Center Console Problems: losing items

Yes, I have. I leave my lid over the phone area open all the time, which will not allow anything larger than a coin to slip through. But I have a USD quarter that found it's way in there and every time I am on a windy road, which is every day, it slides back and forth...click, click, click. I can't get my fingers in there to get it, so I am going to try to vacuum it out this weekend when I have a minute. It took me about three weeks to figure out what the noise was! I think I will put a little dam in there to stop it in the future. Though I haven't figured what to use just yet.

If that's my biggest problem with the car, I am doing A-OK!

Ya think Tesla would have figured this out. Bummer. To think they kept everyone waiting on the list for years, then decided to offer only piano black. I am sure it looks great, but other customers signed up for matching finishes. Not good. Time to seek third party options.

OP, I've not yet lost anything in the center console of my new S90D I picked-up on Monday, but to help avoid such a problem, I placed a couple of small rectangular organizer trays in the front section, right up to the point under the bar that the rear lid opens up to for charging your phone. Nothing of any size will then slide back into the unreachable area by accident. The trays are where I have smaller items I like to keep in the car with me -- a couple spare quarters, spare battery for the remote, extra Lighting Cable, USB drive, etc... I found the trays at Container Store. They have a rubbery coating on the inside bottom to keep things from clinking around. The trays are the same sort of thing people use in bathroom or office desk drawers for organizing -- you'll find them in different sizes, so take a couple measurements of your inside console with you when you go shopping. Good luck.

...and as someone that owns a center console, I agree. Tesla really didn't do a well thought-out job with the center console as they could have. I'm VERY glad I purchased it, but I already put a carbon fiber wrap on the back lid to make the std piano black be a much closer match to my carbon fiber decor; I spent a substantial amount of time working to place some hardened wax in the tracks the front covers slide in, as they were nearly impossible to move before I did that; and the latch for the front covers is getting easier to open (push down relatively hard on the silver lip, then push the lids forward), but it's still too hard to do after a few dozen attempts to wear it in -- I just hope it gets better or I'm going to break off the plastic latch and pray that makes it easier to access.

4SUPER9 said:

The problem I am having is that items keep dropping under the aft-most section where the phone dock sits.

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I have had more trouble with the front side - the gap between the top of the center console and the 17" display. It is just wide enough for my iPhone to slide in there if I leave it on top of the closed center console, but not wide enough for me to reach in and pull it out. Only way to get it out is to accelerate quickly, which fortunately isn't hard to do with the MS It would have been better if that gap were not there, or perhaps sealed with a gasket of some sort.

The other problem I have had is closing the lid over the cell phone dock area while something is plugged into the 12V cigarette lighter port. The spring loaded lid that covers the port can get tangled with the lid covering the cellphone dock area. Maybe I should just remove that little flappy lid over the 12V port so I don't have to worry about that happening again.

I have an idea that may help you, 4SUPER9.

When my car was having a little bit of a water ingress issue (long story) I bought some microfiber cloths, and I have one kind of stuffed forward in the console, which for now is also serving to prevent anything I'd put in the console from sliding too far forward, into a spot where it would be hard to reach. You could do the same with a microfiber cloth stuffed in the other end, below the phone dock. If something were to fall through from the top, the cloth would make extraction a lot easier, as you could just easily reach a bit of the cloth from the main compartment, and pull forward. The item should be on the cloth. The cloth would also prevent anything from the main compartment from sliding back there, just as my cloth is preventing anything from sliding forward.

I haven't had a problem with anything falling down and through, because the only things I keep there are attached. (I just have a micro USB charging cable attached to a low profile 12 V adapter, which is plugged in, and a USB stick for music, also plugged in.) But I may stuff another microfiber cloth under that back end, just to be safe.

It's also probably not a bad idea to have a microfiber cloth or two easily accessible anyway.

Hope that idea may help!

4SUPER9 said:

I received Tesla’s center console a couple of months ago. Overall, I am very happy with it. I get the attractiveness of the open center area, but I simply have too much stuff that I needed to have organized. Since I received it, I have been much happier. I actually never store beverages in it. I use the dividers as organizers. This console can hold a lot of stuff!

The problem I am having is that items keep dropping under the aft-most section where the phone dock sits. Items fall there either from the main compartment in front, or from the gap between the phone dock where the door opens. I keep a bluetooth earpiece there (for when my kids don't want to listen in on my conversation), and it keeps getting knocked into this gap. This is a tough area to reach once these items fall there. This is not a small space either. It is large enough for a large sunglasses case to fall into. Smaller items can be incredibly difficult to retrieve.

Besides just complaining about this, I am wondering if anyone else had this issue and if they found a creative solution. I was thinking about attaching fabric to the forward portion of the door to the bottom, or to the base of the phone dock,, to act as a barrier.

Thoughts appreciated.
Thanks

Click to expand...

We all have that problem. I use small bits of velcro to hold things in place.

MikeS85D said:

I have had more trouble with the front side - the gap between the top of the center console and the 17" display. It is just wide enough for my iPhone to slide in there if I leave it on top of the closed center console, but not wide enough for me to reach in and pull it out. Only way to get it out is to accelerate quickly, which fortunately isn't hard to do with the MS It would have been better if that gap were not there, or perhaps sealed with a gasket of some sort.

Click to expand...

At Home Depot, Lowes or other such, you can find "backer rod" which is a dark gray foam for stuffing into deep cracks before caulking so the caulk won't just disappear into the void. It comes in 1/2" (or 3/4") diameter, with several feet of the stuff coiled inside a plastic bag.

I got my quarter out. Oh boy, no more click-click. Still have not come up with a dam of some sort to prevent it from happening again. A foam thingy most likely.

4SUPER9 said:

Rick, I was waiting for you to chime in! I was also hoping that you developed some elaborate and really cool solution. Well, if velcro doesn't work, there's always duct tape. Duct tape fixes everything.

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Why didn't I think of that

Yay for duct tape!

artsci said:

Why didn't I think of that

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While you're thinking how about a blind iPhone dock that would fit in the Evennex center console?