It looks like Tesla isn’t impervious to recalls after all, even though the American car maker has had a rather carefree run so far. Due to an investigation carried out earlier this year, some interesting findings prompted the company to issue a recall for over 475,000 cars for two potential reasons. Most of the cars might have a faulty wiring loom while about 30 percent have faulty latches on the frunks.
First of all, a total of 356,309 cars will be recalled, all of them Tesla Model 3 models, for a problem with the wiring harness in the trunk. The cars that are affected were built from July 15, 2017, to September 30, 2020. The issue is that the rearview camera video feed is handled via a coaxial cable in the trunk wiring harness.
The constant opening and closing of the trunk might wear out this cable and cause it to break. The camera’s video feed may be flickering or intermittent as a result of this. The issue became apparent when the Tesla Field Quality team took a closer look at the amount of trunk wiring harnesses used by the service teams in June 2021. After closer inspection, the team found 2,301 warranty claims and 601 field reports about this problem in the US. Those high numbers prompted Tesla to issue a recall, even though no evidence of crashes, injuries, or deaths because of this fault have been reported.
Tesla service personnel will inspect the wiring on each car to determine whether further action is required. If there are no issues, the technicians will install a guide that will prevent this problem from happening again. If the cable is damaged, the car will receive a new trunk harness and guide. Tesla plans to begin contacting affected owners about this on February 18, 2022.
The remaining 119,009 cars that will have to take a trip to their closest Tesla service are all Model S models, built between September 16, 2014 and December 23, 2020. In this case, the issue is that the secondary latch assembly for the front storage space (frunk) may have been mounted too far back.
According to Tesla, it’s possible that its location will prevent it from latching. Thus, the frunk could open and obscure the driver’s vision out of the vehicle if the primary latch is accidentally released and the secondary latch is not engaged. While investigating a case where the frunk on a 2018 Model S opened while the vehicle was driving, Tesla’s Field Quality team began looking into this issue in January 2021. The secondary latch was misaligned with the striker, according to the team, prompting an investigation.
It took the team about a year to properly identify the issue and determine the primary cause and affected number of cars. During the investigation, the team discovered four warranty claims and three field reports about this issue in the United States. There have been no reports of accidents, injuries, or deaths as a result of this problem.
The secondary frunk latch on this group of vehicles will be inspected by Tesla service technicians. If they find a Model S with a misaligned secondary frunk latch and striker, technicians will disassemble and realign the pieces to correct the issue.
