2025 Tesla Model 3: What to check before buying

Power steering assist drops out, leaving a heavy wheel and a "Steering Assist Reduced" warning. Collision avoidance or FSD is sometimes disabled at the same time, and some cars were towed. One driver reports the wheel locking mid-turn and the car leaving the road. Other reports describe wheel shake traced to a loose outer tie rod nut or unbalanced tires, creaking when turning at low speed, and turn signal buttons that do not respond. Four of the 21 complaints involve crashes. Service has called some of these faults maintenance, normal behavior, or firmware.

Most of the 5 crash reports here involve unintended acceleration or sudden turns under Autopilot or Full Self-Driving, with impacts against curbs, parked cars, and a pole. In several of these crashes the air bags did not deploy. Other reports describe a total power blackout on the highway with the doors locked and braking and steering reduced, and a front drive inverter replaced at 9,526 miles. Turn signal buttons that work only some of the time and a horn that fails in rain also come up, and Tesla has not offered a lasting fix.

Sudden hard braking with nothing ahead, on highways and city streets, creates a rear-end collision risk. Drivers describe drops from 80 to about 50 mph, or nearly to a stop, on Autopilot, adaptive cruise, and once with neither engaged. A second pattern follows the FSD v14 update, which removed the manual max speed setting, so the car runs above posted limits in most driving profiles. Separate reports describe the car surging forward while parking or pulling away, and an uncommanded FSD turn. Two complaints involve crashes, one with an injury.

The clearest pattern is phantom braking from freeway speed to almost a stop, with no vehicles nearby. The other reports are about FSD behavior: a sudden sharp turn toward the road edge at interstate speed, late and harsh braking for stopped traffic, creeping toward or running red lights, and tailgating at 70 to 80 mph. One owner reports that all cameras, navigation, and Autopilot stopped working after an over-the-air software update. None of these 7 complaints involves a crash.

Turn signals fail to come on when the steering wheel button is pressed, sometimes even after several presses. The failures are random and come and go. One owner puts it at about 5% of attempts, and some buttons feel stuck before they loosen up. Drivers also fault the button design itself. Canceling a signal is not intuitive because pressing the opposite button turns on that direction instead, and the buttons are easy to hit by accident or on the wrong side. None of these reports mentions a repair.

Automatic emergency braking kicks in abruptly with nothing ahead, or so hard that a following car cannot stop in time. One report comes from the driver who rear-ended a Tesla during such a stop. A separate complaint describes an under-dash panel left of the steering column, held on by 2 magnets, falling onto the brake pedal of a brand-new car and blocking it. The driver stopped the car using regenerative braking. One of the 3 complaints involves a crash.

These reports read more like service disputes than a shared failure. One owner describes alignment problems since delivery and recurring camera error codes, with a service appointment cancelled and no repairs done. Another describes the air conditioning blowing hot air and squealing at highway speed, then the car dropping into limp mode and being towed. Warranty coverage was then denied over body damage that the owner disputes. The third raises a design concern about the turn signal buttons and reports no actual failure.

In both reported crashes, nothing deployed. A near T-bone side impact from a car going 45 to 55 mph left the curtain and front bags undeployed, and the seatbelts reportedly did not lock. Two people were injured, and the car was a total loss. The other crash followed sudden acceleration into a garage, and the driver says the brake pedal was pressed the whole time.