My Model YL is a little over four months old now, with the odometer just past 18,500 km. That is when Model YL rear suspension sag started showing up in my feed.
Chinese owners are the ones reporting it. The gap above the rear tyre closes up against the wheel arch, until in the worst cases you can only fit two fingers in there.
My car came off the same Shanghai line, so this is not somebody else’s problem. I took a tape measure out to the garage. The short version: my right side sits 6 mm lower than my left.
What Chinese owners are reporting
Here is the post that put me onto it.
Tesla Model Y L owners report rear suspension problems in China
— Drive Tesla 🇨🇦 (@DriveTeslaca) September 1, 2026
The Model YL launched in China in August 2025, then complaints piled up at the end of August 2026. Electrek covered it here.
The Model YL rear suspension only sags at the back. The arch gap closes, the back end feels floaty, the inner shoulder of the tyre wears early, the car shimmies at speed.
Mileage at failure is all over the place. One car went to Tibet fully loaded then sagged at 9,000 km. A car in Shanghai showed it at roughly 30,000 km. Most reports come from the first batch delivered in September through October 2025, though cars delivered in 2026 turn up too.
Tesla replaces the rear springs free under warranty. The catch is that several owners report the sag coming back one to two months after the swap. Same spec spring, same result. Worn tyres are on the owner.
Japanese cars, Australian cars, New Zealand cars all come from the same Shanghai plant, so assume you are in the same boat.
Tesla’s number is 764 mm
This is the Model YL rear suspension spec that Chinese service centres are working to.
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Rear wheel arch height, nominal | 784 ± 20 mm (764 to 804 mm) |
| Free spring replacement threshold | Below 764 mm |
| Showroom car, measured | 782 mm |
| Six-month-old car judged bad | 762 mm |
Owners also use a finger test. Four fingers in the gap is fine, three is a warning, anything under 2.5 means the spring is gone. No tools needed, which is genuinely useful.
Measuring the Model YL rear suspension at home
I did this on 6 September.
My garage only has drainage fall running front to back, so it is level side to side. Good enough for a left versus right comparison.
The tyre pressures had just been set, with the fronts at 2.95 bar. The cabin plus the boot were basically empty, so nothing was loading one side more than the other.
Stand the tape on the ground, keep it vertical, then read the scale where the gap above the tyre meets the arch.
Right side: 771 mm, seven millimetres of margin
Here is what I got.
| Measured | vs 784 mm nominal | To the 764 mm threshold | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Left rear | 777 mm | -7 mm | 13 mm to go |
| Right rear | 771 mm | -13 mm | 7 mm to go |
The app screen is in Japanese. It reads “Model YL Dual Motor”, odometer 18,505 km, software 2026.20.6.1.
Both sides are inside the 784 ± 20 mm window. If I booked service today they would measure it, call it in spec, then send me home.
But the right side is at 771 mm, which leaves 7 mm before the 764 mm replacement threshold. At 18,500 km I honestly expected more headroom than that.
Both sides sit below nominal, so this looks less like one bad corner. The whole rear has settled a little, with the right dropping further on top of that.
Why the tape measure lies to you
The tape has thickness. That means the reading changes depending on whether the arch sits to the right of the tape or to the left of it. Crouch down to look up at it and you read low. Stand up to look down on it and you read high.
This actually happened to me. I reshot the same side from a different angle, and the reading moved by nearly a centimetre. A centimetre is bigger than the left versus right difference I was trying to measure in the first place.
So rather than taking one absolute number then panicking about it, measure both sides back to back from the same body position, then look at the difference. Do it the same way next time, and you will know whether it is still dropping.
Model YL rear suspension height is worth checking on your own car. You do not even need the tape. Count how many fingers fit in the gap.
What I plan to do about the warranty
For now the car is within spec, so I am leaving it. That said, 7 mm is not much, so I will measure again in a month.
What I am actually watching is the warranty clock. My Model YL warranty runs four years, with a cap at 80,000 km. No extended plan. I am at 18,500 km, so at this rate I will hit 80,000 km inside two years. Almost certainly.
Say the right side drops under 764 mm within the next 10,000 km, then gets a spring. If that spring is the same part, there is a real chance the whole thing comes back before I reach 80,000 km. The Chinese reports of sag returning one to two months after a swap make that look likely rather than paranoid.
By then I would like there to be a revised part.
If it drops any further I will book an inspection rather than waiting for the threshold. I will measure again, then write it up if anything has changed.
This article is also available in Japanese.
