Hi everyone! I posted earlier about my decision to buy a Toyota Tacoma to replace my S (I have not traded the S in, I got the Tacoma yesterday and I'm currently waiting on repairs from Tesla before I sell the S).

I suggested in the comment thread that I'd do a post about EVERYTHING that went wrong with that car. So let's buckle up because here we go.

I bought the car CPO from Tesla in June of 2019, it is a 2016 75D/"Standard Range" S. The car is a relatively rare build because Tesla upgraded to Autopilot 2 hardware in October of '16 and removed the free unlimited supercharging perk in January of '17 (or roughly around that time). My car came down the line in November of '16 so it's one of very few Ses that has both these features. The first time I took it into the Service Center I was told by a technician (who does not drive a Tesla as his personal vehicle) that this particular run of Ses was one of the best batch he'd ever seen. Oh boy let's see how great this batch is.

The first thing that went wrong with the car was actually broken from the time I bought it, but I didn't notice for a few months because it was the heated steering wheel. Winter '19/'20 set in and I realized the steering wheel wasn't warming up. I took it in for warranty repair and they found it was simply unplugged, this was free.

In the summer of 2020, amid the COVID lockdowns, one day the trunk failed to latch and was stuck open. I tried pulling the emergency release but that did nothing. I scheduled a mobile appointment (which I will give Tesla credit for, very few car companies make housecalls), and the technician was also unable to get the trunk to latch. So I scheduled a service center appointment and had to drive with the trunk open for a couple weeks, this made an annoying beeping noise and prevented me from using ANY cruise control, let alone "Autopilot" (or "Full-Self Driving", I actually got grandfathered into the offer to upgrade from EAP to FSD for $3000 so I pulled the trigger on that, I have not requested the FSD Beta because it looks like a death machine to me).

Amazingly during my drive to the service center the trunk magically fixed itself. I wasn't about to turn around and go home since I figured the part could still be faulty, so I asked them to look at it anyway. Since they didn't see anything wrong they charged me over $500 to replace the components. This was my first repair bill.

A couple months later I was rear-ended by a teenager and she did a bunch of damage to the back of the car, this was one of my most seamless issues with the car, I took it to a local collision repair shop and they had it back to me within 3 days, all of these costs were paid by insurance.

At some point I took the car in for them to replace the MCU (the 17" touchscreen) with the newer one so I could get Netflix and YouTube on my center screen. This was an optional service center visit, though the original MCU was REALLY starting to chug on newer Tesla software. The replacement cost $1600 and they did not put in a new AM/FM radio (that would have been an additional $500 and I don't listen to the radio much anyway). I was actually kind of happy that I could have the option to upgrade this tech, but if MCU2 winds up being as sluggish as MCU1 was when it was just 4-5 years old this seems like an extra non-optional cost.

In the summer of 2021 I got the error "12V BATTERY LOW SCHEDULE SERVICE NOW". That seemed really urgent, so I went on YouTube and searched for this error and found out that James May got the same issue. TL;DW the 12V system is powered primarily by a DC-to-DC converter from the main battery, but when the main battery disconnects there's a small 12V (like one you'd use in a motorcycle) that is needed to power on the actuators that connect the main battery. If the 12V goes flat the car is bricked and, because the 12V is under the frunk and the frunk is electronically actuated, the only way to get to the 12V to trickle charge it is to partially dismantle the car.

In fact, I was lucky to get a warning at all some Teslas have had this happen with no warning and in fact it was a software update that even added the warning. And in fact a lot of early Teslas failed within a year because for some reason they charge and discharge the 12V like mad. I hope they've improved this since this blog post, but anyway this is a serious design defect.

Tesla did the right thing here and got me into service the next day AND I got the car back within 90 minutes. This is the fastest turnaround time I've ever seen from them, however I'm fairly certain that if my car was no longer under warranty (meaning they would not be responsible for paying to tow it to the service center) I would not have gotten such white glove treatment.

In 2022 I read the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by Ed Niedermeyer. From this book I learned about whompy wheels and learned a rumor that many Teslas were built with cheap aluminum suspensions that tend to fail. China forced Tesla to do a recall on cars built in the US and exported to China.

I frantically drove to my local tire shop and asked them to look at the suspension, they reported that it looked to be in good condition but that there was a leak in the hydraulic fluid that Tesla should repair under warranty. I took the car to Tesla and they had it for SIX DAYS during which I had to rely on their Uber vouchers (Tesla only recently started doing loaners in my area, it might be because I live in a very obscure remote place called New York City /s). They reported to me that nothing was wrong with the suspension and returned the car, completely filthy since they'd left it parked under a tree.

In late 2022 I decided to save some money by replacing my wiper blades myself. While the blade arms were out one of the springs came loose and smashed into the windshield. It took me about a week to get the wiper back on, I tried every tool in my toolbox and eventually just took it to the tire shop where they put in a vice and got it to reconnect. They did this for free. Over the winter of '22/'23 however the damage to the windshield escalated into a crack. This is mostly my own stupid fault, I probably could have prevented this crack from growing with a cheapo Amazon glass repair kit, but none of the other cars I've ever driven have had something this nuts happen.

I took the car to a local glass repair shop and the owner told me I needed a full new windshield. He called Tesla to confirm the part number and order it, they did not pick up the phone. I was out of the country for about a month so I left this to pick up when I returned. I just went to SafeLite since I assumed they had more staff to pester Tesla to send them the windshield. Dropped off my car, they called me and said they had to wait a couple weeks for the windshield to ship. About a week later I dropped off the car AGAIN and they replaced the windshield.

This cost me another $500 out of pocket and the rest (about $700) was covered by insurance.

On March 7th 2023 a kid jumped a stop sign and crashed into my driver's side door, he put a huge dent in it and the door handle got stuck in the presenting position. Because he was not the policyholder* his insurance could not establish that he had permission to drive the vehicle and said they would not pay for the repair, so I again had to go through my insurance meaning I couldn't get a loaner.

It took Tesla TWO WEEKS to ship a new door to the only local Tesla-certified collision repair center in my area (this was about a 30 minute drive and I had to Uber both ways since there was no nearby public transit). When I got the car back there was an obnoxious amount of wind noise, I found they had misaligned the new window with the weather stripping. I brought the car back to them and they tooled around enough to get the wind noise down to a lower level, but it is still not gone. I did find I could jam some paper into the weather stripping and shim it up to prevent a little bit of noise.

This was a $500 out of pocket cost (which I may get back through insurance arbitration) and the cost to the insurance was a whopping $4700!

Now we come to the straw that broke the camel's back. I noticed in the manual recently that my car is due for a replacement of the HVAC filter. They're fairly cheap on Amazon, so I figured I'd try doing it myself again. My wife talked me out of this due to what happened with the wiper blades. Additionally the HVAC system has a desicant bag that needs to be replaced periodically (like one of those sillica gel packets), and that requires a special machine.

So I scheduled a service center visit, they informed me my car was also eligible for a free upgrade to the autopilot cameras. I dropped off the car and for the first time in FOUR YEARS they gave me a loaner, a lease-return Model Y that presumably they couldn't find a buyer for (this car was a complete shitbox but that's a whole other story).

They said they would take FIVE DAYS to do this quick 30 minute job of replacing the HVAC filters. I also tried phoning them to ask if they could take a look at the wind noise from the previous repair, there was a message on the phone that told me I need to do all communication with them through the app. I messaged in the app, they did not respond.

Amazingly I got the car back after just FOUR days, but I was informed they did not look at the wind noise because it wasn't on the original list of things, and I would need to book ANOTHER appointment and wait ANOTHER two weeks for that. Replacing a $30 HVAC filter and a dessicant bag cost me a whopping $460!

After I got the car back, however, I realized that they did not merely "upgrade" the Autopilot cameras. They removed the Autopilot radar. I know they did it because now my follow distance bottoms out at 2 and I now have an 85mi/hr Autosteer speed limit. By the way, unlike the 3 and Y the Autopilot follow distance control in the S is a physical click-knob. So I can click it to 7,6,5,4,3,2 and 2. Like they replaced the bottom position with a second "2".

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

The HVAC is now blowing hot air. Every time I turn on the AC the car blasts me in the face with hot air and the compressor goes nuts. I assume this means the coolant is low (since it seems to have some ability to cool but is struggling a LOT).

So that's the end of our story. That's everything that's happened to this car so far. And where are we now? I have an appointment with service to fix the remaining problems and YESTERDAY I bought a 2020 Toyota Tacoma which GET THIS has a radar adaptive cruise control! No fancy "Autopilot" or "Autosteer", but it has lane departure warning which is enough to keep me awake on a long nighttime drive.

The biggest open secret about "Autopilot" and "FSD" is that they're mostly off-the-shelf components. Rather than building a self-driving car what Tesla actually did was take standard driver-assistance cruise control features and mash them together pretending they're something magical.

*This was a frankly ridiculous claim on the part of his insurance since his mother was the policyholder and the police report documents that she was sitting in the passenger's seat at the time of the collision. So I guess their position is that she was in the process of being kidnapped.

If you ever get into a crash like this make sure to take out your phone, take a video, and say "Do you have his/her permission to drive this vehicle?" If they say no just turn to the police and say it's a stolen vehicle and it needs to be impounded.