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Auto Air Suspension Raising can be annoying

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gpetti

gpetti

Active Member
Supporting Member
Nov 6, 2013
1,643
122
Calgary, Canada
#1
I wrote about this in the Version 6.0 thread but nobody seemed to agree with this concern so I thought I would open this up as I can't imagine I'm the only person that has this problem.

Basically there are a few places where I raise my suspension in order to enter a back alley where they have a very steep entry point. Obviously this is very useful particularly as I need to access my parking lot via this back alley when I go to work. As there are a few different spots where I may access this alley I have a few different spots saved for auto raising.
the problem is that these auto raising points have at least a 1/2 block radius which means I can be driving down the main road and my car will auto raise. At best this is mildly annoying as I don't really want it to raise but at worse I keep getting alarms because the car is trying to raise and the speed does not allow the car to raise. I'm starting to notice this in other places. There is a small shopping center near me that has a very steep drive in. I have been raising suspension to enter this drive which is useful particularly as it is not safe to slow down turning into this drive; however, I am again noticing the car raising when I drive past this shopping center even though the entry point is from a different road.
I'm not entirely sure what the answer is, should the radius be configurable? Might be excessively complicated. Maybe it should be speed dependent. For example if it is not allowed to raise suspension above a certain speed then don't sound the alarm as a warning. I'm wondering if it is possible to apply a slightly smarter algorithm to this feature.
 
#2
Yea, I find it annoying too. I have a few places I've used the air suspension (car wash, steep drive to a shopping area, and where there was a tall curb that the car lowered onto after parking so I raised up to avoid ripping the bottom off the car). Now every time I'm on the road near those places I get my beeping and unable to raise. And by the time I can get the control screen up and to the right tab I'm well past the place and can't delete the spot. It's not a huge deal, but it is sort of annoying and people in the car ask why it's beeping and such.
 
#3
I tend to agree with you, and would add that the "beeping" is the same beeping that occurs for much more serious events! I tend to panic when I hear it, and then simply realise that the car can't raise up in time because I am simply driving past the place I might have needed Very High during a different trip.

Not sure how Tesla is going to get around this, but I have to say, the way they implemented location-based suspension height was very elegant; I am sure that if they improve it, it will definitely be agreeable.

It's more of a pain for me because I have gotten used to driving around with the car set to "Low." The location-based suspension height system appears to dump me back to Standard quite a bit, and it takes a couple of seconds, and some driver distraction, to set it back. I wish there was an independent control for accessing height, perhaps in the bottom strip instead of the seat heaters, which I don't need 10 months of the year, but they're always there!
 
#5
StephenM said:
Same problem here. Raises half a block away at a place I don't want it to.
Click to expand...

Because I set so many near my office (for different back alley entrances that I use). I originally kept lowering it only to have it raise again (if I'm slowed down in traffic it works but if traffic is moving I get the alert).
I guess I definitely like the idea of the feature but I do seem to have more unwanted raises than wanted right now.
 
#6
The only real problem here is the beeping. The easy fix would be to not beep on suspension raising failure when not in park (you want to know if jack mode didn't work).
 
#7
jerry33 said:
The only real problem here is the beeping. The easy fix would be to not beep on suspension raising failure when not in park (you want to know if jack mode didn't work).
Click to expand...
I think you want to know for sure if you manually initiated, if it is auto raising and the speed is too high theoretically it shouldn't need to beep; however, I guess if I think about it, if someone wanted it raised to go over speed bumps or something, they might be going a bit too fast and it might be good to know that the auto raise failed prior to hitting the bump though really these auto raise events should usually coincide with slowing down. Not sure if there is a good reason why the very high setting isn't allowed at moderate speeds anyway.
Besides the warning I still find it mildly annoying to have the car raising to very high (happens if traffic has slowed me down when I'm in the proximity of the saved autoraise) and then having to lower again - sometimes this happens more than once to me within a few blocks. It's not exactly making me nauseous or anything but it really shouldn't be happening where you don't need it. I guess they could have a little slider bar for each setting though as I said before, maybe that is unnecessarily complicated for a relatively minor problem in the big scheme of things.


Yes and no. If I get slowed down enough due to traffic it raises me. No danger or harm done but as per the thread title, it can be annoying to raise up to very High only to then be lowered again as soon as traffic speeds up and in one area that happens to me more than once as I have a couple of points set that are parallel to the road.
 
#8
As someone who will be taking delivery next month this is concerning to me.
I manually raise and lower the Air suspension on my current car 6-10 times daily.
Was thrilled to learn about the location based auto feature, but sounds like they need to refine it or give the driver some kind of override setting.
I guess the problem could be route dependent because at this point I cannot imagine not wanting the suspension to raise when going over the multiple speed breakers on my daily commute. Having the Alarm go off does not sound appealing..... although I am sure it made sense to the programming team when it was designed.
 
#9
Vitaman said:
As someone who will be taking delivery next month this is concerning to me.
I manually raise and lower the Air suspension on my current car 6-10 times daily.
Was thrilled to learn about the location based auto feature, but sounds like they need to refine it or give the driver some kind of override setting.
I guess the problem could be route dependent because at this point I cannot imagine not wanting the suspension to raise when going over the multiple speed breakers on my daily commute. Having the Alarm go off does not sound appealing..... although I am sure it made sense to the programming team when it was designed.
Click to expand...

