Newer car reliability poll (2015-2016)

Zybane said:

Since Consumer Reports last fall downgraded the Model S due to reliability issues, I thought it might be worthwhile to garner some more modern Model S data to see if Tesla is progressing. Please only vote if you have a 2015 or 2016 identifier in your VIN.

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arg- read the poll on a smartphone screen prior to caffeine and didn't see the important bit about only wanting data for newer cars. Any way I can remove my answers?

Zybane said:

A few little mistakes shouldn't skew the results too much. Could you tell us which item(s) you selected so we can take that into account?

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Drive unit failure (rear wheel drive), hv battery replacement, squeaks and rattles, door handle replacement, exterior lighting (dead spider in tail light), and interior panel problem. On the plus side none of the problems reoccurred after they were fixed and other than the final two door handle replacements everything was repaired prior to 2015.

Zybane said:

Since Consumer Reports last fall downgraded the Model S due to reliability issues, I thought it might be worthwhile to garner some more modern Model S data to see if Tesla is progressing. Please only vote if you have a 2015 or 2016 identifier in your VIN.

Click to expand...

You don't know how long the car has been in service nor how many miles, both rather critical to anything meaningful. Perhaps you should do this on Survey Monkey instead so that you can capture this info.

DU 'failure' is not necessarily accurate. Many have been replaced for no reason other than very minor noise. We have no idea if this would never have been anything more than a slight bit of noise or if the noise was an indicator of the DU likely failing down the road.

wraithnot said:

Drive unit failure (rear wheel drive), hv battery replacement, squeaks and rattles, door handle replacement, exterior lighting (dead spider in tail light), and interior panel problem. On the plus side none of the problems reoccurred after they were fixed and other than the final two door handle replacements everything was repaired prior to 2015.

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Well sorry to hear you had to go through all that repair but I'm glad tesla is fixing issues.

Zybane said:

Good to hear, and yours is a 2013 I take it?

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Yes- car was built in Feb 2013. The way I look at it, I basically have a 2014 car since so many of the 2013 parts have been replaced at this point. And the hv battery failure was the only thing that actually required a tow truck. My wife's BMW i3 hasn't required a single service visit. But it's going back to the dealer when the lease is up while we're planning to keep the model S until either the 8 year warranty is up or they come out with a fully autonomous version. So there is definitely more to the car owning experience than how often it needs servicing.

Mine is a 2013 but would only have checked rattles. Still on original drive unit and 12v battery. Handles work great. No other problems other than the condensation in back up light.

I'm currently waiting on replacement sensors. Was initially told they were probably just getting dirty, but have just discovered that one o-ring seal was sticking out too far (adjusted) and some sensors have paint on them from the factory and must be replaced. Pano roof and driver's seat have also needed attention.

I didn't see an option for software issue...my car also had a "box not checked" that kept TACC from engaging and required a service visit.

My car wasn't built during an end-of-quarter rush. I'm not complaining; just hoping that these production issues get worked out before the Model 3 is released, or getting in for service will be tough.

It's hard to quantify this data to make it into something meaningful.

You definitely need number of miles, and months of ownership to see problems per number of miles.

There are also some things that are just in the nature of a given car, and while those things might get reduced they tend to always pop up. Like I strongly believe the Model S will always have issues with squeaks and rattles. Partly because of the design. but also because it's so quiet. My initial service visit was mostly to fix them which the visit did go a long ways to fixing them. Did they fix all of them? No. But, its to a point where it doesn't really bug me. It's also sometimes really difficult to reproduce. On a previous car (a Porsche Cayman S) I gave up on it ever being rattle free. The suspension was pretty hard riding, and eventually given enough bumps it would rattle again. With the Tesla I've more or less accepted it will always be worse than what I want, but not bad enough to drive me crazy (like the Porsche because it was always the headliner).

The DU issues will also always plague Tesla, and not because there is anything wrong with it necessarily. But, because multiple issues are combined into one and labeled as a DU issue. It could simply be that it's making more noise than usual so it could be cosmetic in nature. It's still a problem and something that they have to fix. But, it's way different than something breaking which does happen with the DU's.

I'm at the 6 Month mark with 15K miles on a 2015 70D, and my car is performing nominally with no significant mechanical/hardware issues. It's not any better or worse than the majority of cars I've had at the 6 month mark. The only thing remarkably different is that it somehow has 15K miles on it. How that happened is beyond me. I think the problem exist between the seat and the steering wheel, and can't be corrected with a SC visit.

In terms of SW and glitches the Tesla is on par with a Range Rover Sport I had. Sometimes on that car I'd lose any speaker output. The only way to fix it was to get out of the car, lock it, unlock it and then get back in.

The Tesla has it's own set of hoops to go through when SW glitches happen. Owning the car is a lot like owning a computer. Sometimes you just have to reboot, but the car has multiple systems and ways to reboot. So it's not always straight forwards.

