Complaint volume
983 consumer-submitted complaints are matched to this model year. Treat the count as a research signal, then read the actual summaries for repeated symptoms.
Complaint records
2018 Tesla Model 3 Complaints
983 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2018 Tesla Model 3, grouped by component category.
983 Total complaints
100 Crash reports
4 Fire reports
34 Injury reports
Complaint data reflects consumer-submitted reports. A complaint is not proof
of a defect, recall, or manufacturer fault. Enriched severity fields come
from official bulk records when the complaint can be matched by ODI number.
Buyer interpretation
How to use these complaints before buying
Complaint records are most useful when they turn into inspection points, seller questions, and comparison checks against nearby model years.
Pattern to inspect
The most common categories are suspension, unknown or other, forward collision avoidance. Use those categories as a test-drive checklist instead of judging the vehicle from the total count alone.
Severity flags
Enriched records include 100 crash reports, 4 fire reports, 34 injury reports, and 0 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 219 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 25,782 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to suspension, unknown or other, forward collision avoidance?
- Can I see recent maintenance and repair records?
- Has the vehicle ever been towed, involved in a crash, or repaired for the same issue twice?
- Can we also check the recall record for this 2018 Tesla Model 3?
Used-car checklist
Use these complaints before the test drive.
Build a buyer checklist to turn these issues into questions and inspection points.
2018 Tesla Model 3
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2018 Tesla Model 3 complaints?
100 Crash
4 Fire
34 Injury
0 Fatality
63 Towed
19 Medical attention
What are the most common 2018 Tesla Model 3 complaint categories?
SUSPENSION 116
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 82
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 73
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 49
AIR BAGS 42
SEAT BELTS 39
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 34
STRUCTURE 27
STEERING 26
AIR BAGS,SEATS 20
983 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2023 | POWER TRAIN,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This is a report of suddent unintended acceleration on a 2018 Model 3 performance with 47,800 miles on the odometer - the first known occurrence on this car. At 50% state of charge, I drove the Tesla on a 10 minute trip and pulled into an underground parking garage with 3 lanes of valet parking. At about 5-10 MPH, the forward collision warning came on as I was driving towards the cones and stop sign. I brought the vehicle to a full stop with the friction brakes (not regenerative braking, which was set to LOW). The drive mode was set to HOLD, which lets the car roll forward but not backwards and doesn't CREEP when foot is off the brake. About 15-30 seconds after coming to a complete stop, my foot was hovering over the brake with maybe slight pressure up to 5%. The car suddenly lurched forward with wide open throttle type acceleration. It has over 450 electric horsepower from 2 motors. The car moved between 2 feet and 5 feet. My passenger noticed and asked what I did, if anything. I did not ever once touch the accelerator. Since my foot was on the brake pedal but not pushing hard on it, I was able to depress it with my foot and stop the car. There was a concrete wall perhaps 25 feet in front of the car. No people were in the front of the car. I was at the stop sign in the garage where valet takes over. I do not know if the car would have kept accelerating if I wasn't able to engage the brakes hard. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | EXTERIOR LIGHTING,VISIBILITY/WIPER | Many states like Florida have a law that headlights need to be on when it is raining, My Tesla has automatic wipers that come on when it senses rain, when this happens, it should also turn on headlights for safety reasons but it does not, they need to be turned on manually, the car does also have automatic headlights, but the automatic headlights on the car only work when it gets dark in the evening. This is a simple programming change that Tesla could do, my repeated requests to Tesla to address this in the app has done nothing, that’s why I’m requesting you force Tesla to do this. Makes sense right? | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | During rush hour traffic on Highway 101 Southbound near Redwood City, I experienced an incident while utilizing AutoPilot and AutoSteer. Despite being in stop-and-go traffic, the vehicle did not respond to the car in front which suddenly came to a complete stop. Neither the Automatic Emergency Braking system nor warning sounds, which has been known to activate erroneously, were triggered. As a result, I was forced to manually brake at the last moment, but there was not enough time for manual intervention and the vehicle collided with the car in front. It is worth noting that every other instance in which I have utilized AutoPilot and AutoSteer, which occurs on nearly every trip I take, the vehicle has been able to respond and brake, albeit with slow reaction times and close distances. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving 68 MPH, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. A dealer was not contacted. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was 41,023. | Crash: No Fire: No | 41,023 |
