A Tesla Model S owner from Toronto, Canada reports that he took delivery of his brand new P90D with a huge split in the A-pillar.

The owner, Snowstorm on the Tesla Motors Club forum, says he happily took delivery of his new car but a few days later, noticed that the aluminum used in the A-pillar had a crack in it. Before you blame the owner for the split, it’s worth noting that there is white paint over and inside the crack, indicating that it left the factory like that.

In a post, the member asks “How can the delivery folks not see this as they are prepping the car? Would have been obvious on a wash. I don’t even know how can the part be replaced without taking apart a lot of things. If I saw this on delivery, I would have asked for a different car…”

The A-pillar of the Model S is a single piece of aluminium that stretches all the way back to the C-pillar and plays in important structural role in the sedan. This crack not only looks bad but is downright dangerous.

The owner says that after contacting Tesla, he was instructed to take the car to a local Tesla body shop to have it evaluated and is currently waiting for an assessment of the defect and a proposed fix. However, he, and other forum members, suggest that the only solution is for Tesla to give him an entirely new car, something we agree with.

One member suggests that given the delivery date of the Model S, the owner may have been a victim of rushing on the part of Tesla as it looked to push out as many vehicles as possible late last year, potentially resulting in poor quality control and lackluster inspections.

We’ll update this story as more details about the defect emerge.

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