2023 Tesla Model Y Visibility & Wipers Problems

We were driving and had the circulation on to make sure that no outside air was being circulated in so that condensation does not build up on the inside of the cabin. The circulation button auto turned off without us knowing. We then had all four windows, and our windshield and back window completely covered in condensation and it would not resolve. I had to manually wipe it away. We were traveling down a highway going 70mph when this happened. This is extremely dangerous and that circulation button should not have been auto shut off.

What component or system failed or malfunctioned, and is it available for inspection upon request? HVAC heat pump and defrost/defog system failure. The failure caused immediate fogging/condensation on the windshield and door windows. The vehicle is available for inspection upon request and no parts have been removed. [Tesla Model/Year, VIN last 8]. How was your safety or the safety of others put at risk? Sudden loss of forward and side visibility made it impossible to see lane markings, surrounding traffic, or mirrors, preventing a safe lane change or pull-over to the shoulder. This created a risk of collision with vehicles ahead or beside me. Has the problem been reproduced or confirmed by a dealer or independent service center? Yes but they are not covering it. This is a very common issue reported by many owners Has the vehicle or component been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives or others? No. The vehicle has not yet been inspected by Tesla, law enforcement, insurance, or third parties. Were there any warning lamps, messages or other symptoms of the problem prior to the failure, and when did they first appear? No warning lamps or messages appeared. The fogging occurred suddenly while driving on [date, approx. time], immediately after the cabin heat pump failed to clear the glass and visibility dropped to near zero.

Summary of Complaint: My 2023 Tesla Model Y has had two roof glass failures in three months (two glass roof replacements). Both times, the glass cracked from small road debris while driving under normal city conditions. Safety Concern The roof glass appears unusually fragile and prone to cracking, raising concerns about whether it meets industry standards for impact resistance and occupant safety. The rapid failure rate (two roof glass panels in three months) suggests a potential design or materials defect rather than isolated incidents of road damage. If roof glass panels cannot withstand normal road debris, this presents a safety risk for drivers and passengers, as well as for other motorists if large shards detach while driving. The roof glass seems unusually fragile. Two failures in such a short time suggest a design or material defect. If the glass cannot withstand normal road debris, it may not meet durability or safety standards. There is also risk to occupants and other drivers if roof glass fails while in motion. Request: Please investigate whether the 2023 Tesla Model Y roof glass meets required safety standards, and whether this issue is affecting other owners.

Front wipers stoped during use on windscreen, returned to functionality and then minutes later shut down. No ability to manually or via rain sense to get arms to move. Performed soft, hard, and thired suggested Tesla reboot. Not resolved. Service scheduled for 15 days rendering vehicle unsafe to drive.

car has a improperly installed windshield, it got cracked while sitting in a covered parking lot on June24th,2025. the hottest day of season with 100 + degrees temperature,Crack was very small in the middle of windshield size3” x 3” and got bigger waiting for Tesla’s appointment.When i went to Tesla today for replacement of windshield they just gave me the run around and denied to replace under warranty. This is a manufacturing defect as there is nothing else but a crack . Tesla should be fined for big time and ordered to fix it under warranty. There are so many customers who have the same problem.The crack never happened with any outside influence .

I noticed that the car window glass broke without any external impact, and there are no signs of external damage. I suspect this may have been caused by stress fractures due to improper assembly. From what I understand, stress fractures often occur at the edges without any signs of external impact, which matches this situation. But Tesla service refused to admit this is a flaw of installation and refuse to replace it under the warranty coverage. After exploration, I found there are plenty of similar cases happened on the internet. And some of them were treated as flaw, some not. How Tesla identify this kind of case as flaw or not? They didn't even check my out in person. I cannot accept that!

I have a complaint about the wiper system. The wiper settings include "Off", "Auto", and numbers 1-4 corresponding to different wiper speeds. The "Auto" detection is based on the front facing camera rather than any rain sensors, and is incredibly inconsistent. It regularly turns on the wipers in completely clear and dry conditions and often fails to turn on the wipers even in heavy rain. This would be more of an annoyance than an issue if it were possible to adjust the wiper speed manually, but it seems that the wipers still utilize some form of auto detection even when set to numbers 1-4. In this particular incident, I was driving in heavy rain, and had the wipers set to "4", the highest setting. Even in this setting, the wiper speed would often slow down regardless of the weather conditions, drastically reducing visibility in an unpredictable manner. At one point, the wipers, still manually set to the highest setting, stopped altogether, and I instantly lost all visibility and I had to emergency brake, as I could not see the road. On the highest setting, the wipers stopped for well over a second, and did not start again until I pressed the wiper button, restarting the wipers. It is one thing to rely on a proprietary and unreliable detection system when wipers are set to "Auto", but I feel it is a major security issue to deceptively allow this unreliable rain detection to override manual wiper settings set by the driver to the extent that the wipers may stop moving entirely in the middle of a downpour on the highest setting.

The automatic windshield wipers will not turn on during rain and mist. Also the wipers will not turn on when there is water and visibility is very poor. For unknow reason the car jammed the brake almost bringing the car to a stop on the freeway on cruise control and nearly caused a pile up.

