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Very disappointing new M3 experience

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First of all, what you need to know is that I have owned a Model S for almost EIGHT years (yes, I was one of Tesla's very early customers -- Note my join date to the left). I have been so thrilled with that car, that there was never any question that my next car would be another Tesla.

My experience so far with my week-old Model 3 LR has been a very different story. For starters, the delivery time-frame was way off — In August I was told November, and got it in September. That would normally be a good thing, except for the fact that I only had a few days notice that the car was coming far earlier than expected, and was unable to get the new NEMA 6-50 outlet installed, or the additional other accessories that I wanted before the car arrived, some of which are now out-of-stock.

When I picked up the car, the dealer spent almost no time helping me with the features of the car (many of which were new to me), or setting things up. They helped me enable the feature that unlocks the car with my phone, and then turned me loose. That is completely unacceptable for a car of this complexity.

I had an inordinate amount of trouble setting up the profiles for my wife and myself. Still not convinced everything is function as it should.

When using the screen (sitting in the garage, not driving), it frequently suddenly dims, and then freezes, requiring one of those double thumbwheel resets. THIS IS MAJOR BUG!

The online manual is poorly written, and, worst of all, is hopelessly out of date, and apparently describes an earlier model. For example, my center console looks and operates very differently then the one described in the manual. The “dashcam” section is joke — More on this below.

The car’s onscreen manual either appears to be only a small subset of the online one, or the search feature simply doesn’t work, not sure which is the case, and not wasting any more time on it.

My first call to your tech support line was answered by someone who apparently knew almost nothing about the car, and was clearly referring to the user manual while on the phone. I am well aware of online manuals, and know how to download and use them. If the answer was in the manual, I wouldn’t have been calling.

The 2nd day, I noticed an annoying “whining” sound when my wife was backing out of the garage. Had no idea this is an audible warning, which prompted another call to tech support. Another shortcoming of the dealer delivery experience.

The car also frequently makes odd buzzing/grinding noises while just sitting in the garage. Maybe this has to do with “preconditioning”, whatever that is, or perhaps cooling/heating the battery while charging. Still not sure what’s going on here, and never got a satisfying answer from phone tech support on this subject.

The so-called “dashcam” feature in this car is either not working, or it simply doesn’t function like virtually every other 3rd-party dashcam on the market, several of which I have owned. I have already wasted NUMEROUS hours on this problem, either on the phone, or posting online, trying to figure this out. At this time, it looks like it’s not working properly, but still not really sure.

And last, but most certainly not least, NO BUILT-IN GARAGE DOOR OPENER? SERIOUSLY??? My 2-year old Subaru, which cost FAR LESS than this car, came with one. We’re talking about a five-dollar (at most) piece of silicon here. C’mon you guys, that’s ridiculous.

Needless to say, unlike my old MS, this is not a car I would be likely to recommend to anyone. If this had been an Amazon purchase, there is a good chance it would already be on it’s way back to Amazon.
 
When you google a model 3 manual, that one is out of date, however the manual that you can download from your tesla account is up to date. Did you check there? The tesla online account portal has changed several times, so you may not be aware that the latest manual is located there.

You can find it by going to:

1. Log into your tesla account
2. Click MANAGE on your car
3. Click drop down arrow next to GLOVE BOX to open it
4. Click owners manual and download.

Hope that helps on the owners manual issue you have. The other stuff seems to be that your dashcam isnt working, it doesnt come with Home link (which model 3s have not come with for 1.5 years, but I agree with you here), the car makes some noises you are not used to, and the delivery experience is quite a bit different than it was previously, both true.
 
Sorry but Tesla has changed considerably since you bought your Model S. I’m sure with the S you had a personal concierge like delivery experience with the big red bow and everything. Now Tesla just wants to sell as many cars as possible. Sell first, fix later mentality. If you’ve followed Tesla in the news you would have known this. The Delivery experience, well it’s COVID times so yea some people just get their car delivered to their house with no human interaction whatsoever. Complaining about an earlier delivery date than expected? That’s a first. Everyone else is waiting months for theirs. The whining noise, yea that’s normal. You can unplug the speaker underneath the car if you want. The buzzing noise, probably the heat pump from what I’ve read. Dashcam, yea there’s a whole another thread about that. Homelink, it’s been well known not to be included. Caveat emptor and all that. Maybe you should have gotten another Model S? Dunno good luck.
 
