Strange regen braking problem - shaking

[teslick2]

Hi all,

Now that the weather is colder I have noticed some strange shaking with the regen breaking on my 2013 model s. On cold mornings when I start driving it will start to shake pretty hard at low reg braking speeds (no feet on either pedals). The moment I press the brakes it stops. It appears to only happen on downhills and tends to go away once I’ve been driving a while.

Has anyone ever experienced this or can they share any thoughts or advice? Since it only happens under specific conditions it’s hard to demonstrate to the service center and they have not been able to help.

thanks!

 

[steve841]

Total guess .... motor mount

 

[teslick2]

Total guess .... motor mount

Good point. Does the motor engage during reg braking?

 

[bishoppeak]

That's what does the regen

 

[teslick2]

Total guess .... motor mount

So thinking about this more, if it were the motor mount, then wouldn’t it exhibit the same behavior when accelerating?

 

[steve841]

Forces are going in the opposite direction ....

 

[Benjanos]

Strange it goes away after driving a while. Wonder if once the battery is warm and the regen becomes stronger the problem is less apparent for some reason.

Did you recently change to winter wheels/tires? Wheel/tires can create strange problems sometimes if not setup right. Just a thought.

 

[teslick2]

update: the problem went away when I got the tires changed. The old ones were pretty beat, and the metal bands were showing in some places. That being said, I think it was a combo of things happening that were causing the shakes. I found that it only occurred when doing regen braking, on a downhill, while the air suspension was lowering. Add bad tires to the mix and things got weird.

 

[JDWalker]

Hi all,

Now that the weather is colder I have noticed some strange shaking with the regen breaking on my 2013 model s. On cold mornings when I start driving it will start to shake pretty hard at low reg braking speeds (no feet on either pedals). The moment I press the brakes it stops. It appears to only happen on downhills and tends to go away once I’ve been driving a while.

Has anyone ever experienced this or can they share any thoughts or advice? Since it only happens under specific conditions it’s hard to demonstrate to the service center and they have not been able to help.

thanks!

I started to have shaking going down only very steep hills, which also stops when I break. It shakes an alarming amount. It’s didn’t do this for the first few weeks, but now does it consistently in one steep hill by my house. I made a service appointment.

 

[teslick2]

I started to have shaking going down only very steep hills, which also stops when I break. It shakes an alarming amount. It’s didn’t do this for the first few weeks, but now does it consistently in one steep hill by my house. I made a service appointment.

Keep me posted on the results! Mine still does it a little, but it’s much less common now.

 

[Battpower]

Shaking on heavy (or moderate) acceleration or deceleration loads on warn drive shaft couplings / CV joints can cause odd vibration. Especially CV joints change with temperature, spread of grease and random alignment of internal components.

If you have air suspension, changing the ride height can give some diagnostic clues.

 

[JB Korea]

I started to have shaking going down only very steep hills, which also stops when I break. It shakes an alarming amount. It’s didn’t do this for the first few weeks, but now does it consistently in one steep hill by my house. I made a service appointment.

Hi, would you share me the updates regarding this post? Has this problem been solved after checking in the service center? I'm having the same problem in Seoul, Korea and I wonder if other people who experienced the same issue fixed their errors! Please share me your thoughts and experiences. Thank you so much in advance!

 

[SPXMike]

I'm starting to notice this too on my 2013 P85+. 95k miles. Tires are OK. Might be a temp thing, its been a little cool here lately

 

[teslick2]

I'm starting to notice this too on my 2013 P85+. 95k miles. Tires are OK. Might be a temp thing, its been a little cool here lately

Purely speculation… but I think it has to do with the car trying to limit regen braking when cold, but it isn’t doing it well. It only happened to me on cold days, when the battery was cold, and I was coasting down a hill.

 

[pgiralt]

I've been having this problem for 3 years and it just keeps getting worse year after year. The shaking on mine can be quite violent some times. I have figured out how to reliably reproduce the issue even if it's not cold. The issue definitely has something to do with the SoC being at a certain point and the car appears to try to limit regen but does a really terrible job at it and you end up with this pulsating of regen on and off which can shake the car forward and back. The way I can reliably reproduce the issue is to charge to about 95% - 97% SoC, drive 25 mph down a slight decline, then just let off the accelerator and let regen do its thing. When you get below 10 mph or so, the car just will shake like crazy.

Since the problem has increasingly gotten worse over the years, I think there is some battery degradation component to this where perhaps it's trying to recharge the battery at a rate that the software is trying to limit because of the age of the battery - or something like that.

About a year ago when I finally figured out how to reliably reproduce the problem, I left my car with Tesla for about a week while they took some diagnostics to provide data back to engineering and I've been told that they're looking into it, but a year later, still no fix. My car has gotten to the point where at just 90% SoC, I have the problem every morning - at least now during the winter time.

I'm just happy to see that I'm not the only one. Please report this issue to your service centers so that Tesla is aware that this issue is impacting more cars so that they give some importance to fixing it.

 

[Battpower]

Does the issue being discussed manifest as a vibration, shaking or surging?

If related to SoC and regen which sounds plausible, my expectation would have been for an slower oscillation linked to vehicle mass, rather than a relatively fast oscillation that might be described as a judder or shake.

Does the frequency of 'shake' / judder vary?

 

[teslick2]

Does the issue being discussed manifest as a vibration, shaking or surging?

If related to SoC and regen which sounds plausible, my expectation would have been for an slower oscillation linked to vehicle mass, rather than a relatively fast oscillation that might be described as a judder or shake.

Does the frequency of 'shake' / judder vary?

In my experience, the cold weather and SOC were contributing factors, but not the main cause. The cold weather and SOC limit regen braking, and then whatever logic and mechanical restrictions on the regen braking are not limiting it properly, leading to the shake.

The shake starts small but increases in intensity to the point where the whole car is shaking and making strange noises, likely from the vibrations.

 

[SPXMike]

@pgiralt, the SoC correlation is a great clue. I'll explore that a bit more - thanks!

 

[VegarHenriksen]

This 100% has to do with colder weather as that is the only time I notice this behavior

 

[philip295]

I replaced the integral links on my 85 RWD. I noticed that the rubber bushes were separating from the centre.
The rear suspension now feels firmer. I wonder if these could cause a wobble.