Tesla will repair blank Model S and Model X touchscreens for free
The faults had caught the attention of the NHTSA.
Tesla has announced that it will address problems with touchscreen failures in certain models of Model S and Model X vehicles. The issue, which sees the vertically-mounted screen go blank, with users unable to adjust the climate controls, web browsing and, crucially, the rear-camera display. In order to remedy the issue, Tesla needs to replace the eMMC card that sits inside the car’s media control unit. It’ll do that, free of charge, if the failure happens within the first eight years, or 100,000 miles of the vehicle’s life.
As Autoblog explained, Tesla isn’t issuing a recall for these issues, calling it instead a “Warranty Adjustment Program.” It covers all of the Model S and X variants built before March 2018, which had the 8GB card, but not those afterward, which did not. On its website, Tesla says that if you have paid for a repair related to this part, you may be eligible for reimbursement, assuming you used an authorized service provider. This may be sufficient to mollify the NHTSA, which had opened an investigation into the issue back in the summer.
