Ok tonight, at the most inopportune time, my M3 would not wake to unlock doors. Not with phone-which says disconnected- not with key. Tesla tech sees car isn't responding at all. Sending a mobile service person. This was great as a firefighter trying to respond to an MVA (motor vehicle accident) and I couldn't get out of my garage with my $60,000 6 week old hunk of junk. Took the Subaru, missed the ladder truck at the firehouse anyway. Not feeling this is a very reliable or useful car if this happens again. Even dead batteries on ICE cars could be jumped. This is a real problem. Anyone else have this experience?
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Poll: Model 3 Phone Key Failure Rate
- Thread starter jsmay311
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Model 3 Tesla Inc.
Dan_LA
Member
10k miles M3 LR, was high... 50%... new M3P 0% phone key issues at all 300miles so far. Just summoning doesn't work well but I guess that's taken.
Update- 2 hrs later. So I get a very nice tow truck guy who has never seen a TESLA. We use a wire to manually open door. Nothing. So ow we have to pry open the front bumper charge port. Not easy. Tabs on eye cover break in the cold. Both wires are marked RED, one with tape, one with paint. Figure out with phone support which is which and jump the interior 12 volt. Open frunk finally and guess what. The friggin nut on the negative battery terminal was barely hanging on!! They were in such a rush to get this out of the factory they didn't tighten, even hand tighten the damn nut. Glad this was in my garage not the expressway. Now have the eye cover taped to the front bumper. Waiting to get through the wait at service, again.
Dan_LA
Member
diamond.g
Active Member
If it had been loose this entire time it is odd that the car didn't throw a warning or error (logs or otherwise) beforehand.
Funny, the day before I received an error message "car may shutdown unexpectedly" Called service, they said many such errors were popping that day and we did a reboot. All fixed. Maybe it was related. People need to check connections etc that were not done by machine. They really rushed these out of factory last quarter.
diamond.g
Active Member
My failure rate has been going up in recent weeks. My iPhone 6 was nearly flawless for the first 2 months of ownership, but it's been something of a crapshoot since then.
When it doesn't work, sometimes simply waking/unlocking the phone does the trick.
When that doesn't do it, sometimes opening the Tesla app does.
When that doesn't work, sometimes toggling on/off airplane mode fixes it.
When that doesn't work, turning off/on Bluetooth has fixed it.
No matter the required steps, it's always frustrating. I feel lucky when I'm the only person there and I don't have to apologize to a passenger for making them wait longer out in the cold. (I avoid using the card whenever possible so that walk-away locking remains in effect.)
When it doesn't work, sometimes simply waking/unlocking the phone does the trick.
When that doesn't do it, sometimes opening the Tesla app does.
When that doesn't work, sometimes toggling on/off airplane mode fixes it.
When that doesn't work, turning off/on Bluetooth has fixed it.
No matter the required steps, it's always frustrating. I feel lucky when I'm the only person there and I don't have to apologize to a passenger for making them wait longer out in the cold. (I avoid using the card whenever possible so that walk-away locking remains in effect.)
I don't think a poll really addresses the fundamental issue with it.
The fact is Tesla doesn't have any control over the phone side of it so it's not always going to work.
It might work today.
It might break tomorrow as soon as you update your phones OS
For me it seems to work 100% when it works, and 0% when something broke it.
One IOS version worked 100%
One IOS version worked 0%
The next IOS version worked 100%
The new phone current is at 100% working, but that could easily change on the next IOS upgrade.
I would get the Key, but they crippled it by limiting it's capabilities so much. So I'm going to wait and see how things pan out with Smart Summons. Mostly I wanted a key to use summons where I had a reliable way to start/stop it.
The fact is Tesla doesn't have any control over the phone side of it so it's not always going to work.
It might work today.
It might break tomorrow as soon as you update your phones OS
For me it seems to work 100% when it works, and 0% when something broke it.
One IOS version worked 100%
One IOS version worked 0%
The next IOS version worked 100%
The new phone current is at 100% working, but that could easily change on the next IOS upgrade.
I would get the Key, but they crippled it by limiting it's capabilities so much. So I'm going to wait and see how things pan out with Smart Summons. Mostly I wanted a key to use summons where I had a reliable way to start/stop it.
I'd have to say my phone and it's updates probably did more towards making the phone lock workable than Tesla did. I noticed a big jump in reliability after an Android patch. Also, I think the new version of the Tesla app is playing a role too (though I can't prove that.) Either way, my experience went from nearly unworkable to nearly flawless from July 2018 to now. The biggest problem I have now is there is delay sometimes in the car recognizing the phone key. Sometimes it takes 5 - 15 seconds for it to "see" the phone key. Not too often though.
Perry
Active Member
My phone (Pixel 2) was working fine until release v48.2. Now i have to open the door manually before the charge port unlocks. Before, if I was in the proximity the charge door would unlock if I pressed the button on it. Now it won't unless I manually open the door.
Goes to show you that for those who say the Model 3 is a wonder of engineering because it gets better every day with software updates. Well not quite. Quite often things get worse like this and more aggressive acceleration limitation on the P3D and others I have noticed.
Goes to show you that for those who say the Model 3 is a wonder of engineering because it gets better every day with software updates. Well not quite. Quite often things get worse like this and more aggressive acceleration limitation on the P3D and others I have noticed.
I also have problems with the walk away lock feature not working about 10% of the time, and the car not recognizing bluetooth when I walk up to it to unlock it with a little less frequency. Sometimes I have to toggle bluetooth on and off to get the car to unlock or lock for me. And I'm using a different iPhone than when I first purchased the car; both had the same issue. The thing is, the car continues to run! I walked away on a rainy night and watched the windshield wipers going, headlights on etc... from a distance. Does that mean someone without a card or connected phone can just walk up and drive away with my car?
I thought about purchasing the fob until I found out that it doesn't automatically unlock or lock the car with proximity. It's so old school, you have to fish it out and press a button!
I thought about purchasing the fob until I found out that it doesn't automatically unlock or lock the car with proximity. It's so old school, you have to fish it out and press a button!
diamond.g
Active Member
You should have Service check your seat sensor if the vehicle still thinks you are in the car. Where is your phone when you are having this issue?
DurandalAI
Member
Only had one day where it didn't want to work, I removed then re-added my phone key. Only time I've ever had a problem. iPhone XS.
