Someone please help - I'm stuck in valet mode by accident and it's a third party purchase (I'm new owner, details arent reflected yet on app)

[frankp85d]

Hoping someone can help me here. I have work in the morning and am a third-party owner that accidentally put the car into Valet.

I called Tesla support yesterday and they told me to "ask online" about my current issue, they were not able to help outside of suggesting I visit a service center when they're open Monday (I need to drive today, though, so this is a major problem)

So here's the deal. I was in the car and was playing around with settings. I bought the car third-party on Friday and already uploaded docs to Tesla but it says 3-5 days for them to review. As I'm playing around with features and trying to set some modes for my wife, I clicked the Valet mode by accident. I now cannot exit this mode. I have no idea what to do. I tried a reboot and it just boots back up into valet mode. So like I mentioned I called support, he told me to just wait 3-5 days, or chat online with other Tesla owners. Called again and got someone else, and she told me it's the same 3-5 day wait period and that I could still drive the car but didn't know what its limitations would be.

I tried to brute force it by trying different codes for several hours, to no avail.

Im extremely frustrated. The dealer should have advised me of these issues and concerns but unfortunately didn't.

I know everyone will say "take it to service center", which is fine, but they're not open until Monday, and I have work this evening. I really am clueless as to how to proceed here outside of getting an uber.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[frankp85d]

Additionally, the car was purchased at auction, so the dealer has no clue what the pin is. And I have no clue who the previous owner was; can't find any info, tesla won't release the info of course for privacy reasons.

 

[Gumball]

You need the pincode the previous owner set. If you can’t get it, go to the service center, but only go there when the car is in your name, or they will not help you out.

 

[frankp85d]

It's in my name on the registration. Will they help once they see my registration? Or do I literally need to wait until it reflects on my Tesla account? I can show my paperwork

 

[EVRider-FL]

I don’t know if you can do this in Valet Mode, but try doing a factory reset from the Controls > Service & Security screen. Good idea to do that anyway when buying a used car.

 

[DerbyDave]

Besides being entirely manual, and your speed limited to 70 MPH, you can still do everything to get to work, lock your car, etc. Features will be at a minimum, and seat settings are all manual.

 

[David.85D]

Download the top -100 list of pins and give those a try. Then keep on with the brute force if you have to…

top 20 pins work 26% of the time…

The Fastest Way To Crack A 4-Digit PIN Number [Infographic]

Good ol' 1234 accounts for about 10 percent of passwords. That's more than the bottom 4,200 combinations put together.

www.popsci.com

 

[frankp85d]

EVRider - I did try the reset several times and unfortunately it didn't work. I have not done a factory reset from the screen as, honestly, I'm terrified at this point that something will happen and it won't turn back on and I'll need a tow. Sounds silly, I know, but I dealt with so many nightmare scenarios over the last few days with this and this current situation is just yet another problem. So now I'm worried about doing that lol. My holding down the toggle reset takes several minutes to come back on and concerned me.

Derby - that's good to hear. I was really concerned that it may have a range limitation and I'd be on the side of the road.

David - Tried that already and no success unfortunately

 

[RobDickinson]

:/ tesla should push a factory reset out to every car that changes ownership

 

[frankp85d]

It really is silly, to me, that you can enter valet mode without a pin and then can't exit it. And it's so easy to accidentally hit that button since it's right underneath your profile. You'd think it would say "Enter Valet Mode? Please input 4 digit pin". Rather than just going right into valet and suddenly "Enter 4 digit pin" to exit. Ugh.

Going to drive to the service center tomorrow and cross my fingers that someone will speak to me even though I don't have an appointment (since I can't make one - since I don't have the car on the app yet). It's like a catch-22 position.

 

[Skipdd]

It really is silly, to me, that you can enter valet mode without a pin and then can't exit it. And it's so easy to accidentally hit that button since it's right underneath your profile. You'd think it would say "Enter Valet Mode? Please input 4 digit pin". Rather than just going right into valet and suddenly "Enter 4 digit pin" to exit. Ugh.

Going to drive to the service center tomorrow and cross my fingers that someone will speak to me even though I don't have an appointment (since I can't make one - since I don't have the car on the app yet). It's like a catch-22 position.

I know it’s frustrating in your case, but it is helpful to have Valet mode be a profile setting. When you drive up to a restaurant, you really want the easy button to hand-off the car. As @DerbyDave said, your speed is limited, but the car is still drivable. You also can’t see certain other things that would show your personal info. I don’t remember the list - but I’m sure you could look it up.

One other thing to look out for - there is a security feature called, “Pin to drive.” It’s not enabled because if it was, you’d be already hosed. I mention it only because like Valet Mode, you set a PIN. If it’s not enabled, then you would set the PIN. I think it’s under the Security menu.

Good luck tomorrow.

 

[frankp85d]

I appreciate it Skipdd. Yeah, that's true. I think that if I was already registered as the owner and wasn't running into problems, these features would seem like great ideas to me. But being on the opposite end is definitely frustrating.

Haven't heard of the pin to drive feature. Glad that's not activated lol. Happy to know I can still drive the car, at least.

 

[RobDickinson]

TBh its crazy they didnt reset the car it'll have their address history and driver profiles, home location etc in still?

 

[frankp85d]

The crappy thing is I did see the previous owners info on the nav, but in valet, it doesnt show.

I took it up to service and they were able to get me out of valet mode

Unfortunately no one can expedite my documents though.

 

[DerbyDave]

One thing about Tesla, everything takes long times, except processing payments.

 

[frankp85d]

lol. How long do you guys think the ownership transfer will take? I have a lot of long range driving I need to do but cant use the superchargers so it's really frustrating. They told me 3-5 days but I've read from some people it could be weeks

 

[frankp85d]

Yay it's been added to my account! Just got email confirmation. Put in the request on Friday so that was pretty quick.

Just got into the app and love seeing all the different features on there.

 

[KalJoMoS]

I have a lot of long range driving I need to do but cant use the superchargers so it's really frustrating. They told me 3-5 days but I've read from some people it could be weeks

How come it’s not possible to supercharge? I believe it took three weeks to transfer ownership for me and I had no issue to use DC charging

 

[DerbyDave]

The Supercharging is billed to the account the car is registered to. If ownership has not transferred to the new owner yet by Tesla, this a problem.

 

[frankp85d]

How come it’s not possible to supercharge? I believe it took three weeks to transfer ownership for me and I had no issue to use DC charging

You are correct, sir! I am grandfathered in since mine is a 2015. Ownership is completed and it says on my account "Lifetime supercharging". Before the ownership transfer was done, I went to a supercharger to test it and it worked.

Here's what originally happened. I drove it five hours home from the dealership and at my first supercharger stop, it worked. At my second supercharger stop, it didn't work. However, at the second location, it did say one of the lanes was not working. I assumed though that it was just me, because when I called the supercharger support line, the guy said it probably only let me do it one time and that the customer probably deactivated the billing (I'm not sure why he didn't just say - oh, this is a 2015 and it shows you have lifetime supercharging...that would have saved a lot of headaches). So, feared I was stranded, I asked the person next to me if we could find some type of way of charging. He pulled into half the lane and had me pull along side, then he quickly unplugged his and plugged into mine. We thought we were fooling it. We weren't. It's just that I was already grandfathered in and the other lane wasnt working Lol. I thought about this yesterday when I came to the realization and said "well, just go try it." Went to my local supercharger and it started charging instantly.