Tesla’s service center blew him off repeatedly while he was waiting for his truck to be fixed.
Locked Up
After discovering that his Cybertruck had a fatal flaw, allowing snow and ice to perfectly build up in front of the headlights, owner Joe Fay has encountered yet another glaring issue.
After bragging on TikTok about what he said were the myriad benefits of his vehicle, Fay ran into a familiar mechanical issue for owners of the controversial pickup: the rear motor of the Cybertruck had given completely out.
“So I was just driving down the road,” he said in a video last week. “It felt like somebody hit me from behind, so I turned around, but didn’t see anything.”
“But then I got this notice,” he said, pointing to an error message that the rear motor was “disabled.”
According to Fay, however, the truck was still “completely drivable” with just one motor. He also bragged that the fix would be “completely free” — which, to be fair, is true of practically any other vehicle still under warranty.
But over a week later, it’s still unclear if Tesla has managed to address the issue, leaving Fay high and dry.
Good Luck
Needless to say, the internet had a field day with Fay’s disastrous experience with the divisive truck he’d boosted so strongly.
“‘Completely free’ if you disregard the loss of use and the loss of time to deal with it,” one Reddit user wrote.
Fay also got major flack for claiming that it would only take a “couple of days” to fix. The Cybertruck is notoriously difficult to repair, and replacement parts are hard to come by. Tesla has also garnered a reputation for less-than-stellar service.
As expected, Fay still appears to be waiting after Tesla blew him off twice, promising a fix within a day or two on several different occasions.
The problem turned out to be the inverter of the rear motor, according to Fay, a common issue with early production models.
In the last update shared on Friday, Fay revealed that the truck was towed on Monday last week, and that the commenters telling him “good luck” on getting it back by Tuesday were “correct.”
At the time of writing, the truck still doesn’t appear to be back in his possession, judging by a lack of an update. Instead, Fay is seemingly uploading old videos in an attempt to keep up engagement on his TikTok account. A video shared today, for instance, shows summer-like weather and a green lawn next to his house.
Is Fay just engagement-baiting all of us with his slapstick Cybertruck faceplants? Given the widespread hatred for the truck, videos about it breaking down are getting huge numbers of views, making it an effective way to get attention online.
Fay himself has accumulated 3.5 million subscribers through his Tesla-centric videos, whose comments sections are chock-full of people berating him for his life choices.
But even if he was just trying to bait us, it wouldn’t mean Fay’s experience is anything out of the ordinary. The truck has quickly become a major thorn in the sides of owners, with frequent breakdowns, impossible-to-keep-clean body panels, and maddening design decisions.
More on the Cybertruck: Something Has Gone Seriously Wrong With Cybertruck Production