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Caution - Annual Service - Car power-down - GPS issue

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Anyone have the VDS in their car showing a date in August 2001 now (instead of the current date April, 2021)? If so, the firmware in your GPS sensor needs to be updated. The cable I made for performing said update has finished a tour of duty in Canada and is now heading to Virginia. Read the earlier posts in this thread about the update procedure, and if you would like to borrow my cable before it comes home to me in California, PM me with your postal address.

I like how this unassuming little serial cable, purpose-built to solve a single problem, is wandering the globe fixing every Roadster it touches. I feel like it should write a book about its travels when it gets home.
 
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Anyone have the VDS in their car showing a date in December 2001 now (instead of the current date July 2021)? If so, the firmware in your GPS sensor needs to be updated. The cable I made for performing said update has finished a tour of duty visiting Roadster owners in Canada and the southern US and is ready to come back to me unless someone else needs it.

For the benefit of those who have not read this thread, the purpose of this cable is to connect a laptop to the GPS sensor in the Roadster to update its firmware. This corrects a problem caused by the week-number field in the GPS satellite protocol rolling over to a new epoch. The symptom in the car is an incorrect date displayed on the VDS. The date actually goes backwards by 19.7 years but may appear to go forward by several months if you don't see the year.

The rollover event occurred on April 6, 2019 but the GPS sensor would continue to maintain the correct time after that event because it could keep track of the fact that the rollover occurred. The incorrect time arises when power has been removed from the GPS sensor long enough for its backup battery to be depleted so its microprocessor stops and it forgets about the rollover. So the likely cause for your car was that the power was shut down during the PEM service for a long enough period. There have been cars go through annual service without inducing the time symptom, so perhaps those were performed more expeditiously.

Read the earlier posts in this thread about the update procedure, and if you would like to borrow my cable before it comes home to me in California, PM me with your postal address. A word of warning to set expectations: To use the cable requires some physical dexterity to work in the passenger footwell and disconnect a cable from the VMS box (the car's main computer).
 
@slcasner - Steve, reviving this thread as I have not had the issue before, but now I do. I changed out my 12V battery, and must have taken my time doing it, because now my date is incorrect. Initially it was something like Oct 2002, but when I was in my car yesterday it was July 30th.

Anyway, is your cable with you these days or out on the road somewhere? I would like to take a shot at updating the firmware and would gladly cover costs for shipping, etc.

Thanks
 
FYI: The Seattle Service Center (SC) is still waiting for a cable like this. I have no idea what they would have charged ($550?) if they'd received a cable before I got tired of waiting (two weeks) and rescued my Roadster. The estimate included $95 diagnostics to look into my complaint of the wrong date.

My Roadster already had the date issue, starting some time after Sep 19 of 2020, before about December of 2020. It was also complaining about the 12V battery (for the first time in 11 years), TPMS in the front wheels, and needed an annual service. After sitting for two weeks, I decided to cut my losses and make do with the three completed service tasks.

So, apart from the completed services, I paid $95 for them to not fix the date, $95 for them to not fix my key fob which has a failing "lock" button, and $43 for them to not program my spare key to pair with the car. I guess $233 to not do those is getting close to $550 for the overpriced Garmin GPS fix.

Edit: Besides venting, the purpose of my reply is to let folks in the Seattle area know about the latest status of this Garmin GPS firmware update cable ... Seattle doesn't have one yet.
 
Edit: Besides venting, the purpose of my reply is to let folks in the Seattle area know about the latest status of this Garmin GPS firmware update cable ... Seattle doesn't have one yet.
I don't think anyone at Tesla has a cable like the one I made and have loaned to many owners. The cable that some Tesla service centers might have is one that connects to the Molex connector where the GPS sensor hooks up to the wiring harness behind the left front wheel. Mine hooks up to one of the cables that connect to the VMS processor box mounted on the ceiling of the passenger footwell.
 
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If you read back through the pages of this thread, you'll see descriptions of the cable that I made for facilitating a firmware update in the Garmin GPS sensor on 2.x cars. I have loaned that cable to many owners.

Now, however, due to failing health I won't be able to handle sending out the cable anymore. Would one of you like to volunteer to take over this cable? Perhaps one of you who successfully used it already? If so, please PM me and I will ship the cable to you.
 
If you read back through the pages of this thread, you'll see descriptions of the cable that I made for facilitating a firmware update in the Garmin GPS sensor on 2.x cars. I have loaned that cable to many owners.

Now, however, due to failing health I won't be able to handle sending out the cable anymore. Would one of you like to volunteer to take over this cable? Perhaps one of you who successfully used it already? If so, please PM me and I will ship the cable to you.
Hello
I’m sorry to hear that you’re not 100%. I’m not technically savvy but I would be glad to help with sending out the cable to roadster owners who need it. Please Let me know how I can help.
Stay well, -T
 
Hello
I’m sorry to hear that you’re not 100%. I’m not technically savvy but I would be glad to help with sending out the cable to roadster owners who need it. Please Let me know how I can help.
Stay well, -T
I’m sorry to report that Steve passed away in his sleep on July 4th. He was such a valued member of this, and other, communities and will be sorely missed.

I think the cable was passed on to others to handle before he left us, but not sure who has taken on this.
 
I’m sorry to report that Steve passed away in his sleep on July 4th. He was such a valued member of this, and other, communities and will be sorely missed.

I think the cable was passed on to others to handle before he left us, but not sure who has taken on this.
Oh no, that‘s very sad news. Steve was so kind and generous to share his knowledge and time with our roadster community. He will be missed. Thanks Mark for letting us know.
 
I’m sorry to report that Steve passed away in his sleep on July 4th. He was such a valued member of this, and other, communities and will be sorely missed.

I think the cable was passed on to others to handle before he left us, but not sure who has taken on this.

Thanks Mark for the update about our roadster colleague @slcasner (Steve) who recently passed away. I remember reading many of his useful posts early on as a potential roadster owner--I learned a great deal from him. Thanks Steve for your contribution to this community.