• by Tanya Gazdik , April 18, 2024

File this one under “news of the weird”: One Tesla owner’s new Cybertruck stopped working after going through a car wash. 

“After just a couple of months and a few thousand miles of ownership, TikTok user @captian.ad’s Tesla Cybertruck was effectively a several-thousand-pound paperweight for several hours,” according to Jalopnik. “After taking his truck to the beach and stopping off at a car wash to clean it up, he parked the truck in his garage, where it decided to just stop working for a while. The screen, which runs all functions of the truck, went black, and wouldn’t respond at all, even after performing the factory prescribed reboot procedure. Not great.”

The owner’s manual for the vehicle, whose price starts at $81,895 and goes up to $101,985 depending on the trim and options, according to Car and Driver, suggests putting the vehicle into “car wash mode” before taking it through the cleaning machinery, but doesn’t forbid using one. 

“For a vehicle ostensibly designed to go anywhere, Tesla's Cybertruck seems to have a lot of trouble in mundane settings,” notes Futurism.com. “We've already seen our fair share of issues with the vehicle, from massive panel gaps and cracked 'armor glass' to failing steering controls and besmirched stainless steel.  Earlier this week, news emerged that Tesla stopped delivering all Cybertrucks to address a glaring issue with the controversial vehicle's accelerator pedal.”

The vehicle’s owner followed instructions from the automaker on how to reboot the vehicle, which took five hours to complete. but did get it working again.

“Despite being designed to be a rugged truck ready for a dystopian hellscape, taking care of a Cybertruck sounds like a nightmare, requiring more babying than virtually any other pickup,” according to Futurism.com. “Hilariously, Tesla warns that the truck should never be washed in 'direct sunlight’ due to possible corrosion in the stainless steel. Drivers also have to opt out of regular car washes and are told only to use ‘touchless car washes’ that don't make contact with the Cybertruck's surface.”

Owners that fail to follow these instructions could void the warranty, according to the automaker. 

"Failure to put Cybertruck in Car Wash Mode may result in damage," the company's manual reads. "Damage caused by car washes is not covered by the warranty.”

“As always, Tesla isn't in the business of talking to the media, so we're unlikely to find out what exactly caused the latest issue or if it was related to the owner cleaning his truck,” according  to Futurism.com.

The Cybertruck owner notes in the video that even with the screen not working, it seemed as if he could've driven the truck if he had tried. 

“I understand not wanting to try, but, yes, it seems that it was just a front touchscreen error, not a drivetrain error,” according to CleanTechnica.com. “So, again, how did just the front touchscreen run into a failure from the car wash? Doesn’t seem likely. But we’re left with the mystery as to what happened.”