New tesla model 3 RWD battery drain while parked problem and park assist unavailable

[kevin_camera]

Day 21: Tesla messaged me that my service is complete and I have to pick it up tomorrow or they will charge me parking. I can see the car from the app. SO I KNOW THE CAR ISN'T FIXED, it has lost 26 miles in the last 24 hours. How the heck is that considered fixed?

You may have to keep trying, unfortunately. Even maybe a different service center. It took me 3 tries to have someone order the part (not sure what the part is yet).

I had to do the following to convince them:
Take a picture of the "Vehicle Standby" with time and odometer on the same picture
Take a picture of the "Vehicle Standby" with 24 hours later and odometer on the same picture
Take a picture of the energy consumption graph, showing drops in battery %.
Screenshot of the 1% a day quote on website from the tesla documentation (or get the US equivalent of the docs)

Range Tips | Tesla Support Canada

Your Tesla vehicle continuously monitors its energy level and proximity to known charging locations to provide range assurance. To maximize efficiency, it is important to know the factors that impact range and the recommended ways to reduce energy consumption.

www.tesla.com

Tell them everything is off, sentry mode, cabin overheat protection. For your case, they already checked there is no 3rd party app

...

Now that some of us have the part name Restraint Constraint Module, maybe try bringing that up to see if they will replace. Or at least test it out. Good luck! These types of issue is frustrating as it's not exactly a black and white problem that's easy to see.

 

[stopcrazypp]

You may have to keep trying, unfortunately. Even maybe a different service center. It took me 3 tries to have someone order the part (not sure what the part is yet).

I had to do the following to convince them:
Take a picture of the "Vehicle Standby" with time and odometer on the same picture
Take a picture of the "Vehicle Standby" with 24 hours later and odometer on the same picture
Take a picture of the energy consumption graph, showing drops in battery %.
Screenshot of the 1% a day quote on website from the tesla documentation (or get the US equivalent of the docs)

Range Tips | Tesla Support Canada

Your Tesla vehicle continuously monitors its energy level and proximity to known charging locations to provide range assurance. To maximize efficiency, it is important to know the factors that impact range and the recommended ways to reduce energy consumption.

www.tesla.com

Tell them everything is off, sentry mode, cabin overheat protection. For your case, they already checked there is no 3rd party app

...

Now that some of us have the part name Restraint Constraint Module, maybe try bringing that up to see if they will replace. Or at least test it out. Good luck! These types of issue is frustrating as it's not exactly a black and white problem that's easy to see.

I think SCs are trained to reject most of this because 99.99% of the time it is likely new owners that don't understand the extra drain of Sentry/Cabin Overheat/Summon standby etc.

Also this issue can seem fixed with a firmware reupload until the car is driven. So there can be false indications of a fix.

 

[K55J]

All, as an update: Tesla mobile service came out yesterday (August 3rd) and replaced my Restraint Control Module. This was after diagnosis that the module was stopping my car from going to sleep and causing excessive standby battery drain.

This seems to be a very common problem and most likely a result of a bad batch of RCM modules that some how keep cropping up in Tesla’s supplies. The Tesla mobile tech completed the job in under 10 min and did so with little disassembly (located under the centre console near the rear air vents). He stated that he has a done enough now to know how to replace them with little effort.

I have driven the car a few times now and I can confirm that it now goes to sleep without issue.

Unfortunately it took scheduling two service appointments for them to escalate my issue to a “senior” tech who properly diagnosed the issue by actually running a full remote diagnostics and found the RCM to be unresponsive. I am not sure why the first tech couldn’t do the same.

 

[GtiMart]

Thanks for the update. The good thing is, now that a few people have insisted and techs have found the solution, it might become a TSB and make it easier for the future.

 

[acm17]

Day 21: Tesla messaged me that my service is complete and I have to pick it up tomorrow or they will charge me parking. I can see the car from the app. SO I KNOW THE CAR ISN'T FIXED, it has lost 26 miles in the last 24 hours. How the heck is that considered fixed?

Day 22: They just changed their minds this morning and messaged me that it was put into the completed state erroneously. Good thing! I'm calling them now but i've been on hold for 25 minutes, I'm going to hang up because I've never had them pick up after being on hold for more than 10 minutes. And who knows if when I call back if their IVR system will connect me to service (sometimes it doesn't). The progress notes say they replaced 12v battery and Connectivity Board. But that doesn't seem to help since I checked the miles this morning and it is still losing miles while idle. I did tell the service advisor about the RCM, she said she would pass the info on (to the diagnostician). She wanted me to delete my Tesla app, so I did. So I can't keep track of the lost miles at this point.

