thanks again for all the support and quick responses.

EXACT same thing happened to me.
 
In my case, this message appeared last Sunday after a weekend trip (~400 km) and didn't go away. We could still drive the car but Tesla told us to stop driving it as they could not identify the cause remotely, and they came at home to pick it up on a trailer, although the service center is <2 km from home. It took 48h to repair. (First day was actually mostly spent discharging the battery to <20% by heating the car at max. You can monitor that on the app!).

The cause of the problem was the main battery contactor that was showing signs of degradation. (This contactor is the one disconnecting the battery from the drive unit when the car turns off. A high power, high voltage component.) They said they replaced it with a new model that should not develop such degradation. The car is at 106 000 km, it's a 2013, so I guess that's the kind of problem that pops up after a couple of years and several kWh going through the components. No cost for us as it is on the "Infinite Mile Warranty". I'm very happy with how this was managed. I would certainly not have expect that level of service on an ICE car with that many km on the counter.
 
Last edited:
In my case, this message appeared last Sunday after a weekend trip (~400 km) and didn't go away. We could still drive the car but Tesla told us to stop driving it as they could not identify the cause remotely, and they came at home to pick it up on a trailer, although the service center is <2 km from home. It took 48h to repair. (First day was actually mostly spent discharging the battery to <20% by heating the car at max. You can monitor that on the app!).

The cause of the problem was the main battery contactor that was showing signs of degradation. (This contactor is the one disconnecting the battery from the drive unit when the car turns off. A high power, high voltage component.) They said they replaced it with a new model that should not develop such degradation. The car is at 106 000 km, it's a 2013, so I guess that's the kind of problem that pops up after a couple of years and several kWh going through the components. No cost for us as it is on the "Infinite Mile Warranty". I'm very happy with how this was managed. I would certainly not have expect that level of service on an ICE car with that many km on the counter.

Well had the EXACT same issue 2015 P85D 12k miles with the exact same resolution. Go figure...
 
In my case, this message appeared last Sunday after a weekend trip (~400 km) and didn't go away. We could still drive the car but Tesla told us to stop driving it as they could not identify the cause remotely, and they came at home to pick it up on a trailer, although the service center is <2 km from home. It took 48h to repair. (First day was actually mostly spent discharging the battery to <20% by heating the car at max. You can monitor that on the app!).

The cause of the problem was the main battery contactor that was showing signs of degradation. (This contactor is the one disconnecting the battery from the drive unit when the car turns off. A high power, high voltage component.) They said they replaced it with a new model that should not develop such degradation. The car is at 106 000 km, it's a 2013, so I guess that's the kind of problem that pops up after a couple of years and several kWh going through the components. No cost for us as it is on the "Infinite Mile Warranty". I'm very happy with how this was managed. I would certainly not have expect that level of service on an ICE car with that many km on the counter.

Well had the EXACT same issue 2015 P85D 12k miles with the exact same resolution. Go figure...

Funny, this thread reminded me that I had the exact same issue on my 2014 P85D.

Except I got the message during my evening commute in February, or so, got home and forgot about it, got back in and it didn't cone back so I just continued driving.....then, in August, that contactor failed and it had to be picked up from the side of the road.
 
Except I got the message during my evening commute in February, or so, got home and forgot about it, got back in and it didn't cone back so I just continued driving.....then, in August, that contactor failed and it had to be picked up from the side of the road.

Hmm. The time lapse between the error message and the actual failure suggests it may not be related. In any event, Tesla is supposed to monitor the contactor resistance remotely and contact the owner proactively to replace it. It's concerning they did not do that here.
 
Hmm. The time lapse between the error message and the actual failure suggests it may not be related. In any event, Tesla is supposed to monitor the contactor resistance remotely and contact the owner proactively to replace it. It's concerning they did not do that here.

In my case, they told me my contactor needed to be replaced but "not to worry about it" because it would likely not fail, and they had me on the list for some future date. At the same time, I asked them to investigate the fact that my car would not go above about 35 kW of re-gen and Supercharging was noticeably slow. They said there was no problem. My contactor failed and left me at the side of the road. After it was repaired, I noticed that my Supercharging speed was back to normal and I once again was able to get a full 60 kW of re-gen.
 
Just wanted to continue this thread in case others are seeing this as well. I have a June, 2015 S70D. On my way to work on Friday, I was stopped at a stop sign and went to accelerate to go through the intersection and I immediately heard a thump sound and immediately started getting an alert message ""Front Motor Disabled-Power Reduced".

I was able to continue moving through the intersection and pulled over when it was safe. I tried powering down the car, waiting a bit and restarting and each time I got the same message. I then called Tesla Customer Support and I must say my experience was really good. Everyone I spoke to was extremely helpful and professional. They had me power down again and wait 2 minutes as he said sometimes that clears the fault. In my case, it didn't work so they dispatched a tow service.

The tow service took me and my car to the local SC in Las Vegas where they diagnosed the issue as a failed Front Motor. I asked if they knew what the issue was and they said they don't actually open up the housing but have a way to determine if it is DOA. They received approval from Tesla Corporate for a replacement and they're currently ordering one and said once they get the part in, it will take a full day to install and test to ensure everything is good.

In the meantime, they set me up with a Model X loaner. Funny thing about the loaner. It's an all white Model X and the name of the car is "Walter White". :) This is the first major issue I've experienced in 2 1/2 years so hopefully this will be the last. I've been on many long distance road trips without any issue. The SC here in Las Vegas is fantastic and I'm confident they'll get everything fixed and working properly. I'll update the thread once I get the car back.