In what is the 11th Cybertruck recall to date, along with concerns that the stainless steel trucks could rust, Tesla is recalling its long-range, rear-wheel-drive (RWD) Cybertruck due to faulty brake rotors. In a notice published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Tesla stated that “brake rotor bolt holes may crack and allow the strut to separate from the wheel hub.”
Tesla’s description of the defect is as follows: “In affected vehicles, severe road turbulence and cornering may stress the bolt slot in the wheel rotor, causing cracks to form. If the crack spreads with continued use and pressure, the wheel bolt may eventually separate from the wheel hub.” In this case, some playfully driving RWD Cybertruck owners can have their wheels alarmingly overtake.
Poor cyber truck drivers have enough to deal with without worrying about wheels falling off on their “apocalypse-proof” pickup trucks, so thankfully, Tesla says it will replace the entire wheel hubs, rotors, and wheel nuts for free for all 173 trucks affected by the recall.
Sean Tucker, managing editor at Kelley Blue Book, explains how Tesla is once again in a position to fix released models of the Cybertruck before something potentially dangerous happens. “The car is such a complex machine that even a simple change in design can have consequences many years down the road,” he says. “This literally comes down to some grease [Tesla] It was discovered in the nuts that are tightened to secure the 18-inch wheel to the brake rotor.
Tucker says the grease didn’t reduce friction enough and could cause the nuts to loosen over time, causing vibrations that could lead to a cracked brake rotor. “So they changed the grease,” he says. “However, that message didn’t get to the production floor in time, and they built the 173 using the wrong grease. It’s a very specific materials issue.”
Some reports have suggested that recall number 173 reveals a surprisingly low number of rear-wheel-drive Cybertrucks, but Tucker says that’s not the case. The recall applies to trucks manufactured on certain dates using a specific shipment of nuts and grease, and vehicles with 18-inch wheels produced on certain dates. He says it’s “a subset of a subset” of Cybertrucks.
“The Cybertruck certainly isn’t selling the numbers Tesla expected it to do,” Tucker says. “But this is really just a matter of a small change in production that was not delivered to the factory in time.”
Cybertruck sales have actually been dismal. “The demand is off the charts!” Elon Musk shouted at the end of 2023, noting more than a million reservations for Tesla’s multi-spoke pickup. But this wrong glue smack affects not only a small percentage, but also… everyone Cybertrucks produced up to that point revealed that the company moved only 46,096 trucks in the first 14 months of sales.
