New Model 3 - Delivered with faulty sim card

[Mcs3]

Hi all. I picked up my new Model 3 SR+ MY21 today.

The delivery experience was really quite terrible.
The LTE connection in the car did not work at all. Possibly faulty sim card or worse. I was unable to use maps, radio, phone key and just about half of the cars features.

I was told I would need to book a Tesla technician to come to my house next week? Even though my car is literally faulty in the delivery centre.
They said to hotspot my phone in the interim, however the car is on an old firmware and when it's in drive the Wifi turns off.

Does this sound acceptable to you guys and wondering what you guys would do from here. Thanks

 

[BCTS]

Hi all. I picked up my new Model 3 SR+ MY21 today.

The delivery experience was really quite terrible.
The LTE connection in the car did not work at all. Possibly faulty sim card or worse. I was unable to use maps, radio, phone key and just about half of the cars features.

I was told I would need to book a Tesla technician to come to my house next week? Even though my car is literally faulty in the delivery centre.
They said to hotspot my phone in the interim, however the car is on an old firmware and when it's in drive the Wifi turns off.

Does this sound acceptable to you guys and wondering what you guys would do from here. Thanks

It's an annoying fault but fairly easily resolved. Tesla don't have hundreds of cars available to swap you into back at the dealership so I'd suggest the following

- Join Car to Home Wifi so you get the latest firmware updates which keeps Wifi on in Drive
- Setup Hotspot on the Phone as a temporary fix
- Await Mobile Tech to come out and resolve during the week.
- Stay Safe and Stay Home and keep within 5km of home during our lockdown

 

[dasn]

If the car won't update to the latest firmware you can put the car into drive, tap the LTE/WiFi icon and manual turn on WiFi again and connect it to your hotspot.

This video describes it better than I can.

 

[Mcs3]

It's an annoying fault but fairly easily resolved. Tesla don't have hundreds of cars available to swap you into back at the dealership so I'd suggest the following

- Join Car to Home Wifi so you get the latest firmware updates which keeps Wifi on in Drive
- Setup Hotspot on the Phone as a temporary fix
- Await Mobile Tech to come out and resolve during the week.
- Stay Safe and Stay Home and keep within 5km of home during our lockdown

I've connected the car to home Wifi but it won't download or trigger an update no matter what I do.

I read that it's actually LTE that triggers the update so without that I'm not sure the update can get done unfortunately.

 

[Mcs3]

If the car won't update to the latest firmware you can put the car into drive, tap the LTE/WiFi icon and manual turn on WiFi again and connect it to your hotspot.

This video describes it better than I can.

Thanks, didn't know that you could do that. Might be my only option for a while.

 

[BCTS]

I've connected the car to home Wifi but it won't download or trigger an update no matter what I do.

I read that it's actually LTE that triggers the update so without that I'm not sure the update can get done unfortunately.

Have you turned on Advanced Updates?.

 

[Mcs3]

Have you turned on Advanced Updates?.

I've done that, rebooted the touch screen multiple times. Reset wifi networks multiple times. Nothing will trigger the update.

 

[paulp]

Hi all. I picked up my new Model 3 SR+ MY21 today.

The delivery experience was really quite terrible.
The LTE connection in the car did not work at all. Possibly faulty sim card or worse. I was unable to use maps, radio, phone key and just about half of the cars features.

I was told I would need to book a Tesla technician to come to my house next week? Even though my car is literally faulty in the delivery centre.
They said to hotspot my phone in the interim, however the car is on an old firmware and when it's in drive the Wifi turns off.

Does this sound acceptable to you guys and wondering what you guys would do from here. Thanks

I picked up mine with a fully trashed front wheel. I dont know that tesla use a delivery checklist. My wheel was replaced a few days later. Make your appointment, get to know the tech and the tech will give you exceptional service into the future. Its only a few days.

 

[dynomatt]

Same boat for me...SR+ delivered today. Bummer. Good to know about the wifi hotspot option

 

[Mcs3]

Same boat for me...SR+ delivered today. Bummer. Good to know about the wifi hotspot option

Sorry to hear mate. The technician came to my house within 3 days and replaced the simcard. Took about 20 minutes. Still waiting on a software update though.

 

[paulp]

I've done that, rebooted the touch screen multiple times. Reset wifi networks multiple times. Nothing will trigger the update.

