Air Suspension Red Indicator (Jack Mode?) Appears in Instrument Cluster

[kevinf311]

I searched around a bit to see if anyone else had posted about this but the forum search didn't seem to turn anything up and a custom google search didn't give me anything relevant either.

When I was coming into work today (mid 70s, after a morning rain, slightly damp roads, high humidity) a red indicator appeared on my instrument cluster. It is the icon for the Smart Air Suspension (a little vehicle with up and down arrows) that, according to the manual, is to show the car is in "Jack Mode."

The time in which it appeared was as I was slowing down from highway speeds to go around an off-ramp. It is typical that the car would swap from Low or Standard to Standard or High I think at this point because of the drop in speed. I don't really know if this transition occurred because I had split my focus between "continue driving the car without hitting other people or objects" and "what is this little red indicator on my screen?"

There is no corresponding exclamation point on the main 17" display that I would expect to see when a fault is detected. Additionally, if there was a fault, the little Smart Air Suspension icon should be yellow/amber, right?

I didn't manually try to change the suspension height. The idea behind Jack Mode is that auto-leveling is disabled, so I guess that's actually what has happened, I'm just not sure why.

The only troubleshooting I've done so far is to press the Jack Mode button (which informed me that "Jack Mode is now enabled") and then pressing it again to disable Jack Mode. The Red icon remains.

I needed to get into the building, so I didn't mess with it any further but I have to run by the bank later on so I will update with what the behavior is after the car is off for a bit. If the icon persists I'll do the standard reboot both screens trick (every tech supports first step! ).

If anyone has experienced this or has any ideas, I'd love to hear from you. The car is just shy of 25k miles so worst case, I'll just have them look at it during maintenance... which I still need to schedule

 

[kevinf311]

UPDATE

Just got back from the bank.

When I got in the car, the indicator had cleared. Car seemed to act normally on the way over but I don't think I ever got up fast enough to trigger the suspension to lower from standard.

On the way back from the bank when I got into the car and stepped on the brake, the front lowered down considerably (I was parked on an incline so it might have been leveling related). The guys walking by my car found this to be most awesome, but I wasn't as sure...

Then the music started stuttering and the blinker sounds were all messed up so I restarted the main screen. After it came back up, the music and indicators were *better* but not completely without stutter. This distracted me from remembering to try out raising/lowering the suspension from the screen, so I guess I'll do that later on when I leave for the day.

Maybe my car just needs an update to be pushed and smooth over some of these bugs

 

[hiroshiy]

I had that red small icon once. I have 2014 P85 air suspension, and I keep the height always low. I left the car and after 10 minutes I returned to the car, the icon disappeared! I called the SC but they said there's no log at all...

 

[kevinf311]

Yeah, the transient nature of the icon was strange. I haven't had it return so far and I've manually changed the suspension height since then (gravel parking lot) with no issues.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[mrElbe]

I had this happen over a month ago while driving in the morning from Custer, SD westwards. Re-booting screens did not help. Called Tesla Service and the helpful person could see remotely that the light was on. He checked logs and nothing abnormal there. He then advised me to shut the car down, wait a few minutes and then touch the brake pedal to wake it up again. Voila! the warning light was off.

 

[CSFTN]

I had this happen repeatedly for about 3 weeks. I called Tesla and had an appointment to bring it in .. and then it went away. They thought it was a bad firmware update.

 

[kevinf311]

I had this happen repeatedly for about 3 weeks. I called Tesla and had an appointment to bring it in .. and then it went away. They thought it was a bad firmware update.

Thanks for the additional information. I plan to bring it up at my 25k maintenance appointment (that I have yet to schedule).

 

[SomeJoe7777]

If the icon is yellow, that's a detected fault in the air suspension system. Red icon indicates jack mode, or that the air suspension system is unable to change height or unable to self-level. If you're not actually in jack mode, this basically also indicates a fault.

I had this happen to mine, the problem turned out to be a faulty air compressor which was replaced under warranty.

 

[kevinf311]

If the icon is yellow, that's a detected fault in the air suspension system. Red icon indicates jack mode, or that the air suspension system is unable to change height or unable to self-level. If you're not actually in jack mode, this basically also indicates a fault.

I had this happen to mine, the problem turned out to be a faulty air compressor which was replaced under warranty.

Cool. That's more or less what my conclusion was when I saw the icon. I said to myself "I thought yellow was fault and red was jack mode" and when I went through the manual and saw red also means auto-leveling is disabled I kinda took that to mean there was a fault that wasn't *so* bad that an error code tripped the yellow icon.

Whenever I get around to scheduling that 25k maintenance I'll be sure to have them check it out. Looks like we're about the same age of car (you just have more motors!) so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a compressor issue for mine as well.

Thanks for the note.

 

[Skipdd]

Found this thread when I searched for "Auto Suspension Problem." I have been having the same problem off and on for several months. I just had the car in to fix this issue and one other (car does not recognize voice calling command, I.e., when you say, "Call Ms Blank" it returns, "Unknown Command." Driving home tonight both problems recurred. Reviewing the Technician's notes for the Auto Suspension error light, he wrote,

"Inspected logs and dtc found EAS_w001_Wala_LC_red and EAS_55A301 - Level Control Switched OFF by HMI (Human Machine Interface) Request. Both issues seem to present themselves as jack mode was enabled on the vehicle from the mcu. Operated suspension at all different levels and no other issues upon inspection." In other words, the "Human Machine Interface" (me) put the car in jack mode and this caused the problems. Except that I didn't. Each time this problem has occurred I have been on the interstate moving at high speed. And for sure I know that tonight I definitely did not touch the jack mode button..

I called the SC and left a message for the SA, with the time of the issue. They always like to ask for the day and time of the event to pull the logs, so now they have it officially logged on their vm. And tomorrow I'm going to call the SA and share SomeJoe7777's experience and Root Cause to see if they can check that.

Other thoughts welcome. I will update the thread as I learn more.

I think it's in my profile but I have a 2015 85D and it has ~28,000 mi on it.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

I think it's in my profile but I have a 2015 85D and it has ~28,000 mi on it.

Your profile says you have a 2015 June build 85D. Mine is an April 2015 85D, and Kevin's above is a March 2015 85. I wonder if the air compressors used during this build time have some faults?

 

[Skipdd]

Your profile says you have a 2015 June build 85D. Mine is an April 2015 85D, and Kevin's above is a March 2015 85. I wonder if the air compressors used during this build time have some faults?

Interesting theory. I will point this out tomorrow. Thanks!

 

[mspohr]

I had this indicator twice. It cleared after I stopped the car. Took it in for service and they didn't find anything in the logs.
Feb 2015 85D with 38,000 miles.

 

[Skipdd]

I had this indicator twice. It cleared after I stopped the car. Took it in for service and they didn't find anything in the logs.
Feb 2015 85D with 38,000 miles.

Yes it clears after you stop the car and depress the brake pedal as reported above. But what happens if you are driving and you need Air Suspension to work and the problem occurs? Not implying you are ok with it, just saying..

 

[mspohr]

Yes it clears after you stop the car and depress the brake pedal as reported above. But what happens if you are driving and you need Air Suspension to work and the problem occurs? Not implying you are ok with it, just saying..

I think the air suspension was working properly. I checked the controls screen and it indicated the suspension moved up and down with speed as it should. (I don't know if the suspension actually moved up and down... but it said it did.)

 

[CSFTN]

I think it GPS associated. It always happened to me in 1 of 2 locations, at both of which I had on one occasion utilized a max height setting on the air suspension. Maybe I had used jack mode in those locations, mistakenly. I think the car is trying to perform some GPS-associated function but the current speed of the vehicle vetos the function and throws out an incorrectly processed error code. In other words, a bug. I fixed mine by pulling over immediately (on the 10th episode) and deleting the GPS associated height adjustment, and its fixed. No codes since.

 

[Skipdd]

I think it GPS associated. It always happened to me in 1 of 2 locations, at both of which I had on one occasion utilized a max height setting on the air suspension. Maybe I had used jack mode in those locations, mistakenly. I think the car is trying to perform some GPS-associated function but the current speed of the vehicle vetos the function and throws out an incorrectly processed error code. In other words, a bug. I fixed mine by pulling over immediately (on the 10th episode) and deleting the GPS associated height adjustment, and its fixed. No codes since.

That could possibly explain my latest episode, but the other two instances did not have any previous association between the location of the error and a previous selection of Auto Suspension at that site, and both were at very diverse spots.

Thanks

 

[kevinf311]

Well crap.

I totally forgot to mention this to the Service Center when I took it in for the 25k service.

My charge port door had the magnet come unstuck (so the door appeared open at all times... which was pointed out to me by literally every person I interacted with near the car ) and I had some vibration that I wanted checked out so I completely forgot about this Air Suspension issue >.<

The Service Center didn't find any errors in my logs, so I guess that's reassuring. Also reassuring is that it has not happened again since the first time when I made this thread.

I definitely second the correlation between this error and cars in the first half of 2015, not sure if it proves anything on its own though :-/

A question to @Skipdd though, when you say that it occurred on the highway traveling at high speed, was this speed close to the setting for the car to automatically lower to the lowest height? (I think mine is set at 70mph)

 

[Skipdd]

Well crap.

I totally forgot to mention this to the Service Center when I took it in for the 25k service.

My charge port door had the magnet come unstuck (so the door appeared open at all times... which was pointed out to me by literally every person I interacted with near the car ) and I had some vibration that I wanted checked out so I completely forgot about this Air Suspension issue >.<

The Service Center didn't find any errors in my logs, so I guess that's reassuring. Also reassuring is that it has not happened again since the first time when I made this thread.

I definitely second the correlation between this error and cars in the first half of 2015, not sure if it proves anything on its own though :-/

A question to @Skipdd though, when you say that it occurred on the highway traveling at high speed, was this speed close to the setting for the car to automatically lower to the lowest height? (I think mine is set at 70mph)

Hi Kevinf311

No, and I have faulty memory (Human Machine problem I guess - am amused by Tesla terminology for an owner). I was on highways twice and once on Connecticut Ave. On the highways it was under 80 which is what mine threshold is. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[kevinf311]

Hi Kevinf311

No, and I have faulty memory (Human Machine problem I guess - am amused by Tesla terminology for an owner). I was on highways twice and once on Connecticut Ave. On the highways it was under 80 which is what mine threshold is. Sorry for the confusion.

No worries, just spitballing ideas.

I really do wish I had remembered to mention it when I went in for service. Since your logs seemed to indicate that the car thought it was us Human Machine Interfaces that were triggering jack mode, I bet it wouldn't have been caught by the tech reviewing the logs (which I assume is somewhere on the level of grep -i error events.log | less).