No. It only changes where the power steering system self-centers to. Basically where it goes when you take your hands off the wheel.
It cannot change the actual physical connection between the steering wheel angle and the front wheel angles.
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Only Tesla can do the alignment??
- Thread starter cstork
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It cannot change the actual physical connection between the steering wheel angle and the front wheel angles.
P3D-R
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haha, yes if that is caused by the offset in the steering angle sensor. If your alignment / toe was set with a centered steering wheel but the steering wheel is still off center then there's a very high chance this would correct for that.
P3D-R
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I thought the same thing as you as well because in my antiquated mind it didn't make sense to me how I could do a perfect alignment but for some reason the car would pull in one direction so one would have to compensate by turning the steering wheel "off center" to go straight. Over time the car would calibrate and fix itself. It is now a real delight to have access to service mode. Then after going through this procedure it was evident that there is electronic compensation via torque vectoring or something that pulls the car in one direction, even if you have aligned it with a perfectly centered steering wheel.
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I do respect your experience, and I'm open to figuring out what is going on. But to start....
Facts:
1) The steering wheel is mechanically hooked with a fixed ratio gear to the steering tie rods.
2) The car has open diffs and cannot create left to right torque without applying friction brakes.
Now, I've experienced what you have- I've even posted about it. But this is because humans are pretty bad about torque vs position, and the fact that torque always requires some displacement. When you're fighting the rack's incorrect center, it feels like you're steering much more off center than you are. As the rack re-learns center, it's not that the front wheels are pointed in a different direction, it's that you don't have to provide anti-torque, which you interpret as a position change. You also interpret pull a lot because the car goes to one side whenever you apply zero torque.
Can you imagine the insane software required to do torque vectoring cleanly while under power, coasting, and braking, all while throwing away power as heat and killing range just so a car with a bad mechanical alignment can feel OK?
P3D-R
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Have you entered service mode to check for the correction? I am curious what your findings are on your personal vehicle. If not yours than anyone else is fine too. You don't even need to be on a rack to do this reset. It's 100% different than any other steering angle reset I've had to do. I literally did an alignment a few weeks back, car was aligned perfectly, went for a test drive, car pulled a lot to the left. I came back to the shop, entered service mode with the help of one of my coworkers who is way more Tesla savy, saw around -1.6 degree offset, cleared said offset, test drove again, drove straight as an arrow with a centered steering wheel. I don't know what it does but I know it has to be something electronic because the mechanical/physical side was spot on. I also couldn't wrap my head around the mechanical aspect of it so I can only assume it's not that. It is something else. I really am too old schoo0 / traditional to wrap my head around all this fancy tech so I'm content with knowing it fixes an ongoing issue we have with these vehicles. We have done it on over 20 Teslas in the past couple of weeks and it has worked every time. This is one of the benefits of being right next to the Fremont factory. We exclusively work on Tesla suspension, tires, and alignments.
My correction was 0.0 last time I checked a few weeks ago. With a dead on mechanical alignment.
The issue here is that you have to drive the car 10+ miles with any new alignment to be sure. The correction isn't static, it "learns" - so I'm not surprised you had a pull right after a good mechanical alignment, but I bet it would have gone away if you drove it for a while.
That said, it's awesome that they now allow you to just reset it quickly.
Occhis
Member
P3D-R
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I really wish the 10 miles would work every time but that's not always the case. It's not extremely often that it's a really hard pull but it does happen and this reset makes an immediate difference so that's a huge bonus. In the past we had to advise the customer it may have to go into a deep sleep to get it to force a calibration because that's what we were told. Either way we just continued to scratch our head and within a week or two the customer would report back that it's all good. Either way it's a huge help for us as an alignment facility to finally have access. Ironically their "center" isn't always center for the steering wheel.
I am gonna work with the guys today to get this thing published on youtube. We have a couple morning jobs but we'll show it on one of our race cars that belongs to @TacoSteve and my own. Neither of which have been reset so it will be interesting to see what the offset is. If @omg_t3la brings his 3 today then we'll look at his too!!!!!
You go into service menu. Click the little shock. There's a display of current steering wheel angle and a reset button. Pretty self explanatory.
Service menu is: Settings -> Software -> Long press on car model (e.g Model 3) -> When prompted for password, type "service"
P3D-R
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Koolio46
Member
My only concern is if I reset it to 0.00, what if it wears the front tires?
I’m assuming that wouldn’t be an issue IF my alignment was done while the steering wheel was perfectly straight, correct?
This setting does not really impact the tire wear.
The car is just helping you steer straight on a mis-aligned car. W/o this setting, you'd have to steer it yourself. Either way, a bad alignment will eat through your tires. You're just less likely to notice it with this setting.
Second this. Could you please share the recommended shop. My front tires had major inner shoulder, but the outside shoulder was ok.
No. And it continously learns the offset so even if you did, it would change in just a few miles. I was just playing with mine this weekend and it literally updated for a side wind I had when driving on the highway for an hour.
All you can do is zero it so you can test your alignment, but it starts re learning right away.
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