(Warning: long post) After two nearly trouble-free years with my Model 3 Long Range Dual Motor with Full Self Drive, I have run into a spot of bother. A €1400 plus three days Spanish holiday lost sort of bother. And, 8 Kwh lost overnight at the Service Centre. Small beer in relation the the rest of this sad outcome but needs explanation nonetheless.
On problem started on 25 April, display screen things stopped being nominal. The first symptom was the Quick Control Menu button icon
ceasing to work. Being a tyre pressure obsessive, this was an issue but voice control still worked and I resolved to have it seen to back home.
Tyre pressure remained fine.
Then the display went haywire the next day - 19th Nervous Breakdown-type hay wire on 26 April - while on holiday in Spain. See video below for the screen behaviour. What you can't see is the non-function of theQuick Control Menu, the HVAC spontaneously turning itself on and off,the driver's seat heater coming on high, the boot lid and charge port opening unbidden when parked, irregular rear view camera operation, the inability to enter the Pin-to-Drive, enter nav instructions or openingthe pin-protected glove box... and other random things that not only seriously degraded the ability to drive safely, or comfortably orindeed, at all until I discovered a few work-arounds using my phone'sTesla app and voice commands.
Look carefully at the short video, especially the lower right handcorner near the Quick Control Menu icon. This is important. (Trouble posting video. Will add screen shot anon.)
An appointment was made with the Barcelona Service Centre using the appand, after brief text conversations and an online diagnosis I got them to understand the problem. The Service Centre confirmed that they hadthe parts necessary to fix it on 9 May. Sunday, on the way toBarcelona, my wife used her phone's Tesla app to turn off HVAC and the driver's seat heat constantly... more than once every minute for almost two hours. We drove 120 km to Barcelona on Sunday night and booked intothe SB Hotel Plaza Europa (free charging!) to avoid morning rush hour traffic on the motorway and city streets.
We turned up for the appointment a half hour early and were told to return at the end of the day. Before I could return to collect the carMonday afternoon, I received a call telling me the screen was broken andwas not covered under warranty. Did you see a crack in the video?
Neither did my wife nor I see it having driven the car over 100s of Km since the faulMonday afternoon at the Service Centre, after the"repair", the screen was obviously and visibly cracked. We had arrivedat the Service Centre in the morning with an intact but malfunctioning screen and then a crack appeared before we went to collect it.
Apparently, the root cause of all the nervous flickering was allegedly a defective cable. Presumably the screen was removed by the Service Centre technician in order to replace the duff cable. I don't want to have aconversation about negligence or accident but it is evident that thescreen was intact before their repair efforts which then resulted in a cracked screen afterwards.
I showed the Service Manager two videos of the unbroken screen taken inthe past week, showing non-functioning but intact, visibly un-cracked display. Now, the crack was obvious sitting in the car now and would have been observed by my wife and I. However,I got no relief fromhaving to pay for a new display, crack not covered under warranty.
Initially, Elisabeth, the Service Manager, tried to tell me that my button for the automated garage door back in England that was Velcro-ed to the back of the screen on that corner was the reason the screen broke. Not likely as that button had not been used in the pastfortnight while we were in Spain with no visible damage - see video. Besides, the button was in constant use back in England for the twoyears prior to our holiday trip without an issue. That excuse does not wash.
There ensued conversations where the service personnel claimed that they didn't have a replacement display and couldn't guess when they could
receive the part which would entail us leaving the car behind in Barcelona when we returned to England. Taking it as-was on a 1000 mile drive back to Britain, the car would be a serious pain in the butt and made no sense. Flying home for business engagements was mooted. A figure of 10 days wait was mentioned as a replacement screen arrival but no guarantee.
Calmly expressing my displeasure unveiled an alternate solution: they did indeed have a replacement screen for another car and that could be used - and the other car's repair would have to wait. Somewhat satisfactory as it would see us home in a functioning car but we had to "approve" the estimate for the replacement. €1409+ including tax.
Oddly, I can't access the invoice in my account at the moment - only the warranty invoice of 0.00 for replacing the defective cable and greasingand resealing the front suspension ball joints. I'm sure the grinding wheels of Tesla accounts mill will post it anon. I'm sure my credit card company has a record.
Our overnight stay in Barcelona turned into two, the second purelybecause of the screen replacement. We were advised that the car would
be ready at 1730 on Tuesday. We got a call mid-morning that the car was ready was so we could avoid the travail of Barcelona rush hour on the way back to our holiday base. In effect we lost three days of sun andfun to-ing and fro-ing to Barcelona, unplanned overnight stays, and a bill for a screen broken at the Service Centre which should have been covered either by Tesla warranty or their own business liability insurance.
8 Kw disappeared? Full on seat heater overnight? Does Tesla have a secret vehicle-to-grid capability? No biggie compared to the cost and inconvenience caused with the screen damage.
Action list: see what our car insurance covers (nada - besides the damage was NOT my fault), contact the credit card company and advise that the charge is a warranty dispute, contact the next level up of Tesla management and love bomb Tesla on every social media outlet in reach.
