The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into roughly 1.2 million Tesla vehicles after receiving 156 complaints of a front suspension component detaching while driving.
The probe covers 2018-2020 Model 3 and 2021-2023 Model Y vehicles, and it centers on the front lower lateral link separating from the car.
What NHTSA is looking at
The agency’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened a preliminary evaluation, the first stage of its process. If ODI finds a safety-related defect, it can escalate to an engineering analysis and, eventually, force a recall.
According to the investigation documents, the front lower lateral link has detached in the affected cars. That’s a core piece of the front suspension. When it lets go, the agency says the vehicle can lose steering control, become undriveable, and need to be towed.
The complaint pattern is the part that stands out. Most owners reported no advance warning before the link failed. Some said they heard noises beforehand, but many didn’t get even that. A suspension component that separates without warning is a very different safety picture than one that clunks and rattles for weeks first.
For now, NHTSA says it isn’t aware of any crashes, injuries, or fatalities tied to the defect. That’s good news, but 156 complaints is not a small number for a preliminary evaluation.
This isn’t Tesla’s first suspension problem
Tesla has been down this road before with the same part on the same cars.
The company issued a recall in 2021 covering roughly 2,800 Model 3 vehicles over a suspension issue tied to a production problem. A second recall in 2023 hit 422 Model 3 vehicles for similar failures. NHTSA says the failures it’s now investigating go beyond the scope of those earlier recalls, and they don’t appear to be the same production issue.
Suspension has been a recurring headache for Tesla with regulators. Back in 2020, Tesla came under NHTSA scrutiny over Model S and Model X suspension after it disputed a related recall in China. That saga stretched on for years before the agency closed it in 2024 without forcing a recall, though it did recommend Tesla change a part.
The pattern is a familiar one: complaints pile up, Tesla points to isolated causes, and NHTSA has to decide whether there’s a systemic defect underneath.
Where this sits with Tesla’s other open probes
The suspension probe lands while Tesla is already dealing with heavier NHTSA scrutiny elsewhere. The agency upgraded its investigation into Full Self-Driving over reduced-visibility crashes to cover 3.2 million vehicles earlier this year, moving that case one step closer to a possible recall.
Electrek’s Take
A part that holds the front wheel to the car shouldn’t fall off, and it definitely shouldn’t fall off without warning. The good news is that no one has been hurt yet, or at least that NHTSA knows of, and a lateral link failure at low speed is survivable in a way a lot of other suspension failures aren’t. But “no injuries yet” is exactly the window regulators are supposed to act in.
A preliminary evaluation is early. It could close with nothing, like the Model S/X case did. But 156 complaints and a no-warning failure mode is the kind of combination that tends to get upgraded, not dropped. We’ll be watching whether ODI escalates this to an engineering analysis, which is the real tell that a recall is coming.
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