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Model 3 Freak Out

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Greetings from Tampa Bay

My wife and I finally took delivery of our Model 3 on February 10th at our local Service Center in Tampa and boy were we excited. The car has everything, looks, functionality, and it even fits our 6 month olds car seat so well I'm not crunched for room in either the driver or passenger seat and I'm 6'2". We drove it to dinner and decided we'd take the 3 for a real drive Sunday to test it properly. We drove to Orlando to see our friends and visit Disney World, no issues, even got front row EV parking without having to charge, and had dinner.

Here's where things go off the rails

On our way back to their apartment the car starts flashing multiple cautions and warnings like "Emergency Braking Not Available" "Exiting and Reentering the Car May Fix Problem" and "Low Power' even though it had plenty of battery. We stopped at a light and it refused to budge, so we placed it in Park and then Drive and it responded. Luckily their place was right around the corner, we parked it and called Tesla Support. Bryan helped us reboot the car but nothing seemed to get it out of its funk. I got in and drove around the lot with him on the phone and everything miraculously cleared up, no problems. We were able to make it home and had an appointment with Tesla to replace the 12V battery in it.

All of Monday just using it around town, no problems. Responsive, everything worked, except the FM radio but I can live without that. Tesla replaced the battery and we took possession once again.

Tuesday my wife drove it to St. Pete, where she works, and reported no issues on the way there and going to lunch. 5pm I get a call, the 3 wont start, no AC, and were getting the same warnings and the screen is flashing every alarm across the top and even saying "DO NOT DRIVE" On the Phone with Tesla Support again and this time they call a Lyft for her and summon a Tow Truck to haul it back to the SC and it's been there ever since.

No one can seem to replicate the issues we've had, I haven't even seen anything remotely similar on here or the official Tesla Forum. There's a YouTube Video of something like our issue but still not checking the same boxes. Diag after Diag and no reason behind it.

Has ANYONE had similar issues?
 
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There have been a couple cases of 12V problems that are apparently caused by firmware not managing the DC-DC converter properly. A low 12V can lead to lots of weird errors that later can't be found. But I'm just guessing here.

Another common cause for bizarre errors that come and go is an intermittent weak ground (not aware of a history of this with the 3 - just in general.)
 
Thank you for the feedback, I guessed it may be firmware too, they installed and update to it on Wednesday and there seem to be no issues so far. 12V battery issues were seen on the S and it could carry over, but since they replaced it I wonder how common it would be to see an second battery have the same issues.

Meanwhile we get to drive a 100D so there's that...
 
Sorry about your issue but glad to see you joined (maybe as a result?--Welcome btw) and are sharing your experience. Please let us know how it's doing down the road. Always helps to learn from others but not always nice to be on the telling end. What color did you decide on? (maybe add to your signature when you get a chance).
 
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We decided on a Red one, best decision ever, it looks so great on that car. I joined prior to pick up, not many 3's in Florida or on the EC in general, so hopefully I could read up on any issues or tips and tricks, with this being our first Tesla. I'll add a signature soon, I think I read 6 posts and you can add one somewhere on here.
 
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Ah MCR! I had my heart set on a white until I started seeing pics of the red. I decided to wait for AWD so still,haven't had to make a final decision. I joined before our MS arrrived and for the same reason as you joined. In fact we had a really deep sleeping car the other day first time ever and came here to search while husband waited on phone for quite sometime for CS. Got the same answer from both.
 
even got front row EV parking without having to charge, and had dinner.
Was that EV parking with a charger? Sure hope you didn't block a charger for someone who needed to charge. I've never understood the need to have privileged EV parking. Just causes problems with ICE blocking chargers. EVs with 80 mile range often desperately need a charge to travel.
 
Was that EV parking with a charger? Sure hope you didn't block a charger for someone who needed to charge. I've never understood the need to have privileged EV parking. Just causes problems with ICE blocking chargers. EVs with 80 mile range often desperately need a charge to travel.

