While some Tesla owners are completely in love with their cars and can’t find any faults in them, there are many that have been irked by fit and finish issues. Similar complaints have been made about the Tesla Model 3 as well, the company’s first mass-market electric car, and now an engineering firm has taken a closer look at these complaints and claimed that the Model 3 quality issues are like “a Kia in the ’90s.”
Sandy Munro is the CEO of Munro and Associations, an engineering consultancy based in the Detroit area that’s contracted by OEMs and suppliers to tear cars apart in order to study them in detail. “I can’t imagine how they released this,” Munro says about the Model 3.
He finds many issues with the fit and finish of the Model 3. For example, Munro found an extra piece of glued-on sealing material for the driver’s window on the Model 3 they took a close look at, branding it as an afterthought, “You’re not supposed to just glue on another piece. Usually you take whatever’s wrong and pull it out and put another one,” he says.
The inconsistent panel gaps are pointed out as well in the video posted above as are the difficult to open handles on the front doors. “These are flaws that we would see on a Kia in the ’90s or something,” he says. Munro also talks about how difficult it is to access the first responder loops in the front and the rear.
With the exception of the first responder loops, it’s unclear whether all of the fit and finish issues that Munro pointed out in the video are presented on all Model 3 cars or just the company that the company dug into. It’s also unclear if the car was from the first production run as there were bound to be kinks that the company may have worked out later.
It’s also pertinent to mention here that the biggest car manufacturer clients of Munro and Associations are the “Big Three,” according to a representative for the company. Tesla is yet to give its response.
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