2017 Tesla Model S complaints

I was driving north on I-5 in San Diego, in the right hand lane at 11:37pm, at 70mph with the FSD autopilot engaged. Approaching a gentle left hand bend in the road I spotted a disabled vehicle in the right shoulder with its hazard lights on and the driver door open. The car was fully off the road and was not a hazard. My car suddenly applied the brakes and did a weird “shimmy” as if it was trying to decide to make a turn. The autopilot did not disengage. My hands were on the wheel the whole time so I immediately took control and disconnected the autopilot by pulling up on the bottom-left control column stalk. The autopilot relinquished control as expected. I have not experienced any previous incidents of random autopilot braking on the freeway. This particular incident did not create an unsafe situation but the sudden braking did startle me. I tried to use the vehicle’s voice recognition system to file a “bug report” right after but it didn’t work.

The display screen, which controls the vehicles defrost, a key road visibility function, repeatedly freezes during driving, incapacitating the defrost, heat and cooling systems .This presenta an extreme risk to life and limb that needs immediate attention action that Tesla refuses to address. Tesla has replaced the recalled chip, however, the problem persists and they claim it’s the age of computer and I would have to upgrade it at my expense. They claim my full car warranty doesn’t cover this as a pre-owned vehicle. Given that this is still related to the recall issue with the Tesla computer, they need to repair this at their expense by replacing the unit as they have with others in the past. Please help all affected Tesla owners before someone dies by representing us again as huge multinational company more interested in hitting sales targets than customer safety.

Went to back into charger and back up camera still showed photo from where car was parked at home before I started my trip. I noticed a car behind me in mirror but picture showed no cars (and wrong location).

Vehicle automatically and unexpectedly applies brakes when using Cruise Control when no other cars are in proximity or approaching. Sometimes braking is light but other times it is a jolt that is extremely starling. Often happens multiple times within minutes. Unpredictable when it will occur. I have taken the vehicle to Tesla 3 times and they say that they know about the problem but their Autopilot is still in Beta and are not actively working on a fix. On 4/28/2022, while on a trip, there were 5 incidents between 9:51am and 1:43pm.

The suspension failed when I was backing out of a parking spot. As I drove to the Tesla service center for the diagnosis, I could hear rattle and clanging. Tesla notified me the suspension forelink LH and RH had to be replaced.

Tesla has announced their intent to use "Tesla Vision" instead of radar to detect forward obstacles. "Tesla Vision" is a camera-only approach. Tesla cars receive OTA (over the air) updates, and these updates cannot declined. If an OTA update changes my car so that it no longer uses the radar with which it is equipped, I will have a much less safe vehicle, one that can't detect obstacles when there is poor visibility such as in the heavy fogs, rains, and snow conditions that we often encounter here on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. NHTSA should forbid the use of "Tesla Vision" without radar, and should require all Tesla vehicles to be retrofitted with functional, forward-looking radar.

On several occasions, I have been doing highway driving, and my 2017 Tesla Model S suddenly brakes without warning. It happens primarily on cruise control and around curves on the highway. On a trip to Atlanta earlier this year, it happened twice. I bought the car used in 2021, and it drives very well, but the unexpected braking at high speeds is scary.

I have experienced an increase in the number of phantom braking incidents when my autopilot is engaged. It's been on hilly roads but the car would just decelerate extremely fast when nothing was there. I also had two incidences on the highway where the screens froze and I couldn't control the instrument panels or see my speed etc.

The contact owns a 2017 Tesla Model S. The contact stated while driving approximately 70 MPH, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The contact stated that the vehicle quickly decelerated without warning to 50 MPH. The vehicle was taken to the dealer but was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 37,798.

The contact owned a 2017 Tesla Model-S. The contact stated while driving approximately 55 MPH, there was a sound of something fracturing on the vehicle. There were issues with the steering functionality. The vehicle drove off the side of the road and crashed into a telephone pole, then landed on an embankment. All air bags were deployed. The vehicle was destroyed. The vehicle was towed to an auction facility. The police and fire department arrived on the scene. There was a police report. The contact and passenger received medical treatments for back injuries. The manufacturer was notified of the steering failure prior to the accident, and after. The approximate failure mileage was unknown.

