Dreaded Front Motor Temporarily Disabled Fault

[Jason71]

So out for a 5 mile drive today. Then left the car for an hour when I got back in I was faced with a host of errors.

Power Reduced ( Front Motor temporarily disabled)
Power reduced (Exiting and re-entering vehicle may restore operation)
Stability control disabled (Drive with Caution)
Traction control disabled (Drive with Caution)
Automatic Emergency Braking disabled
Autopilot safety/convenience features unavailable (Features may be restored on next drive)
Regenerative Braking Disabled ( proceed with Caution)
Automatic Vehicle Hold disabled (use brake pedal when stopping)
Cruise control disabled.

Pretty much a full house basically and crucially, although not mentioned, no power steering.
Not sure if it was drivable at all since I was in a very tight parallel parked space and no way I was getting out of there without power steering it was very very heavy.
So I took the cars advice. kicked the whole family out, locked the car. waited 10 seconds. unlocked got back in and now all fine.

My first thought was water in the wiring which has been known to cause issues similar to above and my car may be old enough to be pre the fix for that whatever it was. Have only had one trip to service centre and no mention of doing anything to the wiring even though I have heard they do seal the dodgy connector on any vist.

The main thing that is giving me pause is that the first error is Front motor disabled. In the threads on water in the connector I can't see that being mentioned so is this something different? You would imagine a front motor off line would also result in all those other systems failing though no idea about the power steering?
Having said that we have had a lot of rain and I cleaned it on Christmas Eve so that's leaning me back towards water in connector though if it is that its amazing it has not happened sooner I have driving in some very very wet conditions this last year.

I have obviously raised a service request. Not until 22nd of Jan and no mobile available of course.
Just interested in any insight from the community. What do you think?
Water in Wiring?
Front Drive Unit issue?
Something else.

Anyone fancy my odds of making it to Jan 22nd without it happening again?

 

[Yachtsman]

Have you tried a re boot?
I had to re boot twice after the last update! The first re boot left the brake lights on permanently.

 

[MrBadger]

Power Reduced ( Front Motor temporarily disabled)
Power reduced (Exiting and re-entering vehicle may restore operation)
Stability control disabled (Drive with Caution)
Traction control disabled (Drive with Caution)
Automatic Emergency Braking disabled
Autopilot safety/convenience features unavailable (Features may be restored on next drive)
Regenerative Braking Disabled ( proceed with Caution)
Automatic Vehicle Hold disabled (use brake pedal when stopping)
Cruise control disabled.

As I understand, Tesla took a two stage approach to the wiring harness water ingress issue. First, they mitigated the effects of the failure via a software update, then, as you mention, as part of a general service visit, the wring harness was addresses.

The software mitigation you would have - basically, instead of throwing a hissy fit with multiple errors, it more gracefully handled the error. You are not seeing a graceful handling of the error.

The wiring harness fix, if performed, should be on the invoice. They didn't make a song and dance about ours, but its still a couple of lines on the invoice.

So I think you have some other similar error, but are also at risk of the wiring harness error. But it has been very wet, so may be something similar.

There is another post here somewhere, maybe around August delivery time, when something similar was posted.

 

[MrBadger]

There is another post here somewhere, maybe around August delivery time, when something similar was posted.

This one I think is it, but started with the rear motor Vehicle shutting down - PULL OVER SAFELY | Tesla Motors Club - I'm not convinced its related reading through it again. Maybe there was another one around the same time.

 

[Jason71]

This one I think is it, but started with the rear motor Vehicle shutting down - PULL OVER SAFELY | Tesla Motors Club - I'm not convinced its related reading through it again. Maybe there was another one around the same time.

yeah that one seemed to be a rear motor failure. my rear motor was OK. The car would still move forward and back so rear must still have been working.
Do you mean this one. This was August as well.
My 4 day old M3LR dead in the water
No mention of front motor disabled on that one which is why I thought mine might be a different issue.

 

[Jason71]

As I understand, Tesla took a two stage approach to the wiring harness water ingress issue. First, they mitigated the effects of the failure via a software update, then, as you mention, as part of a general service visit, the wring harness was addresses.

The software mitigation you would have - basically, instead of throwing a hissy fit with multiple errors, it more gracefully handled the error. You are not seeing a graceful handling of the error.

The wiring harness fix, if performed, should be on the invoice. They didn't make a song and dance about ours, but its still a couple of lines on the invoice.

