Tesla Denies Report Of Possible Safety Defect In Model S

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Obviously it is in Tesla's best interest to deny these claims but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just doesn't start investigating a company for no reason either. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The issue came to light after an article on DailyKanban.com noted reports of Tesla owners who are allegedly experiencing problems with their suspensions, including one owner of a 2013 Model S who says the “left front hub assembly separated from the upper control arm” after only putting 70,000 miles on the car. The article also contains claims from some owners that they are being asked to sign nondisclosure agreements that they believe would prevent them from taking their issue to NHTSA.
 
Yeah, with the post from EODetroit, this just looks like clickbait through and through.
 
It seems to me that Tesla faces some real unequal attention from the NHTSA and the media. You have ONE CAR that had a problem, didn't cause anyone any harm, that likely isn't even a manufacturing defect, Tesla agreed to cover and fix anyway, and this blows up in the media and the NHTSA is investigating.

How many Ford Explorers with Firestone tires had to roll over and kill people before there was an investigation?

How many Toyota's with unintended acceleration related accidents were there before anything was done?

How many faulty GM ignition switches led to accidents and some deaths before there was an investigation?

How many Takeda air bags injured people before there was an investigation of those?

My point being, the above were real issues with real injuries, and many fatalities that got no attention for months and months and in some cases years. Tesla has a single mechanical problem with one vehicle, that probably isn't even their fault or safety related, and it blows up in massive "Tesla has Safety issues" stories.

There just seems to be a lot of bias in the media against Tesla, and I'm willing to bet it is fueled by a bias against electric vehicles, which is a huge shame.
 
some people need to get over themselves and accept the fact that tesla is probably the first person in this country to actually get electric cars on the road for good.
 
As a GM owner I find this hilarious. Well known, well documented issues with strub rub, engine fires etc and nobody gave a single shit. Tesla has a car here and there with an issue and suddenly they are in everyone's targets. Corporate PR war.
 
  • Like
Reactions: N4CR
like this
A Grain of Salt


It is deeply ironic that the only customer who apparently believes that this document prevents him from talking to NHTSA is also the same one who talked to NHTSA. If our agreement was meant to prevent that, it obviously wasn’t very good.
Click to expand...
 
Monkey God said:
As a GM owner I find this hilarious. Well known, well documented issues with strub rub, engine fires etc and nobody gave a single shit. Tesla has a car here and there with an issue and suddenly they are in everyone's targets. Corporate PR war.
Click to expand...
You mean like the Volt fires? Was that Tesla, you're sayin'?
 
This is a money grab and they are using the media to pressure Tesla into a payout to prevent bad press.
 
So here is another fact.

In order for a ball-joint to break like that, it has to:

1. Be defective from the get-go (samples are only spot tested), so if you have a run of say 10,000, only a couple are going to be pulled out for verification testing.

2. The owner not only put excessive stress on it, but also not have been regular with vehicle service. Any competent shop can find a worn out ball joint or other suspension issues in a matter of minutes. All it involves is jacking up the car or putting it on a hoist and feeling for specific feelings of looseness. And IF the owner was driving this vehicle off-road and somehow the rubber boot on the ball joint was torn, it would allow dirt/grit in there that would have aggravated the wear and accelerated the failure of the ball joint.

So yeah, he could have gotten a "defective" part, but since the car did have 73,000 miles on it when it failed, it is definitely not unfathomable that it failed... see #2 above.

Failure to maintain the vehicle for the type of driving/environment the vehicle was in is the most likely scenario.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It seems to me that Tesla faces some real unequal attention from the NHTSA and the media. You have ONE CAR that had a problem, didn't cause anyone any harm, that likely isn't even a manufacturing defect, Tesla agreed to cover and fix anyway, and this blows up in the media and the NHTSA is investigating.

How many Ford Explorers with Firestone tires had to roll over and kill people before there was an investigation?
Click to expand...

In almost every case the Explorer was over loaded, had bald tires, had mismatched/retread tires, or was traveling too fast (over 80 mph) on the truck rated tires.
I agree the Firestone tires where garbage, but they where also cheap, and you get what you pay for.

Zarathustra[H] said:
How many Toyota's with unintended acceleration related accidents were there before anything was done?
Click to expand...

Another over blown problem. Most cases where either due to 3rd part floor mats getting stuck under the accelerator, or due to people pressing the gas instead of the brake.


Zarathustra[H] said:
How many faulty GM ignition switches led to accidents and some deaths before there was an investigation?

How many Takeda air bags injured people before there was an investigation of those?
Click to expand...

Now these are real, wide scale problems.
GM tried to cover up the extent of the problem, same with Takeda.

Zarathustra[H] said:
My point being, the above were real issues with real injuries, and many fatalities that got no attention for months and months and in some cases years. Tesla has a single mechanical problem with one vehicle, that probably isn't even their fault or safety related, and it blows up in massive "Tesla has Safety issues" stories.

There just seems to be a lot of bias in the media against Tesla, and I'm willing to bet it is fueled by a bias against electric vehicles, which is a huge shame.
Click to expand...

I don't agree.
Tesla seems to be having more problems when you consider the small number of cars they have produced.
Just like any new company, I would expect them to have more issues and expect more scrutiny.
 
cyclone3d said:
So here is another fact.

In order for a ball-joint to break like that, it has to:

1. Be defective from the get-go (samples are only spot tested), so if you have a run of say 10,000, only a couple are going to be pulled out for verification testing.

2. The owner not only put excessive stress on it, but also not have been regular with vehicle service. Any competent shop can find a worn out ball joint or other suspension issues in a matter of minutes. All it involves is jacking up the car or putting it on a hoist and feeling for specific feelings of looseness. And IF the owner was driving this vehicle off-road and somehow the rubber boot on the ball joint was torn, it would allow dirt/grit in there that would have aggravated the wear and accelerated the failure of the ball joint.

So yeah, he could have gotten a "defective" part, but since the car did have 73,000 miles on it when it failed, it is definitely not unfathomable that it failed... see #2 above.

Failure to maintain the vehicle for the type of driving/environment the vehicle was in is the most likely scenario.
Click to expand...

The number of poorly- or outright unpaved- roads in North America would suggest that vehicles should be engineered with a tougher suspension or have a much shorter service interval for the relevant parts. My old Yukon ate wheel bearings like candy (every 25,000km). Cheap part but the labour, not so much! :(
 
So a ball joint in a single car failed after 70k miles... Absolutely Tesla's fault for using a ball joint in their cars when no other manufacturer does.... (/sarcasm). That's a wear/tear item used in pretty much every single car. 70k to failure is not unrealistic or unheard of, regardless of manufacturer. But sure lets make a clickbait article that sound like all tesla's are just falling apart on the road.....

And I like how the article (second post) that is supposed to clear things up highlights the shocks, when that isn't even the part that failed.
 
Todd Walter said:
The number of poorly- or outright unpaved- roads in North America would suggest that vehicles should be engineered with a tougher suspension or have a much shorter service interval for the relevant parts. My old Yukon ate wheel bearings like candy (every 25,000km). Cheap part but the labour, not so much! :(
Click to expand...

But then the weight AND price of the vehicles would go up and people would complain about that.

And "poorly - or outright unpaved - roads" comment is quite funny to me.

IF you want every single little backwoods road paved and kept in tip top shape, you are going to have to eliminate government corruption and waste... or maybe get the FEDS hands out of everything that it shouldn't be in. And for areas that have a super low population, their tax money can only go so far. Dirt/gravel roads generally have a very, very low number of people driving on them.

Around where I am, it seems they always repave certain roads at a set interval and then let other roads that have needed repaving for a long time just continue to get worse and worse. Still, even the bad roads are not to the point of causing an excessive amount of wear. I am pretty sure that this is mostly because of the people that have a say in the matter live around the areas that are maintained the best (excessive).

Also, if the ball-joint on that car was really in so bad of shape that it broke, the owner should have noticed popping/knocking noises long before it broke. I am guessing that either the Teslas are so well sound insulated that you can't hear anything like that, or the owner ignored it.
 
