Tesla 3 charging door won't open

[Sophias_dad]

Schedule it now. It appears to be a known/common problem, they won't take a chance on an annoyed customer AND a return of the service ranger in a few weeks/months. Do be honest in the service request, though.

IIRC, it took like 2-3 MONTHS before they had the parts available, but that backlog might have been fixed by now.

 

[Spuzzz]

Very common on 2018s. I had the same issue and was also intermittent so I hesitated to make a service appt. fortunately I guess, it finally broke for good so there was no question about it. I’d wait as long as you can without endangering your warranty. Maybe get some vids of it in case you’re still intermittent by the time you approach your end of warranty.

 

[ljbad4life]

Happened to me as well. Make the appointment and get it serviced.

 

[Mr GM]

Just had it happen to my 2018 today. Was able to open it with my fingers and it's charging fine off my 14-50. Need to take it on a trip before my Service Center appointment next week and will need to use a supercharger to get home. Anyone experienced any issues trying to use Superchargers while in the mode where the charge port needs to be forced open?

 

[Jiver]

Tesla will want to know the date and time that the issue occurred. They can get the car log to see what error caused the door not to open. I made an appointment but canceled until it happens again so that I have this information.

 

[Sophias_dad]

Anyone experienced any issues trying to use Superchargers while in the mode where the charge port needs to be forced open?

No, that won't be a problem.

 

[CameraJim]

Anyone experienced any issues trying to use Superchargers while in the mode where the charge port needs to be forced open?

Actually, I did have a problem with a Supercharge when my charge port door wasn't working right. I was able to charge at home OK, but the Supercharger would not recognize that the port was open and ready for charging.

 

[Jiver]

As a follow-up, I had this issue occur twice more in April. I opened a new service request yesterday with the date/time of the incidents. I could have made a mobile appointment for today but decided to make it for Monday so that they would have time to look at the logs. I do not know if they actually did look at the logs or not but I just approved a $0 estimate for mobile service to replace the charge port at the Monday appointment. I anticipate that the issue will be solved at that time.

 

[Rick M]

2018 Model 3 here, way past warranty by mileage. Charge port door can only be lifted up manually most of time, seldom will open on its own now. Charges fine when finally open. Looking through these comments, it appears it is a $700 fix? Most of you got this done under warranty but I never had the issue until recently. Any thoughts as how to proceed as $700 vs lifting the cover manually is a bit hard to absorb?

 

[Rick P]

I have a 2018 M3 that just started having this issue last week - 2 weeks after the warranty ran out. They quoted about $450 for the replacement. I pulled the door open manually and was able to use the app to close the door. Then I rebooted the car and the open function worked again. So I was able to cancel the appointment. Even for $450 I’d prefer opening the door manually as long as the car can charge successfully.

 

[jsmay311]

FYI… I just had my charge port door assembly replaced on my 2018 Model 3 by a mobile service tech after the door stopped working. (I.e., it wouldn’t open/close on its own and I had to pry it open and push it closed instead.)

My car is out of warranty, so I had to pay. The total came to $214.40. Not too bad IMO.

Here's the invoice, before $8.40 in sales tax was added: