Bizarre behavior from my Model S the other day...

[tinm]

I was out doing errands and got home, quietly pulled down the driveway, and was juuuussssst in the final stretch of slowwwllllly entering the garage, when nearly every system inside the car decided to activate itself! The car just went nuts!

All of a sudden, let's see:

• the radio goes on, LOUD!
• the two seat heaters go on, set to 3!
• the heat goes on, fan at 8 (I'm in Range mode)
• the defrost goes on!
• the rear window defrost goes on!
• I can't remember, but some of the windows may have activated .... it all happened suddenly
• I'm sure other things went on too, I was too distracted by all the noise to notice.

Has anyone EVER had this happen before? I'm on the latest 7.1 firmware; 2013 Model S85.

Naturally, I quickly turned everything off, and parked the car in the garage, and that was that.

But I remain completely puzzled as to why the car just had a total CPU brain fart, for lack of a better term.

Any ideas?

 

[Petra]

Do you have rodents...?

 

[tinm]

Um, not that I know of. You mean, critters making a home in the frunk? I haven't seen a rodent in these parts in many many months.

 

[Blue_Model_S]

Never experienced anything like it. Only thing I can suggest is to call Tesla and have them look at the car logs.

 

[Petra]

Um, not that I know of. You mean, critters making a home in the frunk? I haven't seen a rodent in these parts in many many months.

Just a thought... they tend to like nibbling on wiring.

 

[Ingineer]

On the older cars, the touchscreen frame was not grounded, and because of this, the touchscreen was sometimes subject to interference which would manifest itself as spurious phantom touches on the bottom of the screen.

They corrected this sometime in 2014 I think. But if your car is older, it could have this issue. It can be triggered by static electricity, cellphone transmissions, nearby electrical equipment (such as a garage door opener), etc.

 

[Kalud]

... or by a wipe of the top dash with a dry microfiber towel

 

[vemuru]

Hi Tinm:

It happened to my car too and on a road trip from VA to CA in December. What I observed is that if you place the wireless modem(AT & T) under the cubby it somehow disturbs the dashboard. I have a small video I was able to record and will upload it when I find it. It happened to me twice and I took the car to the service center in San Diego and they said they could not find any issues and just updated the firmware on a two week old car.

Vemuru

 

[tinm]

Hi Tinm:

It happened to my car too and on a road trip from VA to CA in December. What I observed is that if you place the wireless modem(AT & T) under the cubby it somehow disturbs the dashboard. I have a small video I was able to record and will upload it when I find it. It happened to me twice and I took the car to the service center in San Diego and they said they could not find any issues and just updated the firmware on a two week old car.

Vemuru

Glad to know my car isn't the only one with this situation. Sorta!

 

[John E.]

The last couple of days, my seat heaters have turned on by themselves. Anybody have any insights?

 

[trils0n]

On the older cars, the touchscreen frame was not grounded, and because of this, the touchscreen was sometimes subject to interference which would manifest itself as spurious phantom touches on the bottom of the screen.

Exactly. The only time I've had what the OP described, was when I wiped a dry microfiber towel across the dash. Did exactly the same thing, figured it was static electricity and a grounding problem.