I was driving in congested traffic on a city street when I heard a loud thud, similar to hitting a pothole, yet there was no pothole. My first suspicion was that I either had a flat or a problem with my air suspension. I quickly pulled over, checked tire pressure and raised my suspension to HIGH and slowly continued on. It was pouring rain at the time so I remained in the car.

The car had a strange wobble to it so I slowly pulled into the nearest parking lot to examine the situation. I was freaked out when I saw my right rear wheel with it’s huge negative camber. Called Tesla roadside and spoke to someone who told me they couldn’t tow me since they couldn’t see anything wrong with the car! I called CAA and asked for a flatbed, which showed up within 30 minutes. It was a struggle to get the car up the ramp but the driver was quite skilled and I helped by sitting in the car and wrestling with the steering wheel.

I arrived at Mississauga SC in View attachment 547273 my wife’s X prior to the tow truck and did a contact-less checkin. The tow truck arrived and again I helped by steering the car down the ramp.

The next morning, got a call from Tesla, saying they would replace the failed lower control arm under my extended warranty. I told them my wife didn’t really want to be in the car again until all 4 control arms were replaced. They finally agreed to replace both rear lower arms but if I wanted to pay for the fronts they would do it. They also said my rear right air shock was damaged in the incident and needed replacing ($1800). I insisted that if a part under warranty caused the problem then they should be liable for any parts that were damaged by it. A chat with the service manager and they agreed to replace it at no cost to me.

This morning they texted that the car was ready for pickup. I wasn’t able to pay via the app for some reason so called into service once again, paid by phone and asked them whether the new control arms were the exact same as I had previously or where they improved? I was told they were “2nd generation”.

Upon arriving back home, I checked underneath the car, saw two new rear lower control arms, but the front lower arms looked original. Then I saw that they replaced the upper control arms on both front wheels. That would lead me to think that they were more susceptible to failure than the rears?

On my invoice, I see they mistakenly gave both right and left control arms the part number
1027459-99-A, which from what I see is a 2014 part. The front upper control arms are listed as “2nd generation” and show part numbers 1043965-00-B and 1043966-00-B for the left and right arms respectively.

Has this ever happened to anyone before? Would anyone know if my rear control arms are improved from my original ones? I suspect that from the “A” designation they are not. Are the front upper arms more likely to fail than the lower ones?

I’m very lucky that this didn’t happen to me at highway speeds. And Mississauga SC got me back on the road during the pandemic within a week, despite me having to insist on some of the repairs and paying for some of the service.