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Rough ride

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#81
Just took a very experienced mechanic and he agreed the suspension felt extremely tight. He said it might be suitable for a race car on a track, but not for a passenger car.
I'm going to try to bump up my appointment date with SC. Sorry for the pun, it just happened.
 
#82
Rough Riders take note:

Adjusting both frunk and rear hatch adjustments properly made a huge difference in taming my car. I only felt one small stretch of road in the 100 miles we drove tonight that felt odd. I can not say if any of our other cars would have fared any better without trying them there too. I do not have VibSensor plots as that wasn't my intent this trip. Personally, I'm happy enough, for now, that I'm declaring my issue resolved. :)

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and follow the link I posted earlier, check and make any necessary adjustments before agonizing any further. You might be surprised. I know I was. Use a very light coating of Vaseline, flat with no peaks, as an indicator that surfaces have mated...

Think of it this way: If your hatch is not secured, every bump in the road is going to cause it to move, violently. Picture a 100 plus weight or person bouncing up and down in the back of you car. Get the picture? :eek:

-Joe
 
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#83
Kdmn said:
Hi,

Do you still feel like it is a hard/stiff ride?
Did they something to solve the issue? Struggling with the same...
Click to expand...

As an update to above. It took me 8 months to convince first myself and then the SEC that something was wrong with my airsuspension. I got convinced by driving several loaners for extended periods of time. Then finally the 4 airsprings/shocks were replaced and the car now drives absolutely wonderfull! I had to struggle through 35.000 of jumpy/rough kilometers...
 
#84
Joe F said:
Rough Riders take note:

Adjusting both frunk and rear hatch adjustments properly made a huge difference in taming my car. I only felt one small stretch of road in the 100 miles we drove tonight that felt odd. I can not say if any of our other cars would have fared any better without trying them there too. I do not have VibSensor plots as that wasn't my intent this trip. Personally, I'm happy enough, for now, that I'm declaring my issue resolved. :)

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and follow the link I posted earlier, check and make any necessary adjustments before agonizing any further. You might be surprised. I know I was. Use a very light coating of Vaseline, flat with no peaks, as an indicator that surfaces have mated...

Think of it this way: If your hatch is not secured, every bump in the road is going to cause it to move, violently. Picture a 100 plus weight or person bouncing up and down in the back of you car. Get the picture? :eek:

-Joe
Click to expand...

Joe -

Just tried it. My rear hatch thingies were not adjusted properly.
This did seem to help quite a bit. Just took a test drive and it seems to be driving much better. I can feel the wheels moving up and down without the cabin jumping along with them. I want to get a few more drives in before I say "Problem solved", but so far, so good. Thanks!
 
#85
Deans, that's great news! Did you check the frunk adjuster(s) too? I saw your first post where you mentioned seeing the hood bouncing as well. Could be an indication the frunk adjusters are not doing their job too.

While I *think* I've fixed the problem, I will reserve final judgement until running on other roads. But, last night I was on old grooved bumpy roads, new poured cement roads with typical voids between pours, 30 MPH over railroad crossings, and am happy with the results.

While this may have solved the problems with my car, that should not rule out real suspension problems others may be having. However, this is something everyone who is having a Rough Riders ride-em cowboy bucking bronco ride needs to check and adjust!
 
#86
I've never experienced the wind buffeting issue, but I just checked my trunk adjusters and there were a couple issues. Stopper A on the driver side was out too far. I screwed it back in until a layer of grease just made a mark on the base. I always had trouble closing the trunk without a lot of force, and this helped *a lot*. Stopper A on the passenger side is a little concerning. It's off center and only touches the edge of the base. About 3/4 of the stopper is touching the base. Will bring it up to SC on my next visit.

Stopper B on both sides were a little loose so I adjusted those.

Unfortunately due to snow and living on a hill, I won't get to test until we thaw out in a few days..
 
#87
My experience with my own car has led me to believe that many (perhaps all) Tesla Model Ses exhibit the buffeting to one degree or another (I thought it was just my car until I noticed it in two different loaners - one older than mine and one newer). Some people, like me, are much more hyper aware of it while others don't notice it at all. The root issue is there is a bit too much movement being transmitted to the car, that movement then turns the hatch into a giant speaker cone as it moves up and down with each bump.

Adjusting the hatch adjusters is the primary "cure" (don't expect perfection though as I think they all do it to a degree). If the adjusters aren't making contact at all, it can be really bad though. You can also try to adjust the latch striker to lower or raise the hatch slightly. All of this is made worse by the size of the Tesla's hatch, and the fact that it is in such a parallel plane to the road. To a degree, it is what it is. As an aside, I happen to believe the adjusters on the body of the car in the drip rail area make a bigger difference than those on the hatch itself (which, I think, makes sense given that is sort of a central support point for the bulk of the hatch).

Here's two easy ways to simulate it:

1. Sit inside the car, while someone else with a closed fist lightly hits the lower center portion of the hatch glass from the outside a few times. You will probably hear/feel the same "booming/buffeting".
2. Get in the backseat and hit the top center headrest with a closed fist a few times.

It's not just the Tesla that does this either. At a local car show I was able to replicate the test above on other cars at rest.
 
#88
Well, I guess it was just wishful thinking. My car feels rough again. So I stopped by the SC and took a test drive with the tech. We then test drove a similar car that was manufactured about 1 week before mine. It felt equally rough. The demo I drove at the mall a few days ago did not feel rough to me though. I'm not sure when it was manufactured, but it had HW2.

So now I'm down to a few possibilities:

(1) I'm imagining everything.
(2) Tesla's coil suspension is just very tight and not comfortable compared to Audi and BMW.
(3) There is something in the December/January manufacturing that is affecting a high percentage of builds.

I think that either case (2) or (1) is correct [Although this car is conclusively rougher than my wife's X5, by data].
I would like it to be (3), but I doubt that it's true. Should have listened to my wife and got the air. :)

The tech confirmed the following as well:

(1) There are no adjustments that can be made to the coil suspension to loosen it up.
(2) There are no after market suspensions that can be swapped that he knows of.

If anyone gets confirmation from a tech otherwise, please post on this thread. Until then, I'm just gonna live with it and hope things loosen up a bit with more driving. Worst case, I try to sell it in a year an a half just before the fed tax credit expires and offset some of the loss with the another round of credits.

By the way, yes I checked the frunk adjusters as well. They were fine.
 
#89
cab said:
[snip]As an aside, I happen to believe the adjusters on the body of the car in the drip rail area make a bigger difference than those on the hatch itself (which, I think, makes sense given that is sort of a central support point for the bulk of the hatch).
[snip]
Click to expand...

Which is what I said earlier was improperly adjusted on my car. Fixing those, on both sides, for my car, eliminated hatch movement and I'm happy with the fix.

One difference though is, it was a much warmer day when I made the 100 mile run. So I guess it needs to be tested further once temps drop again in a few days.
 
#91
Are most of you simply having a bouncy ride, or does every tiny crack in the road slam into your car?

My car transmits every tiny crack. Even on brand new roads. If I had to guess it feels like there are no shocks at all.

If the road has zero cracks my car is fine.

The problem is that almost all Minneapolis roads have cracks.

So my car goes "bump bump BANG bump BANG BANG BANG bump bump"
And you feel every one of those in your back and neck, which gives me a headache

If you were to try to rest your head against the head rest, (which is impossible) your head will bang against the headrest like a jackhammer.

Is this what you all experience? Some of your descriptions sound more like the car is bouncing in a rolling sort of way.

Mine is like driving a military Hummer through a war zone
 
#92
You guys with coils don't still have the plastic or rubber shipping spacers in between the coils by any chance? I don't even know that Tesla uses them of course when shipping cars (cars are strapped down and the spacers prevent coil spring collapse to keep car secure). you can often poke your head in there (or your cell phone) and if you see little blocks between the coils...
 
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#95
No shipping spacers but I was lucky enough to find a part label wrapped around Rt rear coil. DMS3 E4-FD1 Z231B02 TEAL.

I had SC Ranger test drive. He said different Springs are comming every week from suppliers and not tracked by Vin # which car gets which suppliers. He also said that the "d" model suspension is different than rear wheel drive and has bigger stiffer bushings originally developed for the "p" cars.

We got the car "porpoising" or bouncing in rythm coasting from 40mph to 25mph. He acted perplexed but said it was the road and not the car and any car would do that. I pointed out that 40 other cars were on that road and not bouncing. He then defended that the car drove like every other tesla and nothing was unusual and "sports cars" drive like that. I wasnt getting anything but the company line so I asked him to please note my complaint.
 

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#98
Sc tech named Steve, he is the Colorado Ranger.

I took the audi s8 and tesla s60d on the same road today to record the vibration. My impression is that the audi felt every bump but absorbed independently at each wheel without bouncing above level. The tesla seems to really build off of each bump across each axel and bounce above level. It seems to me that the rebound on the tesla is too fast and not appropriately dampened. The cars were equally rough, but the audi absorbed it and the tesla accentuated it.

I recorded it with the vibration meter, I interpret the graphs that the audi shows the similar amplitude, but the wavelength is dampened. With the tesla you can see well defined periods and concentrations of rebound more equally spaced. I prefer the audi suspension
 
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