Driver door popped open while driving 70mph

[Masseeh]

Kinda weird and scary situation for me. I have a 2016 Tesla Model S. Yesterday 15 minutes into my commute going 60-70mph my driver side door popped open...not completely wide open, but enough to where the messaged on the dashboard came up that the door was ajar. I was able to hold on to the door until I pulled over and closed it. Has anyone heard or experienced this before?

Called service and the next available date for inspection/repair is March 8th.

 

[DDotJ]

I had a door pop open at an intersection once. Scared the crap out of me.
I took it to service and they replaced the offending door handle. It never happened again.

If you can get a ranger to come out, that might be faster. Tesla sent a ranger so I was able to get the door handle replaced in my driveway within a few days.

 

[gaswalla]

There were threads 4 years ago like this... Seemed like folks had inadvertently hit door handles with knee.. Car logs will help

 

[MS16]

I had a door pop open at an intersection once. Scared the crap out of me.
I took it to service and they replaced the offending door handle. It never happened again.

If you can get a ranger to come out, that might be faster. Tesla sent a ranger so I was able to get the door handle replaced in my driveway within a few days.

My passenger door popped ajar once while driving on surface streets about 45mph. There was no passenger to mistakenly open the door, yet it still opened. Mine happened also about 15 minutes into the trip.

The SC replaced both the outside handle and the cable that goes to the interior handle. It hasn't happened since.

 

[AustinP]

Had that experience once driving less than 10mph, on bad roads.
SC took me in immediately. A cable was misplaced and they fixed this. Never happened again.

 

[TR5642]

Don't forget the wind is your friend at 60+. If there's space next to you, grab the handle push out and pull back in. That will re-close it while only opening a foot or so. (learned that trick with an old car with a glitch mech lock) Doesn't address root cause but better than driving down the road holding the door shut-ish.

Side note, it appears the inside and outside handles are really just fancy electrical switches that activate a release on the latch electrically. Does anybody know if there is a mechanical override (from the inside at least)?

 

[DDotJ]

Don't forget the wind is your friend at 60+. If there's space next to you, grab the handle push out and pull back in. That will re-close it while only opening a foot or so. (learned that trick with an old car with a glitch mech lock) Doesn't address root cause but better than driving down the road holding the door shut-ish.

Side note, it appears the inside and outside handles are really just fancy electrical switches that activate a release on the latch electrically. Does anybody know if there is a mechanical override (from the inside at least)?

Yes, the mechanical override cable is built into the door handle for the front doors. You just pull on the handle all the way.

For the rear doors, there is an emergency release tab that is located underneath the rear bench seats . It's a plastic tab with a cable you have to pull to manually unlatch the doors. It's tucked away behind a carpet cutout under the seats. Here's a diagram from the user manual:

 

[Electroman]

Seemed like folks had inadvertently hit door handles with knee..

Nope. That was mysteriously opening windows, not doors

 

[Discoducky]

For folks who've had this happen, what fw are you on?

 

[xborg]

Once every while I read similar posts. It's surprising that it hasn't hit to the news sites yet.
This is a serious issue.

 

[Knightowl]

Just had this happen to me for the 1st time, driving home from work today the driver door popped open unexpectedly, I quickly shut it. This doors handle was replaced with a new one back in May so I would not think it is faulty, however it did a strange thing when I walked out to the car before leaving work. I have my driver door as the only one set to extend as I get close to it but today it did not, I had to press the handle for it to extend this one time, after getting in and a few min into my drive the door then decided to pop open. I think the 2 actions may be related and I also think this may just be another manifestation of all the weird bugs that I have been having since update 17.32 9ea02cb on my pre AP s85. This has been the worst update I have had in some time with bugs causing streaming radio to not work, MCU to freeze and rear cam image to not load, very much looking forward to the next patch to sort out all these bugs. I did do a voice command bug report about it just after it occured if that helps Tesla at all.

 

[Knightowl]

Just had this happen to me for the 1st time, driving home from work today the driver door popped open unexpectedly, I quickly shut it. This doors handle was replaced with a new one back in May so I would not think it is faulty, however it did a strange thing when I walked out to the car before leaving work. I have my driver door as the only one set to extend as I get close to it but today it did not, I had to press the handle for it to extend this one time, after getting in and a few min into my drive the door then decided to pop open. I think the 2 actions may be related and I also think this may just be another manifestation of all the weird bugs that I have been having since update 17.32 9ea02cb on my pre AP s85. This has been the worst update I have had in some time with bugs causing streaming radio to not work, MCU to freeze and rear cam image to not load, very much looking forward to the next patch to sort out all these bugs. I did do a voice command bug report about it just after it occured if that helps Tesla at all.

Oups had my date wrong, that door handle was replaced in Nov last year, still should not make a difference though.

 

[BridgeMojo]

This just happened to me this evening, though it was the passenger door, not the driver's door. I was going about 70 on the free way, with Navigate on Autopilot running.

Nothing bad happened, aside from the alerts from the car. I pulled over and found the passenger door ajar. I closed it and came home. I'll file a support ticket.