Factory OEM SiriusXM nearly working in Tesla 2022 Model 3

[crackers8199]

I'm laughing because the price differences are so stark. They have no idea what to charge us for these, lol. But I think you got a good deal as far as eBay prices go!

i actually negotiated it down a bit. they were asking $250, but since we now know that brand new from tesla they are $225 i asked if they would take $225 and they accepted it. i figured paying the same price as new was fair since they're so hard to come by on ebay.

so, if anyone else is looking around and sees one on there, maybe give it a shot...send the seller a message and see if they're open to offers. the worst that can happen is they say no...

 

[ph0ton]

just got a notification that my spare model 3 tuner is out for delivery a day early! I can do the housing swap tonight!

what's the easiest way to crack them both open? and how much thermal paste do I need to put on the uncovered chips? I'm going to run to best buy to grab a tube to make sure I have enough...

Unscrew it, break the warranty scare tape, and lift it from the side opposite of the plugs (where it latches in).

also, how are you guys getting the antenna from the middle of the deck over to the tuner?

I followed what others have tried and threaded the wire from underneath the latch, across the trunk, and up into the tight space between the trunk compartment and the C-pillar. There is some foam-fabric that forms a little wedge that you can squeeze it through. Easiest way to see it is stick something long like a zip tie down into the crevice. Once you push it through and thread it, eventually the slack will pile up from where you can see it on the tuner side.

I'm going to take video of all of this and document it so that anyone else who wants to go down this road has a clear guide on how to make it happen.

Yeah, info is spread between 20 pages in this thread and in other threads for installing aftermarket SiriusXM. I'll be sure to chime in whenever you need!

EDIT: Also they are using low-performance thermal tape so I wouldn't fret about putting in high-performance thermal paste. The stuff stuck in the enclosure is all you need IMO (and it's reusable, unlike a lot of paste).

 

[Germ]

Now we have to hope that Tesla is not stupid enough to remove the SXM feature from the Model 3/Y software. After enjoying it for a few weeks, I wouldn't want to go without it again.

 

[ph0ton]

One of us can be the guinea pig. I'm on 2022.20.8 with no issues, I'll update on my next update

 

[crackers8199]

One of us can be the guinea pig. I'm on 2022.20.8 with no issues, I'll update on my next update

also got 2022.20.8 this morning.

I can't imagine they would kill it, there's no reason for them to do so (knock on wood). those of us that want to use it can, but they don't have to support any of us...

 

[crackers8199]

do I break off these tabs at the end?

edit: I take that back.. it's the middle tab on the other end I break off right?

 

[ph0ton]

Yeah, I bent it back and forth until it broke clean off.

 

[PhilCaps]

I'm laughing because the price differences are so stark. They have no idea what to charge us for these, lol. But I think you got a good deal as far as eBay prices go!

Check the prices of Model Y tuner (350+$) vs model 3 (<50$).

Sorry have been a way for a bit. @crackers8199 Glad you were able to remove the Ethernet haha. As for the housing switch it was pretty straight forward although I did have to bend a flap down to get the ports to line up. I was able to repurpose some of the thermal paste from the new housing to make sure all the chips had contact with the housing.

I've also noticed the fav and recent issue you touched on. Kind of frustrating but not enough where it would stop me from using. As for the LTE issue, I did take a recent road trip with it and did notice drop offs along a majority interstate but can't say if it's due to the LTE connection or the fact that I have my XM antenna faces downward/inward vs towards the sky (also without a metal plate) on my MY. I plan to flip the XM antenna around so that it's pointing to the sky and see if they fixes the issue.

 

[PhilCaps]

do I break off these tabs at the end?

edit: I take that back.. it's the middle tab on the other end I break off right?
View attachment 842537

View attachment 842536

Just bend it back and forth as @ph0ton said. Metal is pretty soft

 

[crackers8199]

yup, just finished the housing swap. all that's left to do is mount it.

note to anyone who hasn't already done this and might be on the fence: just do it. if you can find yourself a tuner, that's by far the hardest part...the housing swap is insanely easy. it's literally six screws, then stick a flathead in on the sides right near the antenna connection and work your way towards the back. once you get about halfway, it'll just pop off.

i took a video of myself doing it to show just how easy it is. i'll include that with my write up once i finish.

@PhilCaps did you use more than one layer of the paste on the chips that don't make contact with the raised area? i just put mine back together but i'm wondering if i should take it apart again and put an extra layer on those three chips...

 

[crackers8199]

Check the prices of Model Y tuner (350+$) vs model 3 (<50$).

this was the craziest thing to me. i literally only spent $30 on the spare model 3 tuner i used just for the mounting plate. well worth it IMO to be able to still have my original, untouched, as a spare in case i ever need it.

 

[PhilCaps]

Check the prices of Model Y tuner (350+$) vs model 3 (<50$).

Sorry have been a way for a bit. @crackers8199 Glad you were able to remove the Ethernet haha. As for the housing switch it was pretty straight forward although I did have to bend a flap down to get the ports to line up. I was able to repurpose some of the thermal paste from the new housing to make sure all the chips had contact with the housing.

I've also noticed the fav and recent issue you touched on. Kind of frustrating but not enough where it would stop me from using. As for the LTE issue, I did take a recent road trip with it and did notice drop offs along a majority interstate but can't say if it's due to the LTE connection or the fact that I have my XM antenna faces downward/inward vs towards the sky (also without a metal plate) on my MY. I plan to flip the XM antenna around so that it's pointing to the sky and see if they fixes the issue.

yup, just finished the housing swap. all that's left to do is mount it.

note to anyone who hasn't already done this and might be on the fence: just do it. if you can find yourself a tuner, that's by far the hardest part...the housing swap is insanely easy. it's literally six screws, then stick a flathead in on the sides right near the antenna connection and work your way towards the back. once you get about halfway, it'll just pop off.

i took a video of myself doing it to show just how easy it is. i'll include that with my write up once i finish.

@PhilCaps did you use more than one layer of the paste on the chips that don't make contact with the raised area? i just put mine back together but i'm wondering if i should take it apart again and put an extra layer on those three chips...

Yeah I did double up the paste on a few of the chips esp at the area where the mount indents.

 

[crackers8199]

one thing i figured out today that makes it a little easier to use the scroll wheel: even if you've already got favorites saved, whatever channels you want to cycle through just unset and reset it as a favorite...then it'll add it to the cycle via scroll wheel for that drive. it'll move your favorites around on the list, but to me that's worth it to be able to use the wheel to move through them.

also: it is indeed TWO new favorites on the list that will change the scroll wheel select from sequentially going through the channels to stepping through your new favorites.

 

[crackers8199]

here's a fun bug that just got me tonight: I couldn't add or remove any favorites. or, I should say, something weird is going on with the favorites.

it took me a power-off, service mode reinstall, and two scroll wheel resets (not sure which one of these combined with which other ones actually fixed it) to finally get it to let me remove a favorite and add a new one. before the second reboot, whenever i would remove one favorite it would immediately come back as soon as i went back to the favorites list. new favorites seemed to be added as favorites (the star appeared in the now playing bar and they were in the channels that the scroll wheel cycled through), but they wouldn't show up in the favorites list...the one i had just deleted always showed back up, though.

very, very strange. not sure if this is a model 3 thing because it's not actually supposed to be there, or if this is a "tesla's weird crappy UI" thing, although based on reading some complaints from S/X owners, i'm guessing it's the latter. hopefully this just stays working and we get all updates just like S and X owners would, and they hopefully make this better.

 

[ph0ton]

We could be running a deprecated version of the app so that might explain the bugs, in part. As for my experience, I haven't tried messing with favorites too much. I added the three I regularly listen to and have assumed that this (admittedly great) favorite scrolling wasn't possible. The only bug I've encountered is the microphone inside the car randomly not working, requiring a restart. This hasn't happened on 20.8 yet, but it happened 3-4 times on 20.7.