| Feb 2023 | VISIBILITY,SEAT BELTS,BACK OVER PREVENTION | The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact received notifications of NHTSA Campaign Number 21V00D000 (Electrical System, Visibility, Back Over Prevention), 22V702000 (Visibility), and 22V798000 (Seat Belts) however, the parts to do the recall repairs were unavailable. The local Service Center was contacted and confirmed that the parts were not yet available. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced the failure. Parts distribution disconnect. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | The car has FSD Beta - When exiting on freeway off ramp numerous error codes came on and car lost ability to steer effectively. The car was not in Autopilot mode when the incident occured. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | Hello, The side camera in our Tesla model 3 have stopped working. Because they have stopped working, the GPS, and the car status (360 overhead view) parts also stopped working. This means that we can't use the Enhanced Autopilot with the car. This is a huge issue as the side cameras and the car status are very important for safety. It looks like this is a known problem but Tesla isn't issuing a recall to fix this https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/06/tesla-is-replacing-faulty-autpilot-cameras-in-some-model-s-x-3-cars.html This started happening in mid-Jan, when our car had 41K miles and 4 years 1 month age. Tesla's warranty only goes 40K miles and 4years | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Full Self Driving was engaged, my hands were on the steering wheel, and vehicle made very unexpected and wrong turn sharply to the right directly into a barrier with front bumper. I have the incident recorded on the dash cam. The time from the sharp turn until the collision was less than 0.5 seconds, not allowing driver response. I have the video of the dashcam recording of the accident. Tesla also has the cabin recording of my engagement during the accident. I cannot send the video through this web page unfortunately | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | SEAT BELTS | I am getting an error on the screen which states, "Front left safety restraint system fault, service is required". Then while driving the car is not able to detect if the driver is sitting on the seat. The seat belt icon pops up. Tesla has remotely diagnosed the issue and are charging $450 to replace safety restraint wiring. This should be covered under a safety recall. The airbags are disabled. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | FSD Beta code version: 2022.44.30.10 seems to have a nasty bug where due to some bad speed limit data for highways, will automatically change the max cruising speed set by me. Hence the car results in abruptly slowing down on the highway. I have filed bug reports via the car as soon as its happened. Locations it has occurred: On I-90 eastbound right after the Framingham on-ramp around the place where the service plaza exit happens. And on Route-2, eastbound between the I-95 offramp to Rt-2 thru Rt-2 exit to Winter Street. Its due to bad navigation data as the speed change happens very predictablely in the same area, regardless of road conditions, car position in lane, or weather conditions. This never happened in the past 4 years. FSD automatically changed max speed from 75 to 61 miles per hr, causing the slow down. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving at various speeds, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact stated that there was no vehicle or objects around the vehicle at the time the failure occurred. The contact was not using autopilot at the time the failure occurred. The contact stated that the failure had been reoccurring while driving. The contact stated that the failure reoccurred while driving at 5 MPH with her 12-year-old son sitting in the front passenger’s side seat. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and informed the contact that they were not aware of the failure and the issue would be escalated. The vehicle was not diagnosed nor repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 20,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 20,000 |