The car had multiple computer issues causing it to break unexpectedly, turn unexpectedly, avoid things that were not there unexpectedly. It was brought into the dealer multiple times, who actually viewed the error, and when they were driving it, they were involved in an auto accident. Even with the warranty, they could never fix it, and it was amazingly dangerous almost killing me several times.

The 2017 Tesla Model S we purchased has a known issue with the MCU. The MCU rewrites information in a log chip repeatedly and has been known to burn itself out after short periods of time. Tesla has agreed to replace the MCU owners when it malfunctions, but they will only do so when the chip has completely destroyed itself and will no longer boot. Ours was malfunctioning every ~40 mins...all of our screens would black out while driving. Tesla refused to replace it. Additionally, we purchased Full Self Driving from Tesla with a contract that stated "all needed equipment and software included." This was not a true statement. Those of us with the malfunctioning MCU1 were not included in the FSD program and were forced to bribe Tesla with $2500 to update our MCUs even when they were under warranty and should have been included under the FSD contract.

Front left forelink broke No prior accidents. No large pot holes

While the tesla “traffic aware” cruise control was engaged (part of the “auto pilot” system), the car breaked aggressively for no good reason. This has happened 4 times over the 9,000 miles I’ve driven the car, always at freeway speeds. Although no injuries or damage resulted so far, serious injury could occur if a car is following me too closely when this happens.

My vehicle driver door handle keeps popping open while parked and while driving. The door handle will either present itself or Not when this occurs. Disallowing me keep door shut. Also, door stays shut as times and doesn’t not present itself and makes a mechanical sound. This is a HUGE safety concern. I was advised since my warranty is up, it’s on me to fix, however, this is a safety defect and I am wanting to escalate ASAP before I have an accident from the door opening.

Unknown My daytime driving lights for safety have begun to go out. It has been a long standing complaint but they refuse to fix mine under an expired warranty and I was quoted $1650 each to replace. I was told they would do a good will replacement but they will not. There are many complaints on the Tesla forums.

The backup camera stopped working. I took the vehicle to the Tesla dealership and had to have the camera replaced. I am aware that there is a recall on Model 3 Tesla’s for a camera issue. I have also seen multiple sites online where Tesla drivers report issues with the backup camera for Model S vehicles.

On March 22, 2021 Tesla announced a recall of the 8GB MultimediaCard (eMMC) for my 2017 Tesla Model S. It causes the main touchscreen to go fail, rear camera to fail, lose of control of radio/defrost and all other commands that require this touch screen. Tesla said they would replace the eMMC. That was almost a year ago. My vehicle has experienced this failure multiple times both before and after the notice and yet still nothing. I actually took my car in for this failure in Nov 2020 and was told nothing was wrong. Its an intermittent failure which requires a reboot to fix temporarily.

The left front fore link assembly broke while I was driving approximately 30mph. See photo. The car made a bad vibration noise when braking or driving over a bump. I was barely able to drive it back home. The car did not have braking ability. I had to have it towed to the nearest Tesla Service Center (80 miles from my home). If this failure had happened at high speed, I imagine this could have resulted in an accident. I had the car repaired, and Tesla had a replacement part different from the original part, and also replaced the right side. It seems they are very aware of this part’s failure. Between the towing and repair, the total cost was approximately $1725.

