Autopilot, GPS, and Nav broken. Tesla can't fix it. Advice?

[cryptyk]

To summarize a very long story, my 2016 Model S P100D frequently has an inaccurate GPS location. This causes the car to think it's a few miles away from its actual location. That causes navigation to not work because it gives me directions starting from a place miles away from my actual location. It also causes Autopilot to be broken in a very dangerous way. I'll be driving on the freeway with autopilot and the car thinks it's miles away on a surface street. This causes autopilot to think, for example the speed limit is, for example, 35mph and hit the brakes to reduce speed to 35mph while I'm actually on the freeway and everyone else is doing 80mph. This has almost caused me to be rear-ended multiple times on the freeway.

This started a few months after I bought the car and it's been in the shop multiple times. Tesla has replaced the GPS antenna, the autopilot computer, and the center console screen. They've also remotely diagnosed and recalibrated the car multiple times remotely. I have dozens of emails back and forth with the support team. My last contact with them was over a week ago and I don't have a response yet. I'm curious if anyone here has any advice on what I should do next? I just want the car I paid for to work the way it's supposed to!

For those interested, here's a timeline of events:
January 2017: I take delivery of the Model S P100D. My second Tesla, the first being a Model S 85D.
July 2017: I start to notice that the car GPS position is sometimes wrong, offset by up to a few miles.
September 2017: The problem is getting worse. I take my first video and pictures of the issue. Here you can see I'm on the freeway, the map shows I'm flying over buildings, and the car thinks I'm on a surface street with a 25mph speed limit.

November 2018: The Tesla service center tries a couple of remote diagnostics and resets/calibrations, then ultimately replaces the GPS antenna. This doesn't fix the problem.
March 2019: The problem continues to get worse to the point where it's almost daily. I contact Tesla support again. They try remote fixes a number of times over about 6 weeks before recommending I go to the service center for an autopilot computer replacement. During this time I work almost every day with the Tesla team to try dozens of diagnostic and fixes. They have me shut down the car for 5 minutes every day when I park it and when I start it. They have me try reboots at various times of day. They have me capture a ton of video, images and GPS traces of the problem. I have all kinds of examples of the problem. One example:

April 2019: I take the car into service and they replace the autopilot computer and main screen and recalibrate the systems.
May 2019: I get the car back and it still has teh same problem.
August 2019: I upgrade to Full Self Driving hoping that it might kick start something that fixes the problem. Grasping at straws.
September 26, 2019: I re-send the long thread from March-to-May back to Tesla support letting them know that the problem still exists. I haven't heard back yet.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I just want the car to work as expected. I paid $8k extra for EAP and FSD and even the basic navigation doesn't work, much less those features. It's also a safety issue using those features as the car unexpectedly applies the brakes while on the freeway in traffic.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Chaserr]

Do you have another nearby service center? Poor service is ubiquitous with Tesla but maybe some new eyes on the problem will help them figure it out?

 

[Tigerkc]

You definitely need to work with SvC to get it fixed. I would ask for a loaner while it is being fixed, and test drive it with a technician before picking it up. There is also the lemon law that you can pursuit if Tesla failed to fix it.

 

[PV4EV]

I cant help much .. but looking through the clip you've posted seems to show the cars actual position is always about half a mile due west of where the computer thinks it is.

Is this a consistent pattern ? .. or are there other times when its miles out, in arbitrary directions to reality ?

 

[cryptyk]

It's a bit random in terms of direction and offset, but it seems to be offset to the right side of the car more often than any other direction. It's not offset in a compass direction. If I drive West, it would be offset to the North. It also seems to offset by about 1/4 mile, but can vary between 20 feet and 3 miles.

It seems worse when I'm parked underground overnight, but can also happen when I park on the street. It feels like what's happening is the car can't get a GPS fix and uses dead reckoning for its position, which drifts off as I travel.

It sounds like the recommendation is to try the service department again. I just don't know what else they can replace to fix it :/

 

[diver110]

I like both the suggestions that you try a different service center and at least threaten a lemon law if your state has one and not too much time has gone by. Some lemon laws require you to act within a limited time frame. This does not sound like an insurmountable problem to me, so my best guess is bad diagnostics, which along with $3 will buy you a latte at Starbucks. Must be incredibly frustrating.

 

[ajdelange]

Drive the car somewhere and park. Take out your smart phone and bring up the app that allows you to see the phone's GPS data. Record the Lat and Lon. Now log into TelsaFi and look for the record of the drive to this spot. Click on the map and TeslaFi will display the raw data reported by the car as you drove to where you are. The Lat and Lon from your cell phone and from TeslaFi should obviously agree quite closely i.e. to appreciably better 0.01 ° (0.6 nm) in latitude. If they don't there is something wrong with the GPS receiver module. If they do then there is a problem with the way the latitude and longitude are being transferred to the map.

 

[TheTank]

I thought I would throw this in ... I had lots of issues .. maps freezing .. gps .. trips frozen .. music issues etc .. and after months it was determined to be the 128 gb USB that was inserted was not formatted at correctly and caused tonnes of issues ... but after I removed it remote services had to connect and reset something and it all went away .. if you have USB try it ..

 

[cryptyk]

Drive the car somewhere and park. Take out your smart phone and bring up the app that allows you to see the phone's GPS data. Record the Lat and Lon. Now log into TelsaFi and look for the record of the drive to this spot. Click on the map and TeslaFi will display the raw data reported by the car as you drove to where you are. The Lat and Lon from your cell phone and from TeslaFi should obviously agree quite closely i.e. to appreciably better 0.01 ° (0.6 nm) in latitude. If they don't there is something wrong with the GPS receiver module. If they do then there is a problem with the way the latitude and longitude are being transferred to the map.

TeslaFi, the mobile app, and the car all record the track consistently. Here's an image of TeslaFi on my commute this morning. You can see how the car offset grows as I drive from South to North on the freeway, but suddenly corrects itself about halfway through my trip.

I thought I would throw this in ... I had lots of issues .. maps freezing .. gps .. trips frozen .. music issues etc .. and after months it was determined to be the 128 gb USB that was inserted was not formatted at correctly and caused tonnes of issues ... but after I removed it remote services had to connect and reset something and it all went away .. if you have USB try it ..

I don't have a USB stick inserted, but thanks for the idea!

 

[boaterva]

I would definitely try another SC. This seems like a concrete problem and should be easy to solve. No way should have taken this long. Make an appointment by voice (call the support number, tell them the story and say you need to leave the car until it’s fixed and need a loaner, not a Uber voucher), etc.).

At this point it may be too late but:

That should have been the first step (did you start there or with the SC?). I never start with the SC, they are too busy. Let remote service diagnose. They can pin it down and see what’s needed and/or have Engineering look at the logs.

 

[ajdelange]

TeslaFi, the mobile app, and the car all record the track consistently. Here's an image of TeslaFi on my commute this morning. You can see how the car offset grows as I drive from South to North on the freeway, but suddenly corrects itself about halfway through my trip.

Drive the car somewhere and park. Take out your smart phone and bring up the app that allows you to see the phone's GPS data. Record the Lat and Lon. Now log into TelsaFi and look for the record of the drive to this spot. Click on the map and TeslaFi will display the raw data reported by the car as you drove to where you are. The Lat and Lon from your cell phone and from TeslaFi should obviously agree quite closely i.e. to appreciably better 0.01 ° (0.6 nm) in latitude. If they don't there is something wrong with the GPS receiver module. If they do then there is a problem with the way the latitude and longitude are being transferred to the map.

Perhaps it wasn't clear but the suggestion was that you compare GPS data from the car's receiver with that from a receiver other than the car's, e.g. that in your cell phone, to see if the problem with the displayed data is caused by the GPS receiver or some firmware down stream of it. From the picture you posted it looks like a mistuned Kalman filter problem but that is, at best, a WAG.

 

[Alysashley79]

I had this problem when I got my used car. They did a factory reset and pushed the latest software to the car. Once it was loaded I didn’t have the problem again. I know yours wasn’t used. But have they tried that?

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I would stop giving Tesla more chances and just lemon the car. You've waited long enough and been more than patient.

