Chicago Ice Storm - M3 Ice Hack

[seantay00]

Chicago got hit by a pretty decent ice storm today. I was worried about some of the reported issues with ice freezing door handles and doors shut and didn't want to get stuck at the office. I tried an interesting "hack" to avoid issue. My office has EV charging, so I plugged in this morning, set my car temp to 64 degrees, and set to "hold temp" while working.

At the end of the day I left the office and every car was covered in our lot with about a quarter inch of ice, except one... Employees were scratching away with ice scrapers in the freezing cold to get into their cars. I had to hold back my huge grin when my M3 didn't have any ice on it, but rather dripping water. I got right in and drove off in the toasty interior. No issues at all. Interestingly the Model S owner next to me had minor issue with mirror opening and a little sticking issue with charging port.

I recognize leaving the car essentially heating for 8-9 hours isn't something one would want to do frequently, but it worked great for this unique day of weather. I was curious how much energy I might have lost doing this. Did a quick check and it looks like my car charged about ~30 miles less the normal, so I loosely estimated around ~3miles/hr of battery used for this "ice hack camp mode".

Anyone else tried this and also found it effective?

 

[Garlan Garner]

My car was outside all day.

Full sheet of ice on the top.

10 min before I got off work.....I heated it up to 67 degrees inside.

All windows opened

All doors opened

Both mirrors unfolded just fine.

No door handles stuck.

The charge port door opened just fine.

 

[swaltner]

I didn't (and probably wouldn't) do that, but a few weeks back I disabled the mirror auto-fold option on the Model 3. I did the same with the flip-up headlights on the Saturn SC2 I had 20 years ago. Didn't want to strip the mechanism, so just left them up all winter. Plan on doing the same with Model 3 all winter. We had ice today as well, which key the mirrors from tilting down when put in park, even after 20 minutes of driving with the rear defrost on.

You probably could have accomplished the same by just turning on pre-conditioning 30-60 minutes before you headed to the car. 5 minutes is enough time to get the cabin up to a comfortable 20 C. Leave it like that for 30-60 minutes and no scraping required. That is of course, if you can get the app to wake the car up.

 

[seantay00]

Nice! Was 10 mins all it took to melt off the ice? Were other cars around you covered with ice as well?

 

[Garlan Garner]

Nice! Was 10 mins all it took to melt off the ice? Were other cars around you covered with ice as well?

Yes indeed.

Every car in the parking lot had a sheet of ice on the entire car.

 

[seantay00]

I didn't (and probably wouldn't) do that, but a few weeks back I disabled the mirror auto-fold option on the Model 3. I did the same with the flip-up headlights on the Saturn SC2 I had 20 years ago. Didn't want to strip the mechanism, so just left them up all winter. Plan on doing the same with Model 3 all winter. We had ice today as well, which key the mirrors from tilting down when put in park, even after 20 minutes of driving with the rear defrost on.

You probably could have accomplished the same by just turning on pre-conditioning 30-60 minutes before you headed to the car. 5 minutes is enough time to get the cabin up to a comfortable 20 C. Leave it like that for 30-60 minutes and no scraping required. That is of course, if you can get the app to wake the car up.

Good idea on the mirror disable.

I thought about just pre-heating, but was worried if ice got into the door handle and froze all day that the internal heating might not produce enough heat to penetrate the door and adequately thaw the door handle. Do you know how long pre-heating will hold set temp for? Is it 30 minutes or 60 minutes?

 

[swaltner]

I'm not finding it documented in the iOS App Store listing or the Model 3 Owner's Manual, but I'm pretty sure that a pre-conditioning (heat or cool) session will only last for 30 minutes before you need to reactivate it from the app. I've generally just run it for about 5 minutes before getting in the car (activated when: putting my shoes on in the morning; leaving my desk in the evening; when the credits start at the movie theater; when I give my credit card to the waiter at a restaurant; etc...). When there's ice, I'll need to plan ahead a little.

