Battery Draining while parked at airport, advice needed

[Beefninja]

I've had my car since 2018, and am well acquainted with parking the car at an airport for 2-3 weeks, having done it likely 20+ times without issue. But something went wrong this time.

I always disable standby mode, disable sentry mode, and if I'm in a hot climate then I also disable overheat protection. Then I check the app once after the car is parked ~1 day to make sure nothing crazy is happening, and then I stop checking the app in order to avoid waking the car up.

I did all of that this time:

• I arrived at the parkade with ~170miles of range, needing it to last 17 days, and gave it to the valet at this particular parkade.
• disabled sentry mode from within the car (not the app) and also disabled standby mode.
• I checked after 1 day and saw that it had lost ~30 miles of range, but it was also in very cold weather and so figured that most of that was just the temporary range loss that I often see in cold weather.
• 4 days later I saw that the temperature had risen again where the car was parked, so went to check the app to see if it regained the range back... and saw that the car has lost a cumulative ~100 miles of range (over 5 days).
• Somehow, Sentry mode must have been re-enabled, or my disabling of it didn't register (maybe since the Valet took over and there is some sort of pre-set? No idea), and that's the reason for the drain. I disabled it now via the app.

I now have 11 days left until I return, the car has 70 miles of range in the app (in moderately cold weather). There's a supercharger 2 miles from where the car is parked. The car currently has the 70 miles of range at a temperature of around ~40F, and the weather forecast shows it might go as low as about 30F a week from now. I'm thinking the following is the best course of action, but would appreciate any feedback:

• Check the app a single time tomorrow, to make sure that disabling the sentry mode has "stopped the bleeding". Hopefully the range will thereafter drop like 2-3 miles per day
• Don't check the app again for the next 10-11 days until we arrive
• With 2-3 miles lost per day, it would likely get down to ~40 miles of range left, and a drop in temperature of ~10F (from 40F to 30F) will hopefully still leave me with enough range to drive 2 miles to the supercharger

Any other advice? Contact Tesla to make sure nothing weird is happening? Beg/pay someone at the parkade to drive it to the supercharger?

 

[gaswalla]

Your plan is good. Fortunately you only need a few miles range to get to the supercharger.
For what it’s worth, I wonder if the recent ‘holiday update’ has more phantom energy loss

 

[Sophias_dad]

You'll be fine. All the extra drains shutoff automatically at 20%

 

[RayK]

Assuming that your car is parked in/around San Francisco, you may be able to use this company if your car runs out of charge and you can't drive to the Supercharger: Currently EV Charging Delivery App

 

[stopcrazypp]

You don't mention what car you have, but according to manual all the battery draining features like Sentry should turn off when the car reaches 20% charge. I wouldn't worry too much about it if you are only 2 miles away from a supercharger.

Note to permanently disable Sentry completely, you need to go to Controls > Safety > Sentry Mode. Just doing it on the controls screen may be temporary, just like how it is temporary on the app. It could also be possible you have it set to on in another profile and your valet using the key card happened to turn that profile on.
Model 3 Owner's Manual | Tesla

If you instead mean you used valet mode, I never used valet mode, so wouldn't personally know, but it is certainly possible that it interacts with Sentry mode.

 

[ay221]

I would Uber to the airport if that is a choice.

 

[jrweiss98020]

Check the miles. Maybe the valet is driving it...

 

[3sr+buyer]

Check the miles. Maybe the valet is driving it...

If the valet forgets to close/lock the car by tapping the keycard on the pillar, does the car stay turned on (with significant drain from being turned on)?

 

[stopcrazypp]

If the valet forgets to close/lock the car by tapping the keycard on the pillar, does the car stay turned on (with significant drain from being turned on)?

If the front driver/passenger doors are fully closed, and nothing on the driver seat, it still goes to sleep after a while. When I work on things in the car in the garage, even unlocked and with rear doors open, the car goes to sleep after a while (contactor clunks).

 

[brkaus]

Some places have j1772 charging and may be able to plug it in before your return.

 

[GalaxyExplorer]

So what happened? How much charge was left when you landed?

 

[cbdream99]

Some places have j1772 charging and may be able to plug it in before your return.

DFW has VIP service that will charge your car before your return arrival, I don’t think they will charge it for you if your car is about to completely deplete during the trip. I personally don’t trust leaving the key to unknown people for extended time, plus it is quite expensive if I have to pay out of my pocket, especially for extended time.