Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Major connectivity issues with Highand Model 3 Performance - LTE, Bluetooth and Wifi not working

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
We picked up our Highland M3P in early June. Since the drive home we started having issues with connectivity. The first sign of issues was the bluetooth disconnecting on the drive home, but it reconnected soon enough we didn't think anything of it. As we drove more over the coming days we noticed that bluetooth and LTE drop at the same time, and when this happens Wifi is also not available. It seems to happen at random times, both driving and while parked. Often we'll try to connect to the car to pre-condition or check sentry and it never connects - when we get in the car physically, there is no network, bluetooth or wifi. Then it will eventually come back. Consistently when we start driving the bluetooth, LTE and wifi all cut out without a few minutes and generally does not return for the entire drive.

After 3 weeks of Tesla "remotely diagnosing" they finally gave us a service appointment of August 13th (we got the appointment assigned on June 27th). After some polite motivation I got them to bring my appointment in because so many core features of my brand new car are not working. We took it in this past Wednesday and they claim they couldn't replicate the issue, but they replaced the TCU anyway and said they fixed it. We were able to connect intermittently for the remainder of the week but Sunday when we went to pick up the car from Tesla we could not connect for 3 hours leading up to our arrival, and sure enough no LTE, Bluetooth or Wifi when we got in the car.

Thus far we have tried
- Scroll wheel reset
- Full power down of car, wait 5 minutes, restart
- Service mode, re-install current firmware
- Tesla service replaced TCU

None of these have made any difference, the internet, bluetooth and wifi continue to cut out consistently and maybe work 10% of the time.

Tesla is now saying that it is a known issue with firmware and there is no fix, and there is no ETA for a fix - completely unacceptable to have so many core functions of the car broken with no fix and no ETA for a fix.

Has anybody had a similar issue, and if so how was it resolved? I've seen some people saying their LTE stopped working but they were able to use internet through their phone so bluetooth was still working - not our issue.

Thanks for any help
 
Yup, I had that. It was the MCU and it took almost a year to get them to replace it. I suggest that you log a service request each time this happens and state the date and time of the occurrence. That way, they know where to look for in the diagnostic logs.
Is the mcu the same as the TCU? Telematics control unit? They said they found no issue with mine but replaced the TCU anyway. Didn't fix the issue. Now they're saying it's a known firmware issue impacting only highland model 3s. And they have no fix or Eta for a fix.
 
Is the mcu the same as the TCU? Telematics control unit? They said they found no issue with mine but replaced the TCU anyway. Didn't fix the issue. Now they're saying it's a known firmware issue impacting only highland model 3s. And they have no fix or Eta for a fix.
I'm having this issue right now on my Highland Model 3 Performance, where we have "No Connectivity", with no Wi-Fi and no Bluetooth. Forced MCU reboots don't fix it. The car has been working perfectly fine since we got it in mid-June but started having this issue last Friday, July 19, 2024. Initially thought it might have been related to the whole Crowdstrike blue-screening Microsoft Windows IT fiasco, but our other two Teslas (Model X's) are operating fine. I originally thought TCU might have failed, but now with these posts here I'm not so sure, and wonder if the problem might be due to the most recent software/firmware update. I have a service appointment scheduled next week to take a look at it, but out of curiosity, what firmware version is the problem car currently on? Ours is currently on firmware v12 (2024.15.15) on FSD v12.4.3 and wonder if there is a correlation.
 
I'm having this issue right now on my Highland Model 3 Performance, where we have "No Connectivity", with no Wi-Fi and no Bluetooth. Forced MCU reboots don't fix it. The car has been working perfectly fine since we got it in mid-June but started having this issue last Friday, July 19, 2024. Initially thought it might have been related to the whole Crowdstrike blue-screening Microsoft Windows IT fiasco, but our other two Teslas (Model X's) are operating fine. I originally thought TCU might have failed, but now with these posts here I'm not so sure, and wonder if the problem might be due to the most recent software/firmware update. I have a service appointment scheduled next week to take a look at it, but out of curiosity, what firmware version is the problem car currently on? Ours is currently on firmware v12 (2024.15.15) on FSD v12.4.3 and wonder if there is a correlation.
I'm having the same issue as well. Network started connecting slowly, but connected. Today I've lost both network and bluetooth. Come to think of it, it all started after the firmware upgrade this weekend to 2024.20.9
 
Anyone have an update on this? Took a 3 hour round trip today and lost connectivity in the first 5 minutes. It was a long drive. Had 3 straight days this week with no issue and thought it was resolved. I have an appointment in a few weeks, but this is painful and frankly dangerous if I can't use the bluetooth for calls.
 
I'm having this exactly same issue on my M3 Highland, less than 1 month old. Extremely intermittent Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity regardless of how many times I unpair, re-pair, reboot, power off, etc. on both my Android phone and my wife's iPhone. It'll work for 3 days straight, then completely implode for a week.

This is either an antenna problem, or a software bug / driver issue / inability to properly reset their adapters.

I did notice that after the first FSD update (there were two back to back recently), that I had consistent bluetooth connectivity for a few days. The second update appeared to have broken whatever was fixed assuming there were some bug fixes bundled in with the first update. Coincidence perhaps.

Vehicle is currently running 2024.21.5

Zero issues using my phone as a key.

Pretty pathetic that a base model Kia Rio from 2012 likely has more reliable bluetooth connectivity than the current model year M3.
 
I'm not able to dig right now, and it's a difficult topic to pinpoint with the search feature, but there was either another thread or a post within a thread that identified this issue as a loose connection in a wire bundle that was pretty easily fixed. I wish I could provide more info, but maybe someone will have luck finding it.
 
Anybody got some hard data on signal strength of any of these protocols? I know on my Android phone I can easily get apps to show Wifi data, and Bluetooth should also be available. I'm trying to reason out why these problems might be occurring, though it does seem mostly like a hardware issue.

But... it would be nice to know that when the problem occurs, you don't actually see a Wifi signal, or you see it at a very low signal strength. Same with Bluetooth. After all, if the signal strength is good, it's probably a software issue. If signal just disappears, could be hardware. Could even possibly be something as simple as the antenna leads not being connected to the wifi/bluetooth chip.

Another (remote) possibility is signal interference from something, though that hardly seems likely if this is happening to more than one or two people.