 

[datoda]

Seeing and hearing how water/moisture tend to accumulate/linger in various nooks and crannies in the M3, I'd avoid washing it before I need to park it in a freezing environment-- I had a little bit of difficulty in getting the door handles to pop out one freezing morning after having a car wash the day before, parking it overnight in a garage, driving it for about 10 minutes (with heater on), and making a quick 10-minute stop at a donut shop to get breakfast. My theory is that the water/moisture got into the handle compartment during car wash and froze right up when the condition was right.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Seeing and hearing how water/moisture tend to accumulate/linger in various nooks and crannies in the M3, I'd avoid washing it before I need to park it in a freezing environment-- I had a little bit of difficulty in getting the door handles to pop out one freezing morning after having a car wash the day before, parking it overnight in a garage, driving it for about 10 minutes (with heater on), and making a quick 10-minute stop at a donut shop to get breakfast. My theory is that the water/moisture got into the handle compartment during car wash and froze right up when the condition was right.

The handle is self contained. It's hard to explain, but it doesn't really have a compartment.

I have been trying to determine how it would be possible to get enough water around the handle to get it to totally freeze. I've removed the handle many times.....and it just doesn't make sense. It would take a tremendous amount of water.

 

[RedModel3]

The handle is self contained. It's hard to explain, but it doesn't really have a compartment.

I have been trying to determine how it would be possible to get enough water around the handle to get it to totally freeze. I've removed the handle many times.....and it just doesn't make sense. It would take a tremendous amount of water.

Not really. The "compartment" is the indent where the handle sits when not being used. Just a hard rain and subsequent freezing had my handles frozen. Ten minutes of cabin heating took care of that. I usually try to dry the handles and compartment after I wash the car, but I didn't get a chance after this rain. Disabling the mirrors is also a really great idea.

And I will say again, this is not just a Tesla problem. Every car I've ever had, in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Illinois, and Tennessee, has had problems with ice with the doors, door handles, trunk, and windshield wipers. It's not a Tesla thing.

 

[dmurphy]

I didn't (and probably wouldn't) do that, but a few weeks back I disabled the mirror auto-fold option on the Model 3. I did the same with the flip-up headlights on the Saturn SC2 I had 20 years ago. Didn't want to strip the mechanism, so just left them up all winter. Plan on doing the same with Model 3 all winter. We had ice today as well, which key the mirrors from tilting down when put in park, even after 20 minutes of driving with the rear defrost on.

You probably could have accomplished the same by just turning on pre-conditioning 30-60 minutes before you headed to the car. 5 minutes is enough time to get the cabin up to a comfortable 20 C. Leave it like that for 30-60 minutes and no scraping required. That is of course, if you can get the app to wake the car up.

In all seriousness - is getting the car to respond to the app a real challenge?

I ask because from a connected-car perspective, I’m most familiar with OnStar. Every vehicle I’ve owned in the last decade+ has had OnStar, and to be honest... it works pretty flawlessly.

I routinely remote-start my vehicle when I’m walking off the airplane, so by the time I get through the terminal and into the garage, it’s warmed up and ready to go.

If I move to a Tesla, I don’t want to lose that connectivity.

 

[CUBldr97]

In all seriousness - is getting the car to respond to the app a real challenge?

I ask because from a connected-car perspective, I’m most familiar with OnStar. Every vehicle I’ve owned in the last decade+ has had OnStar, and to be honest... it works pretty flawlessly.

I routinely remote-start my vehicle when I’m walking off the airplane, so by the time I get through the terminal and into the garage, it’s warmed up and ready to go.

If I move to a Tesla, I don’t want to lose that connectivity.

just depend on where the car is, its uses cell phone LTE connectivity, so if there is no signal then no connectivity. also uses WiFi, but if you don't join the network then again no connectivity.

 

[dmurphy]

just depend on where the car is, its uses cell phone LTE connectivity, so if there is no signal then no connectivity. also uses WiFi, but if you don't join the network then again no connectivity.

OnStar is similar - it uses LTE for connectivity, but no WiFi... it’s more limited than what Tesla does (I.E. no remote updates, for example) - but does seem to work reasonably well. I’ve seen grumbling here about the app being slow to respond, etc. I wonder if some of that is because of the WiFi connection?

In other words, would connectivity be better using LTE instead of a marginal WiFi signal?

Just speculating..... but if it’s “only” because of signal concerns, I’m unconcerned. That’s no different than today, and in my case, even better since I have a (very) robust WiFi presence at home.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Seeing and hearing how water/moisture tend to accumulate/linger in various nooks and crannies in the M3, I'd avoid washing it before I need to park it in a freezing environment-- I had a little bit of difficulty in getting the door handles to pop out one freezing morning after having a car wash the day before, parking it overnight in a garage, driving it for about 10 minutes (with heater on), and making a quick 10-minute stop at a donut shop to get breakfast. My theory is that the water/moisture got into the handle compartment during car wash and froze right up when the condition was right.

Good point. The only time I've ever had my charge door freeze was when I washed the car and parked in below freezing temperatures. (We don't get ice storms where I live.)

 

[Garlan Garner]

In all seriousness - is getting the car to respond to the app a real challenge?

I ask because from a connected-car perspective, I’m most familiar with OnStar. Every vehicle I’ve owned in the last decade+ has had OnStar, and to be honest... it works pretty flawlessly.

I routinely remote-start my vehicle when I’m walking off the airplane, so by the time I get through the terminal and into the garage, it’s warmed up and ready to go.

If I move to a Tesla, I don’t want to lose that connectivity.

Getting the car to respond to the app is NOT a real challenge.

We have another thread concerning getting the car to respond to the app. The primary problem in my opinion is NOT the car. Its the quality of the phones that are used to connect.

Some people have Bluetooth issues ( with a certain brand phone )
Others have GSM issues ( with a certain brand of phone )

I have a buddy that just got his model 3. He lives right down the street. He walked down to my house indicating that he could NOT connect to his car to do anything. I walked back down to his house with him and for an hour or so....couldn't get his phone to do consistently do anything at all. Every now and then we could get the horn to honk or the lights to flash, but no matter what we did...we couldn't get it to work.

I then allowed him to login with his profile onto my phone and walahhaa….. everything worked all of the time. I have a Samsung galaxy note 8 android phone. He has an HSA...android phone. Not sure who HSA is, but when we re-loaded his profile on his phone - it rarely worked.

So....when you have two devices that need to communicate with one another....and there is a problem....don't ALWAYS blame one device over the other.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Not really. The "compartment" is the indent where the handle sits when not being used. Just a hard rain and subsequent freezing had my handles frozen. Ten minutes of cabin heating took care of that. I usually try to dry the handles and compartment after I wash the car, but I didn't get a chance after this rain. Disabling the mirrors is also a really great idea.

And I will say again, this is not just a Tesla problem. Every car I've ever had, in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Illinois, and Tennessee, has had problems with ice with the doors, door handles, trunk, and windshield wipers. It's not a Tesla thing.

The handle is its own entity and pretty isolated from the inside of the car which is strange as to how you could get the handle to heat up due to the inside temp of the car. If you just take the 3 bolts off the inside door panel ( without disconnecting any wires) you will see that there is batting and sound and all kinds of insulation behind there before you even get to the completely sealed metal housing of the door itself. Then behind that sealed metal is the glass and then another sealed compartment where behind there is where the handle is actually located. Oh well....

To me it would be tremendously easier to heat the handle up from the outside rather than the inside.

I turned my heat up all the way for 20 min and my handle temp didn't budge at all. I used the Harbor Freight laser temp gauge.

 

[ngogas]

The new feature to keep the cabin and the desired temp is pretty cool.