Still in "diagnostics"

[Jason71]

Tesla has replied by saying that the car is "safe to drive, with caution."

Yet, I have a string of messages saying: "Automatic Emergency Braking is disabled, Traction control disabled, Stability control disabled, and Steering Assist Reduced."

The earliest appointment the app will give me is 1st June.

Only five weeks to go.

Not all cars have emergency braking but I think they would have trouble arguing that a 400BHP+ car designed to have traction control is safe to drive without traction control let alone fully functioning power steering. Does not sound as if it would pass an MOT.
I would call roadside assist. Tell them the steering is too heavy to turn safely and you cannot drive it. I recon they will come pick it up and give you a hire car.

 

[meavydev]

How about turning on chill mode, as traction / stability control should only really kick in when driving hard?
OK bad weather, but we turned off stability / traction control on an ice driving course...
We survived old cars without all these aids, so careful driving with chill mode on doesn't seem like the end of the world to me.

 

[Jason71]

How about turning on chill mode, as traction / stability control should only really kick in when driving hard?
OK bad weather, but we turned off stability / traction control on an ice driving course...
We survived old cars without all these aids, so careful driving with chill mode on doesn't seem like the end of the world to me.

not sure your insurance company would agree. I suspect if you had a crash and they found out your traction control and Power steering was not working you could be in trouble
Old cars don't have ABS but a car designed to have ABS but with ABS not working will fail an MOT

 

[pgkevet]

How about turning on chill mode, as traction / stability control should only really kick in when driving hard?
OK bad weather, but we turned off stability / traction control on an ice driving course...
We survived old cars without all these aids, so careful driving with chill mode on doesn't seem like the end of the world to me.

These aids were brought to improve the survival rate. There's a world of difference between steering and braking a car that weighs 1ton more than those of old, I had the dubious pleasure of driving a '52 R-type Bentley for some months - same weight as a model 3- it had dodgy/intermittent power assist with a few near misses fighting the mass. I wouldn't do it again.

 

[yessuz]

The car was removed from my driveway on a Low loader last Wednesday with around 77% charge. Once it arrived at MK the app went into Servicing Mode, and the car has been at MK Service Service Centre all bank holiday. Over Sunday/Monday the charge started to quickly deplete, almost as if it was being driven about and been "borrowed" for the weekend. As of this morning, the charge is showing at 40%.

Making the assumption the SVC has been shut down for the last four days, I am deeply suspicious about the battery charge behaviour.

Am I being paranoid, or is this all normal?

As a PS: Spoken to Tesla and MK was closed from Thursday afternoon to Tuesday morning...

when car is driven it shows wheels are spinning in the app.
also you can check exact car location within the app

 

[yessuz]

Tesla has replied by saying that the car is "safe to drive, with caution."

Yet, I have a string of messages saying: "Automatic Emergency Braking is disabled, Traction control disabled, Stability control disabled, and Steering Assist Reduced."

The earliest appointment the app will give me is 1st June.

Only five weeks to go.

so car basically became a 1984 ford escort, just electric and a bit more powerful.

 

[mjspin]

My car was towed yesterday following the breakdown on Saturday. No Tesla loaner until tomorrow (fair enough) but Enterprise Rent A Car offered. Only issue is that Enterprise don’t have any cars available either so I’m stuck without a vehicle.

I’m terms of the issue with my car, it’s been diagnosed and the steering rack and front wiring harness are being replaced due to water ingress. Sounds like the same problem being seen in cars two years ago and appears the issue hasn’t been designed out as mine is only 5 months old.

Overall, not impressed, but relieved it’s still in warranty and don’t plan to own it for a single day outside that protection.

 

[BumpyDog]

when car is driven it shows wheels are spinning in the app.
also you can check exact car location within the app

The app is put into Service Mode. Location is not available apart from the app showing where the car was dropped off.

 

[BumpyDog]

Yesterday morning I fired off a bunch of angry emails and generally made a nuisance of myself on the phone. By lunchtime I had given up and resigned myself to my failure. Then out of the blue, late afternoon, I had a call from Tesla. He said "The first of June is indeed too far into the future to have you driving. We will be assisting with towage of your car to the Service Centre."

So full props to Tesla. Someone listened. Someone thought about it, and common sense prevailed.

To cut and paste from an above post... it’s been diagnosed and the steering rack and front wiring harness are being replaced due to water ingress.

The loom has another temporary fix and I am back on the road. A new loom is on order and it is looking like a five week wait.

 

[Jason71]

I’m terms of the issue with my car, it’s been diagnosed and the steering rack and front wiring harness are being replaced due to water ingress. Sounds like the same problem being seen in cars two years ago and appears the issue hasn’t been designed out as mine is only 5 months old.

Actually I don't think so. the issue from the first RHD cars was water in the loom due to a badly placed connector but generally fixed just by sealing or replacing the connector. I don't recall anyone needing the steering rack replaced. This sounds like a new issue. Something must have changed

 

[mjspin]

Actually I don't think so. the issue from the first RHD cars was water in the loom due to a badly placed connector but generally fixed just by sealing or replacing the connector. I don't recall anyone needing the steering rack replaced. This sounds like a new issue. Something must have changed

Actually I don't think so. the issue from the first RHD cars was water in the loom due to a badly placed connector but generally fixed just by sealing or replacing the connector. I don't recall anyone needing the steering rack replaced. This sounds like a new issue. Something must have changed

Not that I’m knowledgable enough to be sure I disagree, the post shared with me a couple days ago, from Jan 2020, would suggest it is the same issue. Same errors thrown by the system, same fix in terms of steering rack etc.

Colour me sceptical, with a dose of distrust (of Tesla, not you )

Well that was unnerving. Driving home from Gatwick, just as I enter the M23 northbound, multiple alerts for system failures.

