Complaint volume
246 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
2026 Tesla Model Y Complaints
246 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2026 Tesla Model Y, grouped by component category.
246 Total complaints
44 Crash reports
1 Fire reports
12 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 unknown or other, forward collision avoidance, electrical system. Use those categories as a test-drive checklist instead of judging the vehicle from the total count alone.
Severity flags
Enriched records include 44 crash reports, 1 fire report, 12 injury reports, and 0 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 14 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 6,895 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to unknown or other, forward collision avoidance, electrical system?
- 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 2026 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.
2026 Tesla Model Y
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2026 Tesla Model Y complaints?
44 Crash
1 Fire
12 Injury
0 Fatality
18 Towed
9 Medical attention
What are the most common 2026 Tesla Model Y complaint categories?
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 53
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 20
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 12
STRUCTURE 11
SUSPENSION 7
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 7
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE 6
LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES 6
STEERING,SUSPENSION 6
EXTERIOR LIGHTING,UNKNOWN OR OTHER 5
246 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2026 | SUSPENSION,LANE DEPARTURE,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I am submitting this complaint regarding a newly leased 2026 Tesla Model Y Premium RWD, which I took delivery of on February 6, 2026 from Tesla Watertown, MA. I am a returning Tesla customer and entered this lease after test driving the same model on January 24, which did not exhibit any issues. Immediately upon driving the vehicle off the lot (approximately 12 miles), I noticed a persistent rattling noise from the front suspension area. The noise occurs over normal road conditions and has been present since delivery, significantly affecting the quality and value of the vehicle. On February 9, Tesla Watertown evaluated the vehicle and later replaced both front upper control arm (FUCA) mounts. On February 10, before repairs were completed, multiple safety systems suddenly disabled while driving, including regenerative braking behavior, traction and stability control, lane safety features, and automatic emergency braking, creating a dangerous situation. I returned the vehicle immediately and was provided a loaner. I picked up the vehicle on February 13 and was told the suspension issue was resolved, but the noise remained. I then sought a second opinion at Tesla Peabody, where a master technician conducted a ride-along and confirmed the condition. He verified that the latest FUCA parts had been installed and the front structural “pencil braces” had been removed per Tesla guidance. I was informed the vehicle falls into a known noise category affecting 2026 RWD Model Y vehicles and that there is currently no repair or engineering solution available. This defect has existed since delivery and remains unresolved after multiple service visits and component replacements. I have contacted Tesla regional leadership and customer support multiple times without response. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES | The contact owns a 2026 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that the model year was advertised with a front trunk emergency release and interior lighting. The contact stated that after purchasing the vehicle, the contact became aware that the vehicle was not designed with the front trunk emergency release or interior lighting, which the contact considered a safety issue and a violation of FMVSS No. 401. The Tesla Service Center was contacted and confirmed that the model year and other vehicles were no longer designed with the missing parts. The manufacturer was notified of the issue. The failure mileage was approximately 570. | Crash: No Fire: No | 570 |
| Feb 2026 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,EXTERIOR LIGHTING | Tesla decided to remove the safety unlock illuminated button from its front trunk (frunk) sometime in mid 2025. This can be a safety issue which was present in earlier models and against the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 401, mandating an interior release mechanism for enclosed trunks to prevent entrapment. I contacted Tesla and they told me that my vehicle was made after Tesla decided to remove this safety feature. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC | The contact owns a 2026 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving at approximately 10 MPH into a parking spot, the contact depressed the brake pedal, but the vehicle failed to stop. The vehicle drove over a parking bump, struck a bench, and the automatic emergency braking system engaged, preventing the vehicle from hitting the wall. The air bags did not deploy. The contact stated that she had back pains, but was unsure whether they were related to the failure. There was no medical attention received. A police report was filed. The vehicle was able to be driven away from the crash site. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who test-drove the vehicle. The contact was informed that the vehicle was not equipped with a manual parking brake; however, the brakes were functioning normally according to the computer, and to wait for corporate's report before taking the vehicle to a collision center for front-end repairs. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and opened an investigation. The contact was informed that the vehicle was safe to drive. The failure mileage was approximately 6,000. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Injuries: 1 | 6,000 |
