2019 Tesla Model 3

The contact owns a 2019 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while operating the vehicle, the service controller warning light illuminated and the vehicle was taken to the local dealer service center and was diagnosed with steering rack, wiring harness, and control module failure caused by corrosion from water. The steering rack, control module, and wiring harness were replaced and the vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The failure mileage was 13,721.

1. Component/System Failed: Supplemental Restraint System (SRS) — Front Passenger Seat Occupant Classification System (OCS) / Occupant Sensor. Component intact and available for inspection upon request. 2. Safety Risk: Failure disables or compromises front passenger airbag deployment and seat belt pretensioner logic. In a crash, the vehicle may fail to deploy the airbag/pretensioner for an adult passenger or deploy improperly, creating severe risk of serious injury or fatality. The passenger seat cannot be safely occupied. 3. Problem Reproduced/Confirmed: Yes. Tesla Service confirmed an active SRS/OCS fault (OCS1P_w127_seatbackSelfOpen). The technician acknowledged this failure is widespread on 2018–2020 Model 3s and noted their own personal Model 3 experienced the exact same issue unaddressed for years. Technicians stated company guidelines require recommending the fix due to liability, though many owners decline due to high out-of-pocket costs. 4. Manufacturer Inspection & Design Defect: Inspected and repaired by Tesla Service. Resolving the faulty OCS sensor required replacing the seat cushion/sensor assembly AND upgrading the front passenger airbag. Tesla redesigned the SRS signaling on newer revisions in a backwards-incompatible manner. This forces out-of-warranty owners to pay for a mandatory airbag replacement simply to achieve physical/electrical compatibility for a failed sensor pad. 5. Warning Messages & Timeline: Persistent "Front Passenger Safety Restraint System Issue" alert on touchscreen and illuminated red SRS/airbag warning lamp on instrument panel. First appeared at ~50,000 miles without physical impact, seat modification, or liquid spill. Remains continuously active. System was ultimately repaired at owner expense.

I’ve been seeing lots of similar front safety restraint issues from other Tesla owners on different sites. This safety restraint issue is regarding the wiring under the seat that get Pinched or Loose Wires: Movement of the front seat can pinch wires or dislodge connectors underneath, triggering errors like RCM_A028 or RCM_a033. If you’re out of warranty, Tesla charges a lot of money to have them fixed but I would say it is a safety issue that they should recall and fix without charge.

My 2019 Tesla Model 3 (approx. 95,000 miles) displays a persistent 'Front passenger safety restraint system' alert. The car drives normally and there has been no crash, fire, or injury. Tesla Service's estimate lists $631.60 for the alert diagnosis, $458.50 to replace the front passenger seat Occupant Classification System (OCS), and $699.44 to update the front passenger airbag for compatibility, an update Tesla's own service bulletin SB-23-20-001 requires alongside the OCS repair. The total is about $1,790 before tax. Tesla declined goodwill coverage and said the supplemental restraint system warranty expired in 2023. The alert means the front passenger airbag and seat belt pretensioner may not work correctly in a crash. This appears common: NHTSA's database already holds over 100 complaints on the 2019 Model 3 describing the same alert and repair path. I am asking NHTSA to review whether this is a defect in the occupant classification system. I have the Tesla estimate and will keep it.

There's a faulty connector for the drivers seatbelt pretensioner. The car is reporting RCM_a021_pretenLabFrontLeft and internet searches show this is a somewhat common error for a faulty connector that fails under normal usage.

On September 22, 2026, my 2019 Tesla Model 3 was involved in a very low-speed front collision. The Tesla Vehicle Data Report records the front collision event at approximately 23:21:26.933 and shows vehicle speed of approximately 2–3 mph at the time of the recorded collision. Despite the extremely low recorded vehicle speed, the vehicle’s airbags deployed. The airbag deployment caused an eyebrow/facial laceration that required six stitches and medical treatment. The Tesla vehicle data also shows an accelerator pedal position of approximately 70–75% around the collision event, while brake pressure was essentially zero at the recorded collision timestamp. Significant braking appears in the data after the collision event. I am concerned that the restraint system may have deployed the airbags during an unusually low-speed collision. I am requesting that NHTSA review whether the airbag/restraint system in this vehicle may have a safety defect or an inappropriate deployment threshold. I have retained the Tesla Vehicle Data Report, photographs of the vehicle and injury, and medical documentation. I am also requesting that Tesla preserve the vehicle’s crash data and all deployed airbag/restraint components for investigation.

