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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2023 | FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM | On December 27, 2022, in light evening street traffic, my car accelerated briefly without the accelerator pedal being applied. I took my foot off the accelerator pedal to decelerate for an upcoming red light. While my foot was off the pedal, the car accelerated and lurched forward. The car was towed to the Tesla Sacramento Service Center. The technician incorrectly cited the "creep mode" as being involved. The car was in motion when it unexpectedly accelerated. "Creep Mode" only engages when the car is close to or fully stopped. Tesla technician was unable to determine an accurate reason for the unexpected acceleration. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Significant phantom braking issues on two lane highways like US95 in NV. The vision system cannot reliably tell if something is in the road or not when there clearly is nothing, cars or objects. Unclear if my 2018 if the radar is still active, but the vision software cheats I believe by using traffic in front to know the road is clear, but when there is no traffic on a rural highway, it panic stops from 70mph down to 45mph quickly before I can disengage Autopilot. No shadows over the road, no tree, no over passes. Happened several times going south on US95 south on a cloudy day and several times going north a few days later on a sunny day. At all times nothing in the road. It seemed to be more confused on slight rise and downhill, but occurred in even flat road sections. I think the AI has not been trained in non-traffic rural roads and unclear if the radar is still active. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When driving on the highway and using the "autopilot" lane assist feature the care will automatically change the set speed limit and hard brake which puts my passengers and I in danger of being rear ended due to the abrupt stop. For example I have been driving on the highway with the autopilot set to 65mph and all of a sudden the speed will change to 35 and execute a hard braking maneuver. To compensate for this I have learned to hover my foot over the accelerator to counteract this phantom braking. When this happens there are no alerts that there is something in my path that I need to slow for. Other times there are forward avoidance alerts, but there is nothing in the path. The manufacturer has done nothing to remedy this issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | POWER TRAIN,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM | The Power Conversion System is failing, this makes charging the car difficult. The charge rate is reduced and charging fails without warning. There is no warning from the vehicle that the part is failing but instead says the power grid is the issue. The issue started while the car was still under warranty, but falsely claimed the problem was with the evse or the wiring to the evse. Had the failure been properly reported rather than being misleading, the vehicle could have been repaired under warranty, | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While on Adaptive Cruise Control on a highway at 70mph, the vehicle’s autonomous system triggered an emergency brake causing the speed to drop down. Reacted and immediately sped up to avoid any possible collision from vehicles in the same lane. No obstructions in the lane or the immediate lanes at the time of the incident. No weather related occlusions (no rain, haze or fog) | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES | My car Breaks as if i got in to an accident. This has happened more than two times. Car breaks so badly and it drops everything from seats. Very scary. Most of the time i was driving at 10-15 miles per hour in parking lots looking for parking. I always wear seatbelts. Not sure why this happens but it is very scary and had there been cars very close to me i could get rear ended. I did take the car to Tesla Dealer. They always come up with some excuses. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2023 | STRUCTURE | The front Undercarriage/ Aero Tray on My Model 3 started to tear apart after driving in the rain on the freeway. This is a part of the existing SB-19-12-001 Tesla Service Bulletin. While driving on the freeway on a rainy day in Los Angeles, I heard the undercarriage tray start dragging on the freeway. Did not hit or run over any objects to cause the tray to rip. Contacted Tesla and showed Tesla several photos along with the service bulletin affecting 2017-2018 Model 3’s which my Model 3 is a August 2018 Build and Tesla did not want to honor the Service bulletin and they wanted to charge me $441 for replacing both front and back Aero trays. This needs to be reported that Tesla Service centers are not honoring Service bulletins about defective parts. This can be a safety issue, if the part we’re to rip off and hit another car and cause an accident, it can be avoided if tesla honors the service bulletin. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | This is regarding NHTSA Recall Number21V-00D. This recall is from December 21, 2021 -- i.e., over a year ago. I scheduled an appointment with Tesla in August 2022 to get this taken care of, but at the time Tesla canceled the appointment. They told me that the parts aren't available yet, but they would reach out via email or the Tesla app "soon". It has now been 4+ months, yet they still have not reached out to me. On my Tesla app, when I click "Rear Harness Recall" button, it says "You will receive a notification in your Tesla App when parts are available for your vehicle." It is difficult to understand that it takes over a year to put in a simple cable harness. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | We're a US Military family and are going to be stationed overseas. The US Army WILL NOT take our Tesla Model 3 into a storage facility while we are gone because there is still an outstanding safety recall notice associate with this vehicle. NHTSA Recall # 22V702. We are leaving in less than two weeks and we can't get our vehicle into storage without all safety recalls being fixed (even though it is only an over-the-air recall). We also can't even sell our car because it is illegal to sell a car that still has unfixed recalls! Argh!!! Can you please put pressure on Tesla to fix this issue and send out an over-the-air fix? We're stuck and stressed right now and we have to go overseas regardless of this Tesla matter being fixed or not. And no, we can't even leave our Tesla with someone without getting a power-of-attorney to let them put it into US Military storage in the future. This is a mess! Please get Tesla to fix the safety recall #22V702. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Cabin heating unit failure during winter with temperatures in the 10-20F range, loss of front window defrosting/defogging leading to poor visibility. Problem was confirmed by dealer and heating unit replaced at dealer service center, dealer now has possession of the broken heating unit. There were no indications that the unit was about to fail, until it stopped making hot air and reported a "climate system fault" when trying to select heat/defrost, it stopped working while the car was in use. The heating system stopped working around 12:30 on Friday and did not work all day, tried rebooting the head-end computer to no effect. Started working at 9am the next morning for a few hours, but stopped working while driving around 12:30 again and didn't work for rest of day, worked for an hour or so the next day and again an hour or so the day after that. The vendor was able to get an appointment on Monday to replace the unit and had the part in stock so this was failed from Friday mid-day to Monday afternoon, the new unit is installed and is now working so far. As far as I know, the heating in this model is a simple electric resistive heating element, so it is not clear to me how it could fail without a manufacturing or design defect, the car is only 3y old. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This summer while driving on interstate highways the Adaptive Cruise Control (with and without all other driver assistance/autopilot features enabled or disabled) would unexpectedly brake the car, slowing down by 10 or more MPH over 1-2 seconds, with no obstructions or vehicles in front of the car for hundreds of meters at least. This happened repeatedly, and we believe we correlated it to cases when the car came up over a low rise or bridge, and there was bright sun creating a small mirage in the distance on the highway in front of the car without any other vehicle in between to block the view. This seems to be a safety issue because at highway speeds, unexpected braking is very disruptive and startling to the driver, the passengers as well as anyone following behind who may not react in time especially on a clear sunny day with no obvious obstructions to take extra care of. * component: Adaptive Cruise Control (with or without other Autopilot ADAS features) * safety: Braking at highway speeds is disruptive to traffic and can cause accident (rear-ending, startling driver) * reproduced: Problem has not been reproduced by the vendor and I don't see any way to report it to the vendor * inspection: The components have not been inspected by others to my knowledge, this is based on software produced by or licensed by Tesla * warnings: no warnings were produced before or during the event, just .5g or so (not measured) of braking unexpectedly | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | VISIBILITY,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V702000 (Visibility) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The contact stated that the front driver's side and passenger's side windows failed to operate as needed intermittently. There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to Tesla Service Center where it was diagnosed that the failure was related to the recall. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. Additionally, the contact stated that he had been receiving notifications on the center display indicating that the visual ability of the camera on the front driver's side of the vehicle was faulty. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure, but no assistance was provided. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was unknown. Parts distribution disconnect. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle failed to detect object in HOV lane while traveling at 73 mph north on I-280. Vehicle impacted object with no warning or braking, causing car to become airborne and resulting in $19000 in damages. Note: please use ZIP code as password to access the insurance report (CSAA attachment) | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | VISIBILITY | The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V702000 (Visibility) 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 while attempting to roll up the windows, the windows failed to respond as needed. The failure mileage was approximately 55,000. Parts distribution disconnect. | Crash: No Fire: No | 55,000 |
| Dec 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | HVAC Heating system not fuctional (PTC Heater) has failed. It seems through a series of internet searches and forums that the PTC Heater is failing prematurely on earlier builds of the Model 3. Tesla additionally has limited supply/backordered of PTC Heaters therefore would be assumed that the issue is larger than Tesla wants to disclose. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | SUSPENSION | 2018 MODEL 3 21,060 miles, No warning lights or messages, car started to make a clicking noise when turning steering wheel right and left. Drove to Tesla Service Center after hearing noise for the 1st time. At Tesla Service: Agent #1 stated that is a normal noise and no need to bring it in and or need to make appointment. Agent #2 Technician, heard noise and said that it needs to be looked at, maybe control arm. Technician #3 came out to visual inspect vehicle heard noise when turning steering wheel while he visually inspected front suspension. Tesla made appointment for next day. Tesla stated that Right and Left Control arm and all parts, have to be replaced. Tesla has recalls out for front suspension, control arm issue. If your vin. # is not on the list then you will be charged. I believe that this is major safety issue due to failure of control of steering which could easily cause an accident. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | STEERING | Car was steering properly when parked Dec 4th. Car sat for 5 days from Dec 5 until Dec 10 while we were out of town. Car was plugged in as recommended by Tesla during that time. On Dec 11 the screen information indicated the following "Steering Assist Reduced". No steering assist was available. Armstrong Steering was required to deliver to the service center. Any senior person with less than adequate strength requiring power steering would have difficulty safely driving the car. I noticed a recall or Model S and X for similar complaint. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | STRUCTURE | The contact owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, he heard a rattling noise underneath the vehicle. The contact stated that upon inspection, he noticed that the underbody shield had detached. No warning light was illuminated. The dealer was not notified of the failure. The manufacturer was notified, and the contact was informed to submit photos and a virtual diagnosis was performed. The failure mileage was approximately 39,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While using the traffic-aware cruise control in my Tesla model 3, going down the highway with cruise set at 75 and no cars around, the Tesla suddenly braked unexpectedly and with no visible cause. I then googled for similar tesla experiences and saw the gov was investigating this on 2021 and 2022 models, however my car is a 2017 or 18 and exhibited the same situation. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | EXTERIOR LIGHTING | The passenger-side daytime-running headlight (aka, "signature light" or "accent headlight") failed at approximately 66,000 miles and four years. This makes the daytime-running headlight ineffective. I have since noticed many Tesla Model 3's with the same issue. To fix this problem requires replacement of the entire headlight assembly. This was a very expensive repair (~$1200) and will likely be ignored by owners of Teslas no longer covered under warranty. This creates a common safety issue with these automobiles. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Dec 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | While slowly backing out of a parking space, I tapped the bumper of another vehicle in the space directly behind mine, causing some damage to the bumpers of both cars. The backup camera on my vehicle was not functioning at the time, making it difficult to see. I have attached a screen shot of the Tesla's display immediately after the accident. You can see the blank feed from the backup camera (there is a reflection of the vehicle next to mine). I have had intermittent problems with the backup camera showing as black on the screen (except for the two lines indicating the direction of the vehicle). Tesla initiated a recall in December 2021. see https://www.tesla.com/support/model-3-trunk-lid-harness-retrofit for details. Every time on my Tesla phone app about this recall, it says, "you do not need to request an appointment at this time. You will receive a notification in your Tesla App when parts are available for your vehicle." It's almost a year and the company has still not offered a fix. Tesla claims at the above link that "We are not aware of any crashes or injuries relating to this condition." I am reporting this incident to NHTSA to inform you of a crash relating to the malfunctioning of this important piece of equipment. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Nov 2022 | SEATS | Tesla models are equipped with an "Easy Entry" feature and driver profiles which allow configuring seat and mirror adjustments based on who is driving. After repeated use, it's possible for the driver's seat to get stuck in "Easy Entry" mode and unable to roll forward. It is not possible to adjust the seat manually since the controls are all digital. Tesla's recommended fix is a $1000 seat motor replacement, even though other adjustments (seat height and tilt) can still be adjusted. This appears to be a manufacturer defect and is a common complaint in owner forums. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/driver-seat-stuck.179625/ | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Nov 2022 | 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 parts to do the recall repair were not yet available. The local dealer was not 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 had not experienced a failure. Parts distribution disconnect. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Nov 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | One lovely frigid winter day, my son woke up really ill. We had to take him to the hospital, which is roughly 30 min from our house. In our rush, we didn't grab hardly anything to bring with us. Just a small blanket for him so that we could get out the door. Once we got in the car, we got the lovely "Climate control unavailable due to system fault" error. We have not had heat since. Our son who is only 10 months old had to be driven back and forth in our car. It was only 30 degrees outside, and basically the exact same temp in the car. We had seat heaters, he did not. It was bad. Fast forward, we put in a service request. I started researching the issue and realized this is a widespread issue.We couldn't use our defroster at all either which is a huge issue here in Idaho. We brought the car into the service center the day after Thanksgiving. We mentioned to them that we thought this was a widespread issue and wanted to know what they would do to remedy it. They didn't entertain that at all and seemed to think this was just an isolated event. Our loaner is a 2018 Model S 100D. Super cool!! We haven't driven a Model S before, and we are enjoying it. We picked up the loaner around 5pm the day we dropped off our car at the service center. When I get in the loaner car, I see that it needs an update. I hit the "schedule update" button. I stuck with the recommended 2:30 am update suggestion since I will be asleep anyway. Now it is Saturday. We drove the car to a couple of places that day, and it is doing just fine. Sunday rolls around, and we need to run to the store. Upon getting in the car, it throws the EXACT same error as our model 3. Climate control is unavailable due to system fault. Now not only is our Model 3 in the shop, but our loaner car is having the exact same issue right after it received an update. We are hoping for help. This seems like a huge widespread issue for Tesla owners and Tesla is not taking any accountability. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Nov 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,LANE DEPARTURE,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Front wiring harness corrodes causing steering control to corrode. This also affects lane keep, braking, and speed control. At least 6 warnings associated with the short circuit | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |