Posting this story because it is a case of surreal Tesla engineering that just defies imagination.
At end of January I woke up to my 2021 LR Model S with an end to end horizontal crack in my windshield that seemingly came out of nowhere while sitting overnight in a driveway in Stowe VT. Low double digits and pre-condition defrost must've stressed it. ~3 weeks later, I was able to take it into Tesla service center for replacement, where it was determined to be a warranty repair. So far so good.
Separately, after driving it home, I noticed that the right front passenger door handle was stuck in the retracted position and no longer worked. I'm on my 3rd Model S lease and have seen all 3 cars needing one or more door handle servo motors failing and needing warranty replacement. Still, weird unlikely coincidence that it breaks the same day I get my windshield replaced, but I am hard pressed to imagine a connection.
On my next drive later the same day, I realized that the car's climate system has also stopped working. The only way to get heat is to use defrost or set temp to HI, only way to get AC is to set temp to LO. This is a huge new issue in the middle of winter. Another, even stranger coincidence.
The Tesla mobile tech came today to fix both issues. He replaced the passenger door handle with a brand new part, but it still didn't work. He searched deep into the bowels of Tesla's internal documentation and discovered an astonishing connection. The controller board for the climate system is housed inside the front camera unit (he already knew that). The OEM windshield replacement comes with a new front camera unit already attached to the windshield, so that it is aligned and calibrated (he knew that too). What he discovered is that a bad climate system controller board also stops the front right passenger door handle from working. Not any other door handle, just the front right passenger handle. WTF!! What kind of idiotic engineering design is that??? If people were wired like that, an eye infection would also cause your big toe to swell up. So I wasn't crazy. A glass windshield replacement caused an otherwise fine front right door handle to break and the entire climate system to fail.
p.s. I wouldn't be surprised if the genius engineer who designed this controller board is now running the server farm at Twitter...
At end of January I woke up to my 2021 LR Model S with an end to end horizontal crack in my windshield that seemingly came out of nowhere while sitting overnight in a driveway in Stowe VT. Low double digits and pre-condition defrost must've stressed it. ~3 weeks later, I was able to take it into Tesla service center for replacement, where it was determined to be a warranty repair. So far so good.
Separately, after driving it home, I noticed that the right front passenger door handle was stuck in the retracted position and no longer worked. I'm on my 3rd Model S lease and have seen all 3 cars needing one or more door handle servo motors failing and needing warranty replacement. Still, weird unlikely coincidence that it breaks the same day I get my windshield replaced, but I am hard pressed to imagine a connection.
On my next drive later the same day, I realized that the car's climate system has also stopped working. The only way to get heat is to use defrost or set temp to HI, only way to get AC is to set temp to LO. This is a huge new issue in the middle of winter. Another, even stranger coincidence.
The Tesla mobile tech came today to fix both issues. He replaced the passenger door handle with a brand new part, but it still didn't work. He searched deep into the bowels of Tesla's internal documentation and discovered an astonishing connection. The controller board for the climate system is housed inside the front camera unit (he already knew that). The OEM windshield replacement comes with a new front camera unit already attached to the windshield, so that it is aligned and calibrated (he knew that too). What he discovered is that a bad climate system controller board also stops the front right passenger door handle from working. Not any other door handle, just the front right passenger handle. WTF!! What kind of idiotic engineering design is that??? If people were wired like that, an eye infection would also cause your big toe to swell up. So I wasn't crazy. A glass windshield replacement caused an otherwise fine front right door handle to break and the entire climate system to fail.
p.s. I wouldn't be surprised if the genius engineer who designed this controller board is now running the server farm at Twitter...
