More Unexpected Noises - 2016 Tesla Model X Long-Term Road Test

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More Unexpected Noises - 2016 Tesla Model X Long-Term Road Test

Our 2016 Tesla Model X will need three noises fixed next time it goes in for service. None are worrying, but they are annoying.

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longtimelurker

Hey, Mercedesfan...any of this sound familiar to you - ?

mercedesfan

@longtimelurker,
Haha well thankfully I've never experienced the grinding sound he is talking about. The squeaky windows and noisy power steering I definitely had to contend with. It turned out one of my window regulators was bad so that fixed that problem. The power steering noise ended up being poorly fitting trim pieces that were rubbing together. My Model S is the first car I've ever owned where the actual build quality itself caused the majority of my problems. It just was not a well built car. I'm about to trade mine in and I'm not getting another Model S. We are staying a Tesla family, though, because the lease on my wife's E-Class wagon is up and she wants a Model S now. I keep hoping that things have improved significantly since 2013, but this test is not giving me confidence.

gslippy

As a Model 3 reservist, I think Tesla will sink if the Model 3 is plagued with these kinds of issues, simply because they couldn't handle the service calls.

misterfusion

In fairness, the build quality out of that place wasn't much better when it was called NUMMI.

:P

longtimelurker

misterfusion said:

In fairness, the build quality out of that place wasn't much better when it was called NUMMI.

:P

I dunno, man...those Geo Prizms seemed to have had just as good of reliability and were as trouble-free as Toyota Corollas. Those were great cars at a great price.

longtimelurker

mercedesfan said:

@longtimelurker,
Haha well thankfully I've never experienced the grinding sound he is talking about. The squeaky windows and noisy power steering I definitely had to contend with. It turned out one of my window regulators was bad so that fixed that problem. The power steering noise ended up being poorly fitting trim pieces that were rubbing together. My Model S is the first car I've ever owned where the actual build quality itself caused the majority of my problems. It just was not a well built car. I'm about to trade mine in and I'm not getting another Model S. We are staying a Tesla family, though, because the lease on my wife's E-Class wagon is up and she wants a Model S now. I keep hoping that things have improved significantly since 2013, but this test is not giving me confidence.

I was kinda iffy about the problems with the Model S, but they really hit the glamour and image targets with that car, and moved a ton of them. For the Model X, they needed to file off some of the rough spots instead of doubling down on the glamour.

For the early adopters, they did great...but it seems they are having some issues moving past the science-experiment phase. They had a modest little gimmick with the pop-out door handles on the S, but they were problematic and took up bandwidth. They have a much larger gimmick now with those rear doors...and those took up bandwidth that could have been spent refining other aspects of the car, from a production standpoint. They should have put conventional doors on it, and paid attention to the blocking and tackling...getting rid of the squeaks, rattles and electrical glitches and infotainment gremlins.

misterfusion

longtimelurker said:

I dunno, man...those Geo Prizms seemed to have had just as good of reliability and were as trouble-free as Toyota Corollas. Those were great cars at a great price.

Agreed about the Prizm, that was supposedly a very good car. I was thinking more about the latter days of that facility -- wasn't there some kind of scandal related to poor oversight when they were producing the Pontiac Vibe?

Mr_Shiftright

They got some things right and some things wrong, but the big problem was that GM's original goal, to build a profitable small car, still was not realized. Tesla may face the same issue.