Lag in "off the line" acceleration

[kmporter]

I have had a RWD M3 since Feb 2018. I absolutely love the car. But, over the past 5 months or so, I have noticed an intermittent lag in acceleration when taking off from traffic lights. It was definitely not there for the first 6 months or so.

Basically, when pushing the accelerator (from a stop) fairly aggressively, the car will just roll at about 5 mph for 1-2 seconds before applying the requested power and then accelerating quickly. It does feel artificial, as if the car is limiting the power for some reason. But, then at the next stop, it might accelerate immediately as expected, with no lag. The difference is very noticeable, especially when used to the immediate response. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it, as far as temperature, start of drive, etc.

I admit that I like spirited driving and love to take advantage of the M3 quick acceleration. What concerns me is the problem is very intermittent. I may notice it just a couple times per day. I don' have "chill" mode enabled or anything like that.

I have had service look into it. But, they were not able to reproduce the issue, and had never seen this issue before. I will probably make another appointment as I have seen it more often in the past week. I suspect it might be a bad sensor of some sort that limits the power (i.e. traction control).

Has anyone else encountered this issue before?

 

[diamond.g]

Do you have obstacle aware acceleration turned on?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Do you have obstacle aware acceleration turned on?

Yeah you could temporarily turn that off and see what happens. I’d expect to see a proximity sensor always triggering to see this be an issue though.

I’ve definitely noticed it slow my roll when a motorcycle was very close to the left front of my car.

 

[kmporter]

I am not familiar with this setting. I will have to check it out.

 

[MagnusMako]

I had this happen to me once about a week ago at a stop light and I've had my AWD for 3 months. It was when I had the A/C on which I never do. I pushed down pretty hard and it was like I had 50 hp for about a second and then it took off like normal.

 

[bradhs]

It is obstacle aware acceleration. Turn that off and you can go crazy from a stoplight.

 

[scottf200]

I am not familiar with this setting. I will have to check it out.

Pictured here:

 

[T.Antony]

Hmmm... gonna look into that. For me, I’ve experienced it maybe 2 or 3 times. However, the thing which was consistent was that it was really cold out and I did not warm the battery. Just go go go. Sure enough, it would hesitate for a sec then go.

 

[Magnets!]

How's the tread on your rear tires? Could be a traction control thing....cold tires, less than perfect tires, bad pavement????

Regarding obstacle aware Acceleration....are you guys turning that off. Never had hesitation on my car and I keep OAA active.

 

[Pkmmte]

I've had so many issues with Obstacle Aware Acceleration before it was even a toggle. First thing I did was turn it off when I could.

 

[bredi]

So. what does it do in practice? Not let you accelerate if it senses something? Stop the car?

 

[Pkmmte]

So. what does it do in practice? Not let you accelerate if it senses something? Stop the car?

I'll let you accelerate, just very slowly for a second or two. It's extremely jarring when you're trying to floor it and it ends up accelerating like a Nissan Leaf.

 

[stickman]

I had the same problem and got teased for calling it throttle lag now I just don’t get myself in situations where I need instant acceleration- i.e. pulling out where a second or two of lag will get me in an accident

 

[kmporter]

Thanks! I have turned it off. So far, I have not experienced it since. I feel kind of silly that I didn't even know about it.

 

[diamond.g]

Thanks! I have turned it off. So far, I have not experienced it since. I feel kind of silly that I didn't even know about it.

Tesla trying to help out folks that mistakenly press the accelerator when they meant to press the brake realize their mistake before hitting a wall (or other object). It was in release notes a while back, but that doens't help folks on newer firmware know that.

 

[plumazul]

So. what does it do in practice? Not let you accelerate if it senses something? Stop the car?

During my first year of ownership, I was visiting a farmers market and while exiting their gravel lot trying to make a right turn, my car wouldn't move when I tried to go. My focus was to the left looking for traffic and when I backed up a few feet I noticed a large well camouflaged bolder immediately to the right front of the car. That feature saved me some grief. I would never turn it off.

 

[bredi]

Whoa! I must have missed this in the detailed readme's on software updates.

So instead of crushing something at 30mph, it crushes it a 10mph?
Isn't this the purpose of the automatic braking?
I guess it s a good thing. I too feel silly not knowing about this "feature".

 

[ord3r]

Whoa! I must have missed this in the detailed readme's on software updates.

So instead of crushing something at 30mph, it crushes it a 10mph?
Isn't this the purpose of the automatic braking?
I guess it s a good thing. I too feel silly not knowing about this "feature".

It was more to stop people from driving into buildings like this poor sod:

The acceleration on the performance cars are crazy, and limiting to 10mph can save a lot of damage.

 

[buttershrimp]

Definitely you shouldn't smoke as much weed prior to driving.... it slows acceleration notably.... 0-60 in 5.6 funions

 

[Orizu]

I was about to post having experienced the exact same issue as the original post in the thread on two separate occasions in my Model 3 Performance. However on neither occasion was there anything in front of the car that I might have hit. How far in front of the car does the Obstacle Aware Acceleration look?? It’s a shame I am going to have to turn off a feature that was meant to help with safety. It so fun smoking Porsches off the lights but not cool when it doesn’t work!!!