 

[rrolsbe]

Day 22: They just changed their minds this morning and messaged me that it was put into the completed state erroneously. Good thing! I'm calling them now but i've been on hold for 25 minutes, I'm going to hang up because I've never had them pick up after being on hold for more than 10 minutes. And who knows if when I call back if their IVR system will connect me to service (sometimes it doesn't). The progress notes say they replaced 12v battery and Connectivity Board. But that doesn't seem to help since I checked the miles this morning and it is still losing miles while idle. I did tell the service advisor about the RCM, she said she would pass the info on (to the diagnostician). She wanted me to delete my Tesla app, so I did. So I can't keep track of the lost miles at this point.

Telsa needs to come up with a better way to determine the history of when their vehicles have been sleeping or not. If they determine the vehicle has not been sleeping as expected, they need to come up with sure fire way to remotely verify at the very least there is a problem (with little owner involvement). It could be possible to not be able to determine exactly what is keeping the car from sleeping but the first step is to confirm there is a problem. I installed a 12V Battery monitor on my now totaled 2018 Model 3. This monitor gave me a 31 day history of when the care was awake (contactors closed) or sleeping (contactors open). It seems Tesla should be logging similar wake/sleep data and could remotely retrieve such information (maybe not). When a customer reports a problem with car not sleeping (or excessive vampire drain), Tesla could do something like the following. Ask you when would be a good time when you would not need to drive or access your vehicle (maybe a 12 hour period). At the start of that 12 hour window remote into the car and verify all the modes the car could be in that would keep it from sleeping (Sentry, Dog mode, Cabin overhead protection etc..). Tesla would probably need to get your confirmation that you do not need Dog Mode/Keep climate on for legal reasons. Then remotely turn off anything that could keep the car from sleeping and put the vehicle into a mode that ONLY allows remote access from the Tesla diagnostic team (only allow the owner keycard access). Having the owner jump through a bunch of hoops to help identify the problem, in many cases, is counter productive at best. When the Tesla remote team identifies what the exact problem is or NOT, contact the customer after the 12 hour remote diagnostic period with next steps. Something similar to the above has to be better than the diagnostic methods currently implemented (ie.. owner involvement).

 

[danny pan]

All, as an update: Tesla mobile service came out yesterday (August 3rd) and replaced my Restraint Control Module. This was after diagnosis that the module was stopping my car from going to sleep and causing excessive standby battery drain.

This seems to be a very common problem and most likely a result of a bad batch of RCM modules that some how keep cropping up in Tesla’s supplies. The Tesla mobile tech completed the job in under 10 min and did so with little disassembly (located under the centre console near the rear air vents). He stated that he has a done enough now to know how to replace them with little effort.

I have driven the car a few times now and I can confirm that it now goes to sleep without issue.

Unfortunately it took scheduling two service appointments for them to escalate my issue to a “senior” tech who properly diagnosed the issue by actually running a full remote diagnostics and found the RCM to be unresponsive. I am not sure why the first tech couldn’t do the same.

If you don't mind, can you provide the case id or service invoice # for this so those of us with upcoming appointments can make a reference? I know not all cases will be the exact same, but being able to point to something and saying "can you cross reference with this other similar issue" can help.

 

[galus]

I took it in yesterday, they didn’t mention anything about RCM, but they did say it’s a 3rd party app that is keeping it from sleeping. I don’t use any.

Is it possible for someone else to have my car registered to their account? I don’t have time today, but my next step is doing a factory reset.

 

[galus]

Since June, I had noticed a vampire drain of my car's battery when parked. It is close to 25 miles (~9%) daily.

I ensured I do not have sentry mode on, no cabin heat protection mode on, no summon-on standby mode (since I do not have enhanced autopilot or FSD purchased), no dog mode, no camp mode, no 3P apps or accessories connected, minimal use of tesla app (may be 2-3 times a day and bluetooth turned off otherwise) - still the drain is the same.

I got a service request setup for July 27, and pre-diagnosis indicated replacement of RCM as it was suspected of keeping the car awake and resulting into drain. The service folks kept my car until Aug 4, and simply did a 12V reset citing it fixed the drain. Don't know why they had the car with them so long.

After I brought the car home, I continued to see the same drain, and reached out to service team. They looked into it saying RCM is not the cause any more, so they didn't replace it, and pointed to a third party app. Now I do not have any third party app, nor any third party accessories installed in the car. They suggested to do a factory reset, which I did but it didn't solved the problem either.

I still think RCM is the problem here, as I can hear the noise from front of the car (when parked) in the location where RCM resides. I have scheduled another service request which is yet 3 weeks away.

Somehow I feel the Tesla Service do not care about customer requests, nor do they abide by their own investigation. Probably one of the worst customer service I've experienced.

 

[waddler]

Since June, I had noticed a vampire drain of my car's battery when parked. It is close to 25 miles (~9%) daily.

I ensured I do not have sentry mode on, no cabin heat protection mode on, no summon-on standby mode (since I do not have enhanced autopilot or FSD purchased), no dog mode, no camp mode, no 3P apps or accessories connected, minimal use of tesla app (may be 2-3 times a day and bluetooth turned off otherwise) - still the drain is the same.

I got a service request setup for July 27, and pre-diagnosis indicated replacement of RCM as it was suspected of keeping the car awake and resulting into drain. The service folks kept my car until Aug 4, and simply did a 12V reset citing it fixed the drain. Don't know why they had the car with them so long.

After I brought the car home, I continued to see the same drain, and reached out to service team. They looked into it saying RCM is not the cause any more, so they didn't replace it, and pointed to a third party app. Now I do not have any third party app, nor any third party accessories installed in the car. They suggested to do a factory reset, which I did but it didn't solved the problem either.

I still think RCM is the problem here, as I can hear the noise from front of the car (when parked) in the location where RCM resides. I have scheduled another service request which is yet 3 weeks away.

Somehow I feel the Tesla Service do not care about customer requests, nor do they abide by their own investigation. Probably one of the worst customer service I've experienced.

It’s RCM for sure and agree Tesla Service is awful. Too easy to close service requests without understanding or resolving issues.

 

[rrolsbe]

Like I said in my previous post, Tesla needs to come up with a way to get the customer mostly out of the debugging loop. What I described previously could be scheduled and fully automated in the Tesla app. Detailed results of the tests should be sent to the owner including a history of several days to a month showing when the car was sleeping or awake. This "It must be a third party app causing the problem" should NOT be an issue! I suppose it is possible Tesla does not currently have full remote access to switch off things like Sentry but it seems like a change in the firmware could rectify that problem. Tesla should not be allowed to make changes to your car settings unless you request a remote debug session which could be handled though the Tesla app.

 

[lunaj23]

Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters.

www.reuters.com

Probably why we call keep getting the runaround. My appointment is on 08/09 hopefully they are willing to replace the RCM.

 

[MarcelaBenitez]

I have a 2022 model 3 & I’ve never had a problem with my miles draining excessively until recently. I don’t have the cabin overheat protection on, and I’ve always had sensors on. However it never drained my battery so much. My only guess is I added a (handshow rear display) last month… anyone else had this issue? Should I remove this display to avoid battery drainage? The display does not get used unless is by a back passenger to adjust climate, otherwise is always off.

 

[dhrivnak]

I lose about 1 mile a day two at most.

 

[M-Y-23]

Any update on this! I have the exact same issue on my M-T 2023 only 1 month old. It want like this before just started a week ago

 

[lunaj23]

Any update on this! I have the exact same issue on my M-T 2023 only 1 month old. It want like this before just started a week ago

As far as I know, there’s been two people on the threads who had the RCM replaced and it resolved the issue. Since the service advisors seem to be reluctant to even say it’s an issue, the main hurdle is convincing them to take you seriously enough to replace the component.

 

[MarcelaBenitez]

I lose about 1 mile a day two at most.

I’m loosing about 25-30 miles a day without it being used.

 

[M-Y-23]

I’m loosing about 25-30 miles a day without it being used.

Same I am losing 20 miles a day on avg, parked with sentry off, cabin overheat off. It’s literally draining daily on standby every night. Please put in a service request I did, let’s see what happens

 

[kevin_camera]

I’m loosing about 25-30 miles a day without it being used.

Same I am losing 20 miles a day on avg, parked with sentry off, cabin overheat off. It’s literally draining daily on standby every night. Please put in a service request I did, let’s see what happens

To help you get some attention so they don't give you the 'standard' IT support, make sure you mention that sentry mode, cabin overheat protection and summon is off. Tell them you did soft reset and did factory reset.

Lastly, take a picture of the energy app showing vehicle standby drain, including time and odometer. Take another one 24 hours later to show the change. Then take the "drive" graph to show disconnect in lines where the standby drain happens.

Good luck!

 

[acm17]

Day 26 Tesla Service: last week Thursday 8/4, Tesla Service asked me to delete the app, while they continued to look for the problem. I deleted the app as requested. I also mentioned the RCM replacement fix as a possibility. They sent me a msg today which I could only read by installing the app again. lol. The service record shows they have replaced the 12v battery, connectivity board and now the RCM. But they did NOT note if the car is fixed now. So we shall see. I'm crossing my fingers. And, yes, I deleted the app again after I saw their update.

Can't believe they've had my car for 26 days...seems unreal. I've owned my car for 18 weeks, but I have only driven it for the first 12 weeks. The problem of losing 20-48 miles a day while idle started 6 weeks ago. What an absolute headache this car has been. I will never, ever buy a Tesla again.