Tesla Model 3 Reliability by YearBest & worst years, problems & recalls — NHTSA data

I was driving my car on full self driving. I press the brake to stop full self driving the car immediately accelerated and caused a crash.

The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while the vehicle was set to Self-Driving Mode, the vehicle suddenly stopped abruptly without the brake pedal depressed. The contact depressed the accelerator pedal immediately to continue driving. The vehicle was taken to the dealer three times. The dealer reset the mirrors and sensors; however, the failure persisted. The vehicle had not been repaired. The dealer suggested that the contact purchase another vehicle. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown.

This is my fourth high voltage battery failure on this vehicle. Battery replacements occurred at approximately 13,000 miles, 60,000 miles, 96,000 miles, and now at 121,000 miles. The first failure occurred at 13,000 miles on a nearly new vehicle. During the second replacement a Tesla service technician verbally stated that 'the refurb process has vastly improved since your last battery' before retracting the statement when questioned, strongly suggesting refurbished units were installed in a vehicle under original warranty. Tesla has declined to cover the most recent failure citing warranty expiration, despite this being a documented recurring defect that originated well within the warranty period. The vehicle is currently inoperable due to high voltage battery failure. I was around 40 days outside of warranty with this last failure.

The outside part of the glove box is coming off. It could prevent air bags from working properly. It seems like the O ring glue holding it together has failed. It is available for inspection upon request. The issue is well known and is documented online. The issue has in the past been inspected by the manufacturer and requests an approximate $400 from the customer to fix the issue.

The forward-facing camera and Autopilot computer system on my 2021 Tesla Model 3 has failed. The dashboard first showed intermittent warnings that "Automatic Emergency Braking is currently unavailable" and "Adaptive headlight features are unavailable." Over several weeks the problem worsened from intermittent to constant, and the vehicle progressively lost its forward road visualization and all active safety features. Using the vehicle's Service Mode diagnostics, the Autopilot computer's Primary (A) processing node reports a "CRITICAL" status. The fault log records repeated alerts including dasMIA (driver-assistance system not responding), aebFault (automatic emergency braking fault), and fisheyeCamInitFault and fisheyeCameraStreamExit (forward camera initialization and stream failures). The cameras themselves are physically clean and unobstructed. Safety risk: the failure disables Automatic Emergency Braking and forward collision avoidance, lane-keeping/driver assistance, and the adaptive auto high-beam headlights. AEB is a critical crash-avoidance system; losing it leaves the vehicle unable to brake automatically for an imminent collision, and the loss of adaptive headlights reduces nighttime visibility. A Tesla service center inspected the vehicle, confirmed the diagnosis, and determined the Autopilot computer — a sealed, solid-state control unit — had failed and required full replacement at approximately $3,400. The vehicle is well under 50,000 miles. This failure appears consistent with the same car-computer power-component shorting failure for which Tesla issued a recall on its newer model-year vehicles. The vehicle and the failed component are available for inspection on request. The vehicle has not been inspected by police or insurance.

BMS_a079 error. Battery is no longer able to charge. High voltage battery will need to be replaced. Basically rendering the vehicle useless unless the battery is replaced.

The driver-side seat belt buckle/receptacle failed during normal use. There was no collision, impact, or misuse involved. While using the seat belt as intended, the buckle assembly separated/broke unexpectedly, causing the seat belt to no longer function properly. This appears to be a failure of a critical safety component rather than normal wear and tear. The vehicle should not be considered safe to operate until the restraint system is properly inspected and repaired. The failure occurred without warning and under ordinary driving conditions.

Component/System Failure: Total failure of the Autopilot ECU (DAS Computer) and the Front-End Module (FEM) wiring harness. Incident Description: My 2021 Tesla Model 3 (37,000 miles) experienced a catastrophic and "silent" failure of the entire vehicle vision suite and all active safety systems. A Tesla Service technician (Warrington, PA) inspected the vehicle and confirmed the root cause was a factory-defective (crimped) internal coaxial cable in the wiring harness. This manufacturing defect caused an electrical short that destroyed the primary safety-critical computer. Safety Risk: This failure resulted in a direct violation of FMVSS 111 (Rear Visibility), as the backup camera was rendered completely inoperable. Furthermore, all collision-avoidance features—including Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Forward Collision Warning, and Blind Spot Monitoring—were disabled. Critical Safety Concern (Silent Failure): The vehicle provided zero driver-facing alerts, dashboard warnings, or lamps to indicate that these safety systems were offline. I unknowingly operated a vehicle that was non-compliant with federal safety standards and lacked all primary crash-avoidance technology. The failure codes (APP_w045 and VCFRONT_a158) were only discoverable by manually entering the vehicle's "Service Mode." Manufacturer Status: Tesla Service has confirmed the hardware failure and the wiring defect but is currently refusing to cover the $2,800 repair cost, despite the failure involving systems currently under federal recall (SB-26-00-016). I am reporting this because a factory wiring defect causing a total, silent failure of federally manda

