Model 3 losing charge quickly

[KL670]

Hi,
My wife and I have 2 model 3's bought 3 months apart, in Jan 2018 and April 2018. I've noticed that her car keeps her charge quite a lot better than mine. For example, I charged mine 2 nights ago up to 272 miles at 90%, and I drove 55 miles yesterday. Today when I checked just now, it's now down to 198 miles. It's about 50 degrees where live and I DO NOT drive aggressively. In the meantime, wifey's car would normally hold its charge up to 95% or so. For example, she'd charge up to 272 miles and drive 70 miles and the following day, it would still have 200 miles left. Our life time energy usage is very similar as well 230 vs 233, so I don't think our cars are driven differently at all.

Also, I noticed today in the garage that my car doesn't really go to "sleep". I was playing with the kids out in the driveway and I walked by the car it'd make this humming noise under the hood. I checked it about 7-8 times in a matter of an hour and it had that noise every single time. Does that mean my car just doesn't sleep at all? If so, is there a way to make it sleep? Thanks.

 

[jjrandorin]

If your car isnt sleeping, and your wifes is, that would explain that. There are some reasons why your car wont sleep, but start with ensuring you have no third party apps of any kind at all (teslafi, stats, tesla watch apps, etc) nothing at all but the tesla official app. If you ever even once installed one of those apps, change the password on your tesla account.

Re test, and see if the drain is gone.

Make sure you dont have sentry mode on. Sometimes people turn on sentry mode except at home, but the car turns sentry on at home anyway. Sentry mode uses 1-2 miles of range per hour (yes, thats not a typo, its 24-48 miles range per full day).

Turn off summon standby, which uses about as much range as sentry mode.

Start with those and see if it improves for your vehicle. There is likely something setup different between your car and hers.

 

[KL670]

Thanks for your suggestions which I also was aware of before. The only app I have on is the Iphone Tesla app and I've sentry off as well as summon standby off. In fact, I just checked and I didn't hear any more humming in the car. So does that mean mine just doesn't sleep as much? Are there other things I can do to make it sleep more? I know I'm sounding like a father trying to put a kid to bed......................

 

[f308gt4]

Do you check your app often? That may contribute to keeping the car awake.

 

[justsomeguy]

It's 50 degrees out, what do you set your cabin temp to?
If you're using the heat, using 74 rated miles for 55 miles of driving is not unheard of.

 

[KL670]

Not much at all. I never really check it. One thing I can think of is we let the cars lock even in the garage. I know there're people who leave their cars unlocked when they're home. But again, both of our cars are treated the same way. It shouldn't be different.

 

[Rippin1Gear]

It’s not just you! Our 18 LR usually is about 5-6% usage a day to and from work total of 10-12%... left today at 77% and down to 58%, on version 48.10

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

So does that mean mine just doesn't sleep as much? Are there other things I can do to make it sleep more?

As @jjrandorin suggested, if you've used ABRP, or any third party app at any time in the past, definitely change your password. It sounds like you haven't, so let's assume this is not the problem. But if it is, change your password and relink the Tesla app.

The only way I know of to monitor sleep is to get a 12V battery monitor - that makes it pretty easy to see when the car is sleeping. You can't use an app to monitor sleep since it will affect sleep.

If this is purely an issue of "vampire drain," (from your OP, it's actually not clear that it is - you need to be careful to distinguish between losses in park and losses while driving) there are a number of things that can cause it:
1) Cabin overheat protection (for 10-12 hours after driving only). Unlikely this time of year.
2) Sentry mode.
3) Bad wifi/ constantly trying to get an update. If you've got an update recently this is probably not the issue.
4) Bad 12V battery (???). If it's constantly having to top up the 12V battery because it is leaking down (in general it does have to do this, even on a perfectly operating car, but usually only for a couple hours in each 24 hour period), then that would increase time spent in idle mode beyond the normal ~2 hours per day.

If none of those things are an issue, the car should sleep fine.

Another issue that has been reported (it's a rare issue) is a weird issue where the rated range decays rapidly after parking at some SoCs, and then rapidly increases when parked at other SoCs. This is perhaps a battery balancing issue - you can look for @insaneoctane's posts on this for more details. As I said, it's rare. I don't know whether this change occurs when the car is generally idle or sleeping (we never asked in his threads) - that would narrow it down to a balance issue if it happens when the car is sleeping.

Here's a battery monitor (I have this one and a cheaper version, both seem to work identically and even use the same app). There are more expensive and less expensive versions, many using the same app. The more expensive update to this one seems to just be clamp on, which is weird. But it seems like it may have more features.

https://www.amazon.com/ANCEL-BM300-...3&sr=1-2-5e875a02-02b1-4426-9916-8a5c26cd5a14

You could connect (or clamp) this on your car for a week or two (it's easy to install and you can do it without disconnecting the 12V battery, if you're careful), get to know the patterns and what they mean, then transfer it to the wife's car and compare (it's pretty obvious after a while - there's a high charging voltage (14.1V) - idle mode, a maintain voltage (~13.4V?) - idle mode, and a decaying period which corresponds to sleep mode (from ~13.5V down to about 12.8V, where the 12V recharge procedure is triggered). You'll see these voltages at different times and it's really easy to see when the car is asleep. Or you can get two of them and not have to worry about the hassle of switching between cars (the app will support two monitors, assign a unique name to them, and store data from them independently, though it is slightly buggy).

FYI: The monitor only draws 1-1.5mA so the drain on the battery is nothing to worry about. It's dwarfed by the Tesla's normal drain (which is ~300x higher in sleep mode, and about 10000x higher in idle mode - though in idle mode that current is not coming from the 12V battery of course).

 

[Raechris]

A lot of good ideas here but also make sure cabin overheat or HVAC isn't set to camp, always connected is off. I would ensure your two car settings matched exactly. Maybe your car was up/downloading when you noticed the big drop. I use TeslaFi and it helps show sleep wake patterns. Phantom drain has been a lot better recently then the last three years so something is going on with your car. Curious

 

[KenC]

Okay no 3rd party phone apps, how about Watch apps? I know Watch for Tesla has a setting on it, to wake the car less; otherwise, it wakes the car once an hour.

If you can't figure out anything else; swap cars for a month.

 

[Biscuitman]

Hi,
My wife and I have 2 model 3's bought 3 months apart, in Jan 2018 and April 2018. I've noticed that her car keeps her charge quite a lot better than mine. For example, I charged mine 2 nights ago up to 272 miles at 90%, and I drove 55 miles yesterday. Today when I checked just now, it's now down to 198 miles. It's about 50 degrees where live and I DO NOT drive aggressively. In the meantime, wifey's car would normally hold its charge up to 95% or so. For example, she'd charge up to 272 miles and drive 70 miles and the following day, it would still have 200 miles left. Our life time energy usage is very similar as well 230 vs 233, so I don't think our cars are driven differently at all.

Also, I noticed today in the garage that my car doesn't really go to "sleep". I was playing with the kids out in the driveway and I walked by the car it'd make this humming noise under the hood. I checked it about 7-8 times in a matter of an hour and it had that noise every single time. Does that mean my car just doesn't sleep at all? If so, is there a way to make it sleep? Thanks.

If you didn’t have 2 Tesla’s you would never notice an issue.. lucky you to have this problem

 

[KL670]

Thanks for taking the time for this crazy thorough reply. I'm a bit of a dinosaur; ironic I know, with 2 Tesla's. But the short answer is my car is having more vampire drain than my wife's, period. We drively non-aggressively. Our settings are identical. No additional apps. No Apple watch or anything associated with the car. I know if I bring it to Tesla's attention, they'll say it's within normal limits.

As @jjrandorin suggested, if you've used ABRP, or any third party app at any time in the past, definitely change your password. It sounds like you haven't, so let's assume this is not the problem. But if it is, change your password and relink the Tesla app.

The only way I know of to monitor sleep is to get a 12V battery monitor - that makes it pretty easy to see when the car is sleeping. You can't use an app to monitor sleep since it will affect sleep.

If this is purely an issue of "vampire drain," (from your OP, it's actually not clear that it is - you need to be careful to distinguish between losses in park and losses while driving) there are a number of things that can cause it:
1) Cabin overheat protection (for 10-12 hours after driving only). Unlikely this time of year.
2) Sentry mode.
3) Bad wifi/ constantly trying to get an update. If you've got an update recently this is probably not the issue.
4) Bad 12V battery (???). If it's constantly having to top up the 12V battery because it is leaking down (in general it does have to do this, even on a perfectly operating car, but usually only for a couple hours in each 24 hour period), then that would increase time spent in idle mode beyond the normal ~2 hours per day.

If none of those things are an issue, the car should sleep fine.

Another issue that has been reported (it's a rare issue) is a weird issue where the rated range decays rapidly after parking at some SoCs, and then rapidly increases when parked at other SoCs. This is perhaps a battery balancing issue - you can look for @insaneoctane's posts on this for more details. As I said, it's rare. I don't know whether this change occurs when the car is generally idle or sleeping (we never asked in his threads) - that would narrow it down to a balance issue if it happens when the car is sleeping.

Here's a battery monitor (I have this one and a cheaper version, both seem to work identically and even use the same app). There are more expensive and less expensive versions, many using the same app. The more expensive update to this one seems to just be clamp on, which is weird. But it seems like it may have more features.

https://www.amazon.com/ANCEL-BM300-...3&sr=1-2-5e875a02-02b1-4426-9916-8a5c26cd5a14

You could connect (or clamp) this on your car for a week or two (it's easy to install and you can do it without disconnecting the 12V battery, if you're careful), get to know the patterns and what they mean, then transfer it to the wife's car and compare (it's pretty obvious after a while - there's a high charging voltage (14.1V) - idle mode, a maintain voltage (~13.4V?) - idle mode, and a decaying period which corresponds to sleep mode (from ~13.5V down to about 12.8V, where the 12V recharge procedure is triggered). You'll see these voltages at different times and it's really easy to see when the car is asleep. Or you can get two of them and not have to worry about the hassle of switching between cars (the app will support two monitors, assign a unique name to them, and store data from them independently, though it is slightly buggy).

FYI: The monitor only draws 1-1.5mA so the drain on the battery is nothing to worry about. It's dwarfed by the Tesla's normal drain (which is ~300x higher in sleep mode, and about 10000x higher in idle mode - though in idle mode that current is not coming from the 12V battery of course).

 

[KL670]

Okay no 3rd party phone apps, how about Watch apps? I know Watch for Tesla has a setting on it, to wake the car less; otherwise, it wakes the car once an hour.

If you can't figure out anything else; swap cars for a month.

Truth is we swap our cars regularly already. No watch apps either.

 

[KL670]

If you didn’t have 2 Tesla’s you would never notice an issue.. lucky you to have this problem

That might actually be the best solution: get rid of it

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

But the short answer is my car is having more vampire drain than my wife's, period.

Cool. Well, now you know how to figure out what is happening. Unless the HV battery has an internal short (better hope not, lol), the only explanation, assuming everything else mentioned has been addressed, is that your car is not sleeping enough. It consumes ~5W in sleep mode and ~150-200W in idle. In general, in most cases, the only reason the car wakes up is because you wake it up via an action, or it wakes up on its own because the 12V battery voltage has dropped below about 12.8V (due to the 5W of constant drain). (BTW, leaving the car plugged in or not makes very little difference to this sleep/idle behavior - only difference is that it will top up from the wall when needed.)

This is all visible from the battery monitor. If you do set it up, feel free to post screen captures and it should be possible to compare to other owners.

 

[jjrandorin]

If everything is identical, and both cars are 2018 model year, then It could be the other thing that @AlanSubie4Life suggested, which is the 12V battery starting to go out on your car and not your wifes.

I have had my car 2 years and a few days as of today, and am thinking of simply paying tesla to replace the 12V battery. Its <150, so buying the third party ones they would have to last 3 times as long since they cost 3 times as much. I dont care about saving weight on the battery (in the scheme of the weight of the car, it doesnt matter to me).

Only thing is, if it fails I can get tesla to cover it under warranty but if i have it replaced on my own I will have to pay. I dont feel like doing it myself, and a battery for $150 sounds really (really) cheap to me, after almost 18 years of BMW batteries and their high cost ( and programming).

In any case, that could be it, if you are convinced it is not any of the other things mentioned.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

a battery for $150 sounds really (really) cheap

Even better: It's only $85 if you purchase it. Personally I'll probably replace mine if I go on a winter road trip any time soon. Seems unlikely with the way things are going though.

 

[jjrandorin]

Even better: It's only $85 if you purchase it. Personally I'll probably replace mine if I go on a winter road trip any time soon. Seems unlikely with the way things are going though.

I wouldnt put it in myself... its worth the extra for me to have them put it in. Im considering making a mobile ranger appointment for it. Yeah I know thats somewhat lazy, but shrug. I dont enjoy working on cars at all, even simple stuff, other than filling tires with air, or possibly swapping tires.

 

[brkaus]

That might actually be the best solution: get rid of it

nope. Best solution is get a 3rd. That way if you get the same response from 2 of 3 you know those are righ.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I wouldnt put it in myself... its worth the extra for me to have them put it in. Im considering making a mobile ranger appointment for it. Yeah I know thats somewhat lazy, but shrug. I dont enjoy working on cars at all, even simple stuff, other than filling tires with air, or possibly swapping tires.

Sure. Either $125 or $129 installed as I recall. Posted around here somewhere. It's easier to do than swapping tires (imo). But certainly that price is very reasonable, as long as you don't have to leave your house! (Makes the price delta of $85/$125 effectively less because for $85 you have to leave your house and go to the service center, unless you happen to convince them to drop one off while they're doing some other service on the vehicle.)