this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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Cyberstuck
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A place to post your Cybertruck fails! We're here to make fun of this hunk of shit and throw as much shade as we can to that garbage bag of a human elon.
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Wait, you need to be towed if the "frunk" doesn't close all the way???
Yes, and for a reasonably good reason.
If the rear trunk lid of a car doesn't latch shut, the wind will blow it back down. It might obscure the view from the rear window but the side mirrors should still allow rear view, so it's not a serious safety hazard. If the hood, or frunk lid, doesn't latch shut, wind might get under it and blow it open, completely obscuring forward vision. This is why, on most cars, the hood is secured with not one but two latches, and the "second" one that can hold it partially closed is just a lever with a big spring that holds a pawl over a pin. Simple doesn't fail.
This worked fine for decades, because the engine compartment has always been a kind of "back stage" area. Less care for how the trunk latch felt and sounded was put into the design because you'd only open it to service the engine. But now electric cars don't have engines there, so that volume of the vehicle gets re-used as a cargo compartment, and thus requires a latching system that the chai latte-est pair of yoga pants is willing to operate. So it has to be motorized with a motorized latch. And because adding that much electrical shit to the system means chance of failure skyrockets, you also need an interlock that can stop the car from driving with the hood unlatched so it doesn't blow open on the highway.
Being made by Tesla also means the chance of failure skyrockets again.
Well if you rephrase it for a normal car it doesn't sound so absurd. "If your hood won't latch the car won't let you drive at highway speeds?"
A failed latch on a front compartment can be very dangerous because it catches the wind if it opens suddenly at 60+mph. At best you are blinded, or it gets torn off to go flying into a car behind you.
As such, highway speeds should be restricted if the latch is malfunctioning. The real problem here is that Tesla doesn't like dealers because they want that middleman money for themselves, so you often have to drive quite the distance to get it repaired. If this were a vehicle from any of the other major manufacturers most people are probably only a few miles from their nearest dealer.
Normal cars have two hood latches. Your primary latch (that you open with the hood pull in the car) and a secondary safety latch (when you reach under the hood to open it fully) so this problem is an extremely uncommon problem for a normal car.
But since this is a frunk it gets opened a lot more for storage and users would probably not be very happy about having to deal with the secondary latch on a regular basis. So they have motorized those latches for ease of use, and motorizing them adds a lot more points of failure.
That's the issue here. It's so automated that if even the slightest thing goes wrong, the vehicle goes into a mode that makes it difficult to continue, though not impossible. I wouldn't have chosen to get towed in this instance, since it still drives, but had they been on a highway, it would have been dangerous/illegal to continue at 15 mph. It feels like this was a design decision made without considering the consequences.
I've seen what happens when a hood opens at highway speed. No one was hurt, but that driver probably filled their pants, if you know what I mean.
Coincidentally, I repaired the latch on my car today. There was enough grime on the bearing that the tension of the spring wasn't enough to retain the hook screwed to the hood. Unscrewing the whole latch, cleaning the grease off and spraying some WD40 on it to prevent it from rusting fixed that right up.
It's such a simple mechanism that the whole fix took 10 minutes, and it's the first and only time that ever happened, after 125.000 miles.
It got stuck on a trip, the hood opened a little, right up to the second hook you mentioned, so I used some speed tape to hold the hood down and be extra safe until I made it home to fix the underlying issue. This option doesn't exist on the ridiculous mess that is the Cybertruck.
It's not that the idea isn't right, it's that they tried so hard to make it overly smart, but failed in almost every aspect.
You likely already know, but just in case (and for any readers who don't know).
WD40 is a water displacement compound and so acts as a degreaser and rust softener. It strips the oil and crap off a part, letting it move. It also strips the protective coating off as well. It will rust rapidly without this.
If you use WD40 you need to follow up with replacement oil, or other protection and lubricant. Without it, it will seize up again quite quickly.
I thought about adding a comment, but eventually got lazy. But you're right - I also always make a point of reminding people WD40 is not a good lubricant, so I should have added that, PSA and all.
So, for the record: in this case, I followed it up with an all-weather synthetic chain oil since the stuff I have on hand does have excellent corrosion protection and does in fact lube the bearings in my particular latch mechanism, while lasting.
Thanks for bringing that up.
I've seen too many bicycles destroyed by this over the years. People clean them off in the autumn , then wonder why the gears are rusted to hell in the spring.
I've some relatives who always did this to things, then complained about it. It made me a little... reactive to it.
Reading isn't hard... If the front truck isn't properly latched the vehicle's speed is limited to 15 mph. Technically you can drive it to the service center.
Depending on distance to the service center this could be quite impractical. Tesla doesn't have that many so its expected to be some distance away if an issue occurs.
Apparently it is because most people are morons.