Updates are pushed by tesla. There is nothing you can do to trigger one.

 

[dynomatt]

House visit would be great. Looks like I’m off to Queanbeyan for essential car servicing. Thankfully a dotted line on a map says quarantine each side isn’t needed

 

[Flatbat]

..The technician came to my house within 3 days and replaced the simcard. Took about 20 minutes.

If you check the service history in your app you should be able to see what part and part no was actually replaced. I reckon they may have actually replaced your connectivity card, which includes the modem and other stuff but has the eSim soldered on to it, rather than simply swapping a sim card.

 

[cafz]

House visit would be great. Looks like I’m off to Queanbeyan for essential car servicing. Thankfully a dotted line on a map says quarantine each side isn’t needed

Beard is actually (just) on the ACT side of the border.

 

[Sir Surfalot]

I reckon they may have actually replaced your connectivity card, which includes the modem and other stuff but has the eSim soldered on to it, rather than simply swapping a sim card.

For mine (2021 MiC LR) when it was delivered in March and had the same issue as the @Mcs3 decribes, the mobile service guy _did_ just replace the SIM card in it. He told me there were quite a few cars in that batch that had non-functioning SIM cards put in them at the factory and it wasn’t picked up before delivery, so he had a fair pile of replacement (Telstra) SIMs in a rubber-banded pile in his car for doing exactly that fix. This was in the first batch of MiC cars, so it just felt to me at the time like a “teething problem” with the new factory and new delivery centre (Chatswood in Sydney). Strange for the same thing to be still getting all the way to customers if that’s what it turns out to be. I almost hope it is a one-off problem with a suddenly failed board in @Mcs3‘s car rather than a non-functioning SIM still being able to be in the car and not tested and picked up as a possible known issue in Tesla’s delivery preparation by now.

 

[Flatbat]

@Ted H Thanks for the background. I have read that some M3s have the single eSim on the board, while others configs have both the eSim and a second removable a sim card in a holder. So it seems we are in the latter group. My connectivity card was replaced because Tesla were unable to flash the modem with the repaired firmware to fix the delayed connection LTE issue I was having. The new connectivity (new part no) has the newer firmware preloaded & fixed it.

Annoying these cars are getting delivered without a working Telstra sim though. I agree, they should be catching this it at pre delivery.

 

[cafz]

I can only assume that whatever the fault is with the SIM isn't something they're equipped to test for in Shanghai.

Perhaps they're checking the LTE connectivity when the cars move to the delivery location, but for Canberra the cars move straight from Port Kembla to the third-party that delivers them?

 

[ausevdriver]

I can only assume that whatever the fault is with the SIM isn't something they're equipped to test for in Shanghai.

If I had to guess the SIM cards are somehow not registered with Telstra correctly. Couldn't test that in Shanghai.

Maybe during delivery config they might forget to logon to Telstra portal to mark SIM active, maybe a backend process in Telstra fails during the activation process (not unusual, almost everyone knows someone who had a SIM card porting fail at some point).

 

[paulp]

If I had to guess the SIM cards are somehow not registered with Telstra correctly. Couldn't test that in Shanghai.

Maybe during delivery config they might forget to logon to Telstra portal to mark SIM active, maybe a backend process in Telstra fails during the activation process (not unusual, almost everyone knows someone who had a SIM card porting fail at some point).

If they forget to do something during delivery config then that shows the company doesnt operate a proper QA checklist. Its particularly so if its happening multiple times. I wonder what else they forget? Do they check brakes for example? In my case with a heavily trashed front wheel and a steering wheel that wasnt straight that wern’t identified before delivery suggests fairly much nothing is on a checklist. Sure tesla attended the defects quickly, but they could also have identified the obvious and fixed it before delivery.

 

[Mcs3]

If you check the service history in your app you should be able to see what part and part no was actually replaced. I reckon they may have actually replaced your connectivity card, which includes the modem and other stuff but has the eSim soldered on to it, rather than simply swapping a sim card.

Thanks didn't know about that. It says

"Verified customer concern regarding no LTE.
Replaced SIM card and carried out scroll wheel reset. Now functioning as designed."

So looks like only sim card was replaced. I've had ongoing issues where lte will still not connect sometimes after disconnecting from WiFi. Resetting WiFi and turning everything on and off multiple seems to of fixed that issue.

Unsure if it's a software issue or hardware but LTE connection seems mostly okay now.