Additional report for same problem with DIFFERENT car. This report is not about a single incident, but rather a REPEATED problem over several years with the adaptive cruise control on 3 different Tesla cars I have owned. These cars are a 2017 Tesla S, and 2 different 2021 Tesla Y models. in each case, whenever these cars are driven on a highway with the adaptive cruise control engaged, several times during each hour of driving, the cars will rapidly brake/decelerate with no action taken to cause the situation by the driver, nor any external situations with the traffic that would justify them. With the Tesla regenerative braking, these deceleration events are so extreme that it would be easy to imagine an accident with a car following closely behind. Indeed, with these situations occurring with no warning and extreme braking they are quite frightening to the passengers traveling in the car. During the most recent occurrence, I noted the exact day and minute of it's occurrence, and filed a service request with the local Tesla office. Even with the exact time of this event, the service center was unable to find anything wrong with the car. The Tesla service center attributed this issue to problems with the Autopilot and Full Self Driving software, but none of my cars have had this optional software-only the software which came standard on each of these cars. While otherwise appreciating the good characteristics of these cars, this unexplainable deceleration problem is what cause

Four separate issues to report: 1.) multiple instances of car braking while in self-drive mode. This has included driving at high speeds on highway and having vehicle slam on brakes nearly causing an accident. I took over as I was paying attention on all occasions. 2.) While is self-drive mode and a lane widens, car veers to “middle” of wide lane. This does not act in a way a normal driver would. 3.) Issues with middle screen stopping or resetting during driving. This was a reported recall issue and I did get the recall taken care of. Issue still persists. Tesla has not been responsive in getting this resolved. 4.) Recent issue with main screen panel behind steering wheel resetting while driving. Vehicle maintained operations, but I could not see speed or change gears while driving. This has happened before. Tesla updated CPU, issues persists.

Driving with autopliot engaged. I was in the left lane of a two lane highway when another car entered the highway to my right and car suddenly slammed on the brakes. i disengaged the autopilot. It happen several more time, so it is now a function I no longer use unless the highway is empty. I believe is was a $1000 option.

2/23/2022. Driving on highway with Tesla autopilot on and speed set to 65 MPH. Car was suddenly braking without any obstacle in front. Good thing that car behind me was quite a distance away, and I also noticed it slowed down immediately after seeing my car slowed down. This happened just after my Tesla model S with latest firmware update last week. The new firmware version is 2021.24.28. This is the first time I engaged autopilot after the firmware update.

The contact owns a 2017 Tesla Model S. The contact stated while charging the vehicle at a charge station, the contact entered the vehicle and after a few minutes, an abnormal plastic burning odor was present in the interior of the vehicle. The contact noticed white smoke coming from the front of the hood of the vehicle. The contact exited the vehicle and unpluged the charger from the vehicle and waited a few minutes for the white smoke to clear from the front of the vehicle on its own. No warning lights illuminated the vehicle, and the only message that appeared on the vehicle monitor was charging was almost complete. The vehicle was towed to a local dealer who diagnosed the failure as the fan condenser had overheated and it would need to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired, however, the contact had not picked up the vehicle from the dealership at this time. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 23, 227.

I experienced the "Phantom Braking" phenomenon while driving on freeways. It has happened 3 or 4 times in the last year or so. I did not see any obvious reason for the car to have slowed down dramatically because there wasn't a car in front of me at such instances. it occurred while Autopilot was engaged. It has happened on different freeways (I-680, I-880), traversing in different directions and at different times of the day.

Las Vegas,NV approximately 9:00AM an unknown motorist cut me off on surface streets. I had to apply brakes hard manually not in driving assist mode in an hard panic stop to avoid collision. When I resumed driving I heard crunching and scraping sounds coming from driver side front wheel. I pulled over and inspected an noticed tire was close to wheel well. I the drove carefully to nearby Tesla dealership. Problem was diagnosed as a fore link failure. It is important to note there was no impact whatsoever. I don’t think suspension components should fail after hard braking at approximately 40 mph.

The contact owns a 2017 Tesla Model S. The contact stated that on three separate occasions while driving at highway speeds with cruise control engaged, the vehicle would suddenly brake on its own. The contact was uncertain if any warning lights would appear on the instrument panel prior to the failure. The service center nor the manufacturer had yet to be notified of the failure. The contact stated that he was able to document the exact time that the latest failure occurred on the vehicle. The vehicle had yet to be repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 48,000.

