New M3P Niggles

[Risky]

Hi folks, I took delivery of my New M3P last week. Picked up in grey / white from Manchester. It has taken a bit of getting used to but I am loving the driving experience. I am off to the Highlands tomorrow and will be putting around 1500 miles on it over the next week, looking forward to those amazing roads and breathtaking scenery. I have my CPS rfid card and a very long extension lead so all should be fine with charging.

I do have a couple of issues I would welcome some thoughts on please.

1. My connectivity is really erratic. Connects fine via house WiFi and has downloaded a couple of software updates so far. However, LTE connection is unstable. It picks up a strong signal, 4 bar, for around 2 or 3 mins but then greys out without connection. This happens when parked on the drive in a strong signal area and also when out on the road. Voice commands are hardly ever working when driving as it has no connection. It occasionally comes back but only for short periods. I have tried rebooting without success.

2. Sentry mode - I have a Sandisk 128gb extreme pro SD card via an Anker usb 3 card reader. I have formatted it manually to FAT and added the Tesla file. I had to do this as the car would not recognise / format the card itself. It is hardly capturing any of the sentry events. I had 8 events showing this morning with only 2 recorded. The alarm actually went off without any footage captured of the triggering event.

I would welcome any advice.
Thanks.

 

[Jason71]

I have found the LTE very stable. You may need to raise a service request.

Do you have anything else connected to the USB? if so try unplugging it. Has been known for other things to cause interference. so try to rule that out. Failing that I would try re-formatting or different card or different reader or different program to do the formatting.
It can be fussy but once it works it works. I havent had to touch mine since I got the car.
What program are you using to format? I think I used one of rmprep or guiformat
FYI endurance may be a better choice than extreme in the long run next time but that will not be the issue here.

 

[MrBadger]

2. Sentry mode - I have a Sandisk 128gb extreme pro SD card via an Anker usb 3 card reader. I have formatted it manually to FAT and added the Tesla file. I had to do this as the car would not recognise / format the card itself. It is hardly capturing any of the sentry events. I had 8 events showing this morning with only 2 recorded. The alarm actually went off without any footage captured of the triggering event.

If you haven't already, I would see what you get when viewed on a PC or Mac. Specifically, file lengths.

When you say "I had 8 events showing this morning with only 2 recorded", are you meaning that you only got 2 red dots in playback. I think its possible that multiple sentry events will be rolled into the one red dot if they occurred in the same clip.

 

[GRiLLA]

Maybe your area is poorly covered by the network that Tesla use but better by others? If I remember correctly their provider uses O2 in the UK. I certainly know of areas where there is no signal. How far have you been still experiencing issues?

 

[Drew57]

Whenever I've previously driven on the Wirral the LTE signal has been steady & consistent so perhaps a service booking is necessary?

 

[Neilio]

My LTE signal is very in and out too.

I assume in my case though, the car is parked underground so every time I go for a drive it spends a good 5-10 mins searching and dropping an and out of signal. I've not done a long run yet so can't say if it settles down.

 

[Joelly]

LTE is pretty great i found, especially in the highlands (maybe 3g, but it did the job for the most part). If you are having issues at home then you're bound to have issues in the highlands. What Software version are you on, if its old then that might be causing issues, if it is new then you can reformat the card through the car now and that may help with your sentry issue. One final thing on Sentry, I believe "Recent" only shows the last 1/2 events, make sure you check the other areas "Sentry"/"Dashcam" as they might be hidden there (the options at the top of the viewer)

 

[Risky]

View attachment 586705

Thanks all for sound advice.

It looks like my LTE issue is a service job so I have booked an appointment at Manchester for when I return from Scotland. It is really frustrating as connection only holds for about 2 mins at any time. Hopefully the Tesla techs can have a look remotely in the interim and send a fix?

For those asking I am on 2020.32.5 which I think is pretty up to date?

I also have the apparently common fault with moisture in rear off side cluster so it will need to go back in. I noted it on collection but they advised it was caused by valeting under a heat source in the workshop, I knew it was BS at the time but I did not want to delay the pick up.

I have just ordered a new USB card reader to see if that makes any difference to sentry mode issues.

Just nipped out to Warrington super charger to check it all works ahead of road trip as I had only used Zappi house charger thus far. Only a quick £2 charge but I now know that everything works. Stopped off at Cheshire Oaks for a “free” destination charge on way back home, Mrs Risky ensured it was not free!

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Shame that the old problem of moisture inside the rear lights is still with us. At my last SC visit (where they replaced the rear lights because of this problem) the chap mentioned that they had changed the design, to ensure the welded joint between the parts of the plastic light assembly, that allows water in if it's not 100% welded all along its length, was now tested as a part of the production process. I was also told that the criteria used as to whether a light needs replacement is whether or not there are visible droplets of water inside the light. Misting is apparently "within normal tolerance", droplets of water are not.

I'm wondering if the variable LTE issue is the antenna connection in the wing mirror. IIRC, this has happened before, but I can't remember if it was the LTE antenna or the WiFi antenna that was found disconnected. Could be an easy fix if it is just the antenna that's not connected.

 

[Plagued]

Might be worth getting some heat on the light and see if it clears, I had an issue with water in both my rear lights, one cleared after a couple of weeks in the sun and has been fine (they still get a bit of condensation but it clears) and the other had to be replaced. So it may not be a problem unless it keeps happening.
Regarding the SD card, Although this isn't the reason for any issues you are currently having, you really want to use something designed for continued write use. Sandisk do an endurance card specifically for this. Most SD cards and pen drives are designed to have files like images written to them over a short period of time and then read from some time later so they spend a lot of time not doing much. The dashcam and sentry continuously write to the disk ALL the time, which effectively wares out anything not designed to operate like this.
To keep things simple I'd just get an external USB SSD drive, as they are fairly cheap, rugged, you don't have to worry about adapters and readers, and they are designed for high endurance.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

On the topic of USB storage, on the advice given by someone here I bought a Samsung T5 USB SSD. Not only has it been faultless, but it fits very neatly inside the Taptes USB hub/splitter, so is hidden from view, even with the front centre console lid open.

 

[Risky]

I'm wondering if the variable LTE issue is the antenna connection in the wing mirror. IIRC, this has happened before, but I can't remember if it was the LTE antenna or the WiFi antenna that was found disconnected. Could be an easy fix if it is just the antenna that's not connected.

this sounds highly likely, do we know which wing mirror contains the data connections? I am quite tempted to pull the door cards and investigate.

thanks again to everyone for comments

 

[LongRanger]

If/when you pull the door cards you will need a T30 torx, and beware trying to shut the door at any point when the puddle light is disconnected as the mechanism is disabled plus glass will slap straight onto outer chrome trim.

Fabric-tape the electrical connector housings whilst you are in there to reduce chance of annoying rattles !

 

[DS8819]

I'm wondering if the variable LTE issue is the antenna connection in the wing mirror. IIRC, this has happened before, but I can't remember if it was the LTE antenna or the WiFi antenna

I just found this quoted in another thread ;

"The WiFi receiver is in the right-hand door mirror so be sure to park the correct way round to get better connectivity to target router and stop you swearing lots"

 

[Plagued]

I just found this quoted in another thread ;

"The WiFi receiver is in the right-hand door mirror so be sure to park the correct way round to get better connectivity to target router and stop you swearing lots"

The right hand mirror has both the Wifi and LTE antennas and unless the design has changed (which is quite possible) the left hand mirror also has a second LTE antenna, but they're just plastic flexible circuits with a connector bonded on. I believe the plug (if you were checking for a connection issue) is in the door.

 

[mpandrew]

this sounds highly likely, do we know which wing mirror contains the data connections? I am quite tempted to pull the door cards and investigate.

thanks again to everyone for comments

Pretty sure you can remove the mirror covers with plastic trim tools, not brave enough to try it myself. Youtube will help. Don't be fearful of a service request, there is a good chance they'll send a ranger to deal with it, and in my experience are very friendly and helpful.

 

[Jason71]

I just found this quoted in another thread ;

"The WiFi receiver is in the right-hand door mirror so be sure to park the correct way round to get better connectivity to target router and stop you swearing lots"

right hand? is that as you look at the car or sit in it.
Pretty sure the Wifi antenna is in the passenger side (RHD/UK car speak) which I would have called the left.

 

[hcdavis3]

right hand? is that as you look at the car or sit in it.
Pretty sure the Wifi antenna is in the passenger side (RHD/UK car speak) which I would have called the left.

Sitting in the car.

 

[Adopado]

Sitting in the car.

right hand? is that as you look at the car or sit in it.
Pretty sure the Wifi antenna is in the passenger side (RHD/UK car speak) which I would have called the left.

This (dispute?) has come up several times before and I am not sure if there has been a definitive answer. I suppose the RHD cars may have the wifi in the left mirror because that is the side of the car most likely to be facing a house if parked on a street... but it seems an avoidable complication in the car manufacture just to leave it the same for all production vehicles. Can some one point out the definitive source? (US contributors hold fire ... we know yours are in the right mirror. The question is do UK cars have them in the left or right mirror.)

 

[Medved_77]

This (dispute?) has come up several times before and I am not sure if there has been a definitive answer. I suppose the RHD cars may have the wifi in the left mirror because that is the side of the car most likely to be facing a house if parked on a street... but it seems an avoidable complication in the car manufacture just to leave it the same for all production vehicles. Can some one point out the definitive source? (US contributors hold fire ... we know yours are in the right mirror. The question is do UK cars have them in the left or right mirror.)

I was pretty certain it was in the passenger mirror following a test I did by placing my tethered phone above each mirror. The passenger mirror yielded the stronger signal:

TM3 Weak WiFi Signal