Zybane
Member
I find this kinda funny. Compare sliding door handles with the new Falcon wing doors for potential future problems..
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Pointless door handle wear
- Thread starter JeffVanEpps
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- Model S User Interface
I find this kinda funny. Compare sliding door handles with the new Falcon wing doors for potential future problems..
TroyGuy
Member
No, there is VERY GOOD reason to worry. I am the 23rd Model S reservation holder worldwide and received my Model S in 2012. I have only 78,000 miles and behold my first door handle, drivers side failed and needed a $1,300 replacement. It was out of warranty and I fought, and fought, and fought with Tesla to get the handles replace. Guess what? The second door handle just failed. Same problem. Can you guess which one this time. You guessed it, it was the passenger side. Funny how first the most used side broke, then the second most used one broke. I only had my car for 3 years and this is so unacceptable wear for a door handle. Worry about this and worry about this a lot. Set your door handles so that just the driver's side presents when approaching the car. You will be saving the wear on the other 3 door handles. In my opinion, this calls for a class action lawsuit against Tesla. Any normal purchaser of the car will have many years of experience with perfectly fine working door handles. Tesla promotes that there are fewer moving parts in their electric car, but they are deceptive in that they took what is normally a manual door handle in 99.9% of the cars out there, and provided to its consumer a VERY unreliable door handle that they, the customer must replace at a cost of $1,300 a pop (per failed door handle). Does anyone else see a legal problem here?
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No, there is VERY GOOD reason to worry. I am the 23rd Model S reservation holder worldwide and received my Model S in 2012. I have only 78,000 miles and behold my first door handle, drivers side failed and needed a $1,300 replacement. It was out of warranty and I fought, and fought, and fought with Tesla to get the handles replace. Guess what? The second door handle just failed. Same problem. Can you guess which one this time. You guessed it, it was the passenger side. Funny how first the most used side broke, then the second most used one broke. I only had my car for 3 years and this is so unacceptable wear for a door handle. Worry about this and worry about this a lot. Set your door handles so that just the driver's side presents when approaching the car. You will be saving the wear on the other 3 door handles. In my opinion, this calls for a class action lawsuit against Tesla. Any normal purchaser of the car will have many years of experience with perfectly fine working door handles. Tesla promotes that there are fewer moving parts in their electric car, but they are deceptive in that they took what is normally a manual door handle in 99.9% of the cars out there, and provided to its consumer a VERY unreliable door handle that they, the customer must replace at a cost of $1,300 a pop (per failed door handle). Does anyone else see a legal problem here?
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I think you guys worry too much. My dad, upon his first car with power windows (a 1993 Blazer) (Now called Tahoe)... thought we'd wear our the power windows... when I sold my 1995 Tahoe, it had 263,000 miles on it, over 13 years. Guess what. Windows still worked fine.
Stop worrying, and just enjoy the car
No, there is VERY GOOD reason to worry. I am the 23rd Model S reservation holder worldwide and received my Model S in 2012. I have only 78,000 miles and behold my first door handle, drivers side failed and needed a $1,300 replacement. It was out of warranty and I fought, and fought, and fought with Tesla to get the handles replace. Guess what? The second door handle just failed. Same problem. Can you guess which one this time. You guessed it, it was the passenger side. Funny how first the most used side broke, then the second most used one broke. I only had my car for 3 years and this is so unacceptable wear for a door handle. Worry about this and worry about this a lot. Set your door handles so that just the driver's side presents when approaching the car. You will be saving the wear on the other 3 door handles. In my opinion, this calls for a class action lawsuit against Tesla. Any normal purchaser of the car will have many years of experience with perfectly fine working door handles. Tesla promotes that there are fewer moving parts in their electric car, but they are deceptive in that they took what is normally a manual door handle in 99.9% of the cars out there, and provided to its consumer a VERY unreliable door handle that they, the customer must replace at a cost of $1,300 a pop (per failed door handle). Does anyone else see a legal problem here?
TroyGuy
Member
Oh how I would love it if they would have normal door handles as an option. I do like the auto-presenting door handles, but I've already have had 2 go out, and at $1,300 for each door, ouch!
TroyGuy
Member
Yes, you can have the driver's side door handle be the only one that auto-presents itself saving the wear on the other 3 door handles which can be manually presented by pressing the key fob.
Regarding whether or not the unreliable doors issue is a legal problem, I don't think my post was very clear. Where I think Tesla has a real problem is in their sales tactics and representations that an electric vehicle has fewer moving parts than an ICE vehicle and that you can expect much lower maintenance cost. Where the problem lies is that they are trying to appeal to the unassuming ICE owners (99% of the car market) who are very accustomed to having door handles that are very reliable and most often will outlive the life of the car. That is what most all vehicle consumers have become accustomed to with regard to door handles and their ability to open the car door. The fact is that Tesla went ahead and added mechanical motors to something that does not need it and if replacement was necessary, an unassuming ICE buyer would have to pay $1,300 per door handle. Hence, that is contradictory to "lowering maintenance cost" and is quite deceptive "if" (emphasis added) Tesla does not stand behind what I believe is a defective product. Had I known that they were going to be unreliable, I may have purchased an extended warrantee (although this option was not available when I purchased the car). Or maybe, I would not have purchased the car altogether. However, 99% of Tesla's customer base was not aware that door handles would be such a big problem.
While I have a lot of miles on my car, I have a very long commute and probably don't open my doors as often as would be proportional to the miles on my car. However, since I have a first generation door handle, and since I have had 2 fail thus far being the most used doors, presumably the door handle design and/or door handles are defective and I should expect the other 2 to go very soon. You would think that in this scenario, Tesla would replace my remaining door handles, but they refuse to. Hence here is the legal issue for at least those with the same scenario with the first generation door handles.
green1
Active Member
Not overly a safety issue, take any vehicle involved in any crash severe enough that it requires rescuers, and the odds of the door simply opening are relatively slim anyway. We have ways around that. My understanding of the door handle issues has also always been that it only affects opening from the outside, not the inside, and being that almost all modern cars lock the doors when you start driving anyway, we're quite used to the idea of breaking a window and opening from the inside.
garygid
Member
If I park to charge at a SpC or to wait for my passenger to shop, stop, or drop...
and sit still in the driver seat, often the handles (all 4) will present for around 55
seconds, retract for perhaps 15 to 45 seconds, and repeat the cycle over and over.
At about 30 cycles per hour, that is a LOT of unnecessary wear on the mechanism.
I will have the annual service look at it.
and sit still in the driver seat, often the handles (all 4) will present for around 55
seconds, retract for perhaps 15 to 45 seconds, and repeat the cycle over and over.
At about 30 cycles per hour, that is a LOT of unnecessary wear on the mechanism.
I will have the annual service look at it.
Lex
Member
This is new to 7.1, it should be mentioned (though it was one of my questions when I first picked up the car as it seemed weird to say "HEY ALL THE DOORS ARE UNLOCKED NOW" every time you want to get in the car). I turned it on and it's actually been a bit of a nuisance and I can never seem to figure out if the car is locked or not but it's already prevented dozens of unnecessary cycles.
And it's always fun to see something different happen with a firmware update
I am guessing the X-style press-to-open door handles and mechanisms will be the future for Tesla Motors models... and if they switch to these in the MS during the predicted refresh, then perhaps 200k or so original MS's or less than 1 million original, seemingly flawed handles total will be in existence. Maybe in hindsight not enough for a thriving cottage industry, but certainly enough that someone will eventually post a detailed how-to guide.
Super_Popular
Well-Known Member
BertL
Active Member
Take a look at "Vehicle Lock Improvements" in the release notes, or on the 17" go to Controls / Settings/ Vehicle / Doors & Locks / Door Unlock Mode.
travwill
Active Member
Assuming the door handles are covered by the additional 4 year extended service agreement right? Just curious. It excludes so much wear & tear classifications.
BertL
Active Member
Yes, IMHO they should be covered as its a mechanical part of the vehicle and not an owner maintenance item like a wiper blade or tires. The question will be is the $200 deductible for each handle or the set of 4.
. Time will tell.
travwill
Active Member
Yes, IMHO they should be covered as its a mechanical part of the vehicle and not an owner maintenance item like a wiper blade or tires. The question will be is the $200 deductible for each handle or the set of 4.
Thanks, definitely beats the $1300 to replace without the agreement in place. $200 would be worth it typically, plus the $4K I guess over time on other potential items of higher value (electronics).
I really hope they fix the driver only present function. It works great in presenting that handle, but if if you are present still outside the car and need to get in backseat door for example it should still detect the fob and let you push for another handle to open (if nearby). Right now, having to pull out fob and manually unlock all doors is a piss poor implementation and doesn't operate like any other cars we've had with fobs before. If fixed, that will definitely save some wear on other 3, but until then had to turn that option back off...
-T
BertL
Active Member
Yes, reports in other threads indicate Tesla made a change some time back after the first rash of problems and Press articles starting appearing. I don't remember the timeframe.
Lex
Member
Hmm well the whole idea is security, ie. only the driver door unlocks. They didn't add it to address our concerns in this thread. And keyfob is one tap to lock, and 2 taps to unlock, so I'm not sure what you're expecting to see fixed there. There might be some bugs with the car auto-unlocking, or not auto-locking always anymore for me now though, with the new feature on... still not sure.
Good to hear they may have updated the handle design, if they are looking to reduce repairs including warranty repairs, which I hope they are, then perhaps this has been addressed.
Perhaps not a good sign that my car came from the factory with the press-to-present not working on passenger handle though...
ArtInCT
Always Learning
The GEN 2 door handle assembly became available in April of 2014. To my knowledge, the service center should proactively upgrade the door handles to the newer GEN 2 on the earlier Model S cars during an annual service appointment.
I'm not sure that's a good idea. The purpose of this feature is to prevent an assailant from entering the car along with you. The above request would allow a would-be assailant to enter your car by pressing any other door handle, while you're inside the vehicle and before you've locked it. That defeats the safety nature of this feature.
My Prius would unlock only the driver's side door with the first fob press, then all doors with the 2nd press. If I unlock only the driver's door using the first press, even though my fob is within range, a passenger is still not able to unlock the passenger side door using the unlock button in the door handle. Won't work, it's disabled. The only way is to press the fob a second time or unlock the passenger doors using the unlock button on the driver's door.
For safety reasons, it makes sense that the feature works this way.
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I'm confused, I thought the next generation door handles came out in 2013. It's the 2nd generation door handles which retract slightly when they present. The first gen handles did not do that, and had no give when you pulled on them. Are you saying there is a third variation that was launched in 2014?
ArtInCT
Always Learning
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