| Feb 2023 | LANE DEPARTURE | Near miss: intervention by Emergency Lane Assist almost caused a collision. Location- southbound Highway 99 near Turlock, CA, around 9 am (sun low and ahead). Construction is underway on the highway. Traffic id two lanes in each direction with narrow lanes and concrete K rails dividing the highway. My vehicle was in the fast lane going around a left hand bend with the temporary concrete divider close to the left side of the car. The barrier is uneven in this area and was relatively jagged rather than smoothly paralleling the highway. As I rounded the bend the emergency lane assist sounded a warning and simultaneously turned the wheel sharply to the right as if to avoid striking the center barrier (I was not on an impact trajectory). At that moment I was slowly passing a semi-trailer the was close to my vehicle in the left hand lane. I was roughly 3/4 of the way back from the from the front of the truck. The sharp right swerve from the Emergency Lane Assist put me onto a collision course with the side of the semi- if I had not reacted quickly to counter-correct I believe I’d have gone into the side of the truck. Autopilot or lane assist was not engaged (I don’t have it) and my hands were on the wheel allowing quick reaction. Lane departure warning was not active (turned off), Emergency Lane Assist was active. I did not try to recreate the issue and it has not been confirmed. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,VISIBILITY/WIPER | After software update 2022.44.30 PTC heating failed. No warning lights, just failure to keep cabin warm. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving a Tesla Model 3 on an interstate highway at a speed of about 75 MPH with Full Self Driving engaged, the car aggressively applied the brakes for no apparent reason. This action could cause injury to passengers in the vehicle or an accident involving another vehicle that is following too closely. No information about the reason this occurred was presented. Tesla is aware of this issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | STRUCTURE | Rear left exterior door handle. Peeling chrome plating on the under side of handle creates a sharp ragged edge that cuts fingers. The ragged edge also prevents the handle from retracting completely into the door, which may affect secure closure of the door. Reported to Tesla, who declined to cover the repair and sent me an estimate of $270 for parts and labor to replace the door handle. | Crash: No Fire: No Injuries: 2 | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,LANE DEPARTURE | Interior camera malfunctions which affects the full self driving package I paid for. As purchased the car was said to be feature complete for full self driving. When the software was available to me two years after purchase the interior camera was finally turned on and it doesn’t work. A cursory internet search shows that this is common. This is a hazard it can malfunction at any time due to defective camera. The service center verified that the camera doesn’t work today 1/27/2023. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | STRUCTURE | Read passenger subframe bolt fell out while driving. The subframe of my vehicle and the mounting plate had a 3 inch gap between it. It made the rear end shake and loose control at speed. Tesla refused to give me torque specs twice. I was able to find service manual online and re-torque it. There was no locktite on the bolt. There was no warning, just a metal clanking noise and then the vehicle became dangerous to drive. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | On Saturday the 21st my car had been charging overnight inside my garage using the supplied Tesla charger. As I entered the car to attempt to unlock the charger, I received many system malfunction errors on the screen, stating such that the 12v battery needed to be replaced and some system could not be completed. This definitely seemed odd as I had just replaced the 4 year old battery last July after receiving such an error. Eventually the car released the charging cable, but the car was still inoperable due to the errors. I used the Tesla app to request mobile service for the first available time, which was Tuesday the 24th, and used my wife's car in the meantime. The day of the appointment I attempted to enter the car to move it outside of the garage, but the car had completely died at some point - couldn't open doors, windows, hood or trunk. When the service tech arrived, he too thought it odd to need to replace the 12v battery so soon but continued to attempt it after jumping the car's system through the tow area. After some time, he told me the systems power up but it does not retain a charge for long, indicating a larger issue that needs to be serviced. He advised to have the car towed. I put in another service request for this, and when they arrived, we discovered that the Tow Mode accessible through the car's interface could not be engaged. They were able to skate the car onto the tow bed and transport it to the nearest service center, which I already had to pay for out of pocket ($200). The next day I received a call from the service center stating that the issue appears related to the power conversion module. Unfortunately they claimed that this was also out of pocket due to the car being out of warranty (car has just over 53k miles) and that it would cost $2000 to fix! I decided to do my own research before proceeding and discovered this was a KNOWN ISSUE by Tesla as they posted a TSB about it some time ago! | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM | PCS Charger (Onboard) is failing on numerous early build Model 3 cars (2017-2019). Telsa is claiming that this is not included in battery warranty, however Tesla's own service manual shows this part specifically