A Suspension Part on 1.2 Million Teslas Can Detach Without Warning, NHTSA Says

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened a preliminary evaluation on July 29 into roughly 1.2 million Tesla vehicles — 2018-2020 Model 3 and 2021-2023 Model Y — over the front lower lateral link, a suspension arm that ties the front wheel assembly to the vehicle's subframe. The agency says it has received 156 complaints alleging the part has detached, and when it does, "the vehicle can lose steering control, become undriveable, and need to be towed."

Most of the complaints NHTSA reviewed describe no advance warning at all before the failure; a smaller number of owners mention hearing noises beforehand, but the agency notes there's no dashboard alert built into the car that flags the part is at risk. In several cases owners said the vehicle was left undrivable on the spot and had to be towed.

Tesla has been here before, but on a smaller scale — the automaker recalled about 2,800 Model 3s in 2021 and another 422 in 2023 over suspension failures tied to a specific manufacturing defect. NHTSA says the complaints behind this new probe extend beyond the scope of those two campaigns and don't appear to be connected to the same production issue. A separate 2020 investigation into Model S and Model X suspension components was closed in 2024 without a recall, a reminder that opening a preliminary evaluation doesn't guarantee one follows here either.

A preliminary evaluation is the first of NHTSA's investigation stages — it exists to establish scope and cause before deciding whether to escalate into a full engineering analysis, which is the stage that typically precedes a recall. The agency says it isn't aware of any crashes, injuries, or fatalities tied to the reported failures so far, and Tesla has not issued a public response to the new investigation as of publication.