New to the whole Tesla thing but I found the completely hands off delivery process a breath of fresh air. Perhaps the blow was softened by two lengthy test drives and instructions from a very nice SA before I ordered the car so I was pretty familiar with the basic operation of the car. I also spent a ton of time perusing many YouTube videos and other online sources. Lots of quality content out there to help you through some of the issues you described.

No personal problem with the screen freezes but I have seen it described as an issue with the latest software when viewing and closing the onscreen owner's manual. Maybe that's what happened to you.

It hasn't been a perfect process for me but from order on 8/16 to delivery of a so far perfect M3P on 9/15 has been lots of fun and a real learning experience.
 
First of all, what you need to know is that I have owned a Model S for almost EIGHT years (yes, I was one of Tesla's very early customers -- Note my join date to the left). I have been so thrilled with that car, that there was never any question that my next car would be another Tesla.

My experience so far with my week-old Model 3 LR has been a very different story. For starters, the delivery time-frame was way off — In August I was told November, and got it in September. That would normally be a good thing, except for the fact that I only had a few days notice that the car was coming far earlier than expected, and was unable to get the new NEMA 6-50 outlet installed, or the additional other accessories that I wanted before the car arrived, some of which are now out-of-stock.

When I picked up the car, the dealer spent almost no time helping me with the features of the car (many of which were new to me), or setting things up. They helped me enable the feature that unlocks the car with my phone, and then turned me loose. That is completely unacceptable for a car of this complexity.

I had an inordinate amount of trouble setting up the profiles for my wife and myself. Still not convinced everything is function as it should.

When using the screen (sitting in the garage, not driving), it frequently suddenly dims, and then freezes, requiring one of those double thumbwheel resets. THIS IS MAJOR BUG!

The online manual is poorly written, and, worst of all, is hopelessly out of date, and apparently describes an earlier model. For example, my center console looks and operates very differently then the one described in the manual. The “dashcam” section is joke — More on this below.

The car’s onscreen manual either appears to be only a small subset of the online one, or the search feature simply doesn’t work, not sure which is the case, and not wasting any more time on it.

My first call to your tech support line was answered by someone who apparently knew almost nothing about the car, and was clearly referring to the user manual while on the phone. I am well aware of online manuals, and know how to download and use them. If the answer was in the manual, I wouldn’t have been calling.

The 2nd day, I noticed an annoying “whining” sound when my wife was backing out of the garage. Had no idea this is an audible warning, which prompted another call to tech support. Another shortcoming of the dealer delivery experience.

The car also frequently makes odd buzzing/grinding noises while just sitting in the garage. Maybe this has to do with “preconditioning”, whatever that is, or perhaps cooling/heating the battery while charging. Still not sure what’s going on here, and never got a satisfying answer from phone tech support on this subject.

The so-called “dashcam” feature in this car is either not working, or it simply doesn’t function like virtually every other 3rd-party dashcam on the market, several of which I have owned. I have already wasted NUMEROUS hours on this problem, either on the phone, or posting online, trying to figure this out. At this time, it looks like it’s not working properly, but still not really sure.

And last, but most certainly not least, NO BUILT-IN GARAGE DOOR OPENER? SERIOUSLY??? My 2-year old Subaru, which cost FAR LESS than this car, came with one. We’re talking about a five-dollar (at most) piece of silicon here. C’mon you guys, that’s ridiculous.

Needless to say, unlike my old MS, this is not a car I would be likely to recommend to anyone. If this had been an Amazon purchase, there is a good chance it would already be on it’s way back to Amazon.
Welcome to the “New Tesla”

As a fellow early adopter I feel your pain. It is not the same company. Cost cutting at every corner and no quality control or customer service.

Competition is coming.
 
I am sorry that you are so unhappy - I am thrilled with my model 3 LR even though I have had many of the same experiences. The difference is that I knew exactly what to expect having haunted all of the online forums, youtube videos, etc. I was so well-prepared that I didn't need or want much personal interaction when I picked up the car. I didn't even really need the owner's manual, although I did read a current version just to pick up any fine points.

I have not seen the screen problem that you mentioned - perhaps you have a hardware problem that service should address. I have had the MCU crash when looking at the owner's manual (where the AC comes on full blast, the screen hangs, and you need to do a reset) and that clearly is a software bug that will eventually be addressed.