That would be the easiest solution. 1) Let it ask you "Do you want to save this as an auto-raise location?" and you tap yes or no. 2)"Do you want an audible alert if unable to auto-raise" as a permanent toggle in the settings.
 
#10
I also agree that the auto raise suspension can be improved.

My thought is to have an ability to see all your auto raise locations on the map with an ability to toggle the display on the map on and off. Similar to the way we used to toggle on/off the charging stations (I also want that charging toggle back because now with a bunch of charging stations on the map and I attempt to zoom out if I happen to touch one charging station the zoom gets interrupted :cursing: ).
With the locations being displayed on the map we could also delete or alter the suspension height to achieve.

I'd also like the ability to not beep if the auto raise can't be achieved at a given speed. A display on the instrument cluster would be fine in this instance.
 
#11
I'm confident that the Tesla team in charge will improve this. They just need the feedback from users, so let ownership know. They should have an option to disable (if they don't already, I didn't see it).
 
#12
Simple update would fix it:

No beeping would occur inside any previously set location-based height adjustment zone because the car would know that it can only go to High if/when the speed is low enough to do so. So if you drive through a zone at normal speed, no height change, no beeps.

Ok so the car will rise if you stop at lights or in traffic, but a simple "Cancel Height adjustment this one time? Yes/No" option on the display would deal with that.
 
#13
I have found a solution that works for me, but I don't have that many places where I want an auto-raise point. Step 1, when approaching the point where you want the suspension to raise, go ahead and raise in on screen, but disable the auto-raise for that point. When you are about 75 yards beyond that point, lower the car, then raise it again, this time keep the auto-raise point. Essentially, I'm putting the 'middle' of the auto-raise point about 75 yards away from where I actually want it to raise. This has worked well for me, as the car now doesn't attempt to raise on the streets around the parking lot with the huge speed bump.
 
#14
The navigation software in my old Toyota and Lexus cars had "avoid points" to force the navigation software to not route through those areas (a crude way to fix problems in their routing software).

The software provided an editable list of these points.

The Tesla software should have something similar. The charging locations have an editable list - and they should add one for the auto-raising locations - and could easily allow not only delete but also a distance setting (which is what Toyota/Lexus have for the "avoid points").
 
#15
I have my height set to just High. I do notice as I drive by set locations the car will go up and then later go back down again. I guess I don't find it particularly annoying.

All my set locations are on local side streets so I wouldn't ever really be going more then about 30-35 on them, which is acceptable speed for High.

If you can get by with High, that might work.

My guess is it needs to activate a block away as it takes 30 seconds or so to adjust the height so the car is ready when you get to the actual point.

-m
 
#16
invisik said:
I have my height set to just High. I do notice as I drive by set locations the car will go up and then later go back down again. I guess I don't find it particularly annoying.

All my set locations are on local side streets so I wouldn't ever really be going more then about 30-35 on them, which is acceptable speed for High.

If you can get by with High, that might work.

My guess is it needs to activate a block away as it takes 30 seconds or so to adjust the height so the car is ready when you get to the actual point.

-m
Click to expand...

I don't think going up/down is the problem here. The problem is that if you're going faster than the speed the change can be made at (high or very high doesn't matter), there is an annoying beep and a warning message comes up. Somewhat startling the first time it happens. Those should only happen when you manually try to adjust the height--not when you happen to be driving past the location.
 
#17
Vitaman said:
As someone who will be taking delivery next month this is concerning to me.
I manually raise and lower the Air suspension on my current car 6-10 times daily.
Was thrilled to learn about the location based auto feature, but sounds like they need to refine it or give the driver some kind of override setting.
I guess the problem could be route dependent because at this point I cannot imagine not wanting the suspension to raise when going over the multiple speed breakers on my daily commute. Having the Alarm go off does not sound appealing..... although I am sure it made sense to the programming team when it was designed.
Click to expand...

I guess the thread is mostly dominated by people for whom it doesn't work quite right.

I'll interject here - I have it, and it works absolutely perfectly for me. Have 4 spots per day for which I needs changing and I can't imagine any way to make it work any better.

I totally can see that there would be problems in some cases, but it's probably fine in the majority of cases.
 
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#18
Would be very helpful if an indicator was added to the dashboard showing the car's current height position... I will periodically bring up the car settings display to check. But having it always displayed in the dashboard would be much better - and would also remind drivers when the car is in the low position, and more susceptible to hitting something.
 
#19
Odd... I haven't noticed any beeping. I do see the notice that appears on the instrument cluster, though. Maybe my music is too loud! (Though I think other people play their music much louder than I do.)

I do agree that the radius is too large. I imagine this is something they will refine over time. They can probably do something smarter than a simple radius.
 
#20
"Would be very helpful if an indicator was added to the dashboard showing the car's current height position..."
What?
Is this true?
How do you find out what the suspension's level is?
Is it embedded somewhere on the big screen?
 
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