NHTSA Complaint #11570337 — 2018 TESLA MODEL 3

The steering of my model 3 became more difficult and clunky like I had to apply extreme amounts of force to turn. When I turned the wheel I could feel the wheel stop in each gear or grove of the steering mechanism. It got so bad at freeway speeds of 75 mph that it became extremely difficult to keep the car going in a straight line. As described before I would apply very heavy force to the wheel to turn it, when it did turn I would feel it clunk into the next stoping point and I would have to clunk back and forth this way to keep it going in a somewhat of a straight line. There was on time while using Full self driving on the freeway at 75 mph on a turn the full self driving was not able to turn the wheel and almost ran into the cement barrier. I was able to take control of the wheel and correct the car as soon as I saw the car cross the solid line. I took my car in for repair at the Tesla service center October 2023. I was charged $5k to replace the full steering unit in my 5 year old car at that time. I have owned 14 vehicles over my years of car ownership, vehicles age ranging from 1984 - 2018 and I have not once ever had to replace the full steering unit for any of those cars.