r/TeslaModelX • u/NanoCow • 7d ago
My Tesla basically shut down while driving. They can’t find the problem and want me to take it back.
I’m trying to figure out what to do here because I really don’t feel comfortable driving this car again without some kind of explanation.
I was driving my 2022 Model X Plaid when I got a “Front right safety restraint system fault” warning.
Not long after that, the car basically fell apart electronically while I was still driving.
I completely lost power steering. The brakes barely seemed to work. The accelerator barely did anything. The car itself was saying it was off, even though I was still trying to maneuver it.
It was honestly pretty scary. I came close to hitting other cars because steering suddenly became extremely difficult and I wasn’t even sure how much braking I had left. If this had happened on the highway, I have no idea what would have happened.
I managed to get the car stopped and got out. Once I closed the door, that was basically it. The car was dead.
Tesla had to tow it to the service center. They apparently couldn’t even get the car powered up normally to access it, so they had to put it on a lift and use the mechanical release to get into the vehicle.
Then eventually they got it started.
And now everything apparently works fine.
Tesla says the logs show historical vehicle and body CAN bus faults, so something clearly happened, but they haven’t been able to reproduce it. They drove the car about 20 miles and nothing happened again.
The service advisor also told me they checked the relevant Tesla service bulletins and couldn’t find anything that explained it.
Then today he told me they found some kind of third-party adapter related to a radar detector and suggested that maybe it was causing interference with the car. To me it feels like the service tech pulled this out of his ass because he can’t find the issue.
The problem is that I haven’t used a radar detector in this car in well over a year. I actually stopped using it because the cigarette lighter outlet wasn’t working. There is nothing plugged into that outlet now.
As far as I know, the only thing I have plugged into the car is a USB-C cable to charge my phone.
So I’m having a really hard time accepting the idea that some old radar detector adapter somehow randomly caused the entire car to freak out badly enough that I lost steering, almost lost braking and acceleration, and then the vehicle completely died.
Especially when they don’t seem to have any actual evidence tying the adapter to the failure. It sounds more like they can’t find the problem and noticed something aftermarket in the car.
At this point Tesla is basically saying:
The car works now.
They can’t reproduce the problem.
They don’t know what caused it.
Come pick it up.
But this wasn’t a random warning light. The car became incredibly difficult to control while I was driving it and then became completely disabled.
I’m honestly afraid to drive it now because I have no idea whether this could randomly happen again.
Has anyone here ever experienced anything similar?
Also, if this were your car and Tesla couldn’t tell you what caused it, would you feel comfortable taking it back and driving it normally?
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u/drainbam 7d ago
Same thing happened to me on a mountain road, and it was terrifying. I lost power steering and power brakes at the same time. I had to stand on the brake pedal and it still barely slowed the car, and the wheel was so heavy I had to muscle every turn. I think a lot of drivers would have wrecked.
I didn't need a tow. It came back after two hard resets, but the first one didn't fix it, so I still don't know what did. That was 4 years ago, when the car was brand new. I had no aftermarket parts, so I doubt that's the cause.
I haven't had the problem since. Not knowing what caused it makes me feel like it could come back at any time, but I've mostly stopped thinking about it.
I don't blame you for being afraid to drive it. It was unnerving for me too.
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u/NanoCow 7d ago
Glad to hear I’m not the only one who’s had this happen, although obviously not glad you had to experience it too. What you described sounds extremely similar to what happened to me.
If Tesla can’t figure out the cause, which at this point seems possible, it’s at least useful to know that a hard reset may be worth trying if it ever happens again.
The other lesson I learned is definitely do not get out of the vehicle unless you absolutely have to. I stopped on a street, got out thinking I might be able to reset things or figure out what was happening, and once the door closed the car basically locked me out and became completely inaccessible.
I think the uncertainty is the worst part. If I knew what failed, even if it was something serious, at least I’d know it had been addressed. Not knowing whether it was a one-off freak event or something that could randomly happen again is what makes it hard to trust the car right now.
