2014 Tesla Model S Powertrain & Transmission Problems

Coolant ingress found on second Model S large drive unit in rear. After this leak destroyed my first vehicle, second was checked as a precaution and was found to have coolant leaking into drive unit as well.

The rotor seal on the Large Drive Units on Tesla Model S and X fail, causing coolant to leak into the drive unit, flooding it and damaging the inverter. This leads to a replacement cost from Tesla for approximately $7 - $8,000. As this is a design failure this should be a recall and Tesla should at least repair all units prior to their failure or replace them with an updated motor.

My 2014 P85D model S electric rear motor failed. I heard a loud noise coming from it so I took it in to Tesla and they agreed the motor was failing and needed to be replaced, Cost $6,582.04. If I had driven the car and the motor seized up it while on the highway it would have been catastrophic. I would have lost control as the motor froze the rear wheel. Tesla knows of this problem, has replaced many of them, unfortunately post warranty. They know the seals leak and coolant leaks into the motor and causes the motor to fail. They have made a number of design changes including the latest where they eliminate a cooling branch going through the motor. Prior to this change none of the fixes have eliminated the problem.

In 2014, I ordered this Model S P85D, received it on 12/20/2014, I also purchased a 4-year extended service plan. Starting from March 2017, it started to encounter random yet serious problems. The car would randomly produce critical errors, displaying several types of error messages, while losing most of its driving power; the driver would have to perform emergency pullovers onto the road shoulder, if available, before the power rapidly reduce to zero. Then the driver need to restart the main computer (sometimes several times), to reset the error messages. Only after that, the car became drive-able again. I wrote an email to ServiceHelpNA@tesla.com on 03/23/2017 describing the problem, since then, this became a chronic issue; Service centers in Virginia, Maryland, and San Juan PR have performed numerous attempts on this problem, none of them was able to fix it. According to my records, for this issue, the car has been in the shop for more than 10 times, and more than a dozen components have been replaced. The total time it has been out of service is more than 380 days. I now consider it "unfixable" by Tesla. This kind of problem have created many dangerous situations when it occurred on the road, especially when the driver doesn't know how to handle it, doesn't pull over on the shoulder quickly, or there's no safe place to pull over.

Car won’t shift gears just stuck on park. Battery reduced.

The vehicle went into "REDUCED POWER" (Turtle Mode) error. Which reduced the power and the ability to accelerate out of an intersection and away from incoming traffic. I followed the recommendations of powering the vehicle off. It would correct itself then randomly does the same thing. This is SAFETY ISSUE and needs to be resolved before someone gets into a major accident which will result in great bodily injury or death.

Loud whining noise coming from the rear of the vehicle. Tesla says it needs a new rear drive unit. The noise has been going on for some time and gradually gotten worse.

My 2014 Tesla Model S is an unsafe vehicle as my dash goes black constantly and I lose control of the car safety items included in the dash panel such as speed, back up camera, visibility and power train. I have complained many times but Tesla does not respond with results that will make the car safe again.

Recently my drive unit has begin to fail. This is the second drive unit in the vehicle, approaching the 3rd. Then there is The issues with the doorhandles. The doorhandles when the sensor breaks or motor breaks can cause safety concerns related to doorhandles freely opening or inability to open. When the doorhandles motor defects the door handle cannot extend preventing access to any door in the car. When the door handles sensor fails, the doors will freely extend out words assuming someone is grabbing onto the handle. Recently my dog escaped the vehicle due to just me unlocking the car upon entry. I have had 2 door handle replacements and I am sensing a fault in another one. This is a common issue on the generation 1 Tesla model s door handles.

TOTAL MAIN COMPUTER FAILURE (MCU) - MANY SAFETY FEATURES WERE UNACCESSIBLE AND NOT AVAILABLE INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO TURN SIGNALS AND HAZARD LIGHTS STOP WORKING, THE SETTINGS FOR AUTOPILOT AND DRIVING ARE GONE, THE SUSPENSION SETTINGS, THE ABILITY TO TURN ON HEADLIGHTS MANUALLY, ABILITY TO MANUALLY LOCK AND UNLOCK THE VEHICLE, NAVIGATION, A/C, SUNROOF CONTROLS, ETC.

SUBFRAME BROKE AFTER 80,000 MILES OR NORMAL DRIVING. NO ACCIDENTS OR DAMAGE TO CAR AFFECTING THIS AREA. JUST DRIVING ON THE HIGHWAY AND ALL OF SUDDEN STARTED TO HEAR A THUMPING SOUND WHEN ACCELERATING OR DECELERATING OR BACKING UP.

AFTER SOFTWARE UPDATE SUPERCHARGING SLOWED BY MORE THAN 50% AND RANGE ON FULL CHARGE DROPPED

SUDDEN LOSS OF RANGE WITH 2019.16.X SOFTWARE UPDATE. MY VEHICLE WAS ONE OF THE MANY VEHICLES THAT WAS EFFECTED BY SOFTWARE UPDATE BY TESLA. I HAVE LOST ABOUT 30 MILES IN RANGE AND THE SUPERCHARGING SPEED IS SIGNIFICANTLY DECREASED COMPARE TO PRIOR TO THE SOFTWARE UPDATE.

MY DRIVETRAIN GOT WATER INTRUSION. THIS WATER INTRUSION RENDERED MY DRIVETRAIN TO FAIL. I WAS TOLD IT WAS NOT COVERED BY MANUFACTURE WARRANTY. WARRANTY WAS FOR 8YRS & UNLIMITED MILES.

I HAVE A P85D AND SINCE RECENT SOFTWARE UPDATES MY RANGE HAS DROPPED SIGNIFICANTLY.. MY SUPERCHARGER SESSIONS HAVE ALSO BECOME EXTREMELY SLOW RESULTING IN ALMOST AN AN EXTRA HOUR TO CHARGE THE CAR COMPARED TO BEFORE UPDATES. THESE UPDATES SEEM TO BE A MAKESHIFT COVER FOR DEFECTIVE BATTERIES DUE TO HIGH FIRE AND EXPLOSION RISK, WHICH HAVE OCCURRED ON OTHER TESLA CARS. SO INSTEAD OF FIXING BATTERIES TESLA REDUCED THEIR CAPABILITIES ACROSS THE BOARD.

TESLA HAS LIMITED CHARGING SPEED AFTER A 2019.16.X SOFTWARE UPDATE TO ALMOST 3X SLOWER, FOLLOWING REPORTS OF FIRES WITH CARS WHILE JUST SITTING THERE. THE CAR HAS ADDITIONALLY BEGAN DETERIORATE QUICKLY AS DISTANCE AVAILABLE TO DRIVE AFTER THE 2019.16.X UPDATE HAS GONE DOWN AS WELL. THIS IS NOW KNOWN ON THE INTERNET AS "BATTERYGATE" AND "CHARGEGATE". DUE TO LACK OF COMMUNICATION FROM TESLA ON THIS ISSUE AND FIRES SURROUNDING CARS WITH SIMILAR BATTERIES, I AM NOT CONFIDENT THE ISSUE HAS BEEN RESOLVED WITH JUST SOFTWARE AND THE CAR IS COMPLETELY SAFE TO OPERATE WITH THE BATTERY IT WAS SOLD WITH. I AM NOT EVEN SURE IT IS SAFE TO SLEEP UNDER THE SAME ROOF AS WHERE IT IS BEING PARKED.

