Model S Technical / Mechanical Issues

[dtich]

I'm not being silly, they had to replace my whole charge unit because I was having problems with the charge port not opening. There are actual problems, but at least Tesla is correcting them.

of course, that's why i said most.... which i think is entirely accurate.


ps - not being snarky at all, just clarifying my intention.

 

[FlasherZ]

Anybody had issues with the scroll wheels on the steering wheel not being able to select different content for display in the instrument panel? I'm stuck with the cover art on the left, and energy meter on the right. If I press and roll the wheels, I can see the other options, but the do not move or come into focus. I've tried rebooting the screen.

Did you reboot the center screen, or the "instrument cluster", or both? You reboot the speedometer display by holding the top two buttons (above the scroll buttons) for 10 seconds, until it blanks.

 

[pete8314]

Did you reboot the center screen, or the "instrument cluster", or both? You reboot the speedometer display by holding the top two buttons (above the scroll buttons) for 10 seconds, until it blanks.

I've tried various combinations of reboots for both screens. At first there was nothing appearing on the left side apart from the volume control pop up, but a reboot at least got the album art there, but didn't fix the ability to change anything. I've let my service center know, they seem fairly baffled by it too. Not a big deal though.

 

[scriptacus]

Pixel problem on instrument cluster.

Can you be more specific? Do you mean dead pixel(s), stuck pixel(s)... ?

 

[jhs_7645]

Anybody had issues with the scroll wheels on the steering wheel not being able to select different content for display in the instrument panel? I'm stuck with the cover art on the left, and energy meter on the right. If I press and roll the wheels, I can see the other options, but the do not move or come into focus. I've tried rebooting the screen.

It's a press and hold to bring up the UI to change the content, then scroll to choose the content.

 

[GeekGirls]

It's a press and hold to bring up the UI to change the content, then scroll to choose the content.

... and then another click to actually select the content you've scrolled to. If you simply scroll through items and take no further action I believe it reverts to your prior setting after a brief period of inactivity.

 

[pete8314]

... and then another click to actually select the content you've scrolled to. If you simply scroll through items and take no further action I believe it reverts to your prior setting after a brief period of inactivity.

Yeah, I got that. The images do not actually scroll, I can just see them slightly faded in the top and bottom of the window.

 

[jhs_7645]

Yeah, I got that. The images do not actually scroll, I can just see them slightly faded in the top and bottom of the window.

A video of the problem might do wonders here.

 

[STARR X]

My charger, which is a silver rectangular box underneath the back seat was bad. Tesla picked up my car, replaced it and returned my car. I was without my car for 8 days but it is running like a charm now. Very happy with their customer service.

 

[kinddog]

It seems to me that many of the problems seen in both delivery and build quality came at the end of the year when Tesla wanted to get as many cars out the door as possible.
Maybe it is my false perception, but there seem to be less problems mentioned on the forums with more recently delivered cars.

correctamundo.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Coming up on 4 weeks now on my 2013 Model S and still zero problems.

 

[fluxemag]

I think it's very encouraging to see how much this thread has slowed down despite there being way more cars on the road.

 

[dlmorgan999]

I can attest that since I got my car back from repair I've not had a single problem. Additionally, the 4.2 firmware seems to be very stable.

 

[ckessel]

Sigh, rolled down my passenger window today on the freeway a bit, then back up and now it's generating tons of wind noise at 50+ mph. I opened and gave it a firm shut when I got to work, we'll see if that helps on the way home.

 

[lolachampcar]

One week, 700 miles and only the following small problems-

Front passenger door needs a little more force to close than the other three -- Tesla service says do not pull out the drain plug as the SRS Airbag system needs to see pressure rise during door crush to properly deploy. Tesla service will adjust when they next see the car.

Frunk has lifted a small amount on the right leading edge. Service will adjust at some point in the future when they see the car.

Rear tires are wearing on the inside edge. Cause is large negative camber used to control throttle off oversteer and decrease rolling resistance. This is common in BMW and Porsche. Tesla is providing alignment specs and the car is going to an alignment rack to see if we can get the rears from -1.75ish degrees negative to something more like -1 to -0.9. For reference, the rears measure 0.280", 0.270", 0.210" across both tires with the 0.210 being the inside edge.

So far, my MS has been one of the best cars I have purchased when it comes to initial quality.

