Complaint volume
270 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 Y Complaints
270 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2020 Tesla Model Y, grouped by component category.
270 Total complaints
47 Crash reports
0 Fire reports
17 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, suspension. Use those categories as a test-drive checklist instead of judging the vehicle from the total count alone.
Severity flags
Enriched records include 47 crash reports, 0 fire reports, 17 injury reports, and 0 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 50 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 16,193 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, suspension?
- 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 Y?
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 Y
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2020 Tesla Model Y complaints?
47 Crash
0 Fire
17 Injury
0 Fatality
25 Towed
13 Medical attention
What are the most common 2020 Tesla Model Y complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 44
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 17
SUSPENSION 15
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 11
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 11
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 9
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE 9
SERVICE BRAKES 7
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 7
STEERING 6
270 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was driving with cruise control on and the car violently hit the brakes when there was no one in front of us. We have noticed this is more common when cresting a hill. This happens at least once every time we are on a road trip. This needs to be addressed. We know we are not the only person having these issues with the Tesla and the “phantom braking” | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Driving on Highway 80, west of Elko, NV. No obstructions on the road, no cars within 5 miles, no animals or birds on the highway. The vehicle aggressively brakes. It did this 4 times with the assisted driving engaged and 1 with cruise control engaged. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | We’re getting errors for traction control, reduced traction, control, disabled automatic emergency, braking is unavailable, ABS disabled. This is a manufactures defect, and Tesla is requiring us to pay. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM | Vehicle has 51,126 mi as of this writing. When new (June 2020) 250 miles of freeway range was typical in typical California weather for an efficiency rating of 280 Wh/mi for 100% to 1% state of charge (SoC). This was tested repeatedly, numerous times, on multiple road trips. At ~12K miles into ownership, OEM tires were swapped as they were dangerously useless in rain and snow. Repeated calculations confirmed ~10% range loss. This meant that average Wh/mi consumption went from about ~280 Wh/mi to about ~308 Wh/mi, for a real world freeway range reduction to about 227 from say 250 (again 100% to 1% SoC). This was expected and accepted. Last 2 years were spent in New England during which freeway range started to drop precipitously, reaching a low of 166 miles (100% to 1% state of charge; about 420 Wh/mi) at freezing temperatures; verified across two identical road trips. Cold weather range was expected, but in retrospect, this was far too much of a drop. Now back in California, range has dropped even further and settled at about ~150 miles -- or an abysmal 450 Wh/mi -- i.e., a 40% drop from the OEM tires, and a 34% drop from the new tires. All charging stats (and Tesla's remote tests) show the battery is at full capacity (69 kWh is a 1% to 100% recharge and the battery is rated at 70 kWh). Tesla claims no faults, and assign blame to driver (high freeway speeds; Sentry Mode; climate control; etc). Tesla now threatening -- as indicated in recent class action lawsuit -- to charge $275/hr if I continue to press the issue, even though I have explained rental Model Y vehicles have vastly better range. I have insisted on several options: (A) Pay for a loaner to test. - NO (B) I will rent another Model Y from Hertz and report back with data. - NO (C) Acknowledge the problem, I want to pay to fix it. - NO (D) Acknowledge the problem, but you don't know how to fix it. - NO It is clear I am now being strong-armed by their Diversion Team. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2023 | SEAT BELTS | Passenger rear seat seatbelt stopped working abruptly. Buckle will not click to secure. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2023 | STEERING | Was driving on the interstate and a notification that “Steering assist reduced” came on the screen. About 10 minutes later my steering wheel became extremely hard to turn. I almost crashed going thru the tunnel! For the next many days I never had issues and thought it was a technical problem, because you would think if power steering is not working it wouldn’t magically work again 5 minutes later when you turn the car on. I had service done to fix something else in the car and had them take a look. There is an issue with the steering rack and want me to pay 3k to fix. My car only has 54k miles on it. So I’ve done some googling and found that I am not the first and won’t be the last to have this issue! It’s funny that Tesla service knew immediately what was wrong but at the same time didn’t know why it would happen. Sounds like it’s not my problem and I shouldn’t be paying 3k for it. Especially if brand new cars are also having the same issue. Today it did the exact same thing but then magically works again after I power off the car. It’s been about a week since the first incident. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | On a round trip from Albuquerque, NM to Tucson, AZ, we experienced 8-10 instances of phantom braking in our 2020 Tesla Long-Range Model Y. The occurrences happened when the car was in adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assistance. Highway speed was typically 75 MPH, weather was sunny, and roads were clear. Overall, an unnerving experience! | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | Tesla completely shut down and my wife got locked inside with windows closed. Windows will not roll down. She called me and I asked for help with roadside assistance. They showed the manual door open latch. I called the tow truck and heard that this is a common incident. Tesla service center diagnosed it as a complete failure of 12V battery. There was absolutely no warning of the problem. This’s a really unsafe situation and needs to have a warning system for 12v battery failure. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving in cruise control mode, not auto steer, and with no vehicle in or obvious obstruction in front, the brakes will be applied without warning (phantom braking). It has happened multiple time in the years of ownership. It has happened once or twice with a vehicle following resulting in near rear-end collision. In one case this resulted in the follower reacting with "road rage," passing with horns blaring and braking in front of my vehicle. I have this recent incident on video as it just requires me to honk the horn and the last 5-10 minutes of driving is recorded. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | STEERING,UNKNOWN OR OTHER,SERVICE BRAKES | I purchased our Tesla model Y 3 years ago. I intentionally disabled and did not subscribe to any autonomous driving features because I don’t trust them. I disabled all aspects of auto pilot functions. Despite this, my car still will automatically swerve at random times, slam on the brakes randomly with no reason to break, etc. It is terrifying when this happens unexpectedly and infuriating that I have disabled all these features, but it still does this. This is most common when I put it in cruise control. Rarely these will happen when, for example you cross a double yellow line, but most of the time they happen when nothing has occurred to prompt them. I believe this is an unsafe feature, and needs to be investigated. Unfortunately, with Tesla they have no customer service so there’s nobody that I can report this to. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving with autopilot at 65mph, a vehicle 500 yards in front of me was turning left. My car suddenly braked to avoid it. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | While I was parking the car at a parking spot for a doctor's appointment, it accelerated by itself and drove over the parking spot front bump and drove a short downhill covered with grass. Then it drove across a street and stopped by hitting an SUV parked. During the whole process, I tried to stop it by braking it, but failed. While it slides down, I gave up controlling the car. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | STEERING,LANE DEPARTURE | Tesla advertises lane keeping assist, emergency lane departure assist etc. What happens is if you trigger this feature too many times during a drive the software disables this safety feature entirely. There are plenty of disclosures about not relying on the features etc. The issue i feel that warrants intervention from your departments is, how can a manufacture completely disable a safety feature just because a driver actually relied on said safety feature. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | SEAT BELTS,SEATS | Its a known issue affecting many model 3 and model Ys front passenger safety restraint system fault. It's all over the tesla message boards. It just happened to my vehicle. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was on a self driving mode enabled but it’s been raining for a while and I believe it showed the poor weather condition so FSD is not enabled but autopilot was engaged (but not 100% sure about which mode it was) It was around 2am in the morning and was on 580 southbound from Dublin to SFO. I was on the second to the left lane. It suddenly tried to go diagonally to the first lane. (Not like normal lane change but very abrupt almost like making turn 90 degree left) so I tried to cancel by holding on the steering wheel. And then it went out of control and start rotating until it stopped by hitting the center guard rail on the passenger rear side. The car stopped facing backward on the road (on the center shoulder). Luckily it was late night (around 2am) and there were no car behind luckily. I could have dead if another car hit into my car. Tesla insurance of course didn't admin any of this and told me it was my fault. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | The contact owns a 2020 Tesla Model Y. The contact was driving approximately 3 MPH as she was parking the vehicle, front end first, the vehicle independently accelerated as she removed her foot from the accelerator. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact's vehicle crashed into the vehicle's front end that had already been parked, the vehicle was not occupied. The contact stated that she depressed the brake with force. The contact stated that the force of the crash had moved the other vehicle out of the parking spot and into the lot. The contact's vehicle had a crushed front bumper and the other vehicle also had damage to the front bumper. The contact's vehicle was drivable. There were no injuries and the police were not involved. The contact had not been taken to a local dealer or independent mechanic. The vehicle had not been diagnosed and had not been repaired. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 23,000. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | 23,000 |
| Jul 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES | Phantom breaking | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | POWER TRAIN,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving at highway speeds, the car unintentionally went into neutral. The setup: The driver was on the highway with cruise control on. Upon turning cruise control off to prepare for entering an exit ramp, the car also went neutral. We lost power and the regenerative braking that you expect in this car. The center console stated something like “Please shift into drive or reverse”. The cause is that Tesla uses an up movement on the right hand gear stalk to cancel auto pilot, cancel cruise control, and to put the car into neutral. If that up movement is too long, the car will inadvertently go into neutral regardless of car speed. We reported this to Tesla and they suggested all model 3s and Ys do this. Some light searching online showed this happening to others too. This feels dangerous at highway speeds. And the point at which you are turning cruise control off could be a critical phase of driving and feels like a unsafe time for the car to loose power. