First time poster here and first time Tesla owner as well. Been in EVs for a couple years and we decided to switch to Tesla after test driving a Model S and Y and wanting more space coming from a Bolt. Long story short after researching and looking around we bought a 2021 M3P with 27k miles a little over a month ago private party. Settled into the car pretty well at this point and have been very happy with everything minus a few things we had addressed at a service center last Friday. Control arms were making a bit of noise which I saw was common and the door check straps as well. Also had the power trunk struts replaced. Service was a good experience for us but the issue was when we were given a loaner car (2020 3 Long Range) my wife and I both immediately noticed the rental car accelerated instantly. The pedal was so much more touchy than ours and the car just wanted to go. It felt like a slingshot taking off. We drove it for the weekend and honestly I was having fun with the acceleration of the car and how quick and instantly fast it was. Thought to myself why doesn't our car drive like this? So not to keep rambling on here we picked up our car yesterday and its even more noticeable now that our car doesn't have that instant takeoff that the loaner had. In fact you have to push the pedal a decent amount to get it to go. The loaner Long Range hit the 85mph speed limit in no time and I did some more aggressive driving in ours yesterday and man the car took much longer getting to 85. It seemed like it was working much harder to get there. Wife agrees. Service advisor said schedule another visit but what should I have gathered for information beforehand?
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Looking for insight with M3P driving characteristics
- Thread starter gsxracer0783
- Start date
E90alex
Active Member
Stating the obvious, but your car isn’t set to Chill mode is it?
Either that or the traffic aware acceleration settings are set to aggressively intervene.
The first thing that jumps out to me in the OPs story is the same question. There isnt a world where a LR model 3 is substantially better in off the line acceleration than a model 3P. They can feel similar (very similar) but not the description that the OP has given unless the car has an issue or chill mode is on.
Occams razor (the simplest answer is likely the correct one) would state that the simplest answer is chill mode being on.
In my own defense if I was dense enough to not know the difference between chill and standard I shouldn't be driving the car lol its in standard and always has been since we have had it minus one time I let our son drive it. Chill mode was good enough for him. Obstacle aware acceleration has been off as well. This is bugging me more and more now since getting our car back. Weird thing is the temp has dropped in the last week and given what I have read on state of charge and battery temps that should lower the performance. But we drove the long range in the colder temps, around 40f and im telling you the thing is just instant pull like you have to be careful with your foot and use minimal pressure. Really wish I would have driven more 3s before buying ours now. I just asked my wife again because she drove the car as well and she said that car had way more power off the line too. Shes 100% certain as well. Tesla service just messaged and said a remote diagnostic says there aren't any hardware issues and said the loaner probably was faster because it has the acceleration boost. Its not even the quickness of the car its the eagerness of the car to move was much greater on the loaner its was just literally instant. Also feels like theres way less rolling resistance. Like there's something slowing our car that its trying to overcome when it accelerates. Ill push the accelerator 50% on our car watching the bar and its like there's a delay before the car goes and after you