Michigan man opens up Tesla Model 3 to check wear and tear after 36,000 miles and ends up stunned with what he finds
Published on Mar 18, 2026 at 8:11 PM (UTC+4)
by Ben Thompson
Last updated on Mar 18, 2026 at 8:11 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Emma Matthews
This was meant to be a routine inspection, but it was anything but, because when this Michigan man opened up his Tesla Model 3, he was left shocked.
Chris, the host of YouTube channel Dirty Tesla, had racked up 36,000 miles on his 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD since he purchased it back in 2019.
When he took a closer look, he might have anticipated that there’d be something awry.
But there’s no way he could have predicted this.
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What did this man find when he took a closer look at his Tesla Model 3?
Chris from the YouTube channel Dirty Tesla has been documenting life with his 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD for a long while now.
Back in 2024, he found something unusual after he pulled apart the rear panels – 15lbs of dirt, to be precise.
But that was nothing compared to what he discovered in August 2025.
When he pulled off the underbody panels, he uncovered a whole load of mud and dirt.
Piling it into a bucket, he decided to weigh it.
Brace yourself – this was 32lbs worth of dirt.
Can you imagine that much dirt being gathered on the underside of your car?
This time around, the dirt was thick layers – a lot tougher to remove than the gravel and pebbles that had been there a year earlier.
Even the front wheel wells hadn’t been spared from the dirt onslaught, leaving Chris no choice but to scrape it off with a screwdriver.
It’s actually quite remarkable that the car performed as well as it did, considering all this extra weight.
Brakes, suspension, and efficiency all checked out fine.
Obvious ick factor aside, the car didn’t appear to have suffered too badly as a result of its dirt accumulation.
Now we think about it, it’s quite fitting Chris’ channel is called Dirty Tesla.
A clean EV is a happy EV, everyone knows that
This was obviously an extreme case, but we’ve seen what can happen when Teslas get too dirty.
One Ohio man gave his Model X a Lazarus-like transformation, which was no small undertaking considering all the gum and candy stains.
When the guys at WD Detailing got to work on a Model S, they found something truly bizarre in the cabin.
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Following stints at LadBible, The Sun, The New York Post, and the Daily Mail, Ben joined the team full-time in February 2025. In his role as Senior Content Writer, his sparkling copy, the ability to sniff out a good story at 100 paces, and a GSOH quickly led to him becoming an integral and invaluable member of the writing staff.
