Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Seat moving on its own

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Has anyone experienced the car going “Christine”? (Big Stephen King fan). It has happened several times that, upon entering the car, the seat keeps moving forward and it doesn’t stop. Once it accessed the easy entry feature and moved back while driving. It is in the SC but they keep saying they can’t “replicate” the issue.
 
"seat keeps moving forward and it doesn’t stop"
- how far will it move if it does not stop, all the way to destination ?
- this sounds to me like you were intoxicated, and somebody else is driving you, was there a round steering-thingy in front of you when you enter the car ?

(it's normal for seat to move to position for your profile when you "start" by pressing brake after entering.)
 
  • Love
  • Disagree
Reactions: D.E. and Raechris
Has anyone experienced the car going “Christine”? (Big Stephen King fan). It has happened several times that, upon entering the car, the seat keeps moving forward and it doesn’t stop. Once it accessed the easy entry feature and moved back while driving. It is in the SC but they keep saying they can’t “replicate” the issue.

This has happened to me multiple times and then after it happens the driver profiles are messed up and have to be set to the correct position and saved again.
 
It happened to me once YTD but has also either lost my seat settings or changed them from what I saved more recently. Maybe it did not complete the profile movements for whatever reason because the next drive it was back to normal and has not happened again.
 
Thanks for this note, I've had the same problem and have noticed that the profiles on the upper row do not match what is in the main window. That is there is a phantom entry that appears at the top but not in the man menu. Sounds like I need to delete all the profiles and start all over.

The symptom that I have is that occasionally when I get into the car, it forgets the settings that are default and moves all the way forward with the seat back all the way forward. Classic software bug it sounds like. I'm on 2018.12
 
"seat keeps moving forward and it doesn’t stop"
- how far will it move if it does not stop, all the way to destination ?
- this sounds to me like you were intoxicated, and somebody else is driving you, was there a round steering-thingy in front of you when you enter the car ?

(it's normal for seat to move to position for your profile when you "start" by pressing brake after entering.)

It moves all the way forward (way past my profile setting) and it would keep moving unless I stop it by clicking on the profiles and reset.
 
It moves all the way forward (way past my profile setting) and it would keep moving unless I stop it by clicking on the profiles and reset.

This has happened to me as well a couple of months ago, the seat kept on going forward and I was getting pinned against the steering wheel. They pushed through the latest Firmware update (at the time) and I had to reset my setting and it worked for a while. I briefly happened again the other day when I was adjusting my seat forward, it's almost like the button got stuck and I had to push it the opposite way to stop.
 
Had this happen off and on with my 2016 Model X. Driver seat would seem to be changing profiles when shifting the car into park. We do not have easy access setup or enabled on any profile. But this only occurs on certain firmwares. Have not experienced it with 2018.21.
 
Wondering, how many profiles and fobs do the errant cars have associated? I have two on mine, but each is hooked to one fob, and both fobs are never in the car. We're not talking about battling fobs, are we?

(I have the spare fob dedicated to Tesla, and use that when I'm in the kitchen and don't want to run upstairs to get mine, and also give it to the SC so they can't mess up my settings. :D)
 
This happened to me today in our 2018 Model X - it was quite scary. We got the car in June. What was different today was that I used my wife's FOB today and then used the touchscreen to change the driver profile to mine. After I parked and later got back in the car, the seats went all fwd while I was already in motion and I def panicked a little. ALL the profiles were messed up (same issue) and I had to manually reset them all. Do Tesla engineers look at this forum, or should I/we send this thread somewhere?
 
I've been pinned against the steering wheel a few times thanks to this glitch. I just wait until it gets to the stops and then begin to move it back. I disabled easy entry and went without driver profiles for a while to avoid eating the Tesla logo again. As soon as I pressed the brake pedal my seat would begin moving forward and the seat back would fold forwards slowly until it hit the stops. IIRC, pressing the buttons on the side of the seat or cancelling any changes from the center screen would have no effect on the movement.

I'll see if I can reproduce it reliably and take a video for the software guys.
 
Uh oh. I had a similar behavior in a Mercedes several years ago. Scary as hell to get pressed against the steering wheel, and intermittent so it was difficult to diagnose. In my case, the shop could not find any problem after taking out the switches, seat controller, wiring harness, etc., so they reassembled it and the problem seemed to go away. We also tried replacing the controller but it did not seem to make a difference. So I concluded that the components were ok but that there was a loose connection someplace (most likely a ground) and that the dealer's reassembly corrected it. The car was a heck of a lot older than any of the cars mentioned in this thread, but there still might be a loose connection or poorly installed ground somewhere.
 
We had this happen a few times in our 2018 Model S. Just happened to my husband yesterday for his first time. It is very scary when it happens as it pins you to the wheel, sits you far forwards and makes it just about impossible to get out of the vehicle - so I’d say it was quite the safety hazard. It’s very intermittent tho - wouldn’t have a clue how to reproduce it for the service dept.
 
Sure you don’t have two fobs in the car at the same time assigned to two profiles? That can cause the driver’s seat to move to the ‘one in charge’ randomly. This thread (looking back) probably already mentioned that but it’s the first thing to check. Or redo both profiles and only hook one (or none) to a fob to test this out.
 
Had this a couple of years back, could be a wire harness issue.
Here is the text from my service note.
upload_2018-11-11_23-5-17.png