Complaint volume
434 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
2020 Tesla Model 3 Complaints
434 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2020 Tesla Model 3, grouped by component category.
434 Total complaints
51 Crash reports
2 Fire reports
26 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 forward collision avoidance, unknown or other, vehicle speed control,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 51 crash reports, 2 fire reports, 26 injury reports, and 2 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 74 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 13,034 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to forward collision avoidance, unknown or other, vehicle speed control,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 2020 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.
2020 Tesla Model 3
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2020 Tesla Model 3 complaints?
51 Crash
2 Fire
26 Injury
2 Fatality
35 Towed
25 Medical attention
What are the most common 2020 Tesla Model 3 complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 72
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 34
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 24
SUSPENSION 20
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 18
AIR BAGS 14
STEERING 14
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 14
STRUCTURE 13
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 10
434 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | My car when passing under signs or on two lane undivided roads will hit the brakes very aggressively. It’s difficult to reproduce and catches me and other drivers by surprise. The car didn’t do this during my first year of ownership, but now it happens several times a week. This will happen when using cruise control and autopilot. To me it’s rendered both features unusable. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car suddenly brakes when the accommodative cruise control or full automatic driving is engaged. This happens at random times when driving on the highway. The braking is sudden and severe requiring driver intervention. Only happens with cruise control or full auto. Has happened several times since the car was purchased. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While traveling on highway with Full self driving engaged car would occasionally brake and had to quickly press on the gas pedal for fear a car would hit me from behind. This seemed to happen when I approach an overpass but not most overpasses and typically happens once or twice during highway trips of about 80 miles on NJ garden state parkway. I had not reported this to Tesla or had the car checked for this issue and report it now seeing that there were formal reports filed on this issue to NHTSA. I do not recall whether any warning lights or audible alerts occurred during these incidents. First occurred after I took possession of car a couple of years back. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | In moderate city traffic, the emergency braking system sounded and engaged prematurely and harshly. I was not using any automatic driving features and was driving “manually.” A vehicle in front of me stopped, and I intended to slow then stop in a reasonable fashion. I have 25 years’ driving experience, and am well-experienced to do this safely. The emergency braking system suddenly engaged at about 25 mph, grinding my car to a halt. The driver behind me was not expecting such a short stop, and rear-ended my vehicle. No one was injured in this crash. My seatbelt trigger deployed, which tripped the pyro fuse, rendering my car undriveable. I could not move my car off the roadway and caused traffic clogs. The repair bill was roughly $9000 for my vehicle. The weather was clear, the street was dry and the sun was near high noon. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was driving on highway 205 near Tracy CA. I was in the left lane approaching a left curve in the road. The right lane to me was occupied by a semi with "wide load" on the back. It was in its lane and just ahead of me. As we both approached the curve in the road, my car experienced a "phantom brake" episode thinking it was going to hit the truck. Again both our vehicles were in their respective land and the truck was not crossing over the line. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I have reported multiple times that the car suddenly brakes in the middle of the express way with no apparent reason. This issue is known as phantom braking. Tesla postponed the diagnosis of the car multiple times and I was told by the service department that the problem was going to be fixed by replacing the radars when I left the car on May 16, which they did not do. The last events of phantom braking occurred multiple times and even I continued stepping on the accelerator, the car continued to engaging with the emergency braking. This is a safety issue and the company has failed to fix it | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | "Phantom braking" issue is very real and very dangerous on my vehicle. Problem occurs while operating the car with Autopilot engaged such that the adaptive cruise control is in operation. Problem happens with or without also having the auto-steer function engaged. Problem is that the vehicle will suddenly, very unexpectedly slam on the brakes. This can cause the driver of the vehicle to go into panic mode and for obvious reasons is also very dangerous for vehicles that are following the malfunctioning Tesla. Sometimes, this sudden, hard braking occurs when a vehicle coming toward the Tesla makes a left turn in front of the Tesla at a VERY far away and VERY safe distance - so safe that the driver of the Tesla is caught completely off guard when the Tesla decides to slam on the brakes. And cars behind the Tesla are also caught off guard. Other times, this "phantom braking" happens for no apparent reason at all - totally out of the blue. I am now very leery to use the autopilot feature, even though that was one of the vehicles biggest selling points. I am positive that only reason I have not been rear-ended is I have quick enough reflexes that I have been able to push my foot on the accelerator quickly enough to over-ride the sudden braking before the car behind me hit me. I have called Tesla's service department about this issue. They do acknowledge the issue, although in a vague manner as if they are reluctant to fully admit how prevalent and serious the issue is. I've asked if there are any adjustments I can make to the various settings that might reduce this problem. The representatives that I spoke with had only anecdotal experiences from conversations with other customers complaining about this problem. My Tesla has several control settings which could be related to this problem. They are not well explained in the owner's manual, plus some settings appear to overlap or conflict with similarly named settings. Confusing! Many incidents, so is date is not specific. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The contact owns a 2020 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving approximately 20 MPH, there was a loud sound coming from the vehicle. There was a warning message to take control of the vehicle displayed. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The contact related the failure to NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V063000 (Electrical System, Forward Collision Avoidance). The approximate failure mileage was 9,800. | Crash: No Fire: No | 9,800 |
| May 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When using the adaptive cruise control phantom breaking occurs. This is extremely dangerous because at times cruise is set to 60-75 mph and car will randomly hard brake. If someone was following me this could definitely cause an accident. It’s also so abrupt that it jolts your body forward. I have not taken the car to any service center to reproduce. There are no warnings, no indications of anything visually on the screen that the car would see to cause the breaking. There is also one spot on my route it consistently does this on. This issue has been occurring since early 2021. I take the same route daily for school drop off purposes. It’s a 45mi trip one way. The issue will consistently occur at least twice one way on the trip if I’m using the adaptive cruise system. I do not use auto pilot only the cruise. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car exceeds the speed limit with adaptive cruise control/autopilot, despite all the available settings being set to strictly obey the speed limit. Driving on the highway in a 60mph zone enabling autopilot will set the speed to 60mph, as expected. If the speed limit increases, the car will change to the new speed limit, e.g. 70mph. Now, if the speed limit drops back down to 60, the car will NOT slow to 60, although the correct speed limit is displayed. Also happens on streets. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | We were pulling our car from 5th floor of a parking garage and as the car was coming down the ramp into the 4th floor, it accelerated itself to a high speed, hit another parked car, and came to a stop hitting concrete pillar in the garage. Our car was damaged severely and all the airbags got deployed, smoke came out it. We are still in shock from the incident and it was a traumatic experience for all 4 members of our family including two of our children. It would have been catastrophic had there been another person around or if something more had happened. Our car unexpectedly accelerated and none of the warnings worked. Tesla car usually gives us warning (a shrilling beeping noise) when an unexpected obstacle, be it another car or a trash can or a human, is within a short distance of the vehicle. This warning sound comes up even when no automatic driving feature is used. But on that day, the warning sound did not come and we think the vehicle may have malfunctioned. When we searched in the internet, we found many incidents of unexpected acceleration with Tesla Model 3.When we brought our concern to the insurance, we were asked to report to NHTSA. The car is now with insurance and the manufacturer has not looked into it as we haven’t informed them yet. The car was in excellent condition and there were no warning or failure lamps on before the incident. This warrants your attention and hence we are writing this to you. Please advise us the next steps and if we need to preserve the car to retrieve any data recorded in the vehicle. For the safety of other drivers and pedestrians, this needs to be thoroughly investigated. Kindly do the needful. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |
| May 2022 | LANE DEPARTURE | The blind spot warning is non-functional, plus the camera image system is defective in low light conditions as the image displayed is obscured by the glare of the turn signals | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | AIR BAGS | Front passenger seat seat belt gives me an error saying front safety restraint system fault. Tesla says it's not a problem and will not fix it | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | LANE DEPARTURE | When I signal to change lanes the side cameras show the blind spot. At night the camera is blinded by the light from the turn signal due to a fault in the camera, Tesla has a fix but want hundreds of dollars to repair. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle at least once per day automatically brakes. Phantom emergency brakes for no reason randomly when going straight on the road no objects come into obstruction for the cameras. Common Tesla problem. This needs to be fixed. It has almost caused a few accidents for me now. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,VISIBILITY,BACK OVER PREVENTION | The contact's granddaughter owns a 2020 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while her granddaughter was reversing, the rearview camera failed to turn on, causing the rear end of the vehicle to crash into a cement post. The contact was unsure whether there was a warning light illuminated. There were no injuries sustained. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a Tesla-certified autobody mechanic but was not diagnosed or repaired. The vehicle was then towed to the contact's residence. The contact later 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 contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure but did not provide any assistance. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 400. VIN tool confirms parts not available. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | 400 |
