Any indications whats wrong with my screen/MCU?

[buss]

Bought a 1-owner 2019 Model 3 Performance 6 months ago and its been absolutely perfect, love the damn thing. All I've done in my ownership is two things:

1. Replaced low voltage battery (by Tesla mobile tech). Preventative measure, car wasn't complaining (it was just getting to 4 years old).
2. Lubed splines on all wheels to eliminate clicking noise under acceleration/deceleration (by Tesla svc center). All noises ceased after this.

Both actions were over 6+ weeks ago so I don't believe they're linked. Drove it as normal yesterday and parked at home at 0740. Tried to get back in at approx 1100 and the touchscreen remained black. Because I use pin-to-drive, I couldn't drive it and it was essentially a brick. I'll sum up the key info I have from the last 24 hours:

1. Nothing remarkable in the last drive, went over the dashcam+sentry footage and nothing remarkable.
2. I'd configured my phone as a key. I opened the boot/trunk, loaded it, and got in via the drivers door. All of this worked fine. Issue was only noticed when the screen stayed black.
3. Multiple reset attempts (scroll wheel hold) and no result for the next couple hours. Tesla support recommended the same, nothing worked. Held for over 60 seconds a few times.
4. Tesla support reported the car was offline to them. "Last seen" time on my app was about the time I parked it earlier.
5. Unplugged all USB devices, retried steps above. Nothing.
6. Let it go into deep sleep. Attempted troubleshooting about 6 hours later. 60 second double scroll wheel press, and I heard the vent flaps move. A couple minutes later it performed a total of 3 boot loops (showing the Tesla logo, then going back to black) and then the display came to life as normal.
7. I immediately unpaired my phone, disabled PIN-to-drive. I now have access to driving the vehicle at least via keycard.
8. Spotted code "UI_a161 Emergency call temporarily unavailable". Only one in the log.
9. I've been driving it some today, and the screen stability seemed to get worse. Where it was on while parked yesterday, it frequently cut out on my drive and came back on. Towards the end it just stayed off. I occassionally had indicator/signal noises that would cut out. No consistent pattern. Its possible that when I used a signal and heard the "clicking", that when I turned past the cancel threshold thats when the noise stopped.

Anecdotally there a couple notes that I'll mention, but might be irrelevant:

1. Currently on v11.1 (2023.44.30.9 eef969740612). Installed a couple weeks ago I think. Its the only time after installing an update, that I didn't perform a scroll wheel reset.
2. Since this update I've noticed that the car increasingly didn't notice the phone as a proximity key, and I had to take the phone out to unlock the car. Sure, this happened infrequently in the last 6 months but it went from something that happened 1x a month or less, to 5 times in a couple weeks.

Tesla have offered no info or expectation, only that I'm taking it in this Friday. There isn't a lot on this error and there appear to variations of others' experiences on "Tesla black screen".
I guess I'm partly sharing the info in case it benefits someone looking this up in future. But also if anyone might have exprerience with this, something similar, or even any advice, I'd hugely appreciate it.

 

[Soul Surfer]

Greetings mate,
I had intermittent phone cam issues and it took forever to get Tesla to figure it out so here was what I did:

1. Whenever an issue occurred, I noted the time and date
2. I would initiate a service request immediately so they could look at the diagnostic logs to pinpoint the issue

finally after driving them mad with so many of these, they determine that my MCU was experiencing a voltage drop and replaced it. my symptoms were loss of phone, crackly sounds, pops and reboots of the screen. Hope that helps.

 

[buss]

Cheers pal. It doesn't appear to be quite the same symptoms but I'm adopting your practice, thanks . Taking a video every time I enter/interact with the car, and have a mount set up so I can record the screen on my drives.

 

[buss]

Well I've been out most of today and its behaving like nothing ever happened. Got into it in the morning, screen is on and ready. Put it on charge for a few hours to juice up from about 40% to 80%, was fine when I got back. Took it for a drive a couple times in the afternoon, never missed a beat.

While it was in such good spirits, I performed a factory reset too and wiped all the config from my phone, and re-linked everything. Time will tell of course but I'm more confused than when I started now

 

[zoomer0056]

Lubed splines on all wheels to eliminate clicking noise under acceleration/deceleration (by Tesla svc center). All noises ceased after this.

Good one! I also did this way back when I bought a used C4 Corvette. Lasted the whole ten years that I had the car.

 

[buss]

Quick update - voltage of the battery is 13.48v on standby, so no issues there. I also drove it about 50 miles yesterday and 10 miles this morning - its been absolutely perfect?!

Noticed that while Sentry is on, I can't actually get a view of it from my phone any more (I always could previously). It can now find the car too (no longer saying "last seen 2 hours ago") so it appears to be better than before, but I wonder if that UI_a161 was more on the nose then I thought.

Will take it in tomorrow, and see if they can diagnose any further.

 

[buss]

Sentry and software features now normal. No idea what is going on. Off to Tesla tomorrow in any case, will be crossing fingers the bill isn't going to be too eye-watering.

 

[buss]

Good news is those bootloops etc were visible by the techs at Tesla, even after the vehicle was factory reset. There's still diagnostic work going on but identified an issue - possible water ingress into the body controller unit (loom shoes signs of moisture). The saga continues next week.

 

[buss]

Attached a picture of some of the remnant moisture buildup on the plug to the BCU (also evident on the female end). Cleaning hasn't resolved it unfortunately as they were able to replicate it after doing so, so next step is consulting plus turning attention to the BCU itself.

 

[buss]

Sorry its been a while, but there has been a lot of waiting around too.

They've opted to replace the BCU and affected loom - cost for the diagnostic so far (involving Tesla master and field techs) and the parts + labour are a hair over £1,000. Parts should have arrived this week but have been delayed to next, keeping my fingers crossed that there isn't another delay.

 

[buss]

Maybe the final update.

The harness and VCFRONT replacement were not enough - the issue persisted, suggesting the water damage caused further issues downstream (excuse the pun). The good news is there's only 1 component it could have damaged. The bad news is its the main computer, which is bloody pricey.

£3,000 bill later and the car is back and working fine. Aside from the absolutely shocking "valet" they did and the fact they're now being evasive to contact (even the post-service survey link doesn't work). I thought the Tesla Service woes were Stateside-only but I am sad to be proven wrong!

That probably spells the end for this saga. On the bright side, I am in a pretty unique position where I've been using HW 2.5 (or whatever the 2020 Model 3 shipped from factory with) and now appear to have HW 3, and am observing some tiny differences. Can post later when I've had some more time with the unit.

 

[buss]

If you've read this far, you'll want the info of what happened 4 days later.