 

[N..8]

This almost seems like a wire harness problem. Maybe it is grounding out to the frame. I would ask your SC if they ran the wire harness for grounding or shorting.

 

[Hoffruss]

To summarize a very long story, my 2016 Model S P100D frequently has an inaccurate GPS location. This causes the car to think it's a few miles away from its actual location. That causes navigation to not work because it gives me directions starting from a place miles away from my actual location. It also causes Autopilot to be broken in a very dangerous way. I'll be driving on the freeway with autopilot and the car thinks it's miles away on a surface street. This causes autopilot to think, for example the speed limit is, for example, 35mph and hit the brakes to reduce speed to 35mph while I'm actually on the freeway and everyone else is doing 80mph. This has almost caused me to be rear-ended multiple times on the freeway.

This started a few months after I bought the car and it's been in the shop multiple times. Tesla has replaced the GPS antenna, the autopilot computer, and the center console screen. They've also remotely diagnosed and recalibrated the car multiple times remotely. I have dozens of emails back and forth with the support team. My last contact with them was over a week ago and I don't have a response yet. I'm curious if anyone here has any advice on what I should do next? I just want the car I paid for to work the way it's supposed to!

For those interested, here's a timeline of events:
January 2017: I take delivery of the Model S P100D. My second Tesla, the first being a Model S 85D.
July 2017: I start to notice that the car GPS position is sometimes wrong, offset by up to a few miles.
September 2017: The problem is getting worse. I take my first video and pictures of the issue. Here you can see I'm on the freeway, the map shows I'm flying over buildings, and the car thinks I'm on a surface street with a 25mph speed limit.

November 2018: The Tesla service center tries a couple of remote diagnostics and resets/calibrations, then ultimately replaces the GPS antenna. This doesn't fix the problem.
March 2019: The problem continues to get worse to the point where it's almost daily. I contact Tesla support again. They try remote fixes a number of times over about 6 weeks before recommending I go to the service center for an autopilot computer replacement. During this time I work almost every day with the Tesla team to try dozens of diagnostic and fixes. They have me shut down the car for 5 minutes every day when I park it and when I start it. They have me try reboots at various times of day. They have me capture a ton of video, images and GPS traces of the problem. I have all kinds of examples of the problem. One example:

April 2019: I take the car into service and they replace the autopilot computer and main screen and recalibrate the systems.
May 2019: I get the car back and it still has teh same problem.
August 2019: I upgrade to Full Self Driving hoping that it might kick start something that fixes the problem. Grasping at straws.
September 26, 2019: I re-send the long thread from March-to-May back to Tesla support letting them know that the problem still exists. I haven't heard back yet.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I just want the car to work as expected. I paid $8k extra for EAP and FSD and even the basic navigation doesn't work, much less those features. It's also a safety issue using those features as the car unexpectedly applies the brakes while on the freeway in traffic.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks,
Ryan

I had this problem with my model 3 delivered 12/30/17. The service center ended up replacing the computer and this fixed the problem.

 

[BigNick]

It's a shame that you didn't pursue this more back in 2017, when Tesla Service didn't suck like it does now.

 

[Stellavator]

Lemon. Tell Tesla you want the entire car replaced. If they refuse, which they will, hire an attorney. You have the entire story laid out and documented. This is clearly a lemon, and it clearly started well within the warranty period, with never any resolution. Get the entire car replaced, or a full refund. You will need an attorney.

 

[ajdelange]

The folks suggesting the use of the lemon law should check it out. In particular its limitations. He doesn't qualify.

 

[cryptyk]

Why wouldn't lemon law apply here? The 15 minutes of reading I just did, which clearly makes me an expert, makes it sound like it applies. This is a safety issue that Tesla had tried to fix multiple times without success.
I seriously don't want to deal with a lawsuit. I just want my car to work

 

[Huskyf]

Why wouldn't lemon law apply here? The 15 minutes of reading I just did, which clearly makes me an expert, makes it sound like it applies. This is a safety issue that Tesla had tried to fix multiple times without success.
I seriously don't want to deal with a lawsuit. I just want my car to work

What electric material you have on your car like camera, mobile, laptop or something else did you make electric work like add a automatic frunk open or somethink like that ?