Buyer Research

2016 Tesla Model S — Should You Buy One?

Typical asking price: $11,000–$24,000. There are 3 high-severity known issues you need to know before handing over a check.

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Kestrel Take

Six hundred and four complaints, eighty-nine of them reporting a crash and twelve a fire, and NHTSA's index holds no recall campaign filed against this year — which tells you what was and was not filed, not that nothing was wrong. A third of the record is the front suspension, and those filings are not about squeaks: owners describe the front lower fore link snapping at walking pace and the wheel folding into the arch. Another quarter is the media control unit's flash memory wearing out and taking the centre screen, the reversing camera and the climate controls with it. In 2026 this is a great deal of car for the money and the drive unit and pack are the parts that tend to keep going; the risk is what is bolted around them. Put it on a lift and have the front links checked, find out whether the MCU was ever replaced, and run the VIN through NHTSA's own lookup rather than taking the seller's word.

What we checked

Reconciled against public records, 2026-09-25

NHTSA holds 604 owner complaints for the 2016 Tesla Model S, and 10 recall campaigns.

A big number here usually means a lot of these were sold, not that it is a bad vehicle — popular models collect more complaints for the same rate of trouble. So the total on its own says little. What is worth reading is the shape of it. 34% of them are about one thing — the suspension. That much concentration is a genuine pattern rather than background noise, and it is the first thing to check on any example you look at.

10 recall campaigns cover this model year. Recalls are repaired free, for any owner, with no time limit on most safety campaigns — but only if someone books it in. Ask the seller to show it was done, or have any dealer check the VIN; it takes them a couple of minutes and costs nothing.

Counts come from the NHTSA complaint and recall database — free, public, and worth checking yourself.

Known Issues for the 2016 Tesla Model S

Ranked by wallet impact. These are documented, recurring problems — not freak accidents. How we decide that.

Front lower control link can snap and drop the wheel into the archHigh — wallet impact

Thirty-four percent of this record is suspension, with 35 crash reports inside the cluster, and the filings repeat one failure: the front lower fore link breaking at parking-lot speed, the wheel jamming against the inner liner, the car onto a flatbed. Owners report it at 50,000 and 71,000 miles with no impact damage behind it. Tesla issued a service bulletin, and cars in China were recalled for suspension links; US owners have been quoted around $1,800 for a pair. Get the car on a lift and have the front links and ball joints levered and inspected — it is the most important ten minutes of the whole inspection.

Repair cost (estimate): $1,200–$2,400 for a pair of front lower links at a Tesla service centre

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under the suspension (204).

MCU flash memory wears out and takes the screen, camera and climate with itHigh — wallet impact

Twenty-three percent of the record is electrical and the word running through it is 'screen'. The first-generation media control unit writes its logs to an eMMC flash chip with a finite number of writes; when it is used up the centre display goes black or boots forever, and with it go the reversing camera, the climate and defrost controls and sometimes the ability to start a charge. Tesla was pushed into covering these units on Model S cars of this era, so run the VIN through NHTSA's lookup and ask the seller whether this car's MCU was repaired or upgraded. Outside that coverage it is a four-figure job.

Repair cost (estimate): $1,500–$2,600 for an eMMC repair or an MCU replacement

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under electrics and electronics (137).

Sudden acceleration reports, and 32 crashes inside the speed-control clusterHigh — wallet impact

Seventy-four filings sit under vehicle speed control and 32 of them report a crash — the worst crash rate of any cluster on this car. Most describe the car surging forward from a stop or while parking. NHTSA has examined Tesla sudden-acceleration claims before and concluded the pedal was being misapplied, and a complaint record cannot settle that argument either way. What it does say is that this is the cluster people get hurt in. Spend time in a parking lot, brake hard from 30, and satisfy yourself that the pedal spacing and the regen behaviour are ones you can live with.

Repair cost: Not yet priced — a safety matter first, a repair bill second

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under throttle and cruise control (74).

Steering filings are mostly Autopilot argument, with a few real wheel lockups underneathMedium

Eighty-one complaints under steering, and reading them matters more than counting them: a large share are third parties filing about Autopilot videos they watched rather than owners reporting a fault on their own car, which inflates the number badly. Underneath sits a real pattern — the wheel going stiff or locking while manoeuvring, cleared only by a full power-down from the screen. 2016 also straddles the change from the first Autopilot hardware to the second, so check on the screen which hardware this car carries and which driver-assist features are actually paid for, because asking prices often assume the better answer.

Repair cost (estimate): $0–$1,800 — most lockups clear with a full power-down; a failed rack is the top of the range

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under steering (81).

Retracting door handles that stop presenting themselvesMedium

The flush handles pull out of the door when the car unlocks, and the small motor and microswitch inside each one is a wear item on this generation — one owner in the electrical cluster describes a rear door unlatching by itself while the car sat parked and locked. It is a per-door part, so the bill depends on how many have gone. Walk up to the car cold, unlock it once and watch all four present themselves, then close each door and try again. A handle that hesitates on the second try is one on its way out.

Repair cost (estimate): $400–$900 per handle

Source: NHTSA complaints filed under electrics and electronics (137).

Walk-Away Red Flags

✗A clunk or knock from the front end over a speed bump at walking pace
✗Uneven front tyre wear, or a front wheel sitting visibly off-centre in its arch
✗Centre screen slow to wake, freezing, or blanking during the test drive
✗A reversing camera that takes more than a few seconds to appear in reverse
✗A door handle that stays flush when the car unlocks
✗Rated range at a full charge well below the figure this variant left the factory with

Good Signs

✓Front lower control links replaced, with a Tesla invoice naming the part numbers
✓MCU repaired or upgraded, with the work order in the service history
✓A full charge showing rated range close to this variant's original figure
✓All four door handles presenting on the first unlock from cold
✓Tesla service history visible in the owner app with a work order for each visit