New air suspension controls = bad functionality

[P100D_Me]

Hi All,

So I've noticed my car bottom scraping in places it never used to, this has started happening since they changed the way the air suspension heights are set. After watching that screen when driving I can see why it happens.

If I set it to 'Very High' then it stays there until the car goes over 24kmh (15Mph), but here is the problem, it then defaults to 'Standard' height after that, not 'High'. What I am finding is if you are navigating through shopping centre car parks and you raise the car to 'Very High' to get over a speed bump then unless you keep the car under the max speed for 'Very High' then the next speed hump I end up scraping because it has auto dropped to 'Standard'.
I don't get why they would transition from 'Very High' to 'Standard' and not from 'Very High' to 'High'.
This has become a total pain as I have to check prior to every speed hump what the thing is doing now.
I also feel they may have lowered the max speed of the 'Very High' threshold as I never used to have to reset it once entering a shopping centre car park, maybe this is the only change that is causing the problems for me.

Has anyone else noticed the operational change on the heights and increased scraping?

 

[Alysashley79]

it’s always done this on my car. I rarely have had to use the extra high unless I have to be over a low curb. That being said. It’s a parking lot so (I mean no offense here) but we should be under 15mph anyhow

 

[P100D_Me]

Well I used the parking lot as reference to it be a real pain (but 15Mph isn't fast by any means, maybe past the front doors yes), sadly my driveway (about 50 yards long) is not a parking lot but it does have a very nasty drop onto the road that the car must be a Very High or it scrapes. I've never had to stay under 15Mph going down my driveway before, when I set the auto raise location years ago it has always worked until that last update.
I should say the Auto raise does still work in the locations I'd set but is cancelled out based on the speed and drops back to Standard.

Do you think they've always had the Very High threshold at 15 MPH?

 

[murphyS90D]

From the 5.9 Owner's Manual (Downloaded June 2014)

With Model S powered on, or the brake pedal
pressed, use the touchscreen to manually
change the ride height. Touch Controls >
Driving, then choose from:
• Very High. When set to Very High, the
suspension will automatically lower to
High when driving speed reaches 22 mph
(35 km/h).
• High. When set to High, the suspension
will automatically lower to Standard when
driving speed reaches 34 mph (55 km/h).
• Standard. The Standard setting ensures
optimum comfort and handling under all
loading conditions.
• Low. Lowering the height can make it
easier to load or unload cargo and
passengers.


From the 2020.4 Owners Manual (Downloaded February 2020)

With Model S powered on, or the brake pedal
pressed, use the touchscreen to manually
change the ride height. Touch Controls >
Driving, then choose from:
• Very High. When set to Very High, the
suspension will automatically lower to
High when driving speed reaches 22 mph
(35 km/h).
• High. When set to High, the suspension
will automatically lower to Standard when
driving speed reaches 34 mph (55 km/h).
• Standard. The Standard setting ensures
optimum comfort and handling under all
loading conditions.
• Low. Lowering the height can make it
easier to load or unload cargo and
passengers.


I interpret this to mean that if you reach 34 mph going down your driveway it is going to drop to standard height.

Neither of these speeds mean anything in reverse since reverse is limited to 15 mph.

Any chance you are now going down the driveway in forward instead of reverse?

 

[kskog]

I agree. The new default sucks. When set to a certain height, it should just stay there until you cross the next max speed.

 

[P100D_Me]

Very High. When set to Very High, the suspension will automatically lower to High when driving speed reaches 22 mph (35 km/h).

I think this is what has been messed up (and why I keep scraping things), it now appears to go from Very High to Standard above just 24 km/h (15 mph).

 

[P100D_Me]

Ok so this is getting really annoying. I did a test today and there is definitely something wrong with their controls, at least on my car.
The 24 kmh (15MPh) max speed setting for 'Very High' is getting ignored - randomly. A controlled test was I set the suspension to 'Very High', crawled along at 10 kmh (well below the max speed) and after about 20 seconds the suspension dropped to 'Standard'. I could press 'Very High' again because I was below the threshold still but I cannot understand why it would drop that low and at that speed!
It used to work just fine and never did any of this before they went and fiddled with it in the recent updates. The first I knew something wasn't working right was that lovely sound of my battery pack scraping on the gutter at the end of my driveway

What is the process to report this stuff to Tesla these days?

 

[2101Guy]

maybe im not following..but can you use the feature that uses GPS to auto raise the car at certain areas where this occurs? Like your driveway for instance?

