Right wand not engaging AP?

[Fernand]

This is on a 2018 MR RWD Mod3 with EAP.

Can someone please confirm the behavior on a
double pull of the right wand, namely that there
should ALWAYS be a response, of some sort.

Be it the normal engagement of Auto-Pilot, with
either AS or NOA, or a message saying it's temporarily
unavailable. I don't recall if just a chime is ever a
valid response to a fully executed double pull.

What I'm experiencing is that intermittently I get
no effect at all, or (worse) I get TACC as if I'd
pulled only once, which is of course dangerous
if one doesn't realize Auto-Steer didn't "take".

The Service Center replaced some significant
parts, but it seems not to have solved the problem,
at least it was occurring again yesterday, so I'll
test some more tomorrow and then do a full reboot,
and check again.

Meanwhile, has anyone else experienced anything
like this? Am I correct in believing that there should
always be some type of response - or is there a
state, while moving, in which it's correct for nothing
to happen at all?

thank you!

 

[diamond.g]

There should be a tone if it is engaged or not (bing bong or beep beep beep). You don't have to press past the detent to enable autosteer (or tacc).

The latest FW should alert you that AS is unavailable (rapid beeping) if you cross the line because you think AS is on.

 

[whataboutbob]

I have the exact problem, seems to have started last time I got the update, I’m on 2019.5.15, what’s your software version?
Also I suspect it’s a software problem, because if it’s a loose connection in the hardware then it should at least engage TACC some times (in other words register just one pull), but that never happened.

 

[Twiglett]

when you say "pull" hopefully you mean moving the lever down rather than towards you?

 

[Scrutmonkey]

just to double check, make sure the little "auto-steer (Beta)" is ON in the AP menu.

other than that, maybe it needs to auto-calibrate more? If not, then hopefully it's just something simple as recalibrating the cameras.

 

[whataboutbob]

I’ve had the car since last July so yeah pretty sure I know what I’m doing. Shouldn’t have said pull I guess.

 

[whataboutbob]

just to double check, make sure the little "auto-steer (Beta)" is ON in the AP menu.

other than that, maybe it needs to auto-calibrate more? If not, then hopefully it's just something simple as recalibrating the cameras.

It engages successfully when you try again right after this failure pattern, never failed twice in a row so far

 

[Fernand]

Yes, of course, "pull" means down. As to repeats, I've had it every which way.
It used to be that 1 out of 4 tries would fail, and of those many would give me TACC alone.
After service, it got to every other try failing. Need to try reboot and re-calibration voodoo.

Considering the ineffective service center mojo, I was looking for a second opinion.
Unfortunately local new-age witches won't help. They consider the Tesla the inorganic
product of a male-dominated society, and flat out refused to even do a quickie diagnostic
aura scan. Maybe if I wait for it to get dustier. Or bring more precious metal.

 

[Fernand]

Well, it's not fixed at all. I did a reboot after confirming the situation, and
that changed nothing. I'm getting 1 out of 4 attempts to engage AS failing,
most with no result at all, and maybe 1 out of 5 engaging TACC instead.

I've gotten good at noticing it and also at an upward lift to cancel the
TACC that I didn't want.

I'm not angry about it, but I think the service center blew the diagnostic
side of it, and maybe replaced stuff that wasn't broken, or maybe these
parts really do have a high rate of defect.

I tried deep-pulls past the detent and light pulls. When it was successful,
the lighter double pull was sufficient. But I have the impression that it failed
more often with these light pulls - better odds of engaging AS if double pulling
past the detent.

 

[Fernand]

I have the exact problem, seems to have started last time I got the update, I’m on 2019.5.15, what’s your software version?
Also I suspect it’s a software problem, because if it’s a loose connection in the hardware then it should at least engage TACC some times (in other words register just one pull), but that never happened.

My software ver is in my sig. 2019.8.5. And I DO get failure to enable AS with TACC enabled instead, although that's less frequent than getting nothing.

 

[Twiglett]

two thoughts/ideas just in case its something other than a hardware issue
How fast are you doing the double press down
or
Are you letting the lever come all the way back up before the second press

 

[Fernand]

Tried various speed, depth etc. I haven't paid attention to how
fully and how long I let it recover between pulls. I'll check that.

Mostly I've used the same moves as a double click on a
stiff mechanical switch mouse.

The only variation I've seen is that if I pull past the detent it's
a little more likely to succeed. But since it engages most of the
time on pulling down just to the detent, it's hard to imagine
that that's in some way "marginal".

The service center tech who rode with me confirmed I was
doing it "right" and something was acting intermittent. They
replaced the whole steering column assembly and thought
it was corrected. I thought so too, but really didn't test then.
The next day I did, and found it was failing about the same.

Where can we find at least block diagrams? Assuming the
replaced switch assembly is OK, then it's probably a polling
lag problem, and that would often be due to a controller or
comm channel being swamped, e.g. with spurious events.

 

[C141medic]

Why deal with all that? If you’re doing it correctly and there’s no other reason for it not activating take it back to the SC or perhaps a different one for another perspective.

 

[Fernand]

Yes of course I have scheduled another appt 5/3/2019.
Is there a way to get one sooner under the circumstances?

Why "deal with all that"? Because now that I know more,
I can anticipate and drive the car safely in spite of the problem.

 

[Fernand]

Cool. I just got a message from Tesla addressing the right wand
intermittent, and they suggested this:

• Touchscreen reboot: Hold down your foot on the brake while holding in the two scroll wheel buttons (around 20 seconds) on the steering wheel. Do this until the Tesla ‘T’ appears on the touchscreen, and then let go for a restart.
• Powercycle: Controls > Settings > Safety and Security > POWER OFF and confirm. Tap the brake pedal to turn the car on.

In addition, I had my phone in airplane mode, and waited
a full 3 minutes before touching anything while power was off.

I thought the two finger + foot reboot cycled everything,
but apparently not.

This seems to have solved the problem, at least in the
driveway. Will test while driving later. Sounds like an
essential thing to try with any anomaly.