| Feb 2026 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | There is no frunk emergency release button in this version of Juniper Model Y | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | AIR BAGS,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Rear-end collision. My Tesla impacted the rear of another vehicle at approximately 15–18 mph. No forward collision warning observed. Owner-provided data shows AEB status as SNA. Impact is such that the car is totaled. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | BACK OVER PREVENTION,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | At approximately 5:50 PM on Feb 12, 2026, a collision occurred while the vehicle was under the control of "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)." While parked in a commercial lot, I engaged FSD to initiate a route home. A stationary semi-truck was positioned behind my vehicle. Upon engagement, the FSD system failed to detect the presence of the stationary truck. The vehicle initiated a rearward/lateral maneuver at a speed of 1 mph, directly striking the corner of the semi-truck. Safety Failure Details: The collision resulted in significant damage to the right rear quarter panel and associated sensors of my Tesla Model Y. Dashcam footage and system telemetry confirm that FSD was active (Supervised mode) during the entire duration of the maneuver. The system's occupancy network and vision suite failed to identify a large, stationary object within its immediate path of travel at a crawl speed. Request for Investigation: I am reporting a critical failure of the FSD software’s object detection and path planning capabilities. The system commanded a movement into a clear obstruction without issuing any takeover alerts or applying emergency braking, despite the low speed and high visibility of the obstacle. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | STEERING,LANE DEPARTURE,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I am reporting a safety incident involving my Tesla while Autopilot/Full Self-Driving was engaged. On February 11, 2025 at approximately 9:22 am, on Waccamaw Medical Park Ct Conway, SC 29526, I was driving on a normal city street with the system actively controlling steering and speed. Without any warning or alert, the vehicle suddenly steered to the right toward the curb and struck it. I was very attentive, but the steering movement happened too quickly for me to safely prevent the impact. No forward collision warning, lane departure alert, or disengagement occurred prior to the incident. The impact caused damage to the wheel and tire (see attached photo). This behavior appears to be an incorrect steering decision by the automated driving system after misinterpreting the roadway edge or lane boundary. I am requesting review of the vehicle logs and investigation of the system behavior during this event. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | SEATS | The passenger side seat heat was on and burnt the leather of passenger side seat. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES | It was snowing and I was driving slow. About 8:40am, Feb 6th, 2026, I got a "One pedal driving disabled" alert just for a moment, then tried to stop before an intersection because a signal was turning to red. However, break didn't work and I had to enter the intersection under a red signal. Fortunately, there was no car in front of me, also a car coming from the side didn't notice signal changed. No accident, but very very scary. On Dec 6th, I also got an alert "One pedal driving disabled" and even after I released an accelerator pedal, speed didn't slow down. I reached Tesla on Feb 6th, but the service scheduled 4 weeks later. It's not safe to drive at all, thus, I will try to have them to check my vehicle asap. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | STRUCTURE | The forward trunk also known as the Frunk does not have the legally required interior release. I have children. I train them how to use a trunk emergency release. This car does not have one for the Forward trunk. This is a serious safety hazard. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | SUSPENSION,WHEELS | Went for a tire rotation. Service tech noticed the following- THE PASSENGER REAR CONTROL ARM HAD A BOLT THAT WAS BACKING OUT OF IT & THE NUT WAS MISSING. THE BOLT HAD RUBBED THROUGH THE WHEEL WEIGHT ON THE WHEEL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY ON THE RIGHT REAR. Photo is included of the rear control arm bolts for both sides of the car. Only the right rear had a problem. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2026 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The contact owns a 2026 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving approximately 59 MPH with the Autonomous Self Driving feature activated and attempting to make a right turn, the vehicle failed to decelerate or signal while making the turn. The contact manually made the turn and then continued driving and reengaged the Autonomous Self Driving feature. The failure had occurred twice on the same day. The vehicle was not taken to the dealer. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was informed of the failure through the Mobile App. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 3,500. | Crash: No Fire: No | 3,500 |