ON MAY 20TH, 2019, THE SUBJECT VEHICLE WAS UPDATED WITH TESLA'S SOFTWARE UPDATES AND LOST OVER 20 MILES OVERNIGHT. THE VEHICLE HAS SUFFERED FROM A THROTTLING OF PERFORMANCE, CHARGING SPEEDS, AND A LOWERED MAXIMUM BATTERY VOLTAGE CAPACITY WHICH HAS LED TO A SIGNIFICANT DECREASE IN THE NUMBER OF RATED MILES AVAILABLE. TESLA HAS DENIED A BATTERY WARRANTY REPLACEMENT BY CLAIMING THAT THERE IS NO DEFECT. TESLA CLAIMS THAT THE UPDATES WERE ISSUED TO IMPROVE BATTERY LONGEVITY AND HEALTH. HOWEVER, THEY ARE DOING SO TO AVOID REPLACING THESE UNDER WARRANTY AND/OR COMPENSATING OWNERS FOR THE LOSS IN RANGE. THIS APPEARS TO BE IN RESPONSE TO THE GROWING NUMBER OF BATTERY FIRES THAT HAVE OCCURRED WITH TESLA VEHICLES THAT ARE PARKED AND NOT IN OPERATION. TESLA HAS FAILED TO COMMUNICATE ANYTHING WITH REGARDS TO THE SAFETY OF THE AFFECTED VEHICLES AND HAS CONTINUED TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT PROVIDING OWNERS WITH ANY NOTICE OR INFORMATION THAT THEIR VEHICLE MAY BE AFFECTED. THE OWNER OF THIS VEHICLE WAS DENIED A WARRANTY REPLACEMENT AFTER HAVING THE CLAIMS ARBITRATED WITH NATIONAL CENTER FOR DISPUTE SETTLEMENT, WHERE THE ARBITRATOR FOUND THAT THERE WAS NO MANUFACTURING DEFECT. THE SUBJECT VEHICLE CONTINUES TO SUFFER FROM A HIGH RATE OF BATTERY LOSS WHEN THE CAR IS PARKED AND NOT IN OPERATION. THE CAR HAS NOT REGAINED ANY MILEAGE AS A RESULT OF TESLA'S MOST RECENT UPDATES THAT HAVE ATTEMPTED TO REMEDY THE SITUATION. THE SUBJECT VEHICLE SUFFERS FORM REDUCED CHARGING SPEEDS AND IS NOT CAPABLE OF REACHING THE SAME NUMBER OF MILES AS IT DID BEFORE.

MY LI-ION BATTERY HAS BEEN DEGRADED RECENTLY BY AN OVER-THE-AIR SOFTWARE UPDATE. I BELIEVE THAT THIS UPDATE IS RELATED TO THE RECENT BATTERY FIRES (4 IN LADT 4 MONTHS, INCLUDING ONE IN SAN FRANCISCO). ONLY A FEW (100 TO A FEW THOUSAND I BELIEVE) OF THE TESLAS HAVE BEEN AFFECTED AS MINE HAS BEEN. I AM NOW CONCERNED ABOUT THE SAFETY OF MY VEHICLE. WILL MY BATTERY CATCH ON FIRE IN MY GARAGE? I WOULD LIKE NHTSA TO REVIEW THE CHANGES MADE BY TESLA AND APPROVE THAT THESE CHANGES WILL BE EFFECTIVE FOR THE SAFETY OF MY BATTERY. OR, DOES THIS POINT TO A DEFECTIVE BATTERY AND SHOULD BE RECALLED FOR SAFETY REASONS?

THE BEARING IN THE DRIVE SHAFT IS DAMAGED AND CONSTANTLY WHINES DURING ACCELERATION. I BROUGHT THE CAR TO THE DEALER IN CHICAGO TWO MONTHS AGO. THEY SAID THE DRIVE SHAFT HAD TO BE REPLACED. THEY ORDERED THE DRIVE SHAFT AND SAID IT WOULD BE DELIVERED IN 7 DAYS. I HAVE CONTACTED THEM NUMEROUS TIMES AND GET NO RESPONSE.

THREE TIMES IN TWO WEEKS, I HAVE ALMOST BEEN HIT AS PEDESTRIAN BY AN EV. THEY MAKE NO NOISE AT LOW SPEEDS AND YOU'D BE SURPRISED HOW MUCH YOU RELY ON HEARING IN A PARKING LOT FOR OF OTHER WISE PARKED (AND SILENT) CARS TO DETERMINE WHICH CARS TO LOOK OUT FOR.