The odd noises while parked do come and go - I put it down to the heat pump meeting the needs of the battery management system and don't worry too much about it.

You didn't say what you actually think is wrong with the dashcam. I guess that you just wanted to vent, not to get help or ideas.

As to the built-in garage door opener, that has been discussed at length in the online forums. That said, I don't know what the part really costs but imagine that it costs $5. Sounds trivial for sure. But multiply that by the approximately 900,000 cars that will be delivered this year and you are talking about 4.5 Million dollars. That doesn't count the licensing fees for the garage door companies, support, etc. For better or worse, Tesla decided that they weren't willing to carry that cost after looking into how often the feature actually was being used. Personally, I just put my opener control on my sun visor just like I have with every other car. If I decide to get lazy, there is always Tailwind.
 
Welcome to the “New Tesla”

As a fellow early adopter I feel your pain. It is not the same company. Cost cutting at every corner and no quality control or customer service.

Competition is coming.
Yes, and it would have been tempting to look at the competition, especially Porsche, but the problem is, Tesla is the only car that has a road-trip charging solution, and is YEARS ahead of everyone else in that department.
 
You didn't say what you actually think is wrong with the dashcam. I guess that you just wanted to vent, not to get help or ideas.
OK, since it sounds like you're intimately familiar with the operational details, let me ask you about the dashcam. Every dashcam i have ever owned constantly records video footage while you're driving and stores these clips in the internal (ssd) storage, overwriting older clips as needed when it gets full.

After a week, there is NOTHING on my flash drive -- ya know, the one that came with the car, plugged in and presumably functional. Yes, the red dot on the screen's dashcam icon is on, which means it's supposed to be recording. However, after perusing the dashcam section in the manual, as well as talking to phone tech support, my understanding is that it doesn't actually store any video on the flash drive unless you honk the horn (which is idiotic IMHO), or tap the icon and say 'save' -- just what I'm going to remember to do in an emergency situation. However, in the other post I started earlier, some folks are claiming differently, so I'm still not sure what the actual story is. What's your take?
 
You should note these issues and go get a service center appointment. Sounds like your car malfunctioning. Also, dashcam only saves when you manually hit the camera icon driving, when you honk the horn (this has to be turned on in the settings), in a collision, and when there is a sentry mode event. Outside of those events, it doesn't typically save the footage.
 
Yes, and it would have been tempting to look at the competition, especially Porsche, but the problem is, Tesla is the only car that has a road-trip charging solution, and is YEARS ahead of everyone else in that department.
If they make good on their promise of opening up the Supercharger Network next year, that problem is solved.

Personally, I don’t know why they would. Like you say, it’s the one thing keeping me around for the moment.
 
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My lawd jesus you sound pompous, you should give yourself a reality check, you're complaining about really insignificant things, maybe a Mach E will be better suited to your driver experience.

My M3LR is nearly perfect, expected issues but really had nothing to complain about, it is still a car at the end of the day

*shrugs*
do you consider it an "insignificant thing" when your laptop crashes and hangs on a regular basis? This has happened to me 4-5 times already, inside of a week. I have already called Tesla support more times inside of a week, than I did in the entire EIGHT YEARS that I owned my Model S -- and I'll be calling them again first thing Monday morning when they open
 
Also, dashcam only saves when you manually hit the camera icon driving, when you honk the horn (this has to be turned on in the settings), in a collision, and when there is a sentry mode event. Outside of those events, it doesn't typically save the footage.
Yesterday, I started another thread on this forum around my dashcam issue, and here is what someone else said, who, like you, sounded like they knew what they were talking about:

"On the USB stick you should find a Recent directory in the TeslaCam directory corresponding to that hour long video clips. These video clips should always be present regardless of Sentry status or whether you manually saved dashcam footages."

Unless my comprehension of the english language is seriously deficient, this is the complete opposite of what you just said, which means one of you is 100% wrong. How do I determine which one is the case?
 
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OK, since it sounds like you're intimately familiar with the operational details, let me ask you about the dashcam. Every dashcam i have ever owned constantly records video footage while you're driving and stores these clips in the internal (ssd) storage, overwriting older clips as needed when it gets full.