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | Other/I am not sure | This is now the 2nd carseat, same exact brand and model. The headrest is to be positioned in certain spots as the child grows. I raised it to where its needed but the headrest falls. I have watched countless youtube videos and read the instruction manuals how to and the headrest still goes to the lowest sitting position possible. When it happened to the first carseat they sent out backing plates for ME to replace and it did not help. Then sent a new whole headrest piece to replace which didn't help either. I had to slightly put my foot down in order for them to just send a replacement seat. Now this is happening AGAIN with the same modeled seat for my other child. This isn't just 1 seat its happened to it's 2. Paying a ton of money for the best safety seats for our kids and to have an issue with the headrest which is a major part of the body that needs to have safety coverage and properly fastened /following the rules/instructions. The headrest is what's not working properly, it is available for inspection if needed. It puts any child at risk since its not sitting at the height needed can possible hurt the childs head/neck possibly. This specific carseat has NOT been inspected but we did send the other carseat I did have an issue with back to the manufacturer. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | EXTERIOR LIGHTING | While driving with Auto Pilot the car turns off the high beams whenever it sees too many reflectors. Such as on power poles of guard rails. The problem is twice this week I seen deer crossing the road ahead of me and the car turned off the high beaks. Then for a couple seconds I couldn't turn on the high beams manually. When I asked Tesla to look at this problem I was told they are in development. I own this car for three years and I think nothing is being done. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,VISIBILITY/WIPER | During phone calls, the system would start making sparking noises and stall the calls. While navigation was input parts of the screen would disappear. While backing up, the rear cameras would freeze and stall. The rear camera freezing had caused us to get into an accident, and caused us to have 4 near misses. When I was trying to download the latest software release, the software download froze and never downloaded. I started to drive to the Tesla dealership and as I was doing so, the screen picture of my vehicle disappeared along with the gear shift indicator, the surrounding cameras failed. Then when I put on my turn signal, the sound disappeared. Then eventually the indicator disappeared. The entire screen froze with no information, and then went black while I was driving to the Tesla dealership. The system was black and finally did a reboot after 4 minutes, all while I had no display of my speed. I took it into the dealership, and the checkin girl was concerned about the safety and gave me a loaner. The technician was not really concerned and said it was not able to replicate the issue and said there was no safety issue as you can still drive the car. This is not correct as you do not have the speed indication when your screen freezes or goes black. I sent them pictures as the screen kept doing one thing after the other in a matter on one drive from my home to the dealership in 15 minutes. This is similar to the other recalls that Tesla had to make on the model S and the Model X and some model Y's. This should have been taken care of under the current recalls for the infotainment system that the other models years were facing as it is giving the same issues on my model. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving at highway speeds (50mph-80mph), on 2 lane or 4 lane highways, in the day or night, in sunny conditions and overcast sky's, while using the cruise control (auto-pilot), the car will suddenly and unexpectedly apply the brakes. It happens between 8 and 10 times on every road trip, each way. Not only is it a shock to me as there is never a visual obstacle that seems to be causing the hard braking, but it is a dangerous safety issue to other motorists too. This has caused cars behind me to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision. Other motorists have mistaken this hard braking as me "Brake-Checking" them and very nearly cause a road-rage incident. I've had the car for about a year and have opened several service appointments with Tesla. Each time they close the case before the service appointment with a version of the reply "this is normal" and "there is nothing to repair". They also claim that the car will learn how the react next time by my reaction to the incident this time. I have reacted the same way (by pushing the accelerator pedal until it regains forward motion) each time this has happened in the 8-10 times on each of the 6-8 road trips I've made in the last year. Clearly, the car isn't learning anything from my reaction to the sudden and unexpected braking. My safety is worth my time to make them take this seriously as they don't seem to be concerned with my safety! | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On the last road trip, my car emergently braked for no reason when using cruise control and autopilot causing safety issues for cars behind my vehicle. This happened at least 6 times on my 500-mile round trip. I reached out to Tesla service and was told there is no fix at this time. in my opinion this is a dangerous problem that needs addressing in an urgent manner. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | STRUCTURE,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Rear door is stuck and does NOT open, nor will the emergency release in the door, when activated, allow it to open. Poses a significant danger to anyone in the backseat, or if trying to get a child out from the backseat, say in the event of an accident on the opposite side. This must be addressed via a recall asap, or there will be serious consequences eventually. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2023 | SUSPENSION | Vehicle is absolutely destroying tires at an alarming rate (every 10k miles we need new tires). We have had multiple 4 wheel alignments done and verified that the alignment is perfect. Despite this, the front and rear tires wear the inside leading edge down to wire while the outside edge has 80%+ tread remaining. The other issue is the creaking/groaning and premature wear the control arms display. This is a super common issue across all tesla models. This is alarming because the next step after the noise presents itself is total failure of the control arm due to lack of grease which results in the wheel falling off the vehicle. There are no grease fittings on the control arms like the vast majority of other manufacturers vehicles and the bearings and tesla won’t fix this despite knowing it is an issue and having our vehicle multiple times for service for this issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |