High Frequency Receiver? Service needed twice within first 2 weeks

[tsw4life]

Last week, after having my model 3 (vin 2629) for only a few days and driving 300 miles, it inexplicably shutdown on the road with errors:

Car Needs Service
Unable to Drive

and

Cannot Maintain 12V Battery Power
Car May Not Drive or May Unexpectedly Shut Down

I ended up having to have it towed to the service center. I got it back 5 days later (it was towed in Saturday afternoon as the service center was shutting down for the weekend, and was further delayed on Monday because the tech that took it in didn't work until Tuesday?!).

Anyway, I got it back last Thursday, and drove it a few more times on short trips. Today, it prompted me to install an update, so I let it proceed. After about 30 minutes or so, I got into the car and it had a message on-screen:

"Update Completed, checking status"

I waited a while, it rebooted a couple times and then that went away, but a new error appeared:

Car Needs Service
Contact Tesla Service

(BTW Tesla, showing a phone number on these screens would be great.)

On the phone with the tech, he says he wants to do a diagnostic and after a few minutes he comes back on and says, is the car parked in a garage by any chance? I said yes, and he says "good, that may explain the issue." He goes on to say the issue is with the "high frequency receiver." I hadn't heard of this before, but the fact that it wasn't working properly while parked in my garage made me think it was related to cell signal or something.

So I asked him, do you mean my cell signal in the garage is too weak? And he sounded a bit confused, but then said yeah, or something to that effect. He also indicated the error would likely go away if I pulled out of the garage and rebooted. (Didn't work.)

I have a service call scheduled for next Thursday, the first available slot. But I was wondering if any of you know anything about the "high frequency receiver" or what me being parked in my garage has to do with it?

 

[tsw4life]

Oh, and here is the result from the initial service call after being towed in:

Concern: Customer: Customer states his vehicle stopped while driving and will now not shift out of park

Corrections: Battery - Auxiliary - 12V
Replaced 12v battery due to being depleted. Verified vehicle is operating as designed.

Parts Replaced or Added
Part Quantity

ASY,12V BATT AND VENT PLUG,M3 1 (1129182-00-A)

ASY,PCS,48A,NA,MDL3 (1067530-00-H) 1

G-48 COOLANT (1029320-00-A) 2 Corrections: Power Conversion System

Removed and replaced Power conversion system due to component bringing down HV CAN bus system. After replacement. Performed multiple test drive quality checks and confirmed that vehicle is operating as designed after repairs.

 

[tpatana]

It needs to be outside so it can connect to the secret Tesla satellite to upload the HypnoElon feature.

I work wireless stuff, and I have no clue what the "high frequency receiver" could be that affects that way. In theory, if update comes over cell signal instead of wifi (I don't know how Tesla does it), and your garage is at weak signal spot it could have problems receiving the update. But then it should say update failed or something. Sounds baloney to me.

 

[bedoig]

Wouldn't high frequency receiver imply the ultrasonic parking sensors?

 

[N5329K]

Oh, and here is the result from the initial service call after being towed in:

Concern: Customer: Customer states his vehicle stopped while driving and will now not shift out of park

Corrections: Battery - Auxiliary - 12V
Replaced 12v battery due to being depleted. Verified vehicle is operating as designed.

Parts Replaced or Added
Part Quantity

ASY,12V BATT AND VENT PLUG,M3 1 (1129182-00-A)

ASY,PCS,48A,NA,MDL3 (1067530-00-H) 1

G-48 COOLANT (1029320-00-A) 2 Corrections: Power Conversion System

Removed and replaced Power conversion system due to component bringing down HV CAN bus system. After replacement. Performed multiple test drive quality checks and confirmed that vehicle is operating as designed after repairs.

I had two similar faults in my Gen 1 Prius. The aux battery died after eleven years on the job, and the inverter coolant pump failed after fourteen years and 196,000 miles.
Robin

 

[whitex]

Wouldn't high frequency receiver imply the ultrasonic parking sensors?

Ultrasonics are low frequencies compared to almost any other in the car (the slow CAN bus transmit faster). The highest frequency receiver on a Tesla is the radar receiver in the front. Then cell phones and GPS (intermixed, depending on which generation).

"high frequency receiver" could also be a fancy code name for "we have no clue but let the customer think we do".

 

[Jason S]

If the whatever-it-is malfunctions and continually draws from the 12V battery then the battery dies. Over and over. So they need to fix the whatever-it-is.

 

[Twiglett]

one of those times when knowing the name doesn't help the understanding

 

[vinnie97]

This is what scares me, especially since I'm 2 hours from any service center.

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

I had two similar faults in my Gen 1 Prius. The aux battery died after eleven years on the job, and the inverter coolant pump failed after fourteen years and 196,000 miles.
Robin

If only Tesla cars had problems at 196,000 miles, rather than 196 miles

 

[smak]

If the whatever-it-is malfunctions and continually draws from the 12V battery then the battery dies. Over and over. So they need to fix the whatever-it-is.

I had a problem like this on my Fusion Energi, where certain charging plugs if taken off awkwardly would make the car still think it was plugged in, and then would slowly kill the 12v battery until it died.

Which happened multiple times, what a pain.

 

[Chewy3]

Very possible he meant High Frequency Converter - which i'm fairly certain are in Teslas

 

[KeithE]

One thing I learned about the 3 that is different from the S is there is no WiFi yet enabled for home connectivity when in a garage so that could be it. If you have a weak 4g signal at home any update of stream to the car can have issues connecting. I noticed this when i picked up my 3 2 weeks ago. We had issues getting the FM radio to work because the car was connected to the tesla WiFi in the delivery center. ( tech enabled it for service so far but not home). I assume will get updated eventually. Overall my experience has been great and I prefer my 3 to my 5 year old S. Tesla service is fantastic and will resolve almost every possible issue they can figure out and if they can’t they will do there best to make you happy if it’s somethinf minor. For Instance my only issue is that Bloomberg tunein app won’t load and there is no a.m. radio. It’s small issue so I’m not complaining. The 3 is amazing!