| Jan 2026 | SUSPENSION | Front suspension makes knocking and rattling noise - Tesla's solution was to remove structural braces from the car that transmit the noise - the car has not been recertified with the braces removed, I am concerned about adverse safety, especially in small frontal overlap collision. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle equipped with Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised v 14.2) software exhibits unsafe automated behavior due to removal of driver speed control. The system infers speed limits and driving speed without allowing the driver to set a safe maximum speed. In residential neighborhoods with children, pedestrians, and shared social spaces, the vehicle drives at model-inferred speeds that are socially and physically unsafe. Driver is unable to impose a lower safe speed limit without disengaging. Tesla removed previous option for driver to adjust speed. In a state park campground, the system failed to detect a posted 15 mph speed limit and inferred a 55 mph limit. The vehicle accelerated to unsafe speeds on narrow, pedestrian-heavy roads, with no driver ability to cap speed while under FSD. This represents a loss of human override authority and unsafe autonomous system behavior, creating pedestrian hazard and safety risk. Failure mode: automated speed inference dominance, map prior misclassification, lack of driver override, unsafe autonomous acceleration in pedestrian environments. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle equipped with Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised v 14.2) software exhibits unsafe automated following behavior. The system maintains following distances that are too short at steady speeds, including behind stable lead vehicles with no braking or traffic disturbances. Tesla’s own Safety Score system flags this behavior as “following too closely,” indicating elevated collision risk. However, the driver has no available control to adjust minimum following distance or impose safer headway while using FSD This represents unsafe autonomous tailgating behavior with loss of driver control authority over safe following distance, creating increased risk of rear-end collision and hazardous automated driving conditions. Tesla offers several controls (Sloth, Chill, Standard, Hurry, and MadMax) modes, none of which solve the issue if the driver in front is driving the speed limit. My car under FSD will crowd (or tailgate) the front car regardless of the mode. In one instance, I was following a car under FSD in sloth mode and it made the car in front of me pull over just to get me off their tail.... this is certainly now how I wish to drive, and don't want my car driving this way. Failure mode: automated headway policy dominance, lack of driver override, unsafe autonomous following distance. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On full self driving, there is no way to change the follow distance and it follows way too close very often. This generates incidents that the car reports to Tesla insurance and we are penalized for something we can't always control. We also can't change our speed but I'm more concerned about the follow distance on highways. Last incident at 7:46PM on 1/25/2026. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | STEERING,UNKNOWN OR OTHER,SERVICE BRAKES | Any time you drive my vehicle there’s either violent shaking in the brake pedal, steering wheel, tires. When you try to brake it stutters. Using FSD it failed to stop instead almost hit a pedestrian on scooter and reported the time and date to Tesla. It stuttered and thank god I was able to jam in brakes. After 9 service visit the admitted they missed something and wheel alignment was off and tires were cupped. Along with a bracket for suspension. Which has not solved issues. It scary driving this vehicle especially as a single father who has to make long trips in the weekend for hockey | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | There is NO emergency release button and light inside the frunk (front trunk) of my Tesla Model Y Performance 2026. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | My Model Y does not have an emergency release button in the frunk of my car. In the United States, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 401 mandates an interior release mechanism for enclosed trunks to prevent entrapment. