Parking sensors don't report (or see?) low parking lot curbs

I constantly struggle with this. At about half the parking lots I usually go to the concrete bars that prevent you from rolling too far forward are so low that the front lip of the Tesla clears them, at the other half the lip scrapes.
And on none of them the ultrasound parking sensors reliably detects them.
I so wish Tesla had gone with a front camera :-(

I usually raise my suspension to high in parking lots with curbs or concrete blocks.

Barry said:

I usually raise my suspension to high in parking lots with curbs or concrete blocks.

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good idea but what about the people with coil suspension?

and even if you do have adjustable it'd be nice if the system would warn you or auto adjust to high.

I park nose out whenever possible.

I stop short of the curb. Works pretty weill.

if the Tesla is supposed to "park itself" and "be summoned" later on, those sensors must detect the curbs....

RDoc said:

Does it stay high when it's parked or drop?

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Yup. I raise it to High (and now, the car remembers) at both my workplace and in my garage (because of a steep driveway) and the car stays put in that position.

RDoc said:

Does it stay high when it's parked or drop?

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Car drops after it's been off for a while. So raising the suspension does not help with this.

fiksegts said:

if the Tesla is supposed to "park itself" and "be summoned" later on, those sensors must detect the curbs....

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That is one of those nasty little details that make these glorious visions difficult in real life.

Lots of evidence that the current sensors and/or the current programmatic use of those sensors does not deal well with curbs that can damage the car. While it could be be a programming oversight, the geometry and placement of the sensors make me think that it is an actual limitation of the sensors - they don't detect the curb when they are close.

I suppose the sensors could detect the curb while further away and the program should extrapolate this when approaching the curb, knowing the limitation of the sensor, but I haven't thought about this long enough to think of all the ways this could result in false positives (e.g. a bump the car can safely drive over regarded as a curb).

That is why I am willing to cut Tesla some slack and go with the incremental improvement approach. Then again, I am a software guy and appreciate what it means to say Tesla is a software company. I get that this can be confusing to people used to more traditional engineering.

breser said:

Car drops after it's been off for a while. So raising the suspension does not help with this.

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Is that your experience? I've verified several times that it's exactly how I leave it, at High, 8-12 hours later. Only after I go past the speed at which it's supposed to drop does it really drop.

gg_got_a_tesla said:

Is that your experience? I've verified several times that it's exactly how I leave it, at High, 8-12 hours later. Only after I go past the speed at which it's supposed to drop does it really drop.

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I see my car drop all the time after I've parked it.

gg_got_a_tesla said:

Is that your experience? I've verified several times that it's exactly how I leave it, at High, 8-12 hours later. Only after I go past the speed at which it's supposed to drop does it really drop.

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Same for me. Definitely doesn't drop. I would have lost my bumper a long time ago if it did.

Sometimes when I get into the car, it complains about "suspension too high", but it doesn't drop until I drive.

Ours used to drop fairly soon and forget it was on High.
And it would go down (from Std) before up to High,
which was alarming when there was a curb.
Now it seems to remember the setting much better
(perhaps because now on 6.2 software?).

Used to be, not driven 2-4 days and it would settle (in the garage)
and on waking up to move (air susp rising) there would be a loud
pop as the tires unstuck from the (smooth epoxy-painted) floor. Not sure that will
still happen...?

I've noticed the same problem.

So how is the MS supposed to self parallel park later if the sensors can't detect the curb??????

RDoc said:

Does it stay high when it's parked or drop?

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Stays

dandelot said:

Used to be, not driven 2-4 days and it would settle (in the garage)
and on waking up to move (air susp rising) there would be a loud
pop as the tires unstuck from the (smooth epoxy-painted) floor. Not sure that will
still happen...?

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Why in the world would raising the car on its suspension affect the tires' contact with the floor in any way? Air suspension does not work by hyper-inflating/deflating the tires.

One trick to use if pulling perpendicular into a parking spot is to watch for the curb under the driver side mirror. Once you see it come into view under the bottom edge of the driver side mirror, stop and you should be a couple inches away from the curb.