My solution: cut six 4-inch pieces of black electrical tape. Use three on each side to wrap around the emergency handle. Practically invisible fix: normal (eg, mistaken) pull won't move lever, but when needed for emergency a little bit of adrenaline will pop the tape right off and open the door. Voilá: no more broken seals.
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silentcorp
Member
I got the 3M wrap from RPMTesla to cover these. No one even knows they are there now. RPMTesla kinda suck (customer service is just ok, takes forever to get stuff from them etc) but they are the only ones offering this that I know of.
voip-ninja
Give me some sugar baby
Alright, if someone is trapped in the car and dies because you're unconscious and can't tell them how to use your hidden emergency release good luck living with yourself.... not to mention getting sued back into the stone age if they figure out you wallpapered over the emergency latches.
Me, I just hold a 10 second safety briefing telling people the right way to open the door. Seems to work out pretty well.
Stellavator
Member
What kind of engineering went into a vehicle that requires that one train passengers on how to open a door, lest they damage the car. Are you guys serious that an accessible lever on the door will damage the car. That's making me rethink just how "advanced" a Tesla really is.
Can't we edit our posts immediately afterwards? I meant to put a question mark on the first sentence.
yes you can edit. The door warning is funny but not that serious. The only risk is to the rubber window surround. I tried the manual release to see what would happen and no damage occurred. The electronic button just lowers the window about half an inch temporarily, same as when you open from the outside. It's pretty slick.
I thought everyone that got into my car would be totally lost trying to get out if they sat in the front seat. Out of the 25 or so people I've shown the car to, not a single one has reached for the emergency release on the front door. They have all looked at the door handle and audibly said, "Aaahhhh...". Then I just say push the thumb button at the top of the handle.
@pipestem The glass itself may be damaged, because it actually raises up into a recess at the top of the window frame. If the window doesn't go down, it can catch against that lip when opening or closing. The rubber seal inside that recess can certainly be damaged from repeated misuse, but I'd be much more concerned about a broken window.
@pipestem The glass itself may be damaged, because it actually raises up into a recess at the top of the window frame. If the window doesn't go down, it can catch against that lip when opening or closing. The rubber seal inside that recess can certainly be damaged from repeated misuse, but I'd be much more concerned about a broken window.
Eno Deb
Active Member
Yes. The problem is that it may not be fast enough if someone simultaneously pulls the handle and pushes against the door.
Agreed. I don't understand why they did the button at all. We know from the Model S that they are perfectly capable of designing a mechanical release handle that doesn't damage the door or window trim as long as the car has power (not to mention all the other automakers who have done this for decades).
And yes, two out of three people that ride along in my car try to use the handle first.
BTW, it also makes me a bit nervous that the rear doors don't have any emergency release at all that works without power. That's a potential death trap in case of an accident ...
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The problem is legal safety requirements. If you push the button, everything is fine. But due to regulations to save lives in an emergency (notice the releases are only on the two front doors?), the emergency releases are present. This isn't an advanced versus rudimentary, it's about meeting the letter of the law.
Here are some examples of other advanced systems and how they work.
How to open McLaren MP4-12C doors
Manual open McLaren 650S doors
And just for completeness, here's a family showing how to emergency release Model X and S doors.
I do the same, I give them a quick how to open the door talk when they enter the car. Also, a reminder when they are looking around for the door handle at the end of the ride.
Luckily there's no such confusion for the rear passenger doors; I'd go bonkers.
Perhaps. But I am swearing, by god, I got something from Tesla saying the risk is the rubber seal. Of course I cannot find that now.....
But totally agree not one of my passengers has reached for the emergency eject.
You are right, the warning on screen complains about the rubber seal. I didn't mean to imply you were wrong about that. The warning is about the rubber seal at the top of the window where it slips up into the door frame. If you run your finger on it, it's like a hard rubberized material.
Stellavator
Member
No problems with this.
But I just wrote a rant about the poor engineering of the design of the windows not going down when the manual release is pulled.
And then I actually checked my car. I had never tried because of what I had read in the forums. Turns out, the window does in fact go down, as @Eno Deb mentioned above.
So, is the issue just the speed? Seemed to work fine.
Obv, deleted my rant. What a tool.
But I just wrote a rant about the poor engineering of the design of the windows not going down when the manual release is pulled.
And then I actually checked my car. I had never tried because of what I had read in the forums. Turns out, the window does in fact go down, as @Eno Deb mentioned above.
So, is the issue just the speed? Seemed to work fine.
Obv, deleted my rant. What a tool.
TT97
Active Member
When the 3 first came out, there was a delay with the window going down if using the emergency release - the problem was that the window would not go down fast enough (if it did at all) and could hit the metal trim when opening the door. One of the OTAs in early 2018 addressed the issue so windows goes down much faster but the warning message is still there.
I suppose if you are pushing against the door as you use the emergency release, you may still be able to hit the trim - I'm not willing to try on mine.
Eno Deb
Active Member
Yep. The emergency release handle opens the door latch (mechanically) at the same time as it triggers the window down-movement, whereas the button first moves the window down and then unlatches the door through an electric actuator. So if you use the emergency release it is possible to push the door open before the window is down.
Stellavator
Member
Thanks! Feel much better about this now. I was so worried about someone breaking my window.
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