 

[ChadS]

Yesterday, my wife came home (in the Roadster) and said she noticed the Model S hatch was open as she drove in. And I just went out in the garage, and noticed the hatch was open again.

A week or two later, the weirdness continued. The hatch opened two more times, the windows rolled down twice, and the car unlocked itself once - all within the space of a few days. And always in the garage.

I noticed that all of these are things that you can control from the key fobs, which we store not far away. I did verify that while the fobs were far enough away that the car stayed locked even if I pressed on the door handles, the fobs were close enough that if I pressed a fob button, the car would obey. But why would the fobs send random messages? We tried moving the fobs far away for a couple of weeks, and sure enough none of this happened.

But while we were still storing the fobs away from the car, we started getting "key fob battery low" error messages when we drove the car. So I replaced both fob batteries, and stored the fobs back near the car.

The good news:
1. The problem has not happened since
2. If this really was the problem, it was only a risk in the garage. (It wouldn't have opened the hatch at a grocery store, because the fob would be too far away)
3. Tesla replaces fob batteries at the yearly service, and generally the batteries should live much longer than that (see next item), so most people shouldn't see this

Questions I still have:
1. Why did the fob battery die after only 4 months? Tesla says early cars (ours is VIN 112) had the fobs stored inside for transport, which apparently uses a lot of fob battery. They now transport the fobs separately.
2. Why would a dying fob battery send random signals? You'd think if the battery was weak, it would just sit there quietly.
3. How can I be sure I have fixed the problem? It took months to show up at all, and then didn't happen for a couple of weeks at a time. I'd feel better if I knew the answer to #2, but all in all I think this was very likely the issue.

 

[JRP3]

Maybe the fob needs an off switch.

 

[jerry33]

1. Why did the fob battery die after only 4 months? Tesla says early cars (ours is VIN 112) had the fobs stored inside for transport, which apparently uses a lot of fob battery. They now transport the fobs separately.

If the fob is stored close to the car, then it's always on. There is a bit about this in the NCF manual of the Prius, so it's not just a Model S thing.

2. Why would a dying fob battery send random signals? You'd think if the battery was weak, it would just sit there quietly.

Varying levels of RF interference. Sometimes the signal will appear stronger than others.

3. How can I be sure I have fixed the problem? It took months to show up at all, and then didn't happen for a couple of weeks at a time. I'd feel better if I knew the answer to #2, but all in all I think this was very likely the issue.

You can't prove a negative. Even if it works for ten years, you can't prove that at ten years an one day it won't happen.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

At least the battery in the Model S fob is easily replaceable. My wife's BMW fob battery died after 6 years and it's not user replaceable. That fob is sealed shut, and the battery is soldered in. You either have to buy a new fob at $200 (wtf!) or cut the fob open, desolder the battery, solder a new one in, and glue the fob back together (double wtf!).

 

[dtich]

A week or two later, the weirdness continued. The hatch opened two more times, the windows rolled down twice, and the car unlocked itself once - all within the space of a few days. And always in the garage.

I noticed that all of these are things that you can control from the key fobs, which we store not far away. I did verify that while the fobs were far enough away that the car stayed locked even if I pressed on the door handles, the fobs were close enough that if I pressed a fob button, the car would obey. But why would the fobs send random messages? We tried moving the fobs far away for a couple of weeks, and sure enough none of this happened.

But while we were still storing the fobs away from the car, we started getting "key fob battery low" error messages when we drove the car. So I replaced both fob batteries, and stored the fobs back near the car.

The good news:
1. The problem has not happened since
2. If this really was the problem, it was only a risk in the garage. (It wouldn't have opened the hatch at a grocery store, because the fob would be too far away)
3. Tesla replaces fob batteries at the yearly service, and generally the batteries should live much longer than that (see next item), so most people shouldn't see this

Questions I still have:
1. Why did the fob battery die after only 4 months? Tesla says early cars (ours is VIN 112) had the fobs stored inside for transport, which apparently uses a lot of fob battery. They now transport the fobs separately.
2. Why would a dying fob battery send random signals? You'd think if the battery was weak, it would just sit there quietly.
3. How can I be sure I have fixed the problem? It took months to show up at all, and then didn't happen for a couple of weeks at a time. I'd feel better if I knew the answer to #2, but all in all I think this was very likely the issue.

A dying fob battery should NOT send spurious signals. I would replace the old batteries, figure out which fob is acting badly and have tesla replace it.