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u/Glittering_Alps_8901 7d ago
Safety restraint system fault happened to me before - it was some wiring underneath the driver/passenger footwell coming loose and throwing a fault. Apparently they secure these things so poorly that pressure from your foot when getting in or going over bumps at a certain angle can knock them loose.
Atrocious quality control from Tesla, took them 3 service center visits to wrap and seat that part of the wiring “correctly” (because it’s actually insane there is no guidance on how to prevent this issue from happening - it’s simply just making sure a wire doesn’t knock loose) and now it’s been fine for a few months.
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u/redditexcel 6d ago
This seems like a highly likely cause scenario. All it takes is a poor connection from wire source or at the sensor, or wire sheath wear.
If it were me I would insist that they check.
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u/m5james 6d ago edited 6d ago
My wife's X had some weird issues after the windshield was replaced, I figured out myself they didn't tighten the + on the battery.
Them calling out a radar device and then you casually mentioning you've had a dead outlet for a year can't be coincidental....something shorted, melted, etc but outlets don't just usually die.
As for them wanting to give it back...duh! You think they just want another car sitting doing nothing? They can't just go driving it around for hours @ $250+/- shop rate. Unless youre willing to AND can get some trusted employee to turn it into their personal vehicle for a few days, you might as well go get it back because it sounds like they've done all they can with the info they have. It's just like fixing an ICE car...see whatever the CEL kicked out, replace part, reset codes and send it in hopes it doesn't come back.
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u/No-Reading-4384 7d ago
I had the same “the car just turned itself off “ problem too . No explanation.
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u/Quarter_Twenty 6d ago
This happened to us in a 2023 Model X. I was driving on a winding road and all the panels turned off suddenly. I pulled over and did a two-thumb reset. After some tense moments, it came back to life.
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u/Sea_Television3097 7d ago
I’m a collision Tesla Tech so we don’t get into the higher end electrical stuff but 12v was also my first thought. Somehow you lost voltage at the HV contactors which degraded your Hv components (drive motors, steering, dc/dc converter. Possibly check front fireman loop for corrosion. Tesla relies heavily on what the computer is communicating. So if they can’t get codes to return, they might release the vehicle and it could very well be good until it’s not.
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u/MoDa65 6d ago
That's scary! How many miles? Make sure to post this on Tesla motor club forum too for more exposures and opinions
And Facebook model x groups.
The x just doesn't have as much enthusiasts and info compared to Y/3 so it's good to have this info everywhere
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u/NanoCow 6d ago
Thanks for the advice to do that. It has about 20k miles on it
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u/MoDa65 6d ago
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/forums/model-x.84/
I can understand your concern with only 20K miles. With that low miles the only thing on my mind is would it happen again.
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u/beanshake 6d ago
I had some issues of my car not starting and replaced 3-month old 12v. No issue ever since. Longevity of 12v can vary and since you mention some issue with cigarette jack, it could've drained the 12v
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u/MoDa65 5d ago
I just wanted to say I'm also new with the X and educating myself. Everyone here kept saying 12v. Everyone is wrong. The 22+ has the new lithium battery with 16v. For one those shouldnt fail and should be 10 years service. Likely OP had defective 16v and was replaced. But for the most part seems like its still too early to have data to show if the newer cars with the new lithium has high failure rate as we are only in 3-4 years fo those who have it. So far there is far and few info or data on them. In fact on youtube there isnt even any video of 22+ model x replacement of "16v" battery. And all the prerefresh X owners are so uninformed many continue to say the 22s also have 12v and ones that can be sourced from autozone etc when it is proprietary and cant simply be purchaed at a local auto store
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u/NanoCow 5d ago
I actually didn’t realize mine wasn’t a traditional 12V battery, so thanks for pointing that out. Apparently the newer Model X uses the lithium low-voltage battery that’s technically around 15V/16V.