Small particles of chips has been causing windshield cracks I had 2 incidents of above scenario, second incidence caused entire windshield to crack across the windshield, Tesla does not replace quickly due to lack of appointments on their end, drivers driving with such issue could get into accidents I would like to report 2 incidents, not sure how NHSTA investigates (prevention vs fixes in reasonable time) 1. Windshields are too thin resulting in cracks very easily than compared to other similar cars 2. Inability of Tesla service to fix the windshield replacement quickly, I have to wait till August 2024 to get replacement done, which means i have to ground the car or drive it with cracked windshield (this is clearly safety issue) it cost be 1500$ estimated amount to get it repaired Please work with Tesla to investigate if windshield is thick enough compared to other standard cars

Yesterday, 6/21/2024, something strange happened while I was driving my 2023 Tesla Model Y on the westbound 210 highway. The car was in autopilot mode, cruising at around 65 mph at approximately 11:20 AM. Suddenly, I heard a loud shattering (or explosive) sound. The next thing I knew, my front passenger window was completely shattered. Initially, I thought a rock or some object might have hit my window, but I couldn't find any remnants inside the car. Once I got home, I examined the window from the outside. The glass was almost completely smooth, as if it had exploded. Fortunately, since my windows are tinted, the shattered glass remained mostly intact. Can anyone help me figure out what might have caused this? The exterior side is smooth like butter with no visible impact. Could it be a defect?

Windshield wipers put in manual maximum sensitivity mode. During the trip they stopped working multiple times. They just froze. When a manual one time wipe button was pressed wipers menu showed “II” manual sensitivity and started working. Selected back manual III sensitivity. Wipers worked for a while and stopped again. SW version: 2024.14.6. Autopilot was not engaged.

While driving on a freeway during very heavy rain, the windshield wipers were working in auto mode. All of a sudden the wipers stopped working. Even though the visibility was almost non existent due to windshield wipers not working, I managed safely to pull over to the curb of the freeway. Upon further investigation, I realized that the auto mode of windshield wipers was not working, but manual mode was working. With the manual mode I was able to get home safely. At home in my driveway I tried the auto mode again and it worked for a few seconds and stopped. Two days later my wife contacted Tesla about the issue and was informed by service representative that it`s a known problem to Tesla for the vehicle, but as of now they do not have a fix for the problem and there is no known expected time for the fix.

My tesla is supposed to have "automatic" wipers that go on by themselves to keep the windshield clear so one can drive in rain. Manual wiper speed control is difficult because the driver has to look at center screen and use menus to select a speed. There is no intermittent wipers control; the lowest speed setting is too fast for light range. Only one pass operation is possible without using the center console while driving which is dangerous. The automatic wipers are very erratic, sometimes running faster than needed or coming on when it's not raining to other times hardly coming on at all making it very difficult to see and making driving very accident prone. The poor operation can, of course, adversely affect the proper operation of the automatic driving capability too since that depends on vision by cameras through windshield. Other owners I know voice the same concerns. This issue is a big problem anytime it rains and even worse back last winter when it snowed. I've only had my car 3 months. I have talked to a few other owners who indicate this problem didn't exist as much 6 months or a year ago indicating it could be a problem caused by a recent car software update or a change in the equipment used for wiper control in my Tesla Y. I'm not sure if the problem applies to other models (ie S, X, 3).

Tesla recently rolled out an update that gives everyone in the US a trial of FSD. After this update I've had numerous situations where the car would panic and act like I was about to collide with a parked vehicle both while driving down a residential street in daytime and when coming around corners. This never happened in previous version. Also the auto windshield wipers no longer work when its raining but will turn on when its dry and cause dirt to smear on the window, mainly when the sun is facing the driver which makes it very dangerous. The last issue is pretty big, the car has been exhibiting severe phantom braking when on the highway using adaptive cruise control (FSD I guess now?)

Windshield wipers fail to work properly when in auto mode. Windshield was covered in rain and visibility was reduced to zero. Windshield wipers would not activate to clear the rain. The problem has happened multiple times while raining.

Auto steer in city which is the free software unnecessarily distracts with warnings, so much that I was almost in an accident 3 times. This doesn’t happen with full self service driving in the exact same scenario because it’s a paid service, essentially forcing owners to subscribe and pay for full self service driving. Furthermore, if you don’t react to unnecessary and distractive warnings you get a warning that auto steer (which is paid for as part of the car purchase) will be disabled.

Auto setting on windshield wiper does not activate wipers. It happens in a downpour and moderate rain. Other times it activates in a sunny day or with minimal water on window. When it fails, I have to manually turn on wiper which requires taking my eyes off the road to look at the screen to set the speed. This is very dangerous at one of the worst times when I need my eyes on the wet road and traffic. Tesla has refused to look at the sensors and claims there is no issue. I have contacted them twice about this and gotten a “it’s a firmware issue. We’ll send an update soon.”The problem has persisted for several months. I have attached screen shots of the messages from Tesla.

The falcon braking system kicks in automatically, and the windshield wiper does not turn on automatically as it would in any basic car now a days. The available autopilot/ adaptive cruise control only gives unteliable cruise control. There were times where in the middle of a freeway the cruise control starts braking, luckily there were no vehicle behind us so there were no collisions so far. The price tag on this car and the way it keeps fluctuating is un-acceptable so i ended up paying a lot for the car than the actual value from tesla directly and the basic features like auto wiper and cruise control is a huge disappointment

Auto Wipers either don't work when it's raining or will always come on randomly when it's dry. Manuel wipers work fine

Tesla's auto-wipers do NOT detect rain on the windshield and are dangerous to drive with enabled. During heavy rain with the windshield covered and unable to see the auto wipers would not enable and clean the windshield. I was forced to "wake-up" the wipers with a manual swipe, but even then the auto-wipers failed to keep the windshield clear while only occasionally/intermittently cleaning the windshield. Tesla's auto-wipers are dangerously ineffective.