When using cruise control, there has been 4 times that the car has engaged in “phantom braking”. We were driving on highways going the posted speed limit of 70 mph, when the car suddenly slammed on the brakes and decelerated to less than 30 mph – all four times we were thankfully not being closely followed by another vehicle or we would’ve had a devastating crash. One time when we looked at the screen, it showed the outline of a person in the median but there was no person/ other obstacle at all. We have reported this to the Tesla service center and they said it is a known issue, and what we have to do is just click the scroll bar and report it so that the engineers can mark the timestamp and collect data so that some patches can be sent over the air/ uploaded at a future date. Nothing has been done to fix the issue and we feel dismissed about our concerns about our family’s safety, and the safety of drivers around us.

2021 M3 138,000 miles Alerted error code BMS_a074 & BMS_a079 After reading forums, this seems to be a known issue with 2021 in particular. I am reporting in hopes something can be done about it. Yesterday both codes alerted within hours of each other. First that the charging was limited to 50% and would only charge once <50%; then shortly thereafter it alerted with Unable to Charge. I attempted to charge at home with 32A charger when at 28% and charge limit set to 50%— car would not charge. Today I put in Tesla service request with first appointment available in 10 days (still awaiting review). Attempted to try charging again while at home and this time, coincidentally after my service request, it is now charging. I lowered to 20A to trickle in for now…and currently up to 32%. March/April 2025 my ECU went out after 3 12V battery replacements within 2 months. Car has been driving well but without any camera systems (traffic awareness) or entertainment system.

My RWD motor completely went out and lost power on the highway off ramp. Could have turned into a dangerous situation. Not sure why these motors seem to be very unreliable. Tesla has not given me an explanation as to what is exactly causing this. Happens to thousands of owners. And this car is only 5 years old. I had the motor replaced in November 2022 and 3 years later it’s out for good. Now I have to deal with teslas insane costs. I feel like they sold me a defective car.

I am filing a complaint regarding my inability to receive a safety recall remedy without first paying for a separate component replacement. Vehicle: Tesla Model 3 VIN: [XXX] My vehicle has an active safety recall related to hood latch functionality, which Tesla stated requires a firmware (OTA) update. Tesla informed me this update could not be installed unless the vehicle’s car computer (MCU/CPU) was replaced. Tesla classified this component as out of warranty and required me to pay $1,687.66 out of pocket (after a partial discount). Separately, my vehicle developed a charging failure requiring HV battery repair. Tesla confirmed in writing that they could not proceed with the HV battery repair or install required firmware unless the same computer was replaced. Tesla also confirmed that if I did not approve and pay for the computer replacement, they would not proceed with either the battery repair or the recall-related update. At the time, my vehicle was not drivable, and Tesla indicated the loaner vehicle would need to be returned if I did not approve the repair. This would have left me without a functional vehicle, leaving no practical alternative but to proceed. As a result, I approved and paid for the repair in order to restore vehicle functionality and receive the recall remedy. This payment was made under protest. Concern: This situation conditions access to a safety recall remedy on a customer-paid repair, creating a barrier to receiving a mandated safety fix. I request review of whether a manufacturer can require payment for a separate component in order to enable a safety recall remedy and essential repairs. I have written documentation supporting these statements. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

When using the cruise control or self driving function the car will, unprovoked, brake suddenly and severely. Hitting the acceleration pedal will disengage the cruise control or self driving and will stop the deceleration. The error happens about 1-2 times per 20 miles. I do not use these features often due to several near miss car crashes due to deceleration error. Sometimes the car will report other phantom alerts (like curvature assist on a straight road).

2 problems 1,Phantom braking when cruise control is activated. 2, There's no rear door mechanical release in the event of a electrical power failure in the event of R.T.A