Breakdown of faults by car brand: Tesla has replaced Dacia at the bottom

Is this really a surprise? There are physical realities, and a single company can't suddenly reinvent a century of industry experience with some Silicon Valley pixie dust and government subsidies. Tesla, like many startups, is just rediscovering what it takes to build a car and what other companies have already figured out. Bringing a new drivetrain is not enough.

Tesla Model 3, owner here. The list of reasons why I will never buy a Tesla again is too long, but they pretty much all boil down to cheap parts and poor build quality. That goes for their software also, absolute junk.

This is not about failure rates or an indication of quality. This is faults found during a scheduled inspection.<p>Normally this means finding faults that occur since the last maintenance interval. If a car has a long or no maintenance interval (like Tesla) then more faults are expected.<p>Also note that failure can mean windshield wiper needing replacement or headlight re alignment rather than a premature part failure.

Tesla cars are interesting. The drivetrain and the battery are very reliable and will likely be never need service.<p>But everything else is shitty. The construction quality, random breakages, neverending rattles are annoying. My Tesla spent more time in service than my partner&#x27;s Toyota, and this includes regular oil changes.

Sofar I&#x27;ve owned 4 Tesla cars and never had any serious issues that were not addressed immediately. My current Model Y had a cracked roof, they replaced the glass within a couple or hours. Here in The Netherlands inspections are mandatory for all cars every 1&#x2F;2 years. I&#x27;ve noticed the tires may not be as durable as they should be but no idea how they stack up against another EV.<p>Anything you use and use a lot needs maintenance, especially if you rely on it, that goes for you&#x27;re electric toothbrush as wel as your car. Its a utopica to think EVs somehow need less upkeep.<p>Sure build quality can be improved here and there, and over the last 4 years I have seen Tesla&#x27;s cars become better. To me regular OTA updates, up-to-date map, apps, an actual working charging network and range are more important than having all the panels aligned withing a couple of milimeters.

My experience as a Model Y owner:<p>What works:<p>- best in class software quality. Both various controls (lights, wipers, electronic parking brake etc.) and infotainment work just right.<p>- Navigation is quite good, especially considering it automatically adds&#x2F; suggests charging locations as needed.<p>- Steering assist (automatic lane and speed control) is quite handy. I never felt the need for trying out autopilot.<p>What doesn&#x27;t work: it&#x27;s just one thing for me: you cannot trust Tesla:<p>- Battery mileage. My model Y is supposed to give me 330miles on a full charge. For the recommended 80% charge it should be ~260 miles but in reality, I get 125 miles in winter and 200 miles in summer.<p>- Price drops. Cars depreciate but to have a $10-15K price drop right after I purchased really sucked. For this reason alone, I will never buy a Tesla again.<p>- For a 70K (model Y) car, it rattles, and they will charge 30$ to test for rattling.<p>- I haven&#x27;t faced them but I often read about poor quality issues like cracked roof, wheels falling off (yes !).

Many of these Tesla TÜV inspection faults boil down to surface rust on the braking discs. Tesla&#x27;s are using regen too much, which let&#x27;s them accumulate surface rust. This won&#x27;t fail you in other countries, but it does in Germany since it&#x27;s part of the braking system. The obvious solution would be a software update to use the breaks occasionally and intensely. I&#x27;m disappointed by the TÜV since they do not list the actual most common issues.

As a Model Y owner, the lack of a service interval is really annoying. I want to pay Tesla to make sure my car stays safe and reliable, but I can&#x27;t.

Tesla: &quot;We move fast and don&#x27;t repair things if they break because there are no service centers&quot;<p>I don&#x27;t think a messed up suspension can be fixed with an OTA update

How does this work in germany?<p>In a neighboring country I take my car to the service to do a quick maintenance + the official yearly thing.<p>This means break pads and any issues are fixed before and car would never fail an official check.<p>Is that not a thing for tesla?, is the driver supposed to know when to replace everything?, are sensors that good?

Well, at least the Dacia Logan parts are cheap as peanuts and readily available. Plus, the mechanics inside are simpler and you can find a repair shop pretty much everywhere.

Weirdly enough, I&#x27;ve heard good things about Dacia&#x27;s reliability specifically because they use old parts that are known to be reliable. I don&#x27;t have first-hand experience though so maybe that&#x27;s not true.

