Trunk unlocks perfectly but doors not so much-Is this a clue?

[PeteInCA]

I have not posted in a while and followed the phone as key threads quite closely for a long time. Needless to say I am one of the people whose phone is unreliable for unlocking the car. However, recently I have begun testing the phone as key to simply open the trunk. Guess what? It works perfectly. Many times, however, I will close the trunk and sprint to the front door and find that I can't open it without a significant delay. So, why is it that the car connects to the phone so readily to open the trunk but it will not do the same to open the doors?

I have tried turning off the bluetooth on my phone just to be sure that the trunk is in fact locked. In other words with the bluetooth turned off I can not open the trunk. So, the phone is in fact working to unlock it.

I am somewhat hopeful that someone will find this an important clue as to how to fix the phone as key problem. The behavior with the trunk vs. the door seems like it might hold the key (pun intended) to the problem.

 

[TWANGnBANG]

I have the same experience- our Model 3 is much more sensitive to the presence of my phone when I’m at the trunk than when I’m at the doors. I keep my iPhone X in my back pocket, and I usually have to spin my butt towards the car to get the door to open. If I’m not carrying something in my other hand, I’ve just gotten in the habit of pulling my phone out of my pocket as I get to the car since I’m going to be putting it in the dock anyway.

 

[ibdb]

For 4 months, I've had no issues unlocking my doors or trunk of our 3 with my phone. I updated to 2018.50.6 4ec03ed last night, and starting today I'm seeing the behavior you described.

The truck unlocks if I approach with my phone in my pocket or in my hand, but the car no longer does. Once in the car, the car recognizes the phone to start and drive without issue. I have a Samsung Galaxy S8.

 

[GregRF]

I had the same issue, worked perfectly with the trunk, sporadic with the door. I'm guessing it has to do with where the Bluetooth antennae are located. There is one square in the middle of the rear bumper. The side might be in the side-view mirror.

That was with a Nexus 5X phone. I recently changed to a Pixel 3 and it has been working flawlessly.

 

[fezziks_human]

I have a similar issue where sometimes the phone opens the doors fine, but then the car won't let me actually drive without tapping the keycard. Annoying AF.

 

[Need]

I had the same issue, worked perfectly with the trunk, sporadic with the door. I'm guessing it has to do with where the Bluetooth antennae are located. There is one square in the middle of the rear bumper. The side might be in the side-view mirror.

That was with a Nexus 5X phone. I recently changed to a Pixel 3 and it has been working flawlessly.

I had similar issue when I had the LG G4. Switched to Pixel 3 XL on BF last year and working flawlessly.

 

[Kenyakid]

My Samsung S9 worked well for the doors the first 3 months, but 3-4 times in the past 6 weeks it has failed to open the doors. Tonight that happened for a brief few moments; then when I got in, it would not shift into Drive. I thought I was stuck with a dead car. I hit the app's padlock icon; the doors locked and the "transmission" shifted. So many software glitches, I can't dismiss my wife's concerns that EAP and FSD could have a spontaneous glitch when your safety is on the line.

 

[dumbass]

Well I also posted ?s and generally stupid thoughts on this topic for awhile...my 3 has been in body shop since December, so can't discuss directly. But have noticed that the quality of my phone's connection to headphones varies greatly by location and sometimes where I have the phone relative to my body. It seems the more crowded the area with other people who also are using bluetooth it is less reliable. Makes me wonder if some of the issue is the phone twitching between the different antennas on the car? even for a fraction of a second, could that interfere with what ever "conversation" the phone and car are having?

 

[fabian]

You should have 5 bluetooth connections to the car, 1 named "Tesla Model 3" and 4 that look random but end with "C" "D" "P" and "R". I'm not sure what each connection is for but it's probably for unlocking at least so check if you have all working.

 

[Petrlol]

Think c d r p is rear driver passenger console. At least that what it appeared to be when I was looking at the distance from each beacon.