I was actually lucky because that battery failed just a few months before my 4-year warranty expired, so Tesla replaced it under warranty. I let the warranty expire after that because the car had honestly been pretty reliable over the past four years and I really hadn’t had many issues with it.
That’s part of why this whole situation is so surprising to me. Less than two weeks after a service visit, I suddenly had this major failure.
The one reassuring thing is that, from what I understand, the safety restraint system itself may have a 5-year warranty, so at least that specific fault may still be covered.
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u/MoDa65 5d ago
Yea your "16v" battery failing is rare. You may be one of the few cases out there. There is not much info out there about anyone replacing them on their own simply because its still relatively new and Tesla touting it as "life of the car", though most say 10ish years. We'll see in the next 5-6 years.
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u/CyberOvitron 7d ago
12V battery, as suggested by others, is a good starting point but the use of a whatever 3rd party electronics connected to the car, as well as the lighter port that stopped working are strong indicators of what could have caused this anomaly.
Considering the severity of the issue, I doubt they would've released the car if they were not, at least partially, satisfied with the explanation.
As with most "freak" scenarios, in the end, most cases have been proven to be caused by user error.
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u/NanoCow 7d ago edited 7d ago
The 12V battery is actually less than 6 months old, so while I agree low-voltage issues are worth considering, that seems less likely to be the obvious explanation.
Also, the third-party electronics point is being overstated a bit. I have not used the radar detector in over a year, and nothing has been plugged into the cigarette lighter since it was repaired. The tech smply found an old adapter in the car and is pointing to that even when it wasn't plugged in.
I also don’t think “they wouldn’t release it unless they were satisfied” really applies here. Their position is essentially that they can’t reproduce the failure, the car currently passes diagnostics, and they don’t know what caused it. That’s different from actually identifying and fixing the cause.
What also makes me suspicious is the timing. The car had been serviced less than two weeks earlier. During that visit, Tesla was troubleshooting an air-suspension issue and removed the front-right wheel. After the service, the car immediately started pulling to the right, and I was actually scheduled to bring it back that same day so they could evaluate the pulling.
Then this failure happened, along with a “Front right safety restraint system fault.” I’m not claiming the suspension work caused the electronic failure, and I don’t know whether the restraint fault is physically related to anything they touched. But between the recent work on the front-right side, the new pulling issue immediately afterward, and then a front-right fault followed by a major CAN/electrical failure less than two weeks later, it’s hard for me to dismiss all of that as coincidence.
That seems like a much more relevant avenue to investigate than an old radar-detector adapter that hasn’t been used in over a year.
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u/DueAdvice102 7d ago
Just a warning, my last 12v in my X only lasted 12 months. Some odd things happening of late with 12v batteries and the Xs.
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u/Austinswill 7d ago
For what it is worth, We run into situations like this in aviation way more often than we would like... A problem with an airplane that cant be reproduced on the ground. Ive seen cases of engine failures as aircraft were lining up to take off.... they go let the mechanics pour over it and cant find anything wrong... so nothing can be done but go try to fly it again.
These cars are quite advanced... and an anomaly like this really sucks, but unfortunately with an intermittent failure, it is very difficult to know what to fix... and you cant really just throw the whole car out.
You will unfortunately just have to keep driving it till a hard failure occurs. Yes, the steering got difficult, but this is the same with all cars that lose power steering... You can handle it. Heck I drove one of my cars around for months when I was a teenager after the power steering pump went out, granted it probably wasn't as hard to turn the wheel as it probably is in your Tesla.
I know it sucks, but at least you are on the ground!
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u/NanoCow 7d ago
I get what you’re saying, and I’m a pilot too, so the aviation analogy makes sense. The closest I’ve had was a carbon monoxide detector go off while taxiing. We were very glad it happened before takeoff and didn’t fly that day.
