I just had an interesting conversation with the tech as I was in getting my tires rotated and rebalanced. First, he was very impressed with the wear in my tires. I am at 36354 miles on original 19" OEM goodyears with 5/32" on the front and 7/32" on the rear left, and at my current wear rate I should be able to last until about 55k miles before they need to be replaced. We got talking about the 21" tires. (and while I was there a sig owner picked up his car which had to have new 21" tires due to a blowout and rim crack).
So then the tech was talking about the issue with the 21" inside wear. Now, as a disclaimer again this is coming from a Tesla service tech, and we all know that they seem to be the last people who get information from the top level, but when I inquired about when the lowering of the air suspension was going to be returned in a firmware update, to my surprise he said it's not. The automatic lowering of the suspension at highway speeds is permanently disabled and not going to return. (hence the removal of the "lowering verbage on the web site). The reason he gave was that this is the answer to the 21" inside tire wear. He talked about the complexity of the suspension system, and on paper while the 'lowering feature' was neat and that the marketing loved it as people responded to it, the reality is that when lowered it creates a ride angle that drastically increases inside tire wear and many owners were getting upset that they needed to replace the rear tires very often. I said that I was under the impression this feature was disabled due to those people that ran over tow hitches and damaged their battery. but he said that was not the case despite what you've heard. The reality is that riding at standard height corrects the inside tear wear issue, and that the difference in ride height @standard vs @low would not have changed the outcome of those extremely unlikely circumstances that someone runs over an object that would impale the battery. the same fire would have resulted from the impact of those objects at standard height too. note that those were extremely rare exceptional circumstances. he said there is A LOT of misinformation on these forums (and who knows if I'm contributing to that right now). I did ask 'but what about Elon's statement that it would return in a firmware update' and he responded that this is extremely unlikely to return but that you never know what the top level decision makers are going to change.
He also said there was absolutely NO ground clearance level changes whatsoever and that is completely misinformation spreading on the forums. Again, *no ground clearance heights were changed at any suspension level by any firmware version*. He said that there actually is NO efficiency gain at the lowered height vs the standard height and again, this feature was more of a marketing angle than really anything practically useful. He did say the ONLY difference riding in standard vs lower would be a SLIGHT loss of handling, but that 99.9% of people would never handle the car in a way that you would feel this difference, unless you are going 75+mph and making an extremely hard turn. Basically, you'd only feel the difference if you take the MS to a track.
I relealize all of that is completely different than another poster who said they were told by their service center that this feature IS returning and will have a checkbox to enable/disable the lowering. So honestly I don't know what to say about this other than Tesla communication from the top level down to the service centers and to customers remains at an all time horrible level.
a few more things he said:
1) that those people refusing to update their software is a BIG problem. These people are not receiving critical updates for the car. There are many things in each update that are *NOT* listed in the release notes but are still critical to the operations of the car and other various improvements/bug fixes. For example, the the lastest firmware update they fixed the issue where "opening the door too fast pops off the chrome trim". (I had no idea about this problem). the gist of it was that many owners with kids (people who use the rear doors often), kids being kids they would yank the door open real fast and that the door would be yanked open before teh window would lower yet, and due to the overlap of the chrome trim and window this would break off the chrome trim from the car. The lastest firmware was updated to lower the window first before releasing the door lock to open. Again, this is just one "fix" of many that are not listed with each release notes.
2) He also pointed out there are several very important safety updates that everyone needs to get. Especially the latest charging changes to mitigate possible fires if the electrical outlets are not wired up properly. refusing to update your software potentially puts you and your family in harms way (he didn't say it like that but of course thats the point .. we all know theres nothing wrong with the car or charging system itself, but unfortunately not all homes are wired up right).
3) if you bring your car in they are going to update your software whether you like it or not. this is company policy. you could ask them to not update it, but they are going to do it anyway as it is critical you NEED to get these firmware updates.
I also had a conversation with the desk rep. We were conversing about the sig owner there who had a blowout and rim crack (and then he also got a flat with the service loaner too...he was pretty pissed). The rep there was saying that a lot of people around here don't realize that you are NOT supposed to be driving on those 21" tires in winter. They freeze and become hard as rock and hitting the littlest pothole will instantly blowout the sidewall. It sounded like these service centers are getting swamped with blowouts. Those people should have a set of 19" winter tires and use those during winter. These 21s are dangerous in the winter but unfornateuly people are trigger happen when ordering on the internet and are undereducated with the risks associated with low profile summer performance tires. In the last week alone I know of at least 4 or 5 incidents of a blowout from owners in NJ/NY.
Anywho, they also applied a few more TSBs while I was there. some nuts or bolts on the front suspension or something and something on the front bumper.
I asked about the "wind noise" that was "enabled" on my MS after my Queens service visit in August. Basically, I used to have zero wind noise. During that Queens service, they applied some TSB to fix wind noise that I did not have. Now I have wind noise. During his test drive of my car, he confirmed the wind noise. He said that they found out that their TSB was making it worse not better, and that many owners now have the wind noise due to the TSB. They no longer do that TSB. He said when I bring the car back for a service visit he'll fix it for real this time ( I was only really there for the tire rotation).
Also, I also purchased the winter floor mats, frunk, and trunk mats. And the water bottle. While the tire rotation and balance was free, I did spend $540 on accessories. lol <3 Tesla very satisfied , and can live without the lowered suspension now that I know the real reason for it's removal.