So I think you have some other similar error, but are also at risk of the wiring harness error. But it has been very wet, so may be something similar.

There is another post here somewhere, maybe around August delivery time, when something similar was posted.

No nothing on the invoice from Feb.
This is kind of my thinking. Hope so anyway that would be the best case. I just have this nagging thought that if there was an issue with the front motor then that would probably give me all those errors. Odd how the power steering also failed and no error for that and that was the one that would actually have stopped me driving.
Been out in it again a few minutes ago and its still all fine so just have to wait and see what Tesla say / if it happens again. Thanks to Covid ( and you don't hear that said very often!) I have nowhere long distance or important to go between now and end of Jan so just have to wait it out. I hate intermittent faults though they are the worst. Not knowing when they will come back!

 

[Godsense]

The only advantage, if you can call it that is the extensive logging and remote log access Tesla have. Which likely prove useful in resolving your issue.

I would probably give them a quick call when they open or they may well get in touch if the issue is a more immediate concern.

Either way I hope you can get it sorted

 

[Godsense]

The wiring harness fix, if performed, should be on the invoice. They didn't make a song and dance about ours, but its still a couple of lines on the invoice.

Just to add, this was also the case for me when mobile came to do some unrelated work.

 

[Jason71]

Update on my issue for anyone interested.
I had had an sms from service on the 8th of Jan saying:
"thanks for contacting Tesla. We've passed your concern on to our Virtual Service Technicians and we'll be in contact once they've diagnosed the problem. Thank you, Tesla Service"

but I heard nothing since so I gave the service centre a call and they said they would get back to me. shockingly they did:
"you don't need attend the service centre. your car has a known issue that will be resolved in a future firmware update- its known to engineering. For now, known work around is to exit and re-enter vehicle (this cycles the drive rail)- car is safe to drive."

anyone know what a "drive rail is?"
While I am pleased they don't think there is a risk of the car stopping while driving, I specifically asked this question. I am slightly cynical about this being entirely a software issue. Sounds more like a hardware issue ( moisture in harness maybe?) that they have not yet found a way to fully obfuscate via software. I think I would be happier if they could fix the root cause.

I have had 2 incidences of this in total 2 days apart and more than 20 days ago now so hopefully it has gone away for the time being

 

[Zai Xuda]

So out for a 5 mile drive today. Then left the car for an hour when I got back in I was faced with a host of errors.

Power Reduced ( Front Motor temporarily disabled)
Power reduced (Exiting and re-entering vehicle may restore operation)
Stability control disabled (Drive with Caution)
Traction control disabled (Drive with Caution)
Automatic Emergency Braking disabled
Autopilot safety/convenience features unavailable (Features may be restored on next drive)
Regenerative Braking Disabled ( proceed with Caution)
Automatic Vehicle Hold disabled (use brake pedal when stopping)
Cruise control disabled.

Pretty much a full house basically and crucially, although not mentioned, no power steering.
Not sure if it was drivable at all since I was in a very tight parallel parked space and no way I was getting out of there without power steering it was very very heavy.
So I took the cars advice. kicked the whole family out, locked the car. waited 10 seconds. unlocked got back in and now all fine.

My first thought was water in the wiring which has been known to cause issues similar to above and my car may be old enough to be pre the fix for that whatever it was. Have only had one trip to service centre and no mention of doing anything to the wiring even though I have heard they do seal the dodgy connector on any vist.

The main thing that is giving me pause is that the first error is Front motor disabled. In the threads on water in the connector I can't see that being mentioned so is this something different? You would imagine a front motor off line would also result in all those other systems failing though no idea about the power steering?
Having said that we have had a lot of rain and I cleaned it on Christmas Eve so that's leaning me back towards water in connector though if it is that its amazing it has not happened sooner I have driving in some very very wet conditions this last year.

I have obviously raised a service request. Not until 22nd of Jan and no mobile available of course.
Just interested in any insight from the community. What do you think?
Water in Wiring?
Front Drive Unit issue?
Something else.

Anyone fancy my odds of making it to Jan 22nd without it happening again?

It's going to happen again. If you're in your warranty window, try to escalate this to a hardware defect concern. I had all of the same alerts you mentioned in my 2020 Model 3. This is ridiculous and dangerous even if it disappears for a week or so, it will pop up again, as far as I have experienced. That Hold mode feature and regenerative breaking should not be trusted in full faith. The scariest part is the front motor disabled making it very slow in accelerating at a full stop.