The reason EV charging spaces are usually "privileged" is simple logistics. Except for the rare case where the power comes from the side of the building that the parking lot is on, they have to run the power cable from the building. The further they run it, the more expensive it is. So the installation would cost hundreds or thousands of dollars more if they did it at the back corner of the lot instead of right in front of the store.
 
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Thank you for the feedback, I guessed it may be firmware too, they installed and update to it on Wednesday and there seem to be no issues so far. 12V battery issues were seen on the S and it could carry over, but since they replaced it I wonder how common it would be to see an second battery have the same issues.

Meanwhile we get to drive a 100D so there's that...
Welcome to the forum.

It may not be the 12V battery itself. There does appear to be an issue with certain versions of the firmware that may cause the DC->DC charging to not work correctly. @MarkS22 has been working through this currently on this thread: Tesla Model 3 Down: Won't Power Up, and is Inaccessible

Iirc Mark was on 2017.50.13, and his SC has now updated him to 2018.4.6 and is being tested to ensure this addresses the issue. You may wish to watch that thread for resolution, and maybe reach out to your SC and have them reach out to Mark’s SC to see if related.

Hope this helps and keep us informed
 
UPDATE

We took posession of the car today and things appear to be normal. They isolated it to a bad wiring harness in the right front and had to order a new part from Fremont and rewire the section. They performed extensive testing while they had it and everything seems to be in order. I will keep y’all updated but all in all it feels good to have the car back. Pictures to come as well
 
Was that EV parking with a charger? Sure hope you didn't block a charger for someone who needed to charge. I've never understood the need to have privileged EV parking. Just causes problems with ICE blocking chargers. EVs with 80 mile range often desperately need a charge to travel.
They only have 4 blocks of chargers at Magic Kingdom anyway and all were taken, by Leafs. There were other Tesla’s in the area but parking in regular spots, got a lot of questions about the car once we got out lol.
 
UPDATE

We took posession of the car today and things appear to be normal. They isolated it to a bad wiring harness in the right front and had to order a new part from Fremont and rewire the section. They performed extensive testing while they had it and everything seems to be in order. I will keep y’all updated but all in all it feels good to have the car back. Pictures to come as well
Great to hear it’s resolved. Did they also update the firmware?
 
Perhaps a dumb question - coming from a 3 reservation holder, never been in an S or X other than showroom. I've heard multiple stories about how the service center updated the firmware. Doesn't that update as part of the OTA updates? I assume there is a firmware and a software component, and mostly the OTA is the software, but I would expect it would push out occasional firmware updates too. Or is the only way to get them by going to a SC?
 
firmware and a software component
Just one package, called firmware around here. Small point tests and trials are sent to some cars and then eventually there is a widespread rollout. Download happens in the background then update happens when triggered from the touchscreen. Service center push upgrades are done to try to fix a problem. They used to happen automatically when connected to SC networks but no longer. Maps are a separate download that do not require user input to initiate and are not versioned in the user interface .
 
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Perhaps a dumb question ... I've heard multiple stories about how the service center updated the firmware. Doesn't that update as part of the OTA updates?"

The short answer is that 'firmware' is a broad term. As the name implies, it covers a grey area between hardware and software, but not all firmware is created equal. Some are much 'firmer' than others.

For example, on your PC, a lot of the 'firmware' is like the driver for your video card. It can get pushed to you in the background, while you are reading this, and it will just magically appear next time you reboot.

Lower level stuff, like the BIOS, only gets updated when you follow an explicit manual procedure.

But there is a ton of even *lower* level stuff that You/Dell/Microsoft can't touch. Your hard disk has its own dedicated microcontroller, but Western Digital doesn't want anyone messing with it. It's better for them and us, if the rest of the world sees their hard disk as just a little box of magic that stores files.

My guess is "keeping the 12v supply running" is more like a hard disk than a video driver.

In any case, that wasn't even the problem! They traced it to a flaky connection in a wiring harness.

This example makes the case for encapsulating very low level code. If the service techs didn't know the DC-DC converter had firmware, they wouldn't have messed with it.... and they would have found the flaky cable faster.
 
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