Posted on 06/12/2016 10:03:04 AM PDT by BBell
Pete Cordaro was creeping down a dirt road in his 2013 Tesla Model S electric car, on a Sunday outing with his wife to hunt mushrooms in the Pennsylvania woods, when he encountered a pothole and then heard a loud crack.
The front of the car just dropped, he said. The left front wheel just detached from the car.
When Tesla picked up his car, Mr. Cordaro was at first told he would have to pay for the repairs because they were from normal wear. After pressing his case with a Tesla manager, he was told the company would pay part of the cost as long as he signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Neither the equipment breakdown nor the confidentiality demand turned out to be an isolated case. And now they have Tesla Motors on the defensive.
After the nations top auto safety regulator raised questions about reports of suspension problems with the Model S, Tesla declared in a blog post on Friday that the suspension system had no safety defects. But what set the case apart from other auto safety episodes was the introduction of a nondisclosure agreement into the relationship between car owner and automaker an unusual practice by an unconventional company whose founder, Elon Musk, has roots in Silicon Valley, not Detroit.
The company acknowledged having had car owners sign such agreements, and said it did so to protect itself from potential lawsuits after performing a repair at a discount or at no charge.
But the practice has raised concerns that it could prevent owners from reporting safety problems to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which called Teslas use of such agreements troublesome, and told the company not to use terms that dissuade people from reporting safety concerns to the agency.
On Friday, a Tesla spokeswoman
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Tesla is untouchable.
Will the astronauts or passengers be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement if something goes wrong?
...
It wasn’t an NDA. This story is being promoted by a short seller and it isn’t accurate.
Damn it feels good to be a liberal gangster...
He can get away with unsafe cars, massive mining operations, huge inefficient factories on protected lands, ALL because he’s a liberal making the golden calf of liberal idolatry. The electric car.
Your waist is a terrible thing to mind.
Right you are.
Tesla over-promised and is reluctant to back it up. A three or four year old car model with 70,000 miles shouldn’t have widespread suspension problems. Tesla’s suspension problems have been noted in the automotive press.
When a company like Jaguar promises the moon in a warranty, they can back it up because they have profit margin and deep-pockets ownership. Dealers will frequently attempt to keep their customers happ too. Tesla, however, is probably not in a financial position to fix a major widespread design problem.
The guy could have bought a Mercedes E-class, a BMW 5-series, or an Audi A6, along with enough gas for 100,000+ miles and been money ahead.
Sounds like the Rolls that was driving across a field in Spain and broke the axle on a rock.
Rolls sent a repair crew to fix it.
Where there's smoke, there's a saab.
yea the radio crapped out the climate control was wonky then the climate digital readout died then knocking noise from a timing belt pully etc
ugh, i cannot ever win.
it was a Infiniti J30
My 87 Supra Turbo was really dependable though, put over 300K miles on it with little problem.
when i sold it engine still purred like the day I bought it.
even after sitting next to the garage for 3 years.
i really miss that car...
70,000 miles is practically new in my book... that’s a heavy car and it didn’t appear as if those ball joints were greasable... looked “sealed” to me...
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