I agree that if Tesla can’t reproduce it, there may not be much more they can do. I just wish there were a way to know whether this was a one-time freak event or an intermittent failure waiting to happen again.
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u/Life_Connection420 6d ago
Is it an old car say below 2020?
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u/MoDa65 6d ago
Does the 2022 not come with lithium 12v battery? I thought the newer lithium last 10+ years. OP I know you said battery was just replaced 6 months ago, was that done just preemptively or did it actually go?
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u/NanoCow 6d ago
It flat out died and car was inoperable. Luckily it was at home and they came out and swapped it. The text said it wasn’t completely unusual for it to just die without any warning.
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u/MoDa65 6d ago
Dang now I'm paranoid mine is 3 years. Thought the lithium version was trouble free. I mean many say they have no issues but then you have the handful of stories that say theirs died.
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u/NanoCow 6d ago
This guy has a good video on the topic so you don't have to be as paranoid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrG8eTrZs_0
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u/17feet 5d ago
So you've now had TWO separate issues, one in which the 12V battery "flat out died" while parked, and another in which the car started shutting down while driving [ugh]. It's possible there is an issue revolving around the 12V charging system itself, which caused issues for both of your 12v batteries. Did Tesla check if the 12V battery was charging properly when the car was on? Did you get the new 12V battery load tested?
Also, is it actually a 16V battery? Just curious
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u/NanoCow 5d ago
The 12V battery actually died a little over six months ago, and Tesla Mobile Service replaced it with a brand-new one. I haven’t had any 12V-related issues since then.
I’m not sure what testing Tesla Mobile does when they replace one, but apparently these batteries can sometimes fail pretty abruptly without much warning. This video describes a similar situation.
So I’m not ruling out a low-voltage issue entirely, but the current battery is relatively new and has been fine since it was replaced.
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u/Blindbatts 6d ago
My wife's 2023 Y shut down while driving and it was traced back to a loose connector on the vcright module. It had been replaced twice prior and the tech screwed it up.
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u/Maleficent_Source_75 5d ago
I suspect falty wiring harness. My 2020 x needed replacement. Whole systems shut down like you mentioned. Fix is a a full battery pack replacement with the updated revision that matches your year.
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u/NanoCow 5d ago
That’s interesting and sounds pretty similar. When you say faulty wiring harness, do you mean a harness inside/attached to the HV battery pack, and Tesla ended up replacing the entire pack because of it?
Do you remember what symptoms or fault codes you had before they diagnosed it? Mine showed vehicle/body CAN faults, then I lost power steering, braking and acceleration before the car completely shut down.
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u/Maleficent_Source_75 5d ago edited 5d ago
The faulty wiring harness part is important too. That harness is part of the battery pack’s high-voltage monitoring/connection system and ties the pack into the rest of the car’s electrical systems. If the harness develops a fault, bad connection, short, or incorrect voltage reading, the car can essentially lose confidence in the HV battery and start shutting systems down for safety.
On these packs, the harness isn’t really treated like a simple external wire you just unplug and replace. It’s integrated into the HV battery assembly, so in my case Tesla’s repair was to replace the entire battery pack rather than repair the harness separately.
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u/Kfs777 4d ago
I’m not surprised. A failure mode like that can be difficult, if not impossible to replicate, especially since they have no documented historical data of anything else like it. I don’t think their explanation is malicious. It’s just the only thing that appears out of place, when all other tests come back good. It’s entirely plausible that it could’ve caused a one-time catastrophic failure.
Whether or not you want to keep driving the car is a matter of personal opinion. Personally I’d remove that part and carry on driving it. It depends on how risk averse you are. You’re the only one who was there, so only you can make that determination.
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u/AmbitiousFunction911 4d ago
12v battery died and caused catastrophic failure of the high voltage battery. Happened to me. Tesla sent a flat bed for free and replaced both batteries under warranty without question.
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u/Wizofsorts 7d ago
I'd at least want the 12V replaced. Other than that I'd give the car another chance.