Tesla is being sued for allegedly tampering with customer vehicle odometers. The lawsuit alleges that Tesla did this to increase repair revenue, avoid warranty obligations, and force customers to purchase extended warranties in advance.Nyree Hinton filed the lawsuit after purchasing a 2020 Tesla Model Y in December 2022 with 36,772 miles on it, meaning it was still covered by the 50,000-mile warranty.
The California-based financial analyst said he had to make five trips to the repair shop in the months immediately after purchasing the electric car to fix recurring issues related to the suspension.
In June of this year, after Hinton went to the repair shop for the fifth time, he noticed that the car seemed to have traveled more miles on the same trip. He said that from December 14, 2022 to February 6, 2023, he drove an average of 55.54 miles per day, but between March 26, 2023, and June 28, 2023, the mileage recorded on the odometer was exactly the same as his trip that day, only 72.53 miles.
Hinton added that his previous vehicle traveled an average of 6,086 miles over six months, but the Model Y traveled 13,228 miles during the same period, an increase of 117 percent.
By July 2023, the odometer showed he had driven more than 50,000 miles. Hinton later discovered that Tesla had issued a recall for a suspension issue affecting his vehicle. In January 2024, when he went to the repair shop for the sixth time, he was told that he had to pay for repairs because the warranty had expired and the recall notice did not apply.
Hinton did not proceed with the repairs. The suspension eventually came off the car in October and had to be towed to a Tesla store, where the clerk said the repair cost $10,000. A Tesla representative also told him that all Tesla repairs come with a one-year warranty, so the suspension could be fixed for free in January 2024.
In his lawsuit against Tesla, Hinton argued that Tesla's electric vehicles do not use mechanical or electronic systems to measure distance, but rely on "predictive algorithms, energy consumption indicators and driving behavior multipliers to manipulate and misrepresent the actual range of Tesla vehicles." All of which means mileage-based warranties will end earlier than expected.
Hinton requested that his lawsuit be elevated to a class-action status so that other Tesla owners could join.
Hinton isn't the only owner to question his Tesla's odometer reading. One Reddit user wrote that he once had a 70-mile trip that showed up as 90 miles. Another user on the Tesla forum claimed that a 122-mile trip was shown as 188 miles.