Four problems related to suspension noise have been reported for the 2013 Tesla Model S. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
Vehicle makes squeak noise when driving low speed and drive over a bumper. Took the car to service center and they said right upper control arm need replacement on oct 19 2019 and paid it and replaced. Same thing happened on left upper control arm on may 08 2020 and paid and replaced. And they told me that play is present in both aft links. I am worried that my model is old one as 2013 and it failed a lot from the suspension part. Thanks god this thing happened on high speed but I am really worried regarding the safety of the car.
Three days ago I parked my vehicle to p/u a dog from the vet thus pulled into a parking space with the tires close to the cement stop. No issue. Came outside with the pet and loaded her into the rear seat. Started the vehicle, put unit into reverse and backed perhaps 3" when unit stopped moving. Pulled forward a few inches and tried again. Same. Pulled up vehicle info on the it screen to height of vehicle which has air suspension. Height showed normal. Hit button for max height, same issue. Went back into screen and went through the same protocol. This time I could see the units front end rose a few inches. Put unit into reverse and unit backed without problem. I kept the height adjustment at that level. Yesterday, 2/20/19. I pulled into a parking space and drove vehicle into a parking space without any problem. Picked up two order of chinese food weighing about 1 pound. Put unit into reverse after seat belts secured. Backed out very slowly when all of a sudden there was a loud noise. Dismounted from vehicle to find the entire front portion of the unit was lying on the ground. A passerby saw what happened and said "you must have air suspension like I have in my Tesla. The same thing happened to me"!! three of us worked 20 minutes or so to reattach the entire front end. Had a pedestrian been walking to the vehicles parked next to me they would have been hurt. What is to prevent this from happening when driving? I had an aeronautical engineer with me when this event happened. They were shocked. Tesla would not admit there is a safety problem and stated owners should not drive forward to the tire stop. So, we are to let the rear end of the unit hang out 2 to 3 feet in the drive area. There is damage to the fender, hood and front end. This should stop it is a software issue, not operator fault.
I was backing the car out of my garage when I heard a strange scraping sound. When I looked to see what was up I found that the right rear suspension had collapsed. The car was moving straight back at very low speed in my driveway. I was told by the tow truck technician that the lower control arm had failed.
Ball joint on front left upper control arm assembly failed prematurely at approximately 80,000 miles vehicle usage; specifically, it separated so as to cause the uca (upper control arm) to disconnect from from the steering knuckle during a low-speed parking lot maneuver (three point 'y' turn) at approximately 5 mph or less, which caused the wheel to tip in words against the strut assembly. Repaired suspension by replacing upper control arm with integral ball joint. Approximately 40,000 miles later, the ball joint on the right hand upper control arm exhibited extreme looseness and clunking sounds forcing me to replace the rh uca / ball joint on that side as well. Vehicle now has approximately 150,000 miles vehicle usage and the suspension is once again exhibiting abnormal clunking noise (from the lh front corner) over bumps at low speeds that makes me suspicious that additional or same ball joints are wearing prematurely. I am a professional mechanical engineer (with 27 years industry experience) responsible for propulsion systems on agricultural harvesting vehicles and can definitively state I have never abused this vehicle. The wear rates are excessive on the uca ball and socket connection which does/could cause ball joint separation and suspension function/control.
| Suspension problems | |
| Front Suspension Control Arm problems | |
| Suspension Noise problems |