Was somewhat amused by the statement:
“The car had over 70,000 miles on it and its owner lives down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car,” explains Tesla, saying that it took one tow truck to get the car to the highway and one to get it from the highway to the service center. “When we got the car, it was caked in dirt.”
If the road is so bad or remote that one tow truck isn't good enough, we might have found the real problem. Wonder how many other vehicles the owner has went through and what their failure modes were?
 
Wouldn't be surprised if some of the anti tesla bs is from the petroCon companies. They make the blind fanboys here look impartial.
 
Yeah, it is strange to break.

Then again, I have no idea if this event makes for a failure rate that's any higher than the industry overall.

I've seen cars stopped on the highway with a wheel jammed up into a fender, so I know 1st person that it happens in general.

Suspension does wear out. Replacing tie rods is pretty normal on any car. Bushings too. 70k is pretty early for a failure ... but who knows how the dude drove the car. He easily could have been having fun flying down dirt roads and beating up his suspension. Wouldn't be the first time. Not saying he did - just that things might not be cut and dry.

-scheherazade
 
Last edited:
Tesla's response has been updated today. The response also mentions that "there are several billion dollars in short sale bets against Tesla", and that in this case, the driver "previously wrote a blog titled 'Tesla Death Watch,' which starting on May 19, 2008 was counting the days until Tesla’s death".

Update:

NHTSA confirmed today that they found no safety concern with the Model S suspension and have no further need for data from us on this matter
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2016

Of greater concern: 37 of 40 suspension complaints to NHTSA were fraudulent, i.e. false location or vehicle identification numbers were used
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2016

Would seem to indicate that one or more people sought to create the false impression of a safety issue where none existed. Q is why?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2016
 
I wonder if they will counter sue those complaints who don't even have a car.
 
scheherazade said:
Yeah, it is strange to break.
I've seen cars stopped on the highway with a wheel jammed up into a fender, so I know 1st person that it happens in general.

Suspension does wear out. Replacing tie rods is pretty normal on any car. Bushings too. 70k is pretty early for a failure ... but who knows how the dude drove the car. He easily could have been having fun flying down dirt roads and beating up his suspension. Wouldn't be the first time. Not saying he did - just that things might not be cut and dry.
Click to expand...

My friends wife was backing their Jeep SUV out of the driveway when the rear wheel fell off. Not just the tire, but the hub and everything.
Only a few years old and didn't have that many miles on it.
Scared them so much (it could have happen 10 minutes later on the highway), that after the car was fixed, they traded it in on a new car (non Jeep).
 
cyclone3d said:
So here is another fact.

In order for a ball-joint to break like that, it has to:

1. Be defective from the get-go (samples are only spot tested), so if you have a run of say 10,000, only a couple are going to be pulled out for verification testing.

2. The owner not only put excessive stress on it, but also not have been regular with vehicle service. Any competent shop can find a worn out ball joint or other suspension issues in a matter of minutes. All it involves is jacking up the car or putting it on a hoist and feeling for specific feelings of looseness. And IF the owner was driving this vehicle off-road and somehow the rubber boot on the ball joint was torn, it would allow dirt/grit in there that would have aggravated the wear and accelerated the failure of the ball joint.

So yeah, he could have gotten a "defective" part, but since the car did have 73,000 miles on it when it failed, it is definitely not unfathomable that it failed... see #2 above.

Failure to maintain the vehicle for the type of driving/environment the vehicle was in is the most likely scenario.
Click to expand...


I have never had a hub separate from a car and I have driven cars in excess of 200K miles. Ball joints typically give AMPLE warning of failure (shaking in the steering or body as speed increases for example) so I am going to have to say that the Tesla owner is an idiot....
 
cyclone3d said:
So here is another fact.

In order for a ball-joint to break like that, it has to:

1. Be defective from the get-go (samples are only spot tested), so if you have a run of say 10,000, only a couple are going to be pulled out for verification testing.

