I can't seem to find the information I need. I have a 2013 S and I believe it uses a rain sensor to control the wipers instead of a camera. Since having my windshield replaced the wipers are sporadic at best, basically unusable unless put on constant wipe. They actually worked pretty decent before. The tech at Safelite says that there's a camera and that it needs to be calibrated. I think he's wrong. I think it's a sensor that's was put back incorrectly or damaged.
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Pre-AP wipers
- Thread starter Greg63
- Start date
Ostrichsak
Active Member
Old faithful? Not sure if serious or.... ??
My AP1 wipers have been the worst rain sensing wipers I've ever owned and it's not even close.
On the stalk in my car, I have two positions with dotted lines drawn iirc, representing intermittent speeds (slow or fast).
I always stay on the first one when it’s raining. Does the work and adjusts speed accordingly to rain intensity.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Mine work ok-ish on AP1 car. On AP2 car, I hope they are getting better because last time I drove my wife's car in a rain (which was 8 months ago or longer) the AP2.5 wipers were still worse than AP1 (as was highway auto-pilot which I promptly turned off after it annoyed other drivers with phantom braking and majorly slowing down for curves - perhaps it was seeing dead people crossing the highway because I couldn't see any reasons for it to brake or slow down to 50mph).
rickyjb
Member
you are right , no calibration required . I recently had mine replaced , check you can see the rain sensor clearly through the blacked out area at the top center of your windshield ( outside of car ). Also worth checking that they installed the correct screen , ask for a part number then check it with tesla.
Ostrichsak
Active Member
It's funny that you mention Audi as your comparison because we had several (four) Audi's prior to these Tesla and every single one of them out-performed every single on of my AP1 Tesla Model S (six now) in every measurable way. When a few drips of moisture hit the windshield the Audi would trigger and clear it. My Tesla will wait until I can't see and usually by then I've already manually tapped the end to get them going because it's a dangerous situation. The AP1 Tesla also doesn't ramp up speed to match the amount of rain properly IMO. This part is a little nit picky and I could overlook it if the dang things just started at a proper point rather than waiting until you can't see the way they do. Lastly is the speed... it's awful. Maximum speed is about 50% on every other car I've owned and I've been in a couple of situations in parts of the country I've never been too where this created tremendously dangerous situations.
It's one thing to have your windshield covered along with the road covered with standing water on a road you've driven a hundred times (Although that's still super dangerous) but it's quite a different story to be somewhere you've never been before trying to navigate traffic, lanes and roads when you can't really see any of the above. I've had to pull over for safety due to rain which is something I've never had to do in any other car I've owned to include cars from the 80's & 90's with wiper tech what it was then. I get that that last part isn't so much of the automation piece so much as an example of how awful the wiper solution as a whole is with Tesla. If you could wave a magic want to get my early 2000's auto wipers from my 4.2L V8 A6 I'd pay good money to make that swap.
Can second that I have owned 5 Audi's (still own 2) and like almost every other car with a regular water sensor they are amazing. My old Pre AP Model S wipers worked just as fine too, however my AP2 Model S is useless. Find myself pressing the manual wipe button more than the car detects water. Driving at night, or in misty conditions your auto-wipers will not trigger.
BrandonLive
MS LR (refresh) Blue/Black/21s/FSD
Well I owned 7 (!) Audis before getting my Model 3, and yeah the auto wipers generally worked better. They weren’t perfect though. I remember for some reason they programmed them not to activate when you’re reversing, and after reversing and then switching into forward gear they wouldn’t wipe until you started moving forward. That’s the only real gripe I remember though.
Ostrichsak
Active Member
Even our 2011 Kia that we owned for 100k miles prior to our first Model S had FAR superior rain sensing wipers than this AP1 solution that we've tested across half a dozen cars now (not included loaners and friend's cars). I've been told that "sometimes, if the windshield is replaced it messes up the rain sensor and so you should tell them to replace that too if you have the windshield replaced" as an extra by Tesla service on cars that have never had the windshield replaced. I mean, we're talking about a $30k 2011 Kia versus a car that, in 2012, cost four times that amount in some case. There is no reason that my expectations for something as basic to safety as rain sensing wipers should be any lower in the Tesla.
Went back to Safelite this morning and they cleaned the sensor and put a new pad on it. Wipers seem to work fine in the shop but now my car thinks it's dark so it turns down the screen brightness and turns the headlights on. They're ordering a new sensor. Seems that cleaning it scratched the sensor. Hopefully that's it.
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