Ever since I purchased this car I have suffered from Phantom Braking when using Cruise Control. As a result, I am unable to use any of the advanced Autopilot features. I spent $10,000 for something that has never even begun to work. Phantom Braking occurs seemingly at random, with no vehicles in front, nothing on the road and no overpasses or shadows. I try every few months to see if anything has improved, most recently in January on 101 north of Petaluma. The car suddenly braked, freaking out my passenger. I only try it when no other vehicles are around, so that I am not rear-ended when it happens, after some very scary near-rear-ending events early on. I have reported this problem to Tesla on MANY occasions but after being told "it is a known problem" I have given up reporting it. Is it repeatable? Yes, just drive on cruise control. Safety risk is being rear-ended. Has the problem reproduced by service? No, has it been confirmed, Yes. Has it been inspected by Tesla? Yes Warnings prior to the failure? No

The brakes have engaged while driving at high speeds (perhaps on about a half dozen occasions) when using either the adaptive cruise control or auto pilot, at a time when there were no road hazards or other cars in the forward or side vicinities. The braking that occurred was severe - a hard braking if you will. On two occasions, this same kind of braking occurred at the same point on a certain freeway that I was traveling on. This braking also occurred once while driving on a city street at low speeds with auto pilot engaged. The dates in which these incidents occurred were all in 2021. The only specific time frame I remember was in July 2021

On at least three (3) separate occasions, my Tesla has automatically slammed on the brakes. Once it happened while driving on Hwy 101 in high speed traffic flow. I was passing a right side on-ramp and I believe the Tesla got confused when it saw a car approaching the highway from the merge lane on my right. One time it happened on Hwy 101 in a construction zone marked 55mph. Perhaps the auto drive cameras got confused by the poorly marked road and lack of lane markings as traffic merged. One of the times it happened in Santa Barbara on State St, in a 35 mph zone. In each of the above cases, *I was not in autodrive*. I was subscribed to Beta software updates, but after these scary incidents, I discontinued Beta and went back to Standard updates.

Since Tesla has disabled the radar, and went to vision only, my car is a nightmare to drive on autopilot or FSD on two lane roads at night. Phantom braking, numerous times it has went onto the shoulder thinking an oncoming car a 1/4 away was in our lane, twice it even went into the oncoming traffic lane. Never did this when radar was enabled. My car has radar but they turned it off in software update

The contact owns a 2017 Tesla Model S. The contact received NHTSA Campaign Number: 21V00B000 (Latches/Locks/Linkages). While at the dealer the contact noted that the rear safety trunk latch does not release due to it being connected to the trunk release actuator. The "Trunk Open" warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer where it was diagnosed that the trunk actuator needed to be replaced but the manual interior trunk release does not function. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact purchased the trunk actuator however the replacement part failed to fix the vehicle. The manufacturer had been informed of the failure via email. The failure mileage was approximately 24,000.

The fore link on the front left wheel (driver side) seems to have snapped. It got disconnected from the wheel when parking the car. Steering became impossible with the wheel wobbling and causing strong grinding noises. I had heard strange noises and weird snaps before when turning the wheel to get out of my garage a couple of times over the past few months but the car seemed to drive fine so I didn't get worried further. When I went for brunch on Sunday (02/06/22) and pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant I heard strong noises and received shocks through the steering column and I knew something was _very_ wrong. I took a couple of photos (see attached) and noticed what seemed to be the problem (wheel control arm - fore link). I called a tow truck and was glad I didn't run into the issue while on the highway... Tesla is now has the car and is asking for $1,500 for 2 Fore Link assemblies... The car only has 36,000 miles and has been exclusively driven in Northern California (no rust or corrosion from the dry climate)

Multiple times during our drive experienced random braking and alert sounds going off. Had wife and dog in the car which were also jolted forward due to the sudden braking in the middle of the freeway. Clear weather (post-rain) in night conditions.