| Apr 2022 | STEERING,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Sporadically when driving at highway speeds, car will experience an error. Steering assist IMMEDIATELY decreases (wheel harder to turn), cruise control (if enabled) will disengage, and following Error codes appear on flatscreen : - Vehicle Hold Feature Unavailable - Tire Pressure Monitor System Fault - Automatic Emergency Braking Disabled - ABS (Anti-lock brakes) disabled - Regenerative Brakes Disabled - Steering assist reduced - Traction control disabled Unsure of which component is at fault. Tesla Service center (Norfolk VA) has pushed off appointment for more than 30 days but has acknowledged that there is an issue. SAFETY: Loss of ABS is a major safety risk to occupants. Loss of steering assist also puts driver and others at risk due to increased steering effort. Loss loss of regenerative braking also a safety risk due to the instantaneous change of vehicle braking behavior when regenerative braking switches off. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Shift stalk also serves as fsd disengagement- to Shift into reverse with a regular car, it’s a very explicit mechanical shift with either the manual or automatic gear box. So consider this scenario where I nearly back crashed into the car behind me. In fsd, it can be disengaged either by 1) braking, (2) breaking torque with the steering wheel or (3) lifting the gear selector stick. So, I arrive at a stop light, I brake because fsd driving is producing an alarm that it came too close to the car in front of me (not me, fsd too close). Being human and not realizing that fsd disengaged when I hit the brake, a then lifted the shift stalk to disengage fsd to get it to shut up with the alarm. Actually what this did was shift me into reverse. Light turns green, I step on the accelerator and I go backwards. This event would be impossible with a conventional shifter. the other major issue is in a school zone. I acknowledge that the software appears to have placeholders where it recognizes a school zone, brakes and proceeds. The issue however is, when on the zone, in fsd and having manually set to the zone speed, the crosswalk guard flags the lane to stop, fsd instead, proceeds to snap to the left and attempt to pass the car in front of me, breaching all zone protocol. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The emergency automatic brake, cruise control and auto pilot feature gets disabled frequently. All 3 features gets disabled at same time. Contacted tesla service center in decatur-GA. They are saying they cannot find the problem and hence cannot solve it. They say the engineers are looking into it, and my car needs a firmware update. No estimated time to fix these issues is given. The service center advised that the car is safe to drive! Please help. Thanks. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2022 | WHEELS | The contact owns a 2020 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving 30 MPH, he heard an abnormal noise. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact continued to drive to his destination. The contact stated he parked the vehicle, he noticed that a large section of the front passenger’s side rim was missing. The contact filed a complaint on the Tesla application and made them aware of the failure. The contact purchased the front passenger side rim from the Tesla website. The contact took the vehicle to an independent mechanic and had the front passenger’s side rim replaced. The contact stated that the vehicle was still driving to the right. The vehicle was repaired. The contact attempted to reach the manufacturer but was unable to speak to a representative. The failure mileage was approximately 28,500. | Crash: No Fire: No | 28,500 |
| Apr 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | I'd like to register a complaint that features and functionality were removed from my vehicle at the request of the NHTSA inappropriately and for without justification. Several features including the ability to play sounds out of external speakers while moving were removed without any real study or analysis provided to justify the action taken. You did not provide any evidence for this change. No proof that it was a safety hazard at all. This is bullshit and I want my feature back. If you think this is an appropriate use of your authority you're a disgrace and a waste of government time and resources. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Car engages self breaking while on autopilot without any particular reason. Repeated brhavior happened and almost caused rear end collision. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was traveling on the 91 freeway headed west in corona, ca. I was in the fastrak lane approaching an overpass. I was using the cruise control option and going about 73 mph when out of nowhere my vehicle acted as if someone slammed on the brakes. We were moving with the flow of traffic and luckily I had my foot resting over the gas pedal so I immediately pushed down to override the system. The car behind us had to change lanes to avoid hitting us. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle was at a stop with brake engaged and then it proceeded to go full speed into a vehicle two meters away without acceleration pedal engaged. Emergency brake did not activate during or slightly before the collision. The brakes had to be engaged manually, but vehicle was already past a certain velocity on its own accord to be able to stop properly without damaging property or harming pedestrians. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | Need to ship vehicle to Hawaii however the remedy for the active recall is currently unavailable. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |