I went into my apartment garage and tried to open the trunk with the key fob, nothing. Tried to open the door, nothing. Disconnected the charger, tried to open or lock the door and trunk again, nothing. Put the key in the door (it's underneath in the middle pointing straight up for those of you unfamiliar) and set off the alarm while trying to open it. I entered my PIN and silenced the horn, and tried to start the car. Not much. After several tries and even opening the door, I was able to get the info screen to come on. There was an unusual chime but no warnings or faults on the screen. The dashboard remained black and headlights would not light when the key was in the on position, and the PDRN buttons lit for a moment but went dead. After I re-connected the charge cable and disconnected it, I was able to get the dash lights and headlights come on by turning on the car, then turning it off and leaving the key in the ignition, but they would not remain on with the key in the on position. The symptoms changed several times as I tried again and again to start it... sometimes the info screen stayed off, which scared me, so when I was finally able to get it to come on again, I put it in tow mode. The trunk won't open, nor will the glovebox. I loaded the logs into a thumb drive and uploaded them to Tesla service. They're going to get back to me. Their first guess is that possibly my recently-replaced remote unit (inside the car) that detects the fob signals has died and the car isn't recognizing the key, but this came from a non-technician who told me he's not in a position to be certain of that... it's just a guess so far. I was headed to the track tomorrow, leaving tonight... it's the last Wednesday night drag at Brainerd International Raceway for the year and it would have been my first drag race... what a drag. Sigh. At least it died at home, in the relative security of my own parking space indoors, but I can't lock the car now that I've opened it. Which is really more annoying than anything... I'm locked out of the trunk and the glovebox, and anybody can get into my car and screw with it now. Grr.
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bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
I wonder if the 12V aux battery died. That happened to me, and I was unable to get the car to respond to the key fob. It did OK once I got in and turned it on and it was running on the main battery. I drove straight to Tesla service, they replaced the 12V and I was good to go.
Kind of funny to have the car die because of a tiny lead-acid battery failure.
Kind of funny to have the car die because of a tiny lead-acid battery failure.
W.Petefish
Active Member
W.Petefish
Active Member
W.Petefish
Active Member
The key slot for the trunk is on the left tail light. Your DC-DC converter is probably the culprit, but it could also be a bad connection. We had problems with a connection on my PEM on the 8th. It was a poorly seated connector and was resolved by one of the rangers sticking his hand under the PEM and plugging that cable back in.
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Ah... Trip to Chicago. My car made that journey recently. It sucks you're going to be without your car for awhile but glad they found out the problem. It was very strange getting back into my Jetta and driving it every day. You get so used to instant torque and miss it after awhile.
Nvbob
Roadster 1256
Something similar happened to us. We drove back from Reno just before Labor Day and noted that the battery temps were quite warm (in the yellow). It took most of the trip home for them to cool down so, we contacted Tesla the next day and sent them the log file. The morning after Labor Day we went to start the car to head to work and, nothing. There was no noise, no indication on the dash or the vds that we had tried to start the car. The only lights we got were the PRND. We tried multiple times but the car would not start, the trunk would not open with either the dash button or the key from the trunk release key slot on the back of the car. We did manage to open the trunk with the key remote. We tried it again that evening and, everything worked normally - the car started, the trunk opened, just like nothing had happened. Tesla took a look at the logs I had sent from the day before and did not see any problems (except for the batteries getting warm). Tesla came out the next day and did fix the battery cooling issue (recharged the AC system). I was surprised that the logs did not show any faults when the car would not start. Since then everything has been normal.
W.Petefish
Active Member
But the one thing you don't miss is the smell of gasoline.
Did your roadster come back this week? When the rangers were at my house they were pulling a trailer with a roadster in it.
Not unusual at all for the RAV4-EV. When someone complains of problems with their vehicle on the RAV4-EV email list, the first response is always "When was the last time you checked your auxilliary battery?"
Tesla is going out of their way to get my Roadster up and running quickly. My man EB is headed up from Chicago with a service van hauling a transport trailer and he's going to bring it back to the shop on Saturday so they can begin work on the problem immediately. Hopefully I'll get it back within a week or so. It'll be time for the hard top... the weather's switched here in Minneapolis like it always does, going directly from 80s-90s to 60s without stopping at 70. Something weird about this place that drives me nuts. I love it when it's 70 and sunny!
W.Petefish
Active Member
I've only pushed a button once, to negotiate a lower price for replacement keys. Two keys were going to cost me over $1K, but we figured out a way to bring the cost down using two factors... I drove partway to Chicago to attend Green Drive Expo and that saved on mileage, and I cc-ed a friend of mine deep in the Tesla organization in California who politely intervened and, because a unit in the car needed replacement to accept new keys, that part was treated as a warranty issue.
This time, I merely explained that I have a 10 person crew scheduled for a project that includes the Tesla and that's in early October, so Eric figured out how to retrieve the car while he was coming to Rochester to attend a friend's wedding tomorrow. It actually worked out pretty well... he just drove one of the service vans up for the weekend with a covered trailer they've got for transport. Getting the car out of the -2 level basement ramp in my apartment building was a challenge. You can only tow straight forward using the tow loop or you will bust up things in the front of the car (it's part of a crumple zone) so the 6 turns necessary to go up two ramps to get outside took a bit of doing. Luckily, Eric's young and very strong. At one point he pushed it uphill over a foot when one wheel had rolled a ways down a 45 degree incline. He'd put his shoulder to it, I'd release the brake and shout "free!" to let him push until I heard his soles break loose, then I'd brake and call "locked!" until he reset, and after about 10 of those tries he got it on the level. Aside from that moment (and a segment outside where the cops were trying to talk to us from their car while he was pushing us uphill to the lot where the trailer was) it was just a lot of turning the wheel and realigning while rolling it around free on the floor.
It's amazingly easy to push around on the level. At one point when I'd fist discovered the problem I put it in tow mode because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the screen to come to life again (it was being so erratic). My girlfriend asked if she could try to push it. She was wearing high heels, but it was on flat concrete and I figured it might move. One little push and it was rolling. Pretty cool. She got quite a laugh out of that. Would have made a great shot... beautiful blonde in a little black dress and 4" heels pushing a black roadster with black wheels. Hey, that gives me an idea... gotta call the producer. 8^D
This time, I merely explained that I have a 10 person crew scheduled for a project that includes the Tesla and that's in early October, so Eric figured out how to retrieve the car while he was coming to Rochester to attend a friend's wedding tomorrow. It actually worked out pretty well... he just drove one of the service vans up for the weekend with a covered trailer they've got for transport. Getting the car out of the -2 level basement ramp in my apartment building was a challenge. You can only tow straight forward using the tow loop or you will bust up things in the front of the car (it's part of a crumple zone) so the 6 turns necessary to go up two ramps to get outside took a bit of doing. Luckily, Eric's young and very strong. At one point he pushed it uphill over a foot when one wheel had rolled a ways down a 45 degree incline. He'd put his shoulder to it, I'd release the brake and shout "free!" to let him push until I heard his soles break loose, then I'd brake and call "locked!" until he reset, and after about 10 of those tries he got it on the level. Aside from that moment (and a segment outside where the cops were trying to talk to us from their car while he was pushing us uphill to the lot where the trailer was) it was just a lot of turning the wheel and realigning while rolling it around free on the floor.
It's amazingly easy to push around on the level. At one point when I'd fist discovered the problem I put it in tow mode because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the screen to come to life again (it was being so erratic). My girlfriend asked if she could try to push it. She was wearing high heels, but it was on flat concrete and I figured it might move. One little push and it was rolling. Pretty cool. She got quite a laugh out of that. Would have made a great shot... beautiful blonde in a little black dress and 4" heels pushing a black roadster with black wheels. Hey, that gives me an idea... gotta call the producer. 8^D
S-2000 Roadster
#1244
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