2. The owner not only put excessive stress on it, but also not have been regular with vehicle service. Any competent shop can find a worn out ball joint or other suspension issues in a matter of minutes. All it involves is jacking up the car or putting it on a hoist and feeling for specific feelings of looseness. And IF the owner was driving this vehicle off-road and somehow the rubber boot on the ball joint was torn, it would allow dirt/grit in there that would have aggravated the wear and accelerated the failure of the ball joint.

So yeah, he could have gotten a "defective" part, but since the car did have 73,000 miles on it when it failed, it is definitely not unfathomable that it failed... see #2 above.

Failure to maintain the vehicle for the type of driving/environment the vehicle was in is the most likely scenario.
Click to expand...

Lower ball joints and tie rods start giving out at 70-100k anyways. I replaced mine at 80k roughly, cause the boot went, so it wouldn't have been much longer until the whole tie rod went. I doubt he got a "defective" part and simply ignored regular schedule maintenance. Most Americans do. Hell, most of the world does.

Maybe they should get people into the habit of doing like 10k visual inspections. I'm sure if people could just drive into a shop, pay $10-20 for a quick inspection, people might do it. Although, you need actual good mechanics, not shady ones that just start making crap up to get you to buy something you really don't need.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
There just seems to be a lot of bias in the media against Tesla, and I'm willing to bet it is fueled by a bias against electric vehicles, which is a huge shame.
Click to expand...

There is an even bigger bias against autonomous vehicles. The media nowadays doesn't want to report facts, they report clickbait, and articles in concensus with the general vibe of the people. In other words they try to write articles catering to the feelings to the majority, even if it means disregarding reality entirely. Almost exactly as PC culture disregards reality when it would hurt someone's feelings.
 
cyclone3d said:
But then the weight AND price of the vehicles would go up and people would complain about that.

And "poorly - or outright unpaved - roads" comment is quite funny to me.

IF you want every single little backwoods road paved and kept in tip top shape, you are going to have to eliminate government corruption and waste... or maybe get the FEDS hands out of everything that it shouldn't be in. And for areas that have a super low population, their tax money can only go so far. Dirt/gravel roads generally have a very, very low number of people driving on them.

...
Click to expand...

Check out www.dangerousroads.com and re-evaluate. The amount of use a gravel road sees is much greater than you believe it to be, especially if you are a city dweller. Commercial traffic doesn't teleport to your city limits you know.

As for its condition, it doesn't have to be tip top shape - hell it doesn't even have to be paved - but when the damn thing resembles the French countryside post-WW1 perhaps it's time to do a little maintenance. Infrastructure in NA is in a terrible state.
 
krotch said:
Lower ball joints and tie rods start giving out at 70-100k anyways. I replaced mine at 80k roughly, cause the boot went, so it wouldn't have been much longer until the whole tie rod went. I doubt he got a "defective" part and simply ignored regular schedule maintenance. Most Americans do. Hell, most of the world does.

Maybe they should get people into the habit of doing like 10k visual inspections. I'm sure if people could just drive into a shop, pay $10-20 for a quick inspection, people might do it. Although, you need actual good mechanics, not shady ones that just start making crap up to get you to buy something you really don't need.
Click to expand...


life of ball joints have a lot to do with road condition and how they are loaded on the suspension

82 Chrysler, 380K, never replaced (that I know of(
84 Olds 98 143K, 1 set
82 Cutlass Cierra, 125K, never replaced
89 Sable 196K, 1 set
92 Sable 145K, never replaced
94 accord 200K+, never replaced
98 accord 100K+, never replaced
01 CL-S 140K 4 sets
03 Legacy 105K, not yet
14 Legacy 20K, not let

above website should be

USA
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
life of ball joints have a lot to do with road condition and how they are loaded on the suspension

...

above website should be

USA
Click to expand...

I'd also say the geometry has a lot to do with it. The OEMs make some questionable packaging decisions sometimes. In the case of the Tesla, I'd expect them to use heavy duty parts considering the amount of torque an electric motor can provide from a standing start.
 
That's true, I really didn't think about different cars. I pretty much only buy Subarus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top