There are a few important caveats here: TÜV is no longer the sole inspection authority and a lot of people and dealerships switched away from it, especially when they try to save money. This might favor cheaper brands in this statistic.<p>Additionaly, a lot of the more expensive brands (like VW and BMW) will do the inspection as part of a regular service and inspect the car beforehand, making failures less likely.

To what Ive seen online is that Teslas have problems, but they are different to ICE cars. One of the problems that I think will play a mayor role is bearings. In ICE engines these are lubricated by engine oil which is replaced on service intervals, but with E-Cars regular bearings are used within electrical motors. Gonna make a weird comparison here, but I see the same in Robot vacuums; the grease in the (plastic) gearboxes is flung to the outsides of the casing where it dries up over time, so even though they are using plastics that negate a lot of the friction issues you get in dry gearboxes, they start to wear out faster. I think we should really start to investigate how we can make these components servicable, even if that means we have to go back to oil as a lubricant. Whats the point in going electric if we have to start throwing them away just like we do with consumer electronics because they are not servicable?

This is the cost of doing many new things at the same time I think.<p>Also: &quot;“The low fault rates in old cars show that car owners are keenly aware of the importance of car maintenance. Regular servicing has a key role in this positive result”, stresses Wolz.&quot;<p>&gt;Insert picture of plane with bullet holes

Own a Dacia. At least when it breaks the parts are cheap :)<p>New wing mirror cost me £25!

Isn&#x27;t it simply because it has no regular service intervals at all so EVERY time it goes to service, it&#x27;s because of some fault? While other cars have the faulty components changed during at least annual, and usually more frequent service (normally it&#x27;s 1 year of 15K km whichever comes first), and it doesn&#x27;t count as a fault?<p>Here in Cyprus, there is no Tesla service and no one knows how to fix them. So people just buy them and drive until they break. Not possible with any gas car.

I wish they were more specific about the &quot;brake problems&quot;

Where&#x27;s the list that show all car brands? Doesn&#x27;t seem to be easily found on that page or any of the linked ones.

I like how in German lists US car companies are near bottom, but in US lists it&#x27;s the German brands.

This whole article feels like it was written by a dealership garage publication. You must bring your car in for a 200 point inspection every 6 months so we can look at it and charge you $299.00. I not a Tesla fan boy or will every be a customer but I am sure their cars are more reliable than an ICE vehicle. Jay Leno speaks about how he has driven his Tesla for like 6 years and done absolutely nothing to it, not even brakes Electric Motors last a very long time and are extremely dependable, I have seen with my own eyes, electric motors that have been working for decades reliably with no breakdowns, 10&#x27;s of 1000&#x27;s of hours of service powering heavy conveyor belts. No ice engine could do that.

Tesla really should have stayed &quot;luxury&quot; and branded the 3 as something else. &quot;_Yearn_&quot; or &#x27;_Strive_&#x27; or soemthing. They&#x27;ve cheapened the brand by trying to extend to the low end with the Tesla name.

Can&#x27;t you all just use an electric bike or something? Or an electric scooter?

HN, really??? TÜV is a german organization and they will post biased studies to show German cars as better ones. Real studies must come from politically neutral countries that doesn&#x27;t have their own car production, like Belize, Singapore or Cape Verde.

Wait, where can I access the list? thanks

Mindful of German report on automotive.

Where&#x27;s the full ranking?

Where&#x27;s the actual list?

Where is the actual list (besides the analysis)?<p>Is it this one<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tuvsud.com&#x2F;de-de&#x2F;publikationen&#x2F;tuev-report&#x2F;maengelzwerge-und-fehlerriesen" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tuvsud.com&#x2F;de-de&#x2F;publikationen&#x2F;tuev-report&#x2F;maeng...</a><p>?

I was just told last week that my tesla had a recall, I woke up the next day and the &quot;recall&quot; had finished installing OTA; I am not sure how the term SF is measured, but my instinct is that they are reaching. I know that subjective observations are biased, but at work I can divide people into tesla drivers and non tesla drivers, the former have never missed work claiming a car issue, the later has, every, single, one.

Tesla owners are probably so rich they can just buy another when the car breaks down.<p>Or why would anyone buy a Tesla in the first place if they were not angry at money.