Are Older Tesla Model 3s Ticking Time Bombs for Maintenance? – CleanTechnica

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I’ll admit it — I’m approaching this topic a bit selfishly. I have an “older” Tesla Model 3, and I’m on the lookout for long-term ownership concerns. I was scanning the Tesla Motors Club forum and the headline “Is my beloved 2018 LR Model 3 turning into a maintenance $$$$ nightmare?” grabbed my eye. As the owner of a 2019 Model 3, what issues do I have to watch out for that this 2018 Model 3 owner is experiencing? I’ll get to that in a moment, but let’s first just put some context into the age of the Model 3 fleet.

The line graph and bar chart above show that 2018 Tesla Model 3s are a very small percentage of all the Model 3s sold to date (around 8% of all Model 3 deliveries). Even adding in the 2019 units, we’re at a small percentage of the world’s Model 3s (maybe about 20%). Being some of the oldest versions of the car, keeping an eye on issues they develop may help us predict what issues newer Model 3s will have in a year, in two years, or in 5 years. (Can you believe the model is more than 5 years old?!?)

On the other hand, Tesla is constantly changing things and improving models, whether they come with a big named refresh or not. The following chart shows cumulative Model 3 sales over time, but there are all different versions of the Model 3 captured in that sea of blue.

So, that’s part of the challenge — one can’t know if common issues with a 2018 Tesla Model 3 will matter to a 2019 Model 3, or if common issues with a 2019 Tesla Model 3 will matter to a 2020 Model 3, and so on. At the same time, some of the issues must be warning signs for newer Model 3 owners as their cars age.

Getting to the thread noted above, the key parts of her post are as follows: “I took delivery of my silver model 3 in June of 2018. During the warranty period a number of issues were addressed and they were always issues that people were discussing on this forum. Tesla mobile service took care of them all efficiently and I loved my model 3. Until recently it’s the best car I’ve ever owned and I can’t tell you how many photos I’ve taken of it. I even named the damn thing.

“Fast forward to a month ago, and the power conversion system (PCS) module on the battery goes out and needs to be replaced. Total bill was around $2500 for that. I figured well, if I divide that by the number of years I’ve owned the car, that’s like $500 a year so not bad. Then last night it throws the RCM_a056 “Front passenger safety restraint system fault” which I have seen others discuss on the forums. Online estimate for this repair is $1700. (!)”

Regarding that first matter, the PCS, another commenter noted, “The PCS failures on the 2018 vintage cars are a known weak spot unfortunately. Now that yours is fixed you should be good to go.” So, it seems that is an acute issue for early Tesla Model 3s and those of us who own newer Teslas shouldn’t fret. (Let’s hope! But good news there for now.)

The second matter is an interesting one. One commenter noted they had the same problem when the windows were left cracked and a lot of rain got in. Once dried out, the error went away. The original poster said later that she found out (after some interrogation) that her husband had spilled water on the seat on the way home from the gym. She dried it out and the error warning is gone. A third commenter posted the following:

I hope your issue was the water spill. Mine is also a light silver December 2018, and I got that error after about 3yrs, and the error seemed triggered by seat position. If I moved the seat up, it would start erroring. So, the SC replaced the connector harness which could get stretched. Then a year later, I got the errors again, and they put an OCS filter on it, which I think shields it from electrical interference.

Then a month ago, it started erroring again, so I’m scheduled on Wednesday to get the seat sensor replaced and the airbag as well. Under warranty, since I scheduled the service just before the 5yr SRS warranty expired, plus, I guess I have a history of this problem.

Oh, I forgot to add that if I put a 40lb bag of pellets on the seat, I don’t get the error. I don’t know if that’s good or bad or whatever; but I found the constant alerts to be annoying. I thought it wasn’t really a safety issue because I never got alerts if someone sat in the seat, so I put a 40lb bag on it, and no alerts.

So, an issue to look out for? More likely to be a simple sensor issue than a costly repair? Who knows, but try to keep your seat dry, and if you do get the error, investigate for waterlogging.

Owner forums are known sources for issues. Spending a lot of time on any auto forum will convince you the brand or car the forum is dedicated to are full of maintenance and reliability problems. In the case of Tesla, independent research has indeed found reliability issues over the years, particularly with early model years of a new model. So, I think it’s prudent to keep an eye out for issues. However, it’s also the case that most owners won’t have many serious issues for years. Here’s one more helpful comment to counterbalance the concerns highlighted above:

We’re in the SF Bay Area as well, have a 2018 M3 LR with exact same mileage 34K (34,1XX to be more exact), but was born in Feb 2018 so about six months older. Literally has never had any service or repairs, save the retrofit of HW3/cameras included with FSD, and a couple of mainly preventative 12V battery replacements.

Another relative’s 2018 M3 LR was born in Sept 2018, same as yours, but not driven so much only 11K miles. A piece of loose exterior trim replaced the first month, and otherwise also just a couple of 12V replacements (with onscreen warnings, I attribute to their garage being in hot summer climate).

We did have a Model S that had a few minor repairs, most under warranty. But I was just thinking this morning, driving in today’s rain with new tires and wipers recently put on, how reliable and trouble-free our M3 has been; and our relatives too, esp for being 1st year production run of the Model 3 (ours is in the 1st 5000 by VIN). Maybe we’re just statistically lucky, but it gives me great confidence.

That’s a nice way to wrap things up, but let us know down below if you have any thoughts or experiences to contribute on these topics or others.