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Falcon Wing Door Hit Ceiling

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Today the kiddos had a day off from school so I took a day off work and took them to one of my favorite museums in Philadelphia - the Penn Museum. This was my first visit to the museum in my Model X. We parked in the museum’s public garage which, like most structures in this city, is older and does not have high ceilings. However it’s norm for this city and I’ve never had problems before so I didn’t think much of it as we were exiting the car. I expect the falcon doors to know their limits and to stop at a lower height if necessary. Suddenly I heard a crunch and discovered the right door had crashed itself into the cement ceiling beam. The left door opened minimally but adequately as expected. I sent pictures to Tesla Service. They are saying I am at fault, and this is not covered by warranty. What do you all think? This car is promoted as having smart doors that will stop themselves so they will not smash into obstacles. The SC rep told me I am responsible because the sensor is at the bottom of the door. Is it my responsibility to research the sensor locations and their visual field ranges? How is the consumer to know if the door will detect an obstruction or not? There are no clearances listed in the manual.

Has anyone had this problem, and what was Tesla’s response?
 

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The main sensor is in the center of the roof. That’s the one that will trigger to open in low. And it shows it on the screen. It thought you had full height. Sensors on the doors are more for what’s on the side.

That situation your car is in, is an absolute no brainer to cause trouble.

Sorry but SC is correct.
 
Ouch. Sorry that happened. There is a LOW open setting for the FWD. It can be set to low or automatic. Mine is always set to automatic so I don't know if it would have helped in this case.

I had a tire patched and the shop put the X on a lift. I didn't disable automatic doors or the security alarm. The sudden motion of the lift going up activated the alarm. When I double-clicked the key fob to stop it, the driver's door opened and bounced off the lift post. The same thing happened again when the car was lowered! I also forgot to enable jack mode.

Add this to the list of things I have to be aware of with this faberge egg!
 
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Reactions: pilotSteve
Unfortunately this is one of those situations that if you're not familiar with how the door operates, things like this would occur. The issue is the top of the car is over the higher portion of the garage while your FWD doors are under the lower beams. As other mentioned, the sensor is in center of the roof. So sorry but hopefully otherwise will learn from your sacrifice. And hopefully the repairs weren't too bad...

A sacrifice i made is having my garage door opener a little forward of the roof sensor and guess what. Crack, my FWD doors opened into the garage door opener and had to get the glass replaced. Learning lesson for sure.
 
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Reactions: RedXowner
Today the kiddos had a day off from school so I took a day off work and took them to one of my favorite museums in Philadelphia - the Penn Museum. This was my first visit to the museum in my Model X. We parked in the museum’s public garage which, like most structures in this city, is older and does not have high ceilings. However it’s norm for this city and I’ve never had problems before so I didn’t think much of it as we were exiting the car. I expect the falcon doors to know their limits and to stop at a lower height if necessary. Suddenly I heard a crunch and discovered the right door had crashed itself into the cement ceiling beam. The left door opened minimally but adequately as expected. I sent pictures to Tesla Service. They are saying I am at fault, and this is not covered by warranty. What do you all think? This car is promoted as having smart doors that will stop themselves so they will not smash into obstacles. The SC rep told me I am responsible because the sensor is at the bottom of the door. Is it my responsibility to research the sensor locations and their visual field ranges? How is the consumer to know if the door will detect an obstruction or not? There are no clearances listed in the manual.

Has anyone had this problem, and what was Tesla’s response?


within normal limits...

Seriously tho that sucks, tesla should good will that but given their current near bankrupt state... oh wait they totally could do that as they are flush with cash and really give a *sugar* about a car AFTER they have sold it...oh wait they could care less and will screw you out of service at every chance they get
 
...This car is promoted as having smart doors...

When it first came out in 2015, there were quite a few reports that the doors are not perfect in detecting all obstacles, especially in your scenario with big ceiling beams that are much lower than the ceiling.

Salespeople can verbally boast their products but if the documentation (like owner's manual) does not include those boastings then those boastings are not included.

The owner's manual specifically shifts the monitoring duty to the owner so you need to be ready to stop the door at any time.
 
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Sounds like a design defect. I would have sued them in smalls claims court.

It's not what we wanted because it's designed for human to be responsible and stop those doors at any time for obstacles.

It is intentionally designed and it is not a designed defect!

It's just like a smart cruise that can stop for a vehicle in front but not for a pedestrian if there's a warning that the driver is responsible for driving.

If the smart cruise is never designed to stop for pedestrians, then running over a pedestrian is what it does and not a designed flaw but it's the driver's flaw for not knowing that they are still responsible for driving.

It's just like buying a one-story home and sue in court that it should be a 2 story home. It's not a design flaw for lacking a second floor. It's designed as lacking a second floor!

It's the same way with the doors. It's never designed for an uneven ceiling such as big beams, garage openers which hang quite lower than ceiling itself...
 
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Sorry to hear about this but it could happen to any of us. How would you anticipate and prevent this in the future? Any ideas? How about opening the door manually from the outside and standing close so the door detects you as an obstruction and does not open all of the way? Then, if it starts to rise up too high, you could catch and restrain it with your hand? The car would not like it, but it would save the door.
 
I agree the FWDs on the MX are not a design flaw. I love them. They are so much more convenient for me than conventional doors. They work exactly as they have been engineered to work. But I would also agree this is probably a communications flaw on Tesla's part in how the doors are marketed/advertised. I open my FWD every day in my garage, and so far, there has been no issue, but that's probably b/c I don't have any unusual situations in my garage like the big beam in the pictures from the OP. I don't know if I'll ever buy another car (I suppose I'll have to if my batteries ever die), but if I do, and I choose to buy an X, I hope they still have the FWDs.

Sorry for what happened to the OP. The rest of us really appreciate folks posting things that happen to them so the rest of us can learn. TY and good luck with the repairs.
 
How would you anticipate and prevent this in the future? Any ideas? How about opening the door manually from the outside and standing close so the door detects you as an obstruction and does not open all of the way? Then, if it starts to rise up too high, you could catch and restrain it with your hand? The car would not like it, but it would save the door.
While you should certainly test on your X in a safe place, in my experience, the opening doors stop immediately when I touch the bottom trim piece with a bare finger. It's so instant that I believe that piece is most likely an electrostatic touch sensor as opposed to a pressure sensor. Barring a similar experience, stopping the door with some force shouldn't really hurt anything. For instance, the first year or so the Model X was made they didn't include a sensor to detect obstacles below the door for closing, and plenty of people have been hit in one way or another by the doors as they close because of this. When it happens, the door stops. That having been said, if force is required in your X, it would probably be best to stop the door from the middle so that it isn't twisting when you stop it even though any such twisting shouldn't be significant enough to cause a problem. Another thing to try before force would be a fob button and/or the inside FWD button. I believe I have stopped the FWDs using the inside button before, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were also possible with the fob.
 
...How about opening the door manually from the outside...

That's my standard practice to open from outside, standing toward the front of the car (not toward the rear of the car because I want to access the outside door handle and the interior side button) unless the coast is clear (including the ceiling) then I could open from inside.

Apply any resisting force to the door would stop the door movement. However, my favorite way is to click on the stainless steel fake handle and it would stop or click on the interior side button to stop it.
 
When I park in covered parking lots with low ceiling I always look up before opening FWD (Kids can't open doors themselves).
Those beams are super-annoying as sensor can't detect it sometimes - I'm trying to avoid them if possible.

Sorry about that, now you know. I hope your repair is just a glass and door is fine overall.