• Autopilot disabled
• TACC disabled
• Regenerative breaking disabled
• Steering assist disabled
• TPMS disabled

In fact, if there was a warning symbol for it, it was probably illuminated. No where safe to pull over so continued to Clackett services. Car seemed to drive fine but weird without regen. Would maintain speed even though foot off the accelerator. Steering, indicators and brakes all appeared to be working fine.

At Clackett, hard reset twice but no joy. Logged bug report. Decided as Dartford SC was on my way home, I should try my luck there. Without regen, consumption was high. Left Gatwick on 46%. Got to Dartford with 20% remaining. Also on incline, car would roll back - something I have not experienced since giving up manual shift many years ago. Technician downloaded log which appeared to indicate water ingress in wiring loom. Weird as car was left for a couple of nights in covered car park. Was told to book a service which I did before leaving. Ranger scheduled to visit next Wednesday. Car parked up on driveway until resolved.

View attachment 503278

 

[BumpyDog]

An update: Having written to Tesla demanding a refund and my money back, in the full knowledge that without a fleet of lawyers, I was going to get nowhere, they wrote back saying that my home charger was at fault. Having been at a Tesla charger in Bristol the day before and the car refusing to charge, I was incandescent. Tesla had clearly not bothered to look at the car logs. All the data Tesla needs, they have, yet they could not be bothered to access the logs. My reply email suggesting they look at their own logs finally got Tesla to agree that the car had a problem and that Tesla agreed it needed to be booked in and fixed.

It was duly booked in, and I left it at Tesla whilst I went on holiday for two weeks. The Tesla app showed that the car was planned to be ready two days before my return. On return, the car was not ready. Indeed, they had not even started work on it. The parts would arrive on Wednesday, no problem. I gave it till midday Wednesday and got on the phone.

The Tesla person on the end of the phone did his best to get me off the phone. "Milton Keynes will phone you back." Never in the history of this epic has anyone from Tesla ever phoned me back. I flat out refused to put the phone down until I had some sort of answer. I am back from holiday and have no car and no prospect of a car. I need solutions, not words.

MK never did phone me back, but they did text me. Good. The bad news was that it will be October before the car is repaired. Probably.

A courtesy car had been organised for the next day, and I was to collect it at 17:00.

You would think from then on, it would all be sailing. not one bit.

I arrived at 16:30 as I expected problems. I followed the instructions and collected the key card and the pin code. I found the card and let myself in. The pin code did not work. The car had a puncture. The car had pages and pages of error messages. The car had not been "prepared" as per the text. It was, in fact, a total pile of useless batteries.

I found an engineer just before he went out the door at 17:00, and he rather reluctantly came to look at "my" courtesy car. He looked at the screen and told me to go inside and make myself a cup of tea.

Another Tesla was found for me, and finally, I had a car to drive home.

Once home, I took the time to look at the fine print on the courtesy car. This courtesy car was to be mine for the thick end of two months. The fine print says the car cannot be driven more than 200k from the point at which it was collected. Any more than 200k a day would be charged at 50p per kilometre. The fine print effectively rendered the car useless to me. So back on the phone and even more text messages.

Without too much trouble, Tesla agreed that the conditions were not appropriate to my situation and agreed to wave the mileage restrictions. But I had to notice, I had to read the fine print, and I had to find a solution. A solution to a problem not of my own making. Am I the first person in the UK to have a long-term courtesy car? Or was Tesla planning on me not looking and then killing me with excess charges? Is Tesla capricious or just incompetent?

I have had the car for 10 months, and of those 10 months, it has been broken for 5 months. And for much of that time, Tesla has done their best to ignore me. It is clear to me as a customer that Tesla does not have the infrastructure to support the customer base. They do not have the spares and are hopelessly understaffed.

The car is brilliant. If it goes wrong, you will have a fight on your hands.

I cannot wait for Mercedes to bring a valid competitor to the market.

 

[NewbieT]

Thanks for the update. It’s a shame your experience doesn’t surprise me.

Have you got your car back yet? What was the issue?

You don’t say whether you will/are keeping your Tesla or rejecting/returning it?

 

[Irata]

I think many owners always had a suspicion, especially looking back on posts for the last few years, that Tesla's sales would increase faster than their servicing capabilities.

It's well reported that Tesla themselves recognise they need to improve the service experience. With a different service model being slowly introduced in the USA, for example.

It is a real shame but it was bound to happen, with so many new Tesla owners. Scaling up anything is difficult.

For me, the overall experience isn't the same as it was a couple of years ago when the service experience felt so different to anyone else. I'm not giving up, I am just saying how it feels.

When servicing is stretched, the focus is on queuing up the cars for repair and less about the owner and therefore less about the experience. I deliberately said queuing up the cars, (e.g. still in diagnostics as per the thread title) rather than fixing the cars.

I really hope Tesla can get a grip on all this, including spare parts. Tesla have more direct control over all this than most other manufacturers. The world won't fix the world's issues by itself, someone needs to make the first move.

 

[Durzel]

Tesla actively don’t want you to call them. All of the numbers that used to get you through to a specific SC have been removed and replaced by one switchboard that anyone from any SC can pick up, so it’s useless for asking anything about what is happening to your car as you speak.

I get the feeling that like the inordinate parts delays vs new cars being delivered consistently, Tesla has a “minimum viable product” attitude to supporting existing customers. If you’re not happy, well we’ve got loads of other customers waiting to buy so sucks to be you I guess.

I’m sure there are some brilliant people that work at the SCs, I’ve had experience of a few of them, but the corporate attitude sucks. Customer service is not scaling up at anything like the same rate sales are, and cracks are showing everywhere.