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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - When your touchscreen goes down

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Yesterday morning I got into my car and was greeted with an unpleasant surprise. My touchscreen was black and wouldn't come up. I tried rebooting it a couple of times and nothing happened. However....

The Good.
I could still drive the car. It took about 1 min for the car to become responsive to me pushing on the brake pedal and turn on. Once on I could drive the car and roll down the windows. All lights (brakes, blinkers, etc) appeared to be working and the speedometer displayed and was functional. So, the good news is that even when the touchscreen is working you can drive the car. Though this is really not surprising for anyone who has rebooted while driving, but still reassuring to know.

The Bad
Anything controlled by the touchscreen no longer functioned. So that meant no music, it was truly a silent drive to work. However,without being able to see traffic on the map it was a bit of a frustrating drive since I didn't know when I needed to route around stopped traffic. It also, meant that the climate control was not working and with temperature in the high 80's/low 90's it's a bit hot in the car. Luckily, as I said in the Good, I was able to roll down the windows; though I couldn't open the sunroof, even from the scroll wheel on the the steering wheel.

The Ugly
The really bad surprise, however, came when I realized that, even though I'd plugged in Saturday and today was Monday (drove the hubby's Tesla the rest of the weekend), my car had not charged. Apparently, when the touchscreen is inoperable; so is the charging.

Luckily Tesla was able to send someone out to my workplace Monday morning and he was finally able to get the screen to reboot. Apparently the sequence he used was: attempt reboot of touchscreen, attempt reboot of instrument panel, attempt again to reboot touchscreen this time holding the scroll wheels down until a loud click is hear (about a 40 count) and then it rebooted.

Not sure if the first two steps are actually needed; but for future reference if this ever happens again will definitely just try holding the scroll wheels down until I hear something, instead of just until the instrument panel flashes.
 
I didn't find out how much went "offline" when the center screen was "dead" until recently. Everything froze up on me sunday while navigating to a party: audiobook stopped playing, nav stopped updating (on both the main screen and dash).

When I went to reboot the center screen, as usual the nav went away on the dash screen and my HVAC died, but while in a turn, my steering started spazzing out as well. I guess during the reboot process it starts (re)setting your options.. I was looping through the various steering settings (comfort, sport, standard). Wasn't braking at the moment, but I wonder if regen level was also changing.

Luckily all came back up in time for me to resume navigation, but will try the 40-count click next time I need a hard reboot.
 
Can you elaborate on this? Thanks.

Yes, as mentioned, it started cycling through the different modes. One second the pressure I'm applying was sufficient, next second it was too much (as it went to comfort from sport). I'd say the resistance in the steering cycled through intensities twice before returning to sport.
 
My touchscreen failed in the vary early days. The main problem was that I couldn't set HVAC in the middle of January. Fortunately it was already set somewhat okay. The computer appeared to be working though so the car worked normally otherwise. It was just the screen itself that failed.
 
Yes, as mentioned, it started cycling through the different modes. One second the pressure I'm applying was sufficient, next second it was too much (as it went to comfort from sport). I'd say the resistance in the steering cycled through intensities twice before returning to sport.
Ah, I should read more carefully.

But just to confirm the "spazzing" out was limited to which of the 3 modes was active (and apparently transitions between them) not stuff like total refusal to turn (like when parked), the wheel turning on its own, or the wheel feeling "disconnected" from the actual direction the car was turning. Correct?
 
Ah, I should read more carefully.

But just to confirm the "spazzing" out was limited to which of the 3 modes was active (and apparently transitions between them) not stuff like total refusal to turn (like when parked), the wheel turning on its own, or the wheel feeling "disconnected" from the actual direction the car was turning. Correct?

Correct, more the resistance felt in the wheel (which, since I was on a long curving exit ramp, did make things a bit dicey)
 
I have had the touch screen die on three separate occasions. The car drove fine. The HVAC worked until the reboot when the screen failed during driving. The radio also played until the reboot. The other two times the screen did not launch when I entered the car. These times no HVAC or radio. The car drove perfectly. Two of these episodes included no dash. No problem. The car did not charge prior to me noticing the failure to launch. I rebooted while driving. Knowing that the reboot takes about 40 seconds I only rebooted on slow, straight stretches of road and can neither confirm or deny the steering issue.
 
My screen spontaneously rebooted while driving tonight and the headlights were off. They didn't come back on automatically either. I realized a few miles down the road that they weren't on so I had to manually turn them on. Kind of dangerous, don't you think?

So, if your screen ever reboots while driving, be sure to check your lights.
 
Yeh, I had the exact same incident yesterday. Holding down the screen didn't work. Backing up without the screen was a little inconvenient, and the inability to turn the AC on was frustrating. The car would drive, but the screen is completely blank. I stopped trying to reboot as it didn't seem to do anything. Later in the day it started operating again. Tech - go figure.