Drive Unit Replacement Poll

[Hodginator]

Unfortunately I have to add my car to the drive unit replacement list. I had the "clunk" and hum noise. I had been told previously by the SC that the clunk was normal. I was scheduled for a service this Friday and they were going to check out the hum and see if the clunk had gotten worse. Well this morning as I took a right turn out of an intersection the drive unit failed (sounded like gears grinding into small pieces). After the noise, the car would no longer move.

With that being said, Tesla service was absolutely awesome. In an hour they had towed my car to the services center and I was driving to work in a P85 loaner. Looks like I will get my baby back tomorrow as well!

 

[SarahsDad]

Add me to the list. I mentioned I heard a "hum" over 70MPH when my car was in for annual service. To be honest I thought it was tire noise because it was related to the speed of the car, not accel/regen like many have posted. Well, they decided to replace the drive unit and the hum is gone! Unfortunately I now have the balloon noise with strong acceleration, something I'd somehow avoided until now. Still, awesome service.

 

[huntjo]

Also I would like to reiterate that my vote of "5+" was a lie. I have still never had a drive unit replaced, but I was just pissed you didn't include an option for zero, so I wanted to maliciously skew your stats

 

[Lerxt]

Very nice of you, a bit puzzling why that was a useful response.

 

[andyro]

unit tb replaced. No noise I have ever heard that is unusual (to me). Efficiency started to tank however in the last few months. Not sure if this is related. I am using a good 20% more kW than usual, and this is not cold weather related...

 

[Gizmotoy]

Anyone had their DU replaced recently? I've been on some kind of waiting list for one since November. Haven't really heard much on this, have they paused installs?

 

[theheff]

Anyone had their DU replaced recently? I've been on some kind of waiting list for one since November. Haven't really heard much on this, have they paused installs?

I'm also on the waiting list as of 2 weeks ago.

 

[David99]

There is now a waiting list? wow! I'm on my third drive unit. Both times it was replaced due to buzzing noise at low power acceleration. I can hear it slowly coming back now again 10k miles later. Looks like I'm heading towards another one.

 

[InTheShadows]

Anyone had their DU replaced recently? I've been on some kind of waiting list for one since November. Haven't really heard much on this, have they paused installs?

We have been waiting since October. They were supposed to pick our car up today however the Alberta clipper followed by a nor'easter blizzard postponed our service until next week.

I attributed the wait to them clearing out the P85D orders then once that was taken care of they would start pumping out the replacement motors.

This is my opinion and not actual knowledge I have of their operations.

 

[JST]

Anyone had their DU replaced recently? I've been on some kind of waiting list for one since November. Haven't really heard much on this, have they paused installs?

Same here.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I'm on my second drive unit replacement and looking at a third. Drive unit is droning above 70 MPH and is now starting to exhibit a faint buzzing sound at low power. At high power there is a very high pitched, quite intense buzzing sound that I've never heard before. I have been waiting over a month to be scheduled for a repair, I was told there is a shortage of drive units and they are trying to get me a new one versus a remanufactured unit.

 

[JST]

One reason I am not more exercised about this is that mine doesn't seem so bad, and it sounds like if I got a "new" one it might end up being just as bad or worse.

What happened to the cheap shim fix?

 

[InTheShadows]

I'm on my second drive unit replacement and looking at a third. Drive unit is droning above 70 MPH and is now starting to exhibit a faint buzzing sound at low power. At high power there is a very high pitched, quite intense buzzing sound that I've never heard before. I have been waiting over a month to be scheduled for a repair, I was told there is a shortage of drive units and they are trying to get me a new one versus a remanufactured unit.

That is what our second unit is being replaced for. I'm also wondering if our motor is slightly in a limp mode or if software has changed the power output at higher speeds. When passing, once we hit 70-80 even with a fully warmed up and fully charged battery we get the dashed power limit line at around 200kw. Is this new software behavior or is it only our car exhibiting this behavior? Perhaps caused by the internal fault.

Our buzzing sound at low speeds also gets much worse for an hour or so if we do a few full pedal starts.

When our car went in for diagnosis they said that "there is an internal fault with the drive unit". The drowning sound is described in the repair order as a "milling sound".

 

[pgiralt]

I'm on my third replacement (so forth drive unit including the original one). This one has actually been very good until a couple of weeks ago where I started getting the buzzing sound at low speeds again - which had been the reason for my second replacement. They had also described it as the "milling sound" when I had gotten that replacement. I'm going to wait a bit before getting a replacement in the hopes that they sort out these issues.

 

[JPP]

When I was in for my 24k service last week, I had my drive unit replaced for a low level intermittent clunk from the rear. No milling noise, no buzzing, no warning messages. FWIW, the service tech is required to try the TSB shim fix first, and, if the sounds do not go away, then they are authorized to replace the drive unit. There also is a retrofit new motor mount bracket that gets replaced at the same time.

BTW, the service tech who did the work was one of about 40 TM employees sent to Oslo Norway last November to swap out about 1000 drive units there. He got so proficient that he can do a swap solo in about 90 minutes (including the coolant system purge and gearbox lube fill etc).

 

[AmpedRealtor]

BTW, the service tech who did the work was one of about 40 TM employees sent to Oslo Norway last November to swap out about 1000 drive units there. He got so proficient that he can do a swap solo in about 90 minutes (including the coolant system purge and gearbox lube fill etc).

^^ this could explain why there is a shortage of drive units. I also hope this means that the issues have been solved in production. If not, the P85D is also going to be prone to this problem because it supposedly uses the same P85 drive unit in the rear. I really do hope that Tesla fixed this issue before launching another model based on the same rear motor.

 

[JPP]

^^ this could explain why there is a shortage of drive units. I also hope this means that the issues have been solved in production. If not, the P85D is also going to be prone to this problem because it supposedly uses the same P85 drive unit in the rear. I really do hope that Tesla fixed this issue before launching another model based on the same rear motor.

The Service Manager and tech said that the problem has been fixed in forward production (not sure what VIN) and that they are seeing very few issues with newer builds (....but presumably only TM knows).

 

[bareyb]

Poll Fail. No option for "0".

 

[nwdiver]

Poll Fail. No option for "0".

Not sure why someone dug that one up... there's this one...

 

[rlcordeiro]

+1 bareyb thanks for the direction nwdiver