Headlight out after 5 days

[pgh70D]

I picked up my 70D last Saturday and it is great, but on Friday night driving home from work I noticed that my car icon on the dashboard was only showing one headline illuminated. Sure enough my right headlight is out already. I'm assuming this means that either I got a faulty bulb to begin with or that there is some other issue with the headlight assembly. Fortunately I should be able to get it fixed tomorrow, but I am wondering if anyone else had this happen and if it turned out to be anything more than a bad bulb.

My car also came with a trunk that would not auto close (DS pointed it out to me but I took delivery anyway since it was a 2 hour drive and we have a local service ranger who can take care of most things), so I am becoming slightly paranoid that there are going to be a bunch of little annoying (but hopefully unrelated) things going wrong.

 

[ecarfan]

I picked up my 70D last Saturday and it is great, but on Friday night driving home from work I noticed that my car icon on the dashboard was only showing one headline illuminated. Sure enough my right headlight is out already. I'm assuming this means that either I got a faulty bulb to begin with or that there is some other issue with the headlight assembly.

Thanks for your report of that rare failure case. I'm sure it will be fixed by Tesla in short order.
What interests me is that you were able to easily detect the headlight failure because of the "toy car" graphic in the drivers display. Some have complained about that graphic saying it serves little or no purpose. Well, this post shows one example of its usefulness.

 

[pgh70D]

I agree that it was very useful; in fact I would probably have liked an even more prominent warning that it was out, given that the car is obviously aware of this.

 

[bigmaple1]

Did you try rebooting the main screen and the instrument cluster?

 

[JenniferQ]

I'm also glad to know that the icon is functional. I'd been wondering whether it would show if a light were out or not. Good to hear!

 

[andrewket]

The trunk doesn't close because when you hit the button nothing happens, or it tries but is misaligned and aborts?

 

[pgh70D]

The trunk doesn't close because when you hit the button nothing happens, or it tries but is misaligned and aborts?

It beeps as if there is an obstruction. Our local Tesla Ranger thinks it's probably a pinch strip issue.

Did you try rebooting the main screen and the instrument cluster?

I haven't. It would surprise me if that worked but I supposed I might as well learn how to do it now.

 

[Tdriver]

pgh70D.......you have to think positive. Remember car problems occur on a Bell curve.....a few at new, then a long trouble free life, then some old age problems.
I have been real fortunate, zero problems in 6 months/6000 miles.

 

[pgh70D]

Here's a pic of the toy car as well as the control panel, which also correctly (and more subtly) shows the light not illuminated.

 

[Chris TX]

That's odd. It looks like the right fog isn't illuminated, as well. As someone suggested, rebooting the center stack might take care of this. If not, it could be one of the body modules that controls the lights.

 

[CuriousG]

It beeps as if there is an obstruction. Our local Tesla Ranger thinks it's probably a pinch strip issue.



I haven't. It would surprise me if that worked but I supposed I might as well learn how to do it now.

Coming up to my third week of ownership. I drove my car in the rain and saw how dirty it got so I decided to do a bit of washing. When I did the liftgate, I wiped down the area where the wires in the housing meeting between the liftgate and the body of the car when it is open. I don't remember if I tried to manually shut the liftgate partially but when when I finally pressed the button to close the liftgate it got all the way to the end then beeped and opened back up. I tried moving the wires a little bit thinking it was pinching on close and it still did the same. I then manually closed the liftgate. I was then able to open it back up with the button on the trunk and the other button to close the liftgate. Haven't had a problem since opening and closing.

 

[pgh70D]

That's odd. It looks like the right fog isn't illuminated, as well. As someone suggested, rebooting the center stack might take care of this. If not, it could be one of the body modules that controls the lights.

I did reboot the touch screen but it made no difference. The fog and cornering lights are working fine on both sides. It very well may just be a dead bulb but I guess we will see tomorrow.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

That's really all we get?

No Icon in the instrument cluster? No warning message? No nothing. You just have to notice something not being lit on the screen?

How odd.

HID lights aren't really that easy to diagnose because of what it takes to electrically to drive HID lights. My guess is something in the electronics failed like bad wiring, etc.

As to the car itself I think it's expected to have a few annoying issues with a brand new Tesla. Most of these little gremlins will show up in the first thousand miles or so. I had a few (nothing electrical from what I recall). They were taken care of quickly and easily by the service center, and I haven't had a problem since then.

 

[pgh70D]

Had the bulb replaced today and so far so good. If this one lasts longer than a week then it's probably safe to assume it was just a bad bulb.

 

[CHG-ON]

RE: lots of little problems: I hate to admit it, but I have now stacked up several. Nothing serious. But they are starting to get annoying. Here's the list:

-Air suspension solenoid went out. Car was fine and drivable. But needed to be flat bedded away.
-Improperly torqued seat anchor resulting in super annoying squeak. Send her in.
-Floor vents were blowing ice cold while the heat was on. Still not great after taking her in, though I do get plenty of heat, just not at my feet. They never admitted to anything about the HVAC, saying it was designed that way (BS corporate speak, IMO...). But I have read that they changed it due to the not-so-great original defrost vents by pushing most of the air to the screen to avoid fogging. But...my legs and feet are always cold! WTF? They overreacted.
-Initial rear alignment way out of whack. Went through my Michi PS's in ONLY 9K miles before understanding the problem. They fixed the alignment, but it cost 2Gs to replace the damn tires. I was pissed.
-Pano roof side seal mysteriously got chewed up and needed replacing. I never figured out what happened. Nor did they.
-Got the car back with a terrible job on the front pano seal (not the affected one). Had to send her in again. Did a great job in the end. Actually brought in a glass specialist to reapply it. Pretty impressive, IMO.
-Rear view mirror stopped dimming. Actually paid for a ranger repair for $100. Didn't have the patience to swap cars and had a night time road trip coming up.
-Newest issue: Got some odd black gook on my passenger front window (I've read about it here) and then got an odd grinding noise when raising. Scraped off the gook, tested the window and got a very alarming "clunk/bang" when raising it. So loud that I think something broke. Window is now off... And my steering column is now making a big clunk when turning full lock. Coming from the column, not from rubbing tires. Loose mount? Worrisome. But still drives fine. So now she goes back in again.

These are all small problems (except maybe the window and steering weirdness). But it is inconvenient and annoying.

But I can say, Tesla's service is unbelievably fantastic. They come to wherever I want, pick up the car and give a loaner that is equal to or better.

I knew when I bought the car that I was a relatively early adopter and to expect these kind of issues. But it is still a bit annoying.

But all in all. I am a complete fan of my SC, Tesla Sunnyvale. They are truly amazing.

 

[cwerdna]

Remember car problems occur on a Bell curve.....a few at new, then a long trouble free life, then some old age problems.

They can be that way. They are not ALWAYS that way, unless you have evidence to show us that this is always or almost always the case on a Model S.

(FWIW, long ago, I wish the article hadn't expired off the web site I saw it on (possibly Autoweek), I recall seeing that pre-bankruptcy GM had changed their parts testing procedures to test until part failure until just warranty mileage expiration. It's easy to infer what happens w/the old procedure when the vehicles are in the hands of customers w/the former.)