 

[crackers8199]

We could be running a deprecated version of the app so that might explain the bugs, in part. As for my experience, I haven't tried messing with favorites too much. I added the three I regularly listen to and have assumed that this (admittedly great) favorite scrolling wasn't possible. The only bug I've encountered is the microphone inside the car randomly not working, requiring a restart. This hasn't happened on 20.8 yet, but it happened 3-4 times on 20.7.

you could be right, but there are so many complaints with the S/X version of the SXM UI that i kinda think we have the same issues everyone else does. the favorite scrolling really should be default, and i'm hoping they will eventually make it so (or at least give the option somewhere in the settings). they're kinda halfway there, considering it'll cycle through newly added favorites...they need to make it so that it just always does all favorites.

ideally, i think most people would want to just cycle through their favorites via the scroll wheel and not worry about any other channels...if i want those other channels, i can pick them from the UI.

 

[sparkywatts]

one thing i figured out today that makes it a little easier to use the scroll wheel: even if you've already got favorites saved, whatever channels you want to cycle through just unset and reset it as a favorite...then it'll add it to the cycle via scroll wheel for that drive. it'll move your favorites around on the list, but to me that's worth it to be able to use the wheel to move through them.

I'm not quite understanding what you're descirbing. In my Model3 with SXM, I don't have any issue setting favorites. Also when I use the left controller, the left/right action will increment or decrement the SXM channel you're on, but it doesn't cycle through favorites. The only way I can choose a favorite is by tapping on the screen under the Favorites tab. How were you able to switch to a different Favorite on the steering wheel?

 

[crackers8199]

I'm not quite understanding what you're descirbing. In my Model3 with SXM, I don't have any issue setting favorites. Also when I use the left controller, the left/right action will increment or decrement the SXM channel you're on, but it doesn't cycle through favorites. The only way I can choose a favorite is by tapping on the screen under the Favorites tab. How were you able to switch to a different Favorite on the steering wheel?

it resets when the car sleeps (or on each drive / at some amount of time after you exit the drivers seat, haven't really figured out the exact pattern yet).

* if you sit in the drivers seat and just start using the scroll wheel, it will cycle through the channels sequentially, one at a time.

* if you add two or more favorites at any point during a drive, the car will switch to cycling through those favorites until you exit the car for some unknown period of time (as i described earlier). once you exit the car for some period of time, it will go back to cycling through the channels sequentially again.

in other words, say you sit down and add howard 100 and 80s on 8 as favorites. at that point, if you use the scroll wheel, it will just keep flipping back and forth between those two channels for the rest of that drive. once you exit the car for some period of time (again, stressing, i have no idea what that length of time is) and come back, it will go back to cycling sequentially. your favorites are still there and you can select them from the UI, it just changes what the scroll wheel does.

 

[ph0ton]

I wonder if there is some broken code in the Tesla from the UI in v10. In that version you could add favorites from any source and it would put it into a big list you could scroll through. When you add favorites in the SiriusXM app it instantiates the "global" list but the UI has no way to observe or modify it. When you power off the car, it falls out of memory when the app is closed. Then when you start up again, all you have left is your favorites within the app vs the global list.

Maybe in v10 you couldn't scroll through channels in SiriusXM as your input was just interpreted as moving through your "global" list. That might be wrong though because I am pretty sure I scanned through FM stations in v10, but maybe I'm misremembering.

 

[crackers8199]

my spare antenna amp came in yesterday. i just hooked it up with the jumper wires, similar to what @ph0ton did a few pages back...let me just say this: if you're doing this mod, and you want good FM reception, hook up the second amp. wow.

i pulled out into the driveway, and i can get both KNX and KIIS from LA, both of which are broadcasting from almost 85 miles away. without the second amp, both were just static while in my driveway...no hint of any actual radio sound. with the second amp hooked up, both come in perfectly clear...not HD, but clear enough that i can listen to them with almost no static. i don't even remember my FM reception being this good back when i first got the car, before i disconnected the antenna in favor of the XM direct adapter.

as a point of reference: radio-locator.com for my location doesn't even expect me to be able to get KNX, and expects KIIS to be very weak. they were both clear as a bell - KNX had a slight hint of static but not much.

i almost never use FM, but wow. this is great. it'll allow me to have that available when i go to LA or SD and want to check on the traffic report. kudos to @ph0ton for figuring that out.

attached is a picture of how i mounted the second amp (also note the jumper wires are pulled out a little here, you have to make sure to push them in all the way which i did after i took this pic). i have to run to the hardware store for zip ties, so tomorrow i'll pull the cover down again, tie it all up and take a final pic.