NEW OWNER - ISSUE WITH SOFTWARE VERSION

[DTSkyCop]

Hello, I recently purchased a 2019 Tesla Model 3 which only has 1423 miles on it. This is my second day owning this vehicle and I have found out some interesting information and am looking to the community to see if we should keep this vehicle or return it.

First off, we love the vehicle, and the Tesla product from our first experience. Our issue however is this. The vehicle somehow avoided any contact with Tesla for the last 3-4 years and never received any update since 2019.40.50.7 which is currently installed. My vehicle will not receive OTA updates at all, and Tesla is saying we need to come back in a month for our scheduled appointment to see what the issue is. I am sure the OTA update just won't push out to this vehicle as it needs too many or something. This is currently affecting vehicle connectivity. Where this is important is, access to the Tesla Chargers and phone access / connectivity as a phone key etc.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could try to get this issue resolved myself? Is there a way I can download and install the software updates myself? I am computer literate and am not afraid of DIY, I am just not sure if I should wait past the return window I have to return this car and hope there are no other issues with this vehicle's computer in a month or can I begin the updates and see if I can get close to the update needed for the system to start updating OTA again.

I do not know any of the history of this vehicle either other than the current mileage and the vehicle was a 1-owner in California and has no accident history reported on CarFax.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. The vehicle works great but in the current setup, we are not able to gain any connectivity from the Tesla App thus we are not able to use the Tesla Chargers in the network. I have a charger home that is a rapid charger and for the most part, the vehicle will be charged at home with our own charger.

 

[jjrandorin]

I suspect you'll get the latest update before your service appointment... either automatically or by a service tech pushing it. They don't need to talk to you, they'll look through their appointments list and see yours just needs a software push. It's highly likely this will happen before your actual appointment date.

I dont think thats true on a vehicle that has not talked to the mothership in that long of a time. The vehicle certificates (software certificates) are likely expired and will need to be re installed by Tesla.

If it were me, and I had the ability to unwind that deal, I would RUN to do so. Since there is no way to know what the reason is for the car to be offline that long, my own risk tolerance (lack thereof) would push me to assume that there is some reason that someone would buy a car thats designed to be connected and not connect it to Tesla for more than 4 years.

It could be fine, but its too big of a red flag for me (even though it can be fixed by Tesla by them re installing certificates).

If carmax has one of those "return policy" guarantees, I would exercise it, take the car back, and get another model 3 that did not have such a discrepancy in sofware updates. Anything up to a year wouldnt really bother me, but 4 years? Yeah ... no.

 

[DTSkyCop]

But you have home charging? It certainly wouldn't be ideal, but even without Supercharger access it's still a great vehicle. I do occasionally road trip, but 99.9% of my driving is energized by my own home charger.

Yes, I have a 220 charger at home. We are going on a trip tomorrow up north, we will certainly get a better idea of the vehicle and any potential issues outside the update to firmware (Not anticipating anything honestly) but we will have to charge away from home so I will see how that goes also! It would be nice to be able to use the Tesla Charging network for sure...

 

[fholbert]

But you have home charging? It certainly wouldn't be ideal, but even without Supercharger access it's still a great vehicle. I do occasionally road trip, but 99.9% of my driving is energized by my own home charger.

Agree, my MY is 51 weeks old and has a little over 14,000 miles, I charge at home. Never needed a Supercharger, plugged in once just to make sure it worked. Another time to show the wife how to do it.

Don’t get me wrong, I arrive at home in single digits. I know where they are along my route and I’ve had to slow down to the speed limit to make it, but never needed a Supercharger.