I have a new 2021 Model Y and I am continually getting blocked pillar cam warnings for both left and right pillars cams. They are neither dirty, blocked or blinded. The warnings come and go frequently and have since the day I took delivery. At first, I thought they were just calibrating. But the error messages have continued to pop up on a random basis for apparently no reason whatsoever.
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Blocked pillar camera alerts
- Thread starter MDLaden
- Start date
Johnny Mac
Member
NeverGoingBack
De-ICEd
MY1stEV
Member
After installing 2021.44.30 tonight now I am getting them in the dark. 
We live in Merritt Island,FL, and have gotten the same messages, usually for only a minute or two, a couple of times a month. Sometimes it’s in heavy rain, or high humidity, but sometimes dry conditions—day or night. I’ve used RainX on all of our cameras every now and then, and I do believe that it reduces these messages, and gives you a clearer image from the rear and side cameras.
Bought a brand new model 3 less than 2 months ago and got this same message this morning (totally clear sunny day around 60 degrees). TBH, the AP and CC systems are terrible and I feel like a total sucker. Easily the worst new car experience I have had in 30 years—everything from the buying process to the things I have already had to get fixed, to the rude employees who think you are the problem.
I agree, as I had noticeable condensation inside the pillar when I inspected the cameras. However, this seems like a massive design oversight. The housing should be hermetically sealed, like they do with high quality optics to eliminate fogging and condensation inside the housing. Alternatively they could ventilate the housing with a fan of some sort. Very shoddy, IMO.
This really is an example of sub-par, half baked engineering. I would not tolerate this kind of condensation within a light fixture on a $15k Kia, much less on a $60k hype machine. I have owned my model 3 for less than 2 months now and I have had issues pop up that I have never experienced in 35 years of car ownership (for example, had the rear license plate screws, which are machine screws and not self tapping screws, back out on me and fall completely out—machine screws threaded into metal without any threadlock is a recipe for disaster, yet someone at Tesla never got the memo when they were in grade school or high school shop class.). I pray to god their isn’t a more vital component that is secured in such a similar inept manner.
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Lol, I was just joking about the Kia’s tail light. But I haven’t bothered to check if there is moisture in my model 3’s light fixtures. Nothing would shock me at this point.
Don’t get me wrong, the car’s cruising performance when the CC and AP aren’t trying to kill me is superb. Other than that, if I had it to do over, I would make a hard pass at this point. This entire company needs more time in the oven and I am not patient enough or enough of a fanboy to tolerate these teething issues.
I’m in the same boat. Not sure what I’ll do. I’ve had my Y for 5 weeks and almost 3000 miles. Given the lack of depreciation curve I’ll drive until summer and evaluate as I go. The car is a mixed bag at the moment. I am saving money on gas though.
I could turn around and sell it for a profit of I decided to give up and find something else.
Well this car was gifted to me by my dad courtesy of Tesla stock’s moonshot. I had bad vibes from the minute I went to the website to place a deposit. Honestly the buying experience was so bad, if it was my own money I would have never even placed a deposit. But my dad insisted ( he wanted to do something nice for me and my kids—he’s coming up on 86 years old and is in rapidly declining health) and I didn’t want to tell him “no.” I was also naive enough to buy FSD for $10k. I figured “let’s get the full Tesla experience.” Talk about a sucker being born every minute. I feel like a chump and feel bad for wasting my dad’s money.
Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
Good thought, but I am guessing that is not his issue, just based on my 5 years of driving an MX, I have never seen that happen.
2022 M3 LR, same. Updated recently to 2022.4.5, no change. Sometimes the sun is on that side, but just as often not. Cold still here (Northern MN). Typically in the 20's (F) in garage, single-digit above/below outside. Every time I've bothered to stop & check there's a fog on the pillar cameras. Short of a sealed inert-gas enclosure, I assume that will just always be the case. And obviously a lot of the time the backup camera is snowed in, so useless. I get the "Multiple Cameras and Sensors blocked.." warnings daily. Of course; expected no less in this climate.
I kinda assumed already that in the brave new Tesla-Vision world FSD and AP would be sacrificed for non-perfect-weather, esp. in a world of snow-obscured roads. But for all it's phantom-obstruction warnings and camera failures, it remains head&shoulders the most efficient vehicle available here, so that's my requirement met. Yeah, I have to put with with probably $10k of annoying and unreliable e-clutter of AP/FSD/cameras/phantom-alerts. I can deal.
I kinda assumed already that in the brave new Tesla-Vision world FSD and AP would be sacrificed for non-perfect-weather, esp. in a world of snow-obscured roads. But for all it's phantom-obstruction warnings and camera failures, it remains head&shoulders the most efficient vehicle available here, so that's my requirement met. Yeah, I have to put with with probably $10k of annoying and unreliable e-clutter of AP/FSD/cameras/phantom-alerts. I can deal.