The other thing unique to the Tesla is someone at Tesla had the bright idea to have superchargers at the SC. This is absolutely brilliant because time to time things pop up. Like maybe we have a question about something, or we want someone to look at something real fast. Other times there are things like the Seat Belt inspection. For that I didn't even have to schedule a trip to the SC because while on a trip I happened to stumble upon a SC/Supercharger combo and some Employee at the SC did the inspection while I was charging. I didn't even ask. What I did ask for (Touch up paint) they didn't have.

Oh, and yeah depending on the Color choice they might or might not have Touch up paint. It's so funny that we go on and on about DU's, rattles, etc but the one thing that actually happens is they don't carry Touch up paint for all the colors they sell. Tesla gets the absolutely easiest things wrong. Like the Tesla Store one would think would be pretty easy to run, and to maintain accurate inventory, but that isn't the case at all. It's a buy and pray experience.

Will they have it in stock when you order it?
Will it actually ship? or will they email telling you they don't really have it
Will the item function as advertised?
Will the item follow the warranty of the car you're buying it for, or will it be separate? The answer to this depends on how you order it so be careful when ordering the HPWC
Will the item end up being kinda crappy only to be eventually dumped/redesigned. Like the tire chains (dumped), or the floor mats (redesigned)
Will talking about the item and the promises Tesla made go on and on within the TMC forum like the Center console fiasco was.

My issue is not on the list. I have a faulty left front (under the head light) sensor. It's a random issue. Had hoped software updates would resolve it. Tesla looked into it with no luck.

I randomly says "STOP" as I'm slowing down. Under about 3 miles per hour it comes on. Stays on while I'm stopped and if I slowly creep forward. After I get above three miles per hour, it goes away until the next time I slow down. Annoying as hell in bumper to bumper traffic where I'm commonly under 3 miles per hour as it also beeps at you relentlessly.

Then there are days it doesn't do it at all. For that reason and since I've had no other issues and I've only had the car for a month and a half, I haven't scheduled a service appointment. Was waiting for another issue to pop up before doing so. If it was a non-stop issue, I would have brought it in, but since it's random, I deal with it when it gets temper-mental.

Zybane said:

Since Consumer Reports last fall downgraded the Model S due to reliability issues, I thought it might be worthwhile to garner some more modern Model S data to see if Tesla is progressing. Please only vote if you have a 2015 or 2016 identifier in your VIN.

Click to expand...

Middle 2015 85D. Catastrophic DU failure (car failed to start), a whole inventory of squeaks and rattles (SC helped to eliminate a couple of them, lots are still remaining), several misc. failures (right front door window had a defective seal, air noise, handle not extending).

I had a rat or some sort of rodent eat through a wire to the aircon, hardly a warranty issue though. Otherwise faultless

luvnMyTS said:

My issue is not on the list. I have a faulty left front (under the head light) sensor. It's a random issue. Had hoped software updates would resolve it. Tesla looked into it with no luck.

I randomly says "STOP" as I'm slowing down. Under about 3 miles per hour it comes on. Stays on while I'm stopped and if I slowly creep forward. After I get above three miles per hour, it goes away until the next time I slow down. Annoying as hell in bumper to bumper traffic where I'm commonly under 3 miles per hour as it also beeps at you relentlessly.

Then there are days it doesn't do it at all. For that reason and since I've had no other issues and I've only had the car for a month and a half, I haven't scheduled a service appointment. Was waiting for another issue to pop up before doing so. If it was a non-stop issue, I would have brought it in, but since it's random, I deal with it when it gets temper-mental.

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This is EXACTLY what was happening to me, except on the passenger side. As mentioned above, there were actually 2 issues: an o-ring that was not flush, which is adjustable, and excessive paint (maybe because the o-ring was not flush?) that got on the sensor so that it has to be replaced.

PS you can turn the beep off. I can't imagine listening to all that beeping. and PPS, you should have it looked at soon, because they may have to order a new sensor which will take some time.

2015 here, nothing major, but a few issues:
-Rear door handle replacement due to failure (less than a month old car)
-Steering scroll wheel replacement
-Leather trim on B-panel "bubbled" and replaced
-Parking senors TSB for too much paint
-Minor dash rattle
-Headlights/fog lights fogging. Apparently it's "normal".
-Pano leaking after sitting in rain

Probably a few more I'm forgetting about. 7 months, 16k miles. Mostly happened in the first few months of ownership, so I'm hoping we're clear of all problems now

Late April 2015 85D here
Minor issues- Panoroof squeak fixed. Rear driver side door needs adjustment on next Sc visit due to window not retracting enough on handle pull. 16K miles.

Power mirror died
Leather on seat not attached properly
Film on interior door handle came off