An Unfortunate Day for my X

[Pmgraham86]

WARNING: photos will make you cringe!!

Long story short, I was backing my X into the garage and the damn homelink thought I was leaving and closed the garage door...leading to the rear spoiler catching the bottom of the garage door, bending it into the rear windshield and shattering my rear window and breaking the spoiler completely off. My insurance is going to cover the damage but I will be forever traumatized by the sound of this incident. I literally baby this car and for this to happen, it was a devastating experience.

 

[mxnym]

Well, after experiencing something similar in 2017 (but luckily without damage), I've written about this very bug elsewhere in this forum, and apparently Tesla has NOT fixed it. If you had been watching your screen, you would have noticed Homelink options pop up with a skip button and a distance until close counting UP right until it passed its max distance to close and rolled over to 0, triggering the close. Without having read about someone else's experience, you couldn't have predicted this, and IMO, you shouldn't need to. I'm sorry this happened to you, but in the future, always make sure you hit the skip button if the Homelink options pop up and have a skip button anytime you aren't actually and directly leaving. After you do that, you will definitely have to close the garage door manually the next time you leave, but apparently that's what it is going to take to prevent this from happening again.

 

[Need]

If it is any consolation, your garage looks very nice. Or are those pictures taken at Tesla Service Center? I have read horror story on these and so I don't use auto homelink at all.

 

[Tam]

...homelink thought I was leaving and closed the garage door...

If you have a newer automatic garage door, it should come with obstacle sensors. Please raise those sensors higher. I currently have those sensors 20" from the ground.

If your sensors are high enough, they would detect your rear or front bumper as obstacles and would not close the garage door.

 

[Happscrap]

If it is any consolation, your garage looks very nice. Or are those pictures taken at Tesla Service Center? I have read horror story on these and so I don't use auto homelink at all.

If thats his house... WOW... Love it.

 

[Qbenjamin]

If thats his house... WOW... Love it.

Pretty sure that's his house. Highly unlikely that the SC has a Google Nest mini plugged in.

 

[powaking]

Exactly the reason why I don't have homelink auto open/close enabled. Raising the obstacle sensors is definitely the right thing to do, would be a PITA if you happen to walk out of the garage while triggering it to close but if its to avoid situations like this then its probably worth it. Also garage looks very clean!

 

[Tam]

Exactly the reason why I don't have homelink auto open/close enabled. Raising the obstacle sensors is definitely the right thing to do, would be a PITA if you happen to walk out of the garage while triggering it to close but if its to avoid situations like this then its probably worth it. Also garage looks very clean!

I've got auto-homelink since Tesla started that feature for my former 2012 Models, then 2017 Model X and 2018 Model 3 with no problem.

If the auto-homelink closes at the wrong time, garage sensors would disable the wrong time closing door. My garage door would flash, wouldn't come down and it's immobilized until my car clears from the door.

 

[Pmgraham86]

Well, after experiencing something similar in 2017 (but luckily without damage), I've written about this very bug elsewhere in this forum, and apparently Tesla has NOT fixed it. If you had been watching your screen, you would have noticed Homelink options pop up with a skip button and a distance until close counting UP right until it passed its max distance to close and rolled over to 0, triggering the close. Without having read about someone else's experience, you couldn't have predicted this, and IMO, you shouldn't need to. I'm sorry this happened to you, but in the future, always make sure you hit the skip button if the Homelink options pop up and have a skip button anytime you aren't actually and directly leaving. After you do that, you will definitely have to close the garage door manually the next time you leave, but apparently that's what it is going to take to prevent this from happening again.

Thank you so much for the info. I plan on deactivating when I get the car back from the body shop

 

[Pmgraham86]

If you have a newer automatic garage door, it should come with obstacle sensors. Please raise those sensors higher. I currently have those sensors 20" from the ground.

If your sensors are high enough, they would detect your rear or front bumper as obstacles and would not close the garage door.

I will do that but I still don’t think it would have prevented this. The lower garage panel just touched the spoiler and the mounts broke and it bent into window

 

[Pmgraham86]

If it is any consolation, your garage looks very nice. Or are those pictures taken at Tesla Service Center? I have read horror story on these and so I don't use auto homelink at all.

Thank you! This is MY garage.It took me a year to get it like this but it’s cleaner than my actual home. Planning on a white chrome and leather bar table and chairs and a white couch with TV to put out there. My inspiration was the Tesla Delivery center in Dania Beach Fl

 

[Rockster]

I’m so sorry.

I only use the “open” function for this very reason. I’m happy to manually close my garage when leaving so that this never happens.

awesome garage!

 

[Tam]

I will do that but I still don’t think it would have prevented this. The lower garage panel just touched the spoiler and the mounts broke and it bent into window

I have tested my 3 different Tesla cars for many years until now and it has never harmed my cars when the HomeLink would get a signal to automatically close at the wrong time.

Please give it a try by raising your reversing sensors to 20" and first test without your car by blocking the sensor path with your hand, leg... then when you know how to manually disable the closing door with your sensor, you can then test that with your cars by purposefully close the door.

I've tried this for years, many many times with the summon feature and the feature does send a close command at the wrong times also and that never harms my 3 different Tesla cars because the sensor would refuse to close at the wrong time.

 

[mxnym]

So the reason those garage door trip sensors are placed so low is because the manufacturers' instructions say to place them that low. AFAIK, those instructions say that so that a kid or pet cannot lay on the ground under the garage door without tripping the sensor, and thusly, if a kid or a pet is able to lay on the ground under a sensor, the manufacturer is shielded from liability since the product wasn't being used as intended. While I am not aware of any regulations that would require a homeowner to have installations meeting those specifications, IANAL, and I thusly also don't know whether or not you take on any liability when you intentionally repurpose those "child/pet injury prevention sensors" to "vehicle damage prevention sensors." I doubt that it's impossible for such a thing to happen in any of the 50 states, much less other countries. Food for thought.

 

[mswlogo]

Exactly the reason why I don't have homelink auto open/close enabled. Raising the obstacle sensors is definitely the right thing to do, would be a PITA if you happen to walk out of the garage while triggering it to close but if its to avoid situations like this then its probably worth it. Also garage looks very clean!

Exactly. No Auto Homelink, No Summon, No Enhanced Summon, No NOA.

And I know I'm taking a risk using Auto Steer.

Sorry for the OP's mishap. It's always these "corner cases" that will bite you.

 

[Need]

So the reason those garage door trip sensors are placed so low is because the manufacturers' instructions say to place them that low. AFAIK, those instructions say that so that a kid or pet cannot lay on the ground under the garage door without tripping the sensor, and thusly, if a kid or a pet is able to lay on the ground under a sensor, the manufacturer is shielded from liability since the product wasn't being used as intended. While I am not aware of any regulations that would require a homeowner to have installations meeting those specifications, IANAL, and I thusly also don't know whether or not you take on any liability when you intentionally repurpose those "child/pet injury prevention sensors" to "vehicle damage prevention sensors." I doubt that it's impossible for such a thing to happen in any of the 50 states, much less other countries. Food for thought.

That make sense. When I first got our MX, I took a look at our garage doors (2 of them) sensors. Both were about 6 to 8 inches off the ground. They seem completely useless to me, but now I know the reason.

 

[powaking]

I've got auto-homelink since Tesla started that feature for my former 2012 Models, then 2017 Model X and 2018 Model 3 with no problem.

If the auto-homelink closes at the wrong time, garage sensors would disable the wrong time closing door. My garage door would flash, wouldn't come down and it's immobilized until my car clears from the door.

My ultimate fear is that power cuts out with the door halfway up and the car starts to back out. My garage door doesn't have a battery back up like some new ones do so until I can be sure this would never happen then I'm ok with doing it manually.

 

[mxnym]

My ultimate fear is that power cuts out with the door halfway up and the car starts to back out. My garage door doesn't have a battery back up like some new ones do so until I can be sure this would never happen then I'm ok with doing it manually.

In theory, if you're in view of the garage door, you're near the vehicle. You must be in order to be 100% certain it opened all the way (power failure isn't the only possible garage failure mode, and garage door activation isn't even guaranteed without visual/audible confirmation of as much). Given this visibility, you could stop the vehicle one of numerous ways in this awfully unlikely scenario. In reality, there's no guarantee any particular method would always work, but there's also no guarantee your vehicle won't decide to hit the side of the garage door opening.

 

[CSDunford]

Ouch. My sympathies. I have Auto-Link on my S, but watch it like a hawk due to 3 large dogs who enjoy nothing more than escaping to the neighbors where they can roll in pig/horse/cow poop, necessitating a shower (with me) when I return. Even with the car outside before I put the miscreants in the garage, it sometimes raises the garage door. Try pressing the Auto-Link icon to explode the choice. That seems to pause it long enough to make your escape.

 

[richrootes]

The ‘skip’ button is far too small a target in my opinion - plus it’d be more useful if it popped out from the side of the screen rather than down from the top

Also, whilst others have mentioned it - why the single point detection device on garage doors - why not a vertical strip?

Could be some money in making a retrofit sender/receiver with multiple line of sight sensors....