This defect has been reported several times passim but the crack appeared while in the OP's custody. This is not the case here.
Thank you for your attention. I hope this never happens to you. I will post results of my efforts to get this sorted
On problem started on 25 April, display screen things stopped being nominal. The first symptom was the Quick Control Menu button icon
ceasing to work. Being a tyre pressure obsessive, this was an issue but voice control still worked and I resolved to have it seen to back home.
Tyre pressure remained fine.
Then the display went haywire the next day - 19th Nervous Breakdown-type hay wire on 26 April - while on holiday in Spain. See video below for the screen behaviour. What you can't see is the non-function of theQuick Control Menu, the HVAC spontaneously turning itself on and off,the driver's seat heater coming on high, the boot lid and charge port opening unbidden when parked, irregular rear view camera operation, the inability to enter the Pin-to-Drive, enter nav instructions or openingthe pin-protected glove box... and other random things that not only seriously degraded the ability to drive safely, or comfortably orindeed, at all until I discovered a few work-arounds using my phone'sTesla app and voice commands.
Look carefully at the short video, especially the lower right handcorner near the Quick Control Menu icon. This is important. (Trouble posting video. Will add screen shot anon.)
An appointment was made with the Barcelona Service Centre using the appand, after brief text conversations and an online diagnosis I got them to understand the problem. The Service Centre confirmed that they hadthe parts necessary to fix it on 9 May. Sunday, on the way toBarcelona, my wife used her phone's Tesla app to turn off HVAC and the driver's seat heat constantly... more than once every minute for almost two hours. We drove 120 km to Barcelona on Sunday night and booked intothe SB Hotel Plaza Europa (free charging!) to avoid morning rush hour traffic on the motorway and city streets.
We turned up for the appointment a half hour early and were told to return at the end of the day. Before I could return to collect the carMonday afternoon, I received a call telling me the screen was broken andwas not covered under warranty. Did you see a crack in the video?
Neither did my wife nor I see it having driven the car over 100s of Km since the faulMonday afternoon at the Service Centre, after the"repair", the screen was obviously and visibly cracked. We had arrivedat the Service Centre in the morning with an intact but malfunctioning screen and then a crack appeared before we went to collect it.
Apparently, the root cause of all the nervous flickering was allegedly a defective cable. Presumably the screen was removed by the Service Centre technician in order to replace the duff cable. I don't want to have aconversation about negligence or accident but it is evident that thescreen was intact before their repair efforts which then resulted in a cracked screen afterwards.
I showed the Service Manager two videos of the unbroken screen taken inthe past week, showing non-functioning but intact, visibly un-cracked display. Now, the crack was obvious sitting in the car now and would have been observed by my wife and I. However,I got no relief fromhaving to pay for a new display, crack not covered under warranty.
Initially, Elisabeth, the Service Manager, tried to tell me that my button for the automated garage door back in England that was Velcro-ed to the back of the screen on that corner was the reason the screen broke. Not likely as that button had not been used in the pastfortnight while we were in Spain with no visible damage - see video. Besides, the button was in constant use back in England for the twoyears prior to our holiday trip without an issue. That excuse does not wash.
There ensued conversations where the service personnel claimed that they didn't have a replacement display and couldn't guess when they could
receive the part which would entail us leaving the car behind in Barcelona when we returned to England. Taking it as-was on a 1000 mile drive back to Britain, the car would be a serious pain in the butt and made no sense. Flying home for business engagements was mooted. A figure of 10 days wait was mentioned as a replacement screen arrival but no guarantee.
Calmly expressing my displeasure unveiled an alternate solution: they did indeed have a replacement screen for another car and that could be used - and the other car's repair would have to wait. Somewhat satisfactory as it would see us home in a functioning car but we had to "approve" the estimate for the replacement. €1409+ including tax.
Oddly, I can't access the invoice in my account at the moment - only the warranty invoice of 0.00 for replacing the defective cable and greasingand resealing the front suspension ball joints. I'm sure the grinding wheels of Tesla accounts mill will post it anon. I'm sure my credit card company has a record.
Our overnight stay in Barcelona turned into two, the second purelybecause of the screen replacement. We were advised that the car would
be ready at 1730 on Tuesday. We got a call mid-morning that the car was ready was so we could avoid the travail of Barcelona rush hour on the way back to our holiday base. In effect we lost three days of sun andfun to-ing and fro-ing to Barcelona, unplanned overnight stays, and a bill for a screen broken at the Service Centre which should have been covered either by Tesla warranty or their own business liability insurance.
8 Kw disappeared? Full on seat heater overnight? Does Tesla have a secret vehicle-to-grid capability? No biggie compared to the cost and inconvenience caused with the screen damage.
Action list: see what our car insurance covers (nada - besides the damage was NOT my fault), contact the credit card company and advise that the charge is a warranty dispute, contact the next level up of Tesla management and love bomb Tesla on every social media outlet in reach.
This defect has been reported several times passim but the crack appeared while in the OP's custody. This is not the case here.
Thank you for your attention. I hope this never happens to you. I will post results of my efforts to get this sorted
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