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | On January 20, around 9:35 am, Phoenix time, I had the car in self-driving mode for a left-hand turn at the intercession of Camino Real and River Road in Tucson, Arizona. A real-time view shows that it’s a tricky and dangerous left-hand turn. For the past 3 weeks, the car navigated it well, waiting until it was perfectly safe to do so. Today, however, the car moved quickly and unexpectedly into the center of River Road, narrowly escaping a head on collision with a west-bound car, and then paused, squeezed in between west and east-bound lanes when I tapped the brake and took the wheel. Everything happened so quickly. I made the left turn into the east-bound lane, but, looking back, I don’t know how an accident didn’t occur, as traffic was still moving in east-bound lanes rapidly. There must have been enough distance between two cars at just the right time, that nothing hit me. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | STRUCTURE,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Incident Date: December 11, 2025 Vehicle: 2026 Tesla Model Y Location: DFW Airport, Irving, TX System: Full Self-Driving (Autopilot / FSD) Description: On December 11, 2025, my 2026 Tesla Model Y was operating under Full Self-Driving while exiting an airport when the vehicle struck a gate arm, causing property damage and windshield/body damage. No injuries occurred, but the collision happened while the FSD system was actively controlling the vehicle. Following the collision, I requested the vehicle operational and FSD engagement data from Tesla for the incident timeframe. Tesla provided a CSV dataset; however, the FSD engagement and autonomy decision-layer data were almost entirely missing, despite the vehicle being in motion and presumably under FSD control. On follow-up requests, Tesla stated they are unable to provide additional autonomy data and that “Tesla does not collect all your vehicle data,” despite marketing the system as Full Self-Driving and collecting extensive telemetry. This raises a safety concern because: 1.A collision occurred during FSD operation. 2.Tesla is not providing complete autonomy data for safety assessment. 3.There appears to be no transparency into FSD decision-making, object detection, or control authority at the time of impact. 4.Owners, insurers, and potentially regulators cannot review how FSD behaved during a safety-related event. I am submitting this complaint so NHTSA is aware that: (1) A collision occurred under FSD control, and (2) Tesla refused complete operational autonomy logs for evaluation. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The vehicle repeatedly [XXX] [XXX], and [XXX] displays critical safety alerts indicating failure of the parking brake and automatic vehicle hold systems. Specific error codes documented include: •DI_a246: Automatic vehicle hold disabled (Use brake pedal when stopping) •EPBL_a179: Parking brake functions degraded (Parking brake may not apply or release) •UI_a019: Parking brake functions degraded INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6) | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | SEAT BELTS | New vehicle was delivered from the factory with an inoperable seat belt. After removing a trim piece, I found the seatbelt wrapped around several trim clips inside the pillar. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jan 2026 | STEERING,SUSPENSION,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | The defect involves the front suspension and/or steering system of a new 2026 Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD. The vehicle is available for inspection upon request. Symptoms—persistent front-end clunking/thunking (primarily driver-side), steering instability, and vibration—began immediately upon delivery in late 2025, with Tesla notified same afternoon as delivery. The vibration now begins around 60 mph and intensifies with speed. Steering feel is excessively vague on-center (requiring constant correction to maintain lane position) yet overly twitchy and sensitive to inputs, creating inconsistent and unpredictable handling. The condition has progressively worsened and now renders the vehicle unsafe at highway speeds due to risk of loss of control. No warning lamps, messages, or other symptoms have appeared prior to or since onset. Tesla service centers have had multiple opportunities to evaluate the vehicle under warranty. The problem has not been confirmed objectively by Tesla; during at least one evaluation, a technician drove only at speeds below complaint threshold (despite requests to test at the speeds where symptoms occur), stated he did not feel the issue, and performed no further diagnosis. Multiple appointments were canceled or rescheduled by Tesla (including one after I arrived). The vehicle was repeatedly returned without documented objective testing or repair addressing the complaint. During one visit, the Tesla app indicated an active “visual quality check” while the vehicle remained parked outside and not being worked on for an extended period (documented). To rule out tires, I installed a brand-new set; the vibration worsened afterward. Safety risk: Unresolved steering/suspension instability increases the risk of loss of vehicle control at highway speeds, endangering occupants and other road users. Odometer at onset: 15 miles Current odometer: 3596 miles | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |