Car Cutting out?

[Glamisduner]

I was driving on the highway last night and it felt like the transmission slipped. Only of course that isn't possible. So I'm thinking what actually might be happening is that the car is losing power for 1/2 a second? It actually happned a few more times heading to and then home from the destination too.

Although it happened several times but isn't exactly reproducable. No errors, warnings, etc are being displayed and it only lasts for 1/2 a second.

Is there something I should be checking? I will be driving it again today and will see if it happenes again. Pretty sure if I take it in they will just say it is not reproducable like Tesla always does. I tried to search but haven't found much information on this issue, other than one guy that said he had a bad connector from the battery.

 

[jjrandorin]

You should check in service mode and see if there are any errors / alerts there. Obstacle aware acceleration (the thing that cuts power if the car sees an obstacle) can also feel like that, but its normally most prevalent at a stop, when you have a motorcycle or some other thing splitting lanes next to you. It can occur other places but thats the most common time for me (obstacle aware acceleration cutting power).

 

[Glamisduner]

You should check in service mode and see if there are any errors / alerts there. Obstacle aware acceleration (the thing that cuts power if the car sees an obstacle) can also feel like that, but its normally most prevalent at a stop, when you have a motorcycle or some other thing splitting lanes next to you. It can occur other places but thats the most common time for me (obstacle aware acceleration cutting power).

I thought the obstacle aware accerlation usually throws a notification on the screen though.

 

[jjrandorin]

I thought the obstacle aware accerlation usually throws a notification on the screen though.

I dont ever remember a notification for it. I could be mis remembering it though, as I have long since figured out what was happening, so I purposefully hesitate when a motorcycle splits lanes and is at a stoplight with me (for example).

I didnt turn it off, because I figured if it even stopped 1 occasion where I didnt see something, it would be worth the occasional false positive annoyance.

Anyway, I dont remember a notification for it, but I could be mis remembering it. It just came to my mind as something to recommend you check.

 

[Glamisduner]

So I was not able to resolve this issue but it was still happening. Some reaearch and advice from others told me it might just be the traction control. So I thought I should disable the traction control on my next drive. For this model all I have to do it put it in track mode to disable the traction control.

So I put it in track mode and started driving to my destination. Nothing special, just no auto pilot etc and the track mode screen displayed. For a while I thought wow, maybe it is just traction control, then about 20 miles my house the freeway changed pavement types and the car went over a light bump. The car started beeping like mad. I got a message to pull over and that the car was shutting down. I had my wife snap a picture while I manuvered.

I had to cut across 5-6 lanes of traffic with my emergency flashers on. I had no throttle at all. I there wasn't really any place to pull over on the highway, so I took the exit ramp, which also had a construction barrier....

I almost got past the barrier to a safe place when there was a VERY LOUD CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK that you could feel through the whole car. I think it shifted into park while the I was still coasting.

There I sat blocking traffic in the far right lane, not pulled over quite far enough as people got super mad and speed up to nearly side swipe the car. The car would not go into drive or neutral. I was stuck. I had my wife get out the passenger side and stand behind the barrier (Even though we were in an offramp people were still speeding around us very close). Nothing I could do, so I started a call to the tesla emergency line. I was on hold for 40 minutes and they never answered. In the meantime I got out to go stand next to my wife, and the car finally shut down. So I got back in and was able to put it into drive and pull over in a safer location.

The emergency service never picked up, so I told my wife to call the number and they answered right away!?!?! What the heck!

I was 2.8 miles from the service center so I ended up dropping it off there after hours.

 

[BigNick]

Sounds like your drive unit crapped out and the CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK might be a bad half-shaft or broken CV joint.

 

[Glamisduner]

Ok so I hope this helps someone else. It was a bad ABS sensor. Your not wrong and thinking the drive unit blew up, or a broken half shaft etc. That was EXACTLY what I beleive that would sound like. I beleive the metal sounding CLUNK CLUCK CLUNK CLUNK, was just the car putting itself in park while moving but is was certainly that loud that I thought the drive unit was done for. Wife was like OMG!

I can't believe an ABS sensor would shut the whole car down, throw itself into park while still moving (hope the loud metal to metal sounding clunking didn't cause unseen damage), and strand you in the middle of a busy freeway, but I guess that is Tesla for you.

Also, it was $90 part and they charged me $250 an hour to fix it. Litterally a one bolt install...
They definatly bent me over. But the estimates are probably intentionally left vague and don't list the parts cost or even name the correct part ("mine jusdt said they think its the wheel sensor"). I was skeptical that it would fix the issue but it did. Came out to a little over $400, plus an uber home.

| Tesla

Correction code 3310010022 FRT 0.24 NOTE: Unless otherwise explicitly stated in the procedure, the above correction code and FRT reflect all of the work required to perform this procedure, including the linked procedures. Do not stack correction codes unless explicitly told to do so. NOTE: See...

service.tesla.com

Also I didn't know about the hidden secret service menu. I did have someone tell me to check for codes in the service menu, but I assumed they just meant the regular service menu notifications (it does show codes there, but they were not helpful). But, the secret service menu may have told me about the ABS sensor being the problem. (I'm out of date on some of these new things tesla has added). Stuff shows up here that does not show in the service menu notifications.

Now I may be mad about the dangerous situation the car put me in. But this service menu really is quite amazing, be sure to read the disclaimer though.

Anyways I hope this post helps someone having the same problem, and will allow them to potentially fix the issue before getting shut down on the middle of the freeway, unable to move the car, or worse, in an accident because they can no longer accelerate are are forced to coast to safety due to bad ABS sensor.

 

[scjmc]

Thank you so much for posting what the fix was. So many people don’t follow through.

 

[rpiotro]

A cautionary tale for those who want to fool around in the service menu.

I'm still active in the Infiniti Q50 forum. You could fill a bucket with the tears of those who thought it would be cool to mess around in there only to brick their cars. It requires a tow to an Infiniti/ Nissan dealer to reset it all at considerable expense.

Be careful people. Not sure how relevant my advice is on the Tesla but think twice and be sure of yourself before you do anything.