When in Full Self Driving mode, on the highway going on an overpass.... the vehicle suddenly applies the brakes. Imagine going from 70 mph to 40 for no reason. I discussed with Tesla, they said the vehicle is reading the speed limit from the road below the overpass. Very unsafe.

My Tesla suddenly brakes, without any input or action by me, on the highway without warning causing me to take corrective action to avoid being rear ended. My wife refuses to drive with me. She feels unsafe in the car. I have submitted complaints to Tesla multiple times. The frequency of sudden braking has decreased but it still exists

There is an unresolved eMMC memory chip recall, but all my appointments to have it corrected were canceled, reasoning lock of parts. Tesla claims to have delivered software solution, however my center screen restarts frequently, and during that process several functions do not work. Among them A/C, defroster, heat... The reboot process is initiated automatically and takes anywhere from 3 to 12 minutes. After my recent appointment was canceled i was informed not to make further appointments for this recall.

My Tesla Model S has emergency braked several times on a divided highway when I was driving at about 65 mph. This has happened multiple times over the last 4 years. Sometimes it happens when I drive under a bridge overpass. Sometimes it happens if the camera sees roadwork equipment on the side of the road - no where near I'm driving. When this happens I'm always afraid someone is going to rear end me. I no longer use any of the self-driving features on my Tesla and do not enable the emergency braking option. I don't trust it.

While driving on the highway at 65mph on autopilot, the car brakes very aggressively without any obstacles obstructing my path. Clear road ahead and I got from 65 to 50 very quickly and for no reason. I won't accelerate back to 65, but again the car was aggressively braking me back down to 50mph. It begins to look like in brake checking the driver behind me and they become upset and drive aggressively around me. This has happened so many times, I've lost count. I'll fill out a single incident report, but this has been happening for the past couple of years. I know you guys are getting a lot of complaints about this issue so I wanted to let you know about another vehicle having the same problem.

While on I65N, traveling at full speed on cruise control but not auto drive, the vehicle automatically applied the brakes. There was no apparent reason to brake. There were no cars in front or to either side and nothing on the road. We slowed quickly and abruptly, throwing everyone in the car forward. The slowing was so fast and so extreme that we were almost rear ended by the semi behind us. If he had not been able to move partially into the right lane and us into the left, he would have hit us at 70 mph. This is not the first “phantom braking incident ” that we have had but it definitely is the most dangerous one.

My 2017 Tesla modes S has had a phantom braking for nearly five years. It usually occurs when the car is in cruise control and falsely identifies a vehicle (usually on the front right side) that isn't there. The sudden and rapid braking is disconcerting at best and dangerous at worst. Fortunately, I have not had an accident due to this sudden and inappropriate behavior. I have supplied this information to Tesla several times including dozens of "bug report" which is sent directly to Tesla when the incident occurs. Tesla has never fixed the problem.

In the last couple of months the incidences of random braking have increased. Usually this has been on the freeway when using adaptive cruise control and often when there are no other vehicles around. However last week I was driving manually (no cruise control or “self driving”) on a two lane road. My foot was on the accelerator pedal, and had been since the last stop light about a half mile before, when the car suddenly and vigorously applied emergency braking. I immediately pushed the accelerator to the floor to avoid being rear ended, but the car continued braking almost to a standstill before I had control again. There were no vehicles in front of me, however there were vehicles in the oncoming lane. They were not near the center line. I turned off the automatic emergency braking at that time because I felt it was dangerous to leave it active. I would additionally state that Tesla has a habit of rearranging the touch screen so that you no longer know where to find certain controls and is dangerous because it’s then necessary to take your eyes off the road to figure out how it works now. Finally, I’ve been driving Tesla vehicles since 2016 and I love them. I paid for the “full self driving” option years ago and a “beta” version became available a few months ago. This is not ready for prime time. If I wanted thrills I would go to an amusement park. Even more basic things like auto lane change often don’t work because the cameras are constantly getting blinded when the sun i

The LED daytime running lights are failing for the second time on my vehicle. By failing, I mean they are burning out and no longer effective. This is a well-known issue with Tesla vehicles, however Tesla is doing nothing to resolve the problem. The only solution offered is to pay for an entire set of new headlights which costs nearly $2,600. The replacement headlights eventually fail within 24 months. Not having daytime running lights could be a safety issue. Tesla is aware of the component failure however no recalls for this defective part has been issued. I believe most Tesla owners of the "refreshed" Model S experience a degradation of the LED portion of the headlights, which are the daytime running lights. Today I was quoted $2,582 to replace both headlights. My lights were previously replaced in 2019 under the original vehicle warranty. Is there anything that can be done to have the lights replaced under a recall or have Tesla cover the cost of the repair?

I backed out of my driveway and heard something loose from the front part of the car. It wasn’t concerning enough to stop, thought it might be something moving around in the frunk. I drove to an appointment 3 miles away, parked, took out the tow bar from the frunk. After the appointment, I backed out, once the wheel was turned fully, I heard a snap. I got out and looked at passenger front tire. It was in contact with the rear wheel well. I straightened the steering wheel to pull the car back into the spot, but the tire was still rubbing on the wheel well. It had to be towed to tesla service center. It was diagnosed as a broken suspension forelink. I believe this could have been very unsafe if I had been driving at higher speeds. I also wonder about my drivers side forelink as well, since that wasn’t replaced.

My vehicle is the subject of Recall No. 21V-035 (SB2121001). At the time that I received notice of this recall, about 1 year ago, I had already complained to Tesla about the board malfunctioning for approximately 4-5 months. Each time I contact the Mfr, Tesla, about this issue, they continue to claim unavailability of parts for multimedia display board. They do, however, have an upgraded board that they would put in for a $1500 charge (https://www.tesla.com/support/infotainment). If they have no plans to offer replacement parts for my defection board, should they not be forced to put in the compatible part at no charge even though it is being sold as an "upgrade" (which they hope will get them around having to foot the bill for Recall replacements). After all, it's only an upgrade if the original board functions as designed...which it does not. The car was sold with a set of listed features - but maps don't update, voice recognition is nearly non-functional, and now video recording from the car's cameras have lost color and are two-tone. I even offered, as a compromise to get me a working board, to pay Tesla $1000 for the upgraded board and they declined. I'm requesting help forcing the Mfr to either fix my board with a replacement daughter board or replace the whole thing with a working upgraded infotainment board - all under the aegis of the existing recall.

The scroll wheel on the steering wheel failed which prevents the vehicle display from showing critical information. This scroll wheels are also used to reboot the computer when the system fails so it is a safety concern that needs to be addressed. Many Tesla owners have had a similar failure of the scroll wheels and a disassembly of the component clearly shows a defect in the manufacture of the part in that it has a thin extension that breaks due to normal use and as a result, failure of the scroll wheel is highly probable.

Wiper motor failing

Headlight premature failure

On autopilot, if I approach a 60-mile speed limit section with speed more than 60mph and on my right is there a big container truck, my car suddenly slows down drastically. This makes people behind me mad because they think I brake-checked them. If I pressed on the speed pedal, it will accelerate but it will brake again if I release the speed pedal too soon. It almost consistently behaves like that.

The contact owns a 2017 Tesla Model S 75. The contact stated that while driving at approximately 70 mph, the brakes were seized while on autopilot. In addition, there was a warning error the contact was unable to remember. The contact mentioned the emergency brake engaged independently and the contact was unable to control the vehicle which caused the vehicle to crash into the guardrail. A police report was not filed. The air bags failed to deploy. The vehicle was towed to a service center where a diagnostic was not attempted but the vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The VIN was not included in NHTSA campaign number: 21v846000 ( forward collision avoidance). The approximate failure mileage was 54,504. Vehicle was not listed on the recall.