 

[Zai Xuda]

I have powered down for 5 minutes and re-entered the vehicle only to make it through another mile and then the alerts popped up again. This is pissing me off and I am now on a greater alert for when regen braking (hold mode) fails and especially when front motor disables with stability traction disabled.

 

[Jason71]

It's going to happen again. If you're in your warranty window, try to escalate this to a hardware defect concern. I had all of the same alerts you mentioned in my 2020 Model 3. This is ridiculous and dangerous even if it disappears for a week or so, it will pop up again, as far as I have experienced. That Hold mode feature and regenerative breaking should not be trusted in full faith. The scariest part is the front motor disabled making it very slow in accelerating at a full stop.

The M3's have only been on sale for 2 years here so unless you do star ship mileage they are all still in warranty.
Ever since this happened we have been in lockdown so am only using the car for 5-6 short trips a week but so far no re-occurrence after 2 1/2 months.
The early RHD cars like mine had a badly positioned connector which suffered from water ingress so I am thinking that may be the reason since I don't think mine has ever been fixed even though I have had one visit to a service centre.
I washed it with a pressure washer on Christmas Eve then let it sit 2 days in cold wet weather before this happened on the 26th. So my leading theory is that it was water ingress. Next time I have to go to the service centre I will ask them about the harness but until then or it happens again not sure there is much else I can do .

 

[Tony Hoyle]

If you haven't had the wiring loom done get it anyway, whether it's the cause of this or not.

Tesla service love to say 'software issue' if they don't know what the problem is. They'd probably say that if your wheels fell off!

 

[HenryT]

Tesla service love to say 'software issue' if they don't know what the problem is. They'd probably say that if your wheels fell off!

... or, 'it's within spec.'

 

[Durzel]

The M3's have only been on sale for 2 years here so unless you do star ship mileage they are all still in warranty.
Ever since this happened we have been in lockdown so am only using the car for 5-6 short trips a week but so far no re-occurrence after 2 1/2 months.
The early RHD cars like mine had a badly positioned connector which suffered from water ingress so I am thinking that may be the reason since I don't think mine has ever been fixed even though I have had one visit to a service centre.
I washed it with a pressure washer on Christmas Eve then let it sit 2 days in cold wet weather before this happened on the 26th. So my leading theory is that it was water ingress. Next time I have to go to the service centre I will ask them about the harness but until then or it happens again not sure there is much else I can do .

Given you haven’t had this work done, I’d definitely get it sorted ASAP.

Water ingress on that connector can, and has, resulted in a number of spurious errors. You might find that all of your problems can be traced back to it.

 

[m3p_uk]

Anyone know what work they actually do on the water ingress service visit? Had mobile service do mine and was done in about 10 mins. Took out the frunk liner to check but didn't look like any parts or anything were changed.

 

[Durzel]

As I understand it it’s an inspection and then application of some sealant or coating to prevent water ingress.

It’s probably a bigger job if your car has already failed and needs a new connector etc.

 

[Jason71]

If you haven't had the wiring loom done get it anyway, whether it's the cause of this or not.

Tesla service love to say 'software issue' if they don't know what the problem is. They'd probably say that if your wheels fell off!

I agree. Though its annoying that I went to a service centre last March and there is nothing on the documents to indicate that they did it. And it was already a known issue then
Even if I wanted to give up half a days pay and drive 60 miles (round trip) to a service centre not sure how I would even request it to be done as the primary cause of the visit. Will definitely ask them to check it when I do have to go or if this issue re-appears.

 

[MrBadger]

Could it be booked as a ranger visit?

 

[nightowl]

I agree. Though its annoying that I went to a service centre last March and there is nothing on the documents to indicate that they did it. And it was already a known issue then
Even if I wanted to give up half a days pay and drive 60 miles (round trip) to a service centre not sure how I would even request it to be done as the primary cause of the visit. Will definitely ask them to check it when I do have to go or if this issue re-appears.

I booked mine in specifically for this to be done as a known issue with water ingress affecting the wiring loom. Think they have a service bulletin on it.

Didn't experience any problems beforehand, just wanted it proactively addressed as I had read of the problems it causes and didn't want to have to deal with it when it eventually happens.

Tesla had no problem with the appointment being solely for that. Didn't get done as a mobile visit though. Had to drive over an hour to get to the SC.