in the HV Battery System. I still have the fault PCS charger in the car, it is limited to 32Amps but several forums and webpages state its only a matter of time before I am limited to 16Amps The car is unable to charge at a reasonable recovery rate in which you can even use the vehicle for it's intended purchase. Tesla has acknowledge it's failure but is unable to produce actual number of failed units. The warning lamp had been displaying "dirty electrical grid" for quite some time until I was able to search the internet for the exact issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | The automatic wiper does not always work. Set to auto but despite poor visibility on the windshield, it failed to start until I manually adjusted the wiper control on the screen. With poor visibility and having to look at the infotainment screen to adjust wiper while vehicle is in motion, my safety was put at risk. Every time it rains, the auto wiper is unreliable and often fails to start or is too slow to start as if there is a huge delay and does not keep up with in heavy rain as it sometimes wipes too slow and I have to look at the screen to find the settings for the wiper to manually override the wiping speed. Also, the adaptive cruse control accelerates too aggressively at stop and go traffic causing hard braking by the car and I worry this will cause rear end collisions. The blind spot side cameras are unusable at night when turn signal is on as the light blinds the camera image and can’t see anything from it, multiple visits to service center and they told me it is normal and refuse to replace but this cannot be normal as the image from the camera is blinded by the turn signal. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | The manufacturer pretended the backup camera recall for the vehicle didn’t exist and attempted to charge me for the repair. Even after I pointed out that the recall covered exactly what was wrong they said it wasn’t covered and provided no further information explaining why. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | STEERING,SUSPENSION,STRUCTURE | I was driving the car about 35-40 MPH when I heard a popping sound. The steering immediately locked up and the car was undrivable and unsteerable. I looked around car and the body of the car was resting on top of the front right passenger side tire. A bolt was found underneath the car. There were no vehicle system warnings, I did not hit anything, nor has the car been in any accidents. The car could not even be put into neutral or moved out of the 4 lane road. I contacted police and tow truck who said swing arm had failed. I had four children in the car who could have been seriously or fatally injured. Tesla has been contacted but said it isnt their problem or a manufacturing problem although there is lots of reports on internet and they have issued a recall for this very problem on other models. I am very concerned about this safety issue that needs to be addressed since it is potentially very dangerous. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,VISIBILITY,BACK OVER PREVENTION | The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 21V00D000 (Electrical System, Visibility, Back Over Prevention) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The local dealer was contacted. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The contact stated that recently the rearview camera intermittently flickered while in use. The failure mileage was 49,000. Parts distribution disconnect. | Crash: No Fire: No | 49,000 |
| Jan 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | On December 16, 2022, Tesla made an Over the Air firmware update to my Tesla Model 3. The car's User Interface (UI) screen subsequently began to make erratic and random visualizations. The screen displays motorcycles, trucks and human bodies that are not actually present. The screen fails to display objects, such as other moving vehicles, that are present. The car was towed to the Tesla Sacramento Service center. The technician determined the screen was functioning as expected, and no "fix" exists. The technician also noted the screen's problems will eventually improve over time with firmware updates. The service advisor told me to ignore the screen when driving. The screen is large and within my field of vision. The safety features of the car includes the UI screen to display objects around the car, both while in motion and at rest. The UI screen continues to malfunction. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | On December 14, 2022, around 5pm, in slowly moving rush hour street traffic, my 2018 Model 3 shut down completely. This happened twice more within a few minutes. The car was towed to the tesla Sacramento Service center. Technicians could find no valid reason for the car shutting down, excepting to say that the driver was not fully seated. I did not change my position in the driver seat. The service advisors could not say how it was determined that the driver was not fully seated. The only mention in the Tesla manual for interference with the driver seat sensors is a caution about using seat covers. I do not have a seat cover. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |