Model S Technical / Mechanical Issues

[NigelM]

One thing you need to know, though, is that when the car lowers the ride height to the lowest setting (such as at freeway speeds) it seems to lower the rear more than it lowers the front.

I don't think it does. When the car raises or lowers it adjusts the rear suspension first and then the front and that's why you might get the impression that the front is higher. Having the front higher than the back would destroy airflow over the car and that would consequently impact range.

 

[pete8314]

Don't the lights auto adjust anyway? I thought that was mandatory on Xenon lights? I get if they're generally out of alignment and need the baseline reset, but suspension changes or car loading shouldn't make a difference. At least that been true of my last 9 or 10 cars that have had Xenon lights.

Do the Model S Xenons do the little dance on power up? That's the alignment routine for most cars.

 

[William3]

Perhaps it is a defect with my individual car. I don't know. If I set my suspension to "standard", shine my headlights on a wall that is 30 feet away, make a mark on the wall where the top of the beam is, then lower the suspension to the lowest setting, wait for the car to settle, then compare where the headlight is now shining, it will be shining slightly higher on the wall with the suspension on the lower setting. This is either a design flaw or a defect with my individual car. If the light were to shine in the same spot then it would still be a problem, as ideally it needs to lower the same amount as the headlight bulb is lowering. Legally your headlight needs to shine every-so-slightly downhill. In a perfect world this needs to be true at each suspension setting, but I'm really only concerned about the lowest setting because that's really the only time it is going to piss off other drivers (freeway setting).

Many of the Model S cars are coming out of the factory with the headlights aimed wrong. Many owners have posted about being "flashed" by other drivers, not just me.

Here's the bottom line:
If you're on the freeway and your headlights are high enough to hit the rear window of the car in front of you then you should adjust your headlights lower.

 

[scriptacus]

Perhaps it is a defect with my individual car. I don't know. If I set my suspension to "standard", shine my headlights on a wall that is 30 feet away, make a mark on the wall where the top of the beam is, then lower the suspension to the lowest setting, wait for the car to settle, then compare where the headlight is now shining, it will be shining slightly higher on the wall with the suspension on the lower setting.

Wouldn't the front of the car be pushed down by wind resistance at the speed where the low suspension setting kicks in? If so it seems plausible that the stationary position would have the front slightly higher than the rear, rather than being a design flaw or individual car issue.

 

[William3]

I suppose that might be possible. I don't know.

Regardless, in actual driving, if your lights are shining into the rear window of the car in front of you then you should go get your headlights aimed correctly (just as a common courtesy to other drivers). wshepherd mentioned in his how-to post that you'll do a few rounds of tweaking then road test, tweaking then road test, tweaking then road test, etc... I found this to be the case. You can't 100% trust your first adjustment because you don't know that the road your car is parked on is 100% perfectly flat, you don't know if the suspension is completely settled, you don't know what 70mph winds will do to the suspension (freeway speeds), you don't know what sort of auto-levelling adjustment the car itself might do once underway, etc...

 

[cwerdna]

Reliability is the number one value that most consumers want in a vehicle.

Disagree. I certainly care. I'm not sure it's #1 for me, but it's important to me and usually a filter for me to screen out unreliable models. I wouldn't buy the absolute most reliable vehicle (of all vehicles or in its class) if it didn't meet my other criteria.

Some consumers, certainly. Probably even most. If it was the number one characteristic for everyone, though, there would have been far fewer Jaguars sold during their temperamental years.

Agree, re: some. Most? Not sure about that. Agree re: Jaguar.

Take at auto sales figures at Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com and 2012 - Dont Call It A Comeback Edition . Then look thru an April auto issue of Consumer Reports or look at 2012 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study | J.D. Power Autos (even though I don't trust JDPA much). In CR, one will see a ton of unreliable vehicles from GM and Ford. You'll see almost no Toyotas or Hondas w/below average reliability yet GM and Ford outsell Toyota and Honda.

I know of people who knowingly buy cars from automakers w/sketchy reliability (e.g. GM and VW) and ignore or don't even look at reliability ratings. When they have trouble and I tell some of them (like about VW), they'll be surprised.

Others choose to ignore CR and bash CR, bash Toyota and Honda and stick their head in their stand. Hang out on Cruzetalk.com, for instance to see what I'm talking about. There are VW fanboys that will also defend VW despite and make excuses (e.g. maintenance; sorry, that's not a valid excuse for body hardware that falls apart, peeling dashes, bad coils, electrical probs,etc.) for their usually poor showing.

Take a look at the lists at December 2012 Top 30 Best-Selling Vehicles In America - GOOD CAR BAD CAR and Top 30 Best-Selling Vehicles In America - December 2011 - GOOD CAR BAD CAR.

In the December 2011 issue of Consumer Reports, the Chevy Cruze was the least reliable small car, by far, w/a horrible reliability rating (see Consumer Reports Cruze reliability (from Dec '11 issue)) yet it was the #16 best selling car in the US in 2011 and #11 for 2012. People who bought the Cruze before that issue of CR came out bought it w/an unknown reliability rating. But, GM has been known for ages for having very spotty reliability, yet people bought them anyway. For 2012, from some semi-recent reports (came out a few months ago) it improved to average (actually 17% below average). OTOH, the Ford Focus has a terrible reliability rating as well, yet it was the #10 best selling vehicle in 2012.

At the risk of offending many here, I'd assert that buyers of Teslas don't value reliability as #1 as there are no CR nor JDPA reliability ratings on any Teslas. If they did, they'd wait for such results to come out first (which may never happen due to the # of respondents to CR required) and they'd have be good or excellent.

Don't the lights auto adjust anyway? I thought that was mandatory on Xenon lights?

It is not mandatory in the US AFAIK. I've heard that urban legend repeated several times on other car forums before. I've owned 3 cars w/factory Xenon lights. Two of them had no auto-adjustment mechanism at all: 02 Nissan Maxima and 04 350Z.

 

[jerry33]

Don't the lights auto adjust anyway?

No, just auto leveling. That's different than adjustment. Because the suspension auto-levels in the Model S, there is no need for separate HID leveling for heavy loads in the rear. Adjusting the aim is really no different with HID lights than with any other kind.

 

[JRP3]

I know of people who knowingly buy cars from automakers w/sketchy reliability (e.g. GM and VW) and ignore or don't even look at reliability ratings. When they have trouble and I tell some of them (like about VW), they'll be surprised.

I agree. Some people seem like gluttons for punishment.

 

[mknox]

Do the Model S Xenons do the little dance on power up? That's the alignment routine for most cars.

No, they are not adaptive. My current ICE's Xeon headlights do the "dance" and this was one of my early questions to Tesla. The response was that the headlights are "fixed".

 

[josh_b]

I do not know how i didnt notice it before. Now that i have it's all I can see! Argh!

Haha... it's like the old Sony Trinitron monitors... the tiny black line caused by the wire. No one would notice it until I was a total troll and showed it to them. From then on everyone I knew who had one hated their Trinitron tubes.

 

[sueinsanjose]

We have had our car since October and absolutely love it.

We have had mostly minor issues since we bought the car, other than it was delivered with a non-functioning heater which immediately needed to be replaced. I think the biggest issue we have had is there is not one person or place to call when there are issues with the car. So when something comes up, we have contacted multiple people, none of which seem to have a sense of urgency to resolve our concerns.

The most recent, and most frustrating issues we have had are:

1. The windshield wipers, which stop about a third of the way up on the windshield. I can live with it, but it looks stupid. When I asked our service contact, they indicated we should wait until they had a fix for it to bring it in - sounded like it was an issue they were aware of. But this had been ongoing for a good month now and no one contacted us about it after reaching out the first time.
2. The charge port won't open with the key or on the control panel. The only way we could get it open was to gently pry it with a credit card. We have been in contact with Tesla on this one and it has been unresolved for at least a month also. I think they were waiting on parts to get it fixed so we had not brought it in.

I unfortunately was recently in a minor accident with my vehicle recently. The car needed repairs and so it has been at the autobody shop for going on the 3rd week. The hold up has been that there is a backorder for the parts needed, so until those arrive, the vehicle sits with the autobody shop. The positive of this is the autobody shop took it to the Tesla service center last week while they are waiting for parts and the two above issues are now getting fixed. It will probably be at least another week before the car is finished at the autobody shop.

I wish there was one dedicated rep for every car owner to address any issues. Everything else that has come up has been pretty minor, but it gets frustrating sometimes trying to figure out who to talk to when a problem does arise. That has been my biggest frustration with the car. It still is an amazing car and I miss driving it right now.

 

[ckessel]

2. The charge port won't open with the key or on the control panel. The only way we could get it open was to gently pry it with a credit card.

For anyone having this problem, rather than pry it open you can give a thump with the heel of your hand on the back edge of the chart port and pop it open. The pivot point is about 1/2-1" forward of the back of the charge port door so you're pushing that part in. Probably safer on the paint job than prying it open.

My car came with a charge port door opening issue (now fixed) so I spent a week or so thumping the door open.

 

[sueinsanjose]

For anyone having this problem, rather than pry it open you can give a thump with the heel of your hand on the back edge of the chart port and pop it open. The pivot point is about 1/2-1" forward of the back of the charge port door so you're pushing that part in. Probably safer on the paint job than prying it open.

My car came with a charge port door opening issue (now fixed) so I spent a week or so thumping the door open.

We were told to try that as well but it did not work for us. I believe someone at Tesla suggested the credit card (or maybe it was our friend), but at least it works. It is a little frustrating to come home at night and have to pry the charge port open to be able to use it though.

 

[ckessel]

We were told to try that as well but it did not work for us. I believe someone at Tesla suggested the credit card (or maybe it was our friend), but at least it works. It is a little frustrating to come home at night and have to pry the charge port open to be able to use it though.

I think I had to first go into the console and "unlock" the charge port door. Odd the thump didn't work, the delivery specialist showed me the trick when he delivered the car since one of the things he went over was charging and discovered the charging door wasn't working.

 

[jerry33]

Haha... it's like the old Sony Trinitron monitors... the tiny black line caused by the wire. No one would notice it until I was a total troll and showed it to them. From then on everyone I knew who had one hated their Trinitron tubes.

Actually, I liked to use them to line things up.

 

[Doug_G]

We were told to try that as well but it did not work for us. I believe someone at Tesla suggested the credit card (or maybe it was our friend), but at least it works. It is a little frustrating to come home at night and have to pry the charge port open to be able to use it though.

Thumping works really well. Just thump the rearmost part of the little door - the flat side - with the side (soft part) of your fist. It might take 2-3 thumps to get the right position but it will pop open.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Thumping works really well. Just thump the rearmost part of the little door - the flat side - with the side (soft part) of your fist. It might take 2-3 thumps to get the right position but it will pop open.

...provided it's unlocked. There's a timer that relocks the port after a bit.

 

[shady]

The only way we could get it open was to gently pry it with a credit card.

It's just a reminder of the days when you used to pull up to the gas pump with credit card in hand

 

[raumgleiter]

i really would like to say thank you to all of you, who are sharing their problems in this thread - but for a new member of this forum (and also formyself - i am a roadster owner), this thread must be quite shocking, because if you just read all of this, you must think this car has a load of problems and ins't finshed yet. but all of you are helping to get this car better and better.

i would like to say a word to all of you who are hesitating about buying the model s (should i buy or should i not?) - after reading this thread.

i was last friday and sunday in zuerich to drive the model s. sadly the weather was quite bad and wet but the ride was just fantastatic. i think you must sit in the car and drive it. the motor, the powertrain and the battery are just outstanding. to be honest, no cumbustion enginge can keep up with it's instant torque and smoothness, and this in complete silence.

i understand everyone very well who bothers because of some qualitiy issues, because for this money you just get a fully loaded bmw, mercedes, audi, etc. but for me the model S is the first and only car in history, which makes it possible, to quit on fossil fuels and travel with my family through a continent, and, if you like even by solar power! (and by the way, i'll bet i must smile everytime i push the accelerator, and this will last for many years).

so make sure that you don't get in panic if you read this thread! but read it and then you will prepared if you possibly find an issue.

so i went home and after almost 2 years of thinking both ways, i've just ordered a model s in pearlwhite with grey wheels. i really hope that many others will find the courage do the same. not just in the united states but also in europe! the future is here - let's drive it...

 

[Todd Burch]

Update on my inverter fault issue:

After several days of testing and investigation, Tesla service has determined that there appears to have been no hardware problem with my inverter. Engineering has pulled data and service's best estimate is that a software/firmware bug caused the fault. Service believes they're working on fixing this rare bug. The loss of about 80% of power seems to have been a precautionary measure only--and was not the result of a true hardware issue. This is as I suspected, since the fault went away an hour later and the car drove normally.

So, the car is coming back to me hopefully tomorrow or Friday, and I'll be back in the driver's seat. Yay!

And congrats raumgleiter--I agree completely!