After a week, there is NOTHING on my flash drive -- ya know, the one that came with the car, plugged in and presumably functional. Yes, the red dot on the screen's dashcam icon is on, which means it's supposed to be recording. However, after perusing the dashcam section in the manual, as well as talking to phone tech support, my understanding is that it doesn't actually store any video on the flash drive unless you honk the horn (which is idiotic IMHO), or tap the icon and say 'save' -- just what I'm going to remember to do in an emergency situation. However, in the other post I started earlier, some folks are claiming differently, so I'm still not sure what the actual story is. What's your take?

It doesnt "save" video (as in move it to a place where it wont be overwritten) unless you honk the horn, but there is video on my usb drive from my regular commutes. It only saves 1 hour of video and overwrites after that, so if your commute is longer than that, it could be over written, but there is video there.

Since you mention there is nothing on yours, either your drive needs to be re formatted and the teslacam folder put back, or there is an issue with your USB drive, or port.
 
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OK, since it sounds like you're intimately familiar with the operational details, let me ask you about the dashcam. Every dashcam i have ever owned constantly records video footage while you're driving and stores these clips in the internal (ssd) storage, overwriting older clips as needed when it gets full.

After a week, there is NOTHING on my flash drive -- ya know, the one that came with the car, plugged in and presumably functional. Yes, the red dot on the screen's dashcam icon is on, which means it's supposed to be recording. However, after perusing the dashcam section in the manual, as well as talking to phone tech support, my understanding is that it doesn't actually store any video on the flash drive unless you honk the horn (which is idiotic IMHO), or tap the icon and say 'save' -- just what I'm going to remember to do in an emergency situation. However, in the other post I started earlier, some folks are claiming differently, so I'm still not sure what the actual story is. What's your take?
As per page 70 of the manual, it only loops the last 60 minutes and stores it in the "Recent Clips" folder:
The TeslaCam folder contains three sub-folders:
• Recent Clips: The footage in Recent Clips continuously loops in 60-minute cycles whenever the cameras are activated. Therefore, footage is overwritten every hour unless you save it. When an event is recorded, one video is recorded for each of the front, rear, left, and right cameras.
• Saved Clips: Contains all recordings that you have manually saved using Dashcam.
• Sentry Clips: Contains the last 10 minutes of footage from all Sentry Mode events that have triggered an Alert or Alarm state. The footage from each event is labelled with a unique timestamp.
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_3_owners_manual_north_america_en.pdf

If you park the car and go back to the car more than hour later, it will have nothing since it'll delete all the clips (and while parked it wouldn't have been recording). There are others that have been able to get clips more than a hour ago by pulling the USB stick before the car has a chance to delete it, but I guess that only works if you have it plugged into a port outside the glovebox (so car isn't fully awake).

It does this likely because it relies on regular USB drives which have limited write cycles, many times are quite small, and if it tries to fill it up, that leaves less free space for wear leveling.
 
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New to the whole Tesla thing but I found the completely hands off delivery process a breath of fresh air. Perhaps the blow was softened by two lengthy test drives and instructions from a very nice SA before I ordered the car so I was pretty familiar with the basic operation of the car. I also spent a ton of time perusing many YouTube videos and other online sources. Lots of quality content out there to help you through some of the issues you described.

No personal problem with the screen freezes but I have seen it described as an issue with the latest software when viewing and closing the onscreen owner's manual. Maybe that's what happened to you.

It hasn't been a perfect process for me but from order on 8/16 to delivery of a so far perfect M3P on 9/15 has been lots of fun and a real learning experience.
I liked the hands off nature too. But like you I was already very familiar with the car before getting it.
 
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Just trying to save my fellow enthusiasts a bit of time. In all seriousness none of that sounds like anything major, maybe just need to give it a bit of time to get used to it.

TIm
oK, sorry for my snippy reply; you're right, most of my issues are not all that significant -- it was just the combination of all those items within a few days of taking delivery that started to add up. The screen crashing is not insignificant, but the one that really got me going was the whole dashcam thing, and I still can't get a straight answer. Half the responders are claiming it doesn't record any video to the flash drive unless you honk, and the other half are insisting it does save the last hour without you taking any action. Both can't be true. I really don't want to have to install my previous dashcam if I don't have to, as it's a PITA, and keeps falling off. But I consider it critical to have a fully functional dashcam in the car.
 
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