The vehicle reported an error with steering. I brought the vehicle into tesla service. Upon inspection the connector to the steering rack was heavily corroded from water intrusion and had broken clean off upon removal. Confirmed with dealer that corrosion had caused the issue. If the connector had failed while driving the vehicle would have lost all power steering immediately and placed myself and others on the road in danger. The connector was corroded enough that the spade connector detached completely upon inspection. The steering rack is not easily accessible by the consumer and could not have been impacted by circumstances outside of normal driving.

On September 12, 2026, at approximately 2:05 PM, while operating on Full Self-Driving (FSD v14.1 Lite) on Hardware 3 (HW3), the vehicle experienced a critical, unprompted loss of path control. While traveling on the highway, the vehicle sharply veered off the left side of the roadway, caught air, and violently impacted an emergency barrier, resulting in the destruction of 9 steel poles and causing physical injuries to both the driver and front passenger. Despite the severe frontal impact and structural collision, neither the front nor knee airbags deployed, raising serious concerns regarding the vehicle's crash-sensing algorithms, structural impact detection, and restraint system integration under this software version. This incident highlights major safety risks associated with running computationally heavy FSD stacks on legacy HW3 architecture: 1. Uncommanded Steering Deviations: The system abruptly executed a violent, unprompted hard turn away from the path of travel, indicating severe lane-detection or path-planning failure. 2. Restraint System / Safety Failure: Critical secondary safety systems (front and knee airbags) failed to deploy in a high-impact structural collision involving multiple steel barrier poles. 3. Hardware Constraint Risks: The compounding computational and thermal load on HW3 hardware running v14.1 Lite continues to manifest in erratic vehicle control, latency, and hazardous tracking behavior. This severe safety defect requires an immediate federal investigation into both FSD trajectory control on legacy hardware and secondary restraint deployment failures.

Tesla FSD made Left Turn on Red Left-Turn arrow: On August 12, 2026, at approximately 4:30 PM, my 2019 Tesla Model 3 was operating in Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode at the intersection of US-71 West and Pedernales Summit Parkway in Austin, Texas, 78738. The vehicle proceeded to make a left turn while the left-turn traffic signal was displaying a red arrow. This was an unsafe traffic-control violation and created a potential collision risk. I had to monitor the vehicle and be prepared to intervene. I am reporting this as a safety issue with the vehicle’s automated driving/Full Self-Driving system. I also reported this issue to the Tesla through my Tesla APP but no action was taken from them. They have not even called and asked for this issue. I would request you to investigate this matter promptly and provide a detailed report on how this simple mistake could happen with the software.

The Restraint Control Module (RCM) fault code RCM_a056 intermittently appears and disappears on the vehicle's display. This code indicates a fault in the front passenger Occupant Classification System (OCS) — the sensor responsible for detecting passenger presence and weight to determine whether and how the passenger airbag deploys in a crash. Because the OCS sensor is malfunctioning, the passenger airbag may fail to deploy, deploy incorrectly, or deploy with wrong force in a collision, putting any front passenger at serious risk of injury or death. The fault is intermittent — it appears and disappears without any change in vehicle configuration or seating — which is consistent with a failing OCS sensor or degraded wiring harness connection under the passenger seat. No collision or injury has occurred. The vehicle has not yet been inspected by a dealer or service center. No independent inspection has been performed. Tesla has issued Service Bulletin SB-23-20-002, which has been revised at least seven times, acknowledging a known OCS sensor defect across multiple Model 3 vehicles. Despite this, no safety recall has been issued. The repair cost quoted by Tesla service is approximately $800–$2,000 out of pocket for what appears to be a widespread manufacturing defect in a critical safety system. Numerous other Model 3 owners have reported the identical fault code. The component is available for inspection upon request.

Safety restraint system tsb technical service bulletin, a known problem with my 2019 Tesla model three

Alert RCM_a021pretenLapFrontLeft. Caused by the seat harness wires being pinched and stretched when moving the seat back/forward/up/down. Eventually the wires are damaged by the seat movement. Tesla has touted a feature called "Easy Entry" which moves the seat to a preset position to allow the driver to get in and out of the car more easily. This moves the seat lower and farther back and then moves the seat back up to the driver's position when ready to drive. This increased seat movement, every time the driver gets in and out of the car, causes the wires to wear prematurely and the above fault to trigger. In the event of an accident the driver side airbag may not deploy and/or the seat belt pretensioner may fail to lock the seat belt in place, leaving the driver exposed to serious potential injury risk. This issue can be seen in 2019 Tesla Model 3s and I believe an investigation by the NHTSA is warranted, at the very least.

Front passenger safety restraint system issue requiring replacement of Occupant Classification System and updating front passenger airbag to maintain compatibility with front passenger seat. Costing almost $2000. Many others have reported of multiple repairs

To Whom It May Concern, I am logging a safety defect complaint regarding my 2019 Tesla Model 3, which displays active fault code RCM_a056 – Front passenger safety restraint system fault. This error deactivates the front passenger airbag and seatbelt pretensioners, creating an immediate, severe safety hazard. The Defect: The failure involves the Occupant Classification System (OCS) seat sensor and affects passengers in two ways: 1. Children (Current Stage): The fault triggers primarily when a child sits in the front seat. The degraded sensor mat cannot process lighter weight accurately, throwing an "implausible voltage" error that disables the airbag system. 2. Adults (Advanced Stage): online data shows this same code eventually locks out for adults due to internal wiring harness fraying or sensor circuit failure. Manufacturer Response: Tesla is aware of this fleet-wide defect and issued Service Bulletin SB-23-20-002 to address it. However, because my vehicle is out of warranty, Tesla refuses to cover this critical safety repair. Service centers are quoting owners $1,300 to $1,500+ out-of-pocket to fix an inherent manufacturing flaw in a federally mandated safety system. I urge the NHTSA to investigate the 2019 Tesla Model 3 OCS system and compel Tesla to issue a safety recall to fix this hazard at no cost to consumers. Sincerely, [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

Tesla recently introduced auto parking as part of its FSD technology (Software 2026.20.6.11). Whenever we set the car destination to “home”, the auto parking has been able to gradually maneuver the car and self park in our garage. On 8/11, around 8:30pm, the car made a mistake during the auto parking. During the auto reverse into garage, the car came too close to the side of the garage and the driver side mirror hit the wall and partially broke. The driver was monitoring the car. If the car has kept its angle, it would have made it through correctly. But looks like it miscalculated and in a fraction of a second, the car’s side mirror hit the garage wall. Given the “ park” feature is new, looks like it hasn’t been tested well. It should be recalled until it is fixed and impacted drivers should be compensated for their repairs.

I am writing to report a serious safety incident involving my 2019 Tesla Model 3. My goal is not to assign blame, but to make Tesla aware of an incident that I believe warrants review from a safety perspective. While the vehicle was parked, my children were sitting inside watching TV, we were standing 5 ft from the vehicle. My younger son was seated in the front passenger seat, and my older son, not realizing his brother had leaned over the top of the seat, adjusted the passenger seat upward. As the seat moved up, it trapped my younger son's neck against the seat and obstructed his airway. Fortunately, we were a couple of feet away and heard the sound of glass breaking. We were able to free him, and he began breathing again and no serious injury occurs. It was an extremely frightening situation that could have had a much more serious outcome. During the incident, the panoramic glass roof also shattered from the pressure of my youngest son's head. I understand this may have occurred because of the force involved, but I wanted to include it as part of the overall event. I recognize that children should not play inside vehicles unsupervised, but they are 8 and 10 and were not rough housing just watching Netflix in the Telsa. However, this incident made me question whether additional safeguards could help prevent a similar situation in the future. Specifically, I wonder if there are opportunities to improve obstruction detection or pinch protection when a seat encounters resistance near a person's head or neck or making the seat unable to get so close to the ceiling an continue to rise. I wanted to bring this incident to your attention so safety teams can review it. If there is any additional information that would be helpful, including photographs, the vehicle VIN, or other details, I would be happy to provide them.

Noise came from front left wheel while driving around a turn. Later the same day another noise when turning the wheel when leaving a parking spot. Steering felt strange. It was late at night, so left the vehicle until the morning. In the morning, discovered a large bolt in front of the vehicle. The front left wheel was turned differently than the right front wheel. Had to spend almost $400 to get the vehicle towed to a Tesla service center. They later confirmed, "The cause was detached links from the bushings and bolts. Technician replaced the front lower lateral links, front lower compliance links, and front stabilizer bar bushing brackets. Total cost for those repairs was $1,902.90. This could easily have resulted in an accident and even a fatality if we were not so lucky.

Over a period of several weeks, the front suspension increasingly made noise (squeaking and groaning) and felt loose when turning and going over bumps. The front control arms were replaced 10/31/24. The problem has begun recurring over the last few months, with the same noise occurring and progressively worsening.

The vehicle has quite a bit of noise coming from the suspension during normal driving. Creaks and groans.

Between 2023 and 2026, I have had several clunking and creaking sounds from the suspension. These were then found isolated to "lateral and compliance link detachments" and Tesla noted these were "serious safety issues" and fixed them out of warranty at a cost of roughly $2500. When I pointed out that vehicles within this model range (manufactured April 2019 at the Fremont, CA plant) were flagged for a recall, they mentioned my vehicle was outside that range and insisted on an out-of-pocket repair. Further, I have similarly had to have the front left driver's side seat belt harness replaced because of a restraint control module failure. I have owned 3 other vehicles and have never had a restraint control module/seatbelt fail over just 82000 miles of use.