 

[Alysashley79]

Ok so this is getting really annoying. I did a test today and there is definitely something wrong with their controls, at least on my car.
The 24 kmh (15MPh) max speed setting for 'Very High' is getting ignored - randomly. A controlled test was I set the suspension to 'Very High', crawled along at 10 kmh (well below the max speed) and after about 20 seconds the suspension dropped to 'Standard'. I could press 'Very High' again because I was below the threshold still but I cannot understand why it would drop that low and at that speed!
It used to work just fine and never did any of this before they went and fiddled with it in the recent updates. The first I knew something wasn't working right was that lovely sound of my battery pack scraping on the gutter at the end of my driveway

What is the process to report this stuff to Tesla these days?

I’d do another control test like you did above. Note the times that it’s dropping and the speed. Then I’d email your service and ask them to run remotendiagnostics and see what they can see. Maybe there is something not right on your car. I can confirm that mine doesn’t drop to standard at 20mph but high just a bit above that.

 

[serendipitous]

You have to tap the blue "Keep until xxxmph" button next to the height you select, after raising the suspension. Otherwise it drops ASAP.

 

[P100D_Me]

maybe im not following..but can you use the feature that uses GPS to auto raise the car at certain areas where this occurs? Like your driveway for instance?

Yes and that is exactly the situation in this case.
As I start to move along my driveway it auto raises to 'Very High' as I have tagged that as a spot from the day I got the car.
But since the last update my car got with the suspension menu changed if I just go 100ft down the driveway it drops to 'Standard' even when I keep well under the 'Very High' speed threshold.
I think I'll take the advice of Alysashley79 and see if they can remote in to see why it decided it needs to drop height when it shouldn't be.

 

[Wol747]

You have to tap the blue "Keep until xxxmph" button next to the height you select, after raising the suspension. Otherwise it drops ASAP.

There ain't any button there on MY MS! There IS highlighted text as per what you say, but no button. If touching the text has the same function, it doesn't show anything. More sloppy programming?

 

[P100D_Me]

If touching the text has the same function, it doesn't show anything. More sloppy programming?

Yeah the text is the new button

I have no doubt this change was smashed out ASAP without too much testing, par for the course with Tesla MCU software really.

I even thought did someone mess up and put the kmh numbers as mph making them lower than they should be, but no, it appears to follow the kmh speeds 'most' of the time when it doesn't have a glitch and drop to Standard for no reason at all.

 

[EVortex]

It would be helpful to have access to an editable list of presets and locations.

 

[P100D_Me]

Yeah that would be really nice (rather than fumbling around trying to press some text whilst driving), a function where you could download and edit the data on a PC then send it back to the car.

 

[BPeter]

I believe the update with the new controls made the car way more aggressively reduce height.
They're probably trying to avoid wear on the suspension components, costing them too much in warranty repairs.

 

[Flyguy]

I have not done any controlled testing, but like OP my ride height has never worked properly since update. If I go to very high sometimes it will reset before I even move.

 

[Flyguy]

I believe the update with the new controls made the car way more aggressively reduce height.
They're probably trying to avoid wear on the suspension components, costing them too much in warranty repairs.

I don’t follow this. Why would suspension wear faster at a higher height? I would think having to constantly reset it to higher setting would cause more wear/tear than holding the desired height for the duration you want it.

 

[serendipitous]

I don’t follow this. Why would suspension wear faster at a higher height? I would think having to constantly reset it to higher setting would cause more wear/tear than holding the desired height for the duration you want it.

It's more the axles than the suspension itself - they aren't meant to operate at those angles for sustained periods.

There are apparently a lot of drivers who insist on keeping the suspension high for too long, so they've made sure you really, deliberately want it to be high (why on earth would you for more than to get over a curb/bump/ramp?) and ensuring it doesn't stay high once you are clearly moving faster than you would to get over said obstacle. This has been their go-to solution for a lot of the axle/shudder issues (although there were still challenges with the front axles when the front end lifts up on a hard launch.)

What disappoints me is that they also lowered the max heights because of whoever those moronic drivers were that kept driving around on stilts.

 

[P100D_Me]

If I go to very high sometimes it will reset before I even move.

It's funny you say that, I also noticed mine doing this for the first time yesterday.
I was in a car park (still parked), turned the car on and noticed it was at standard height, hit 'very high' because of the speed hump on the exit ramp I was going to encounter and sure enough it would raise then drop back to standard still sitting there in the parking spot.
I just shook my head, oh and this was after trying to get Spotify to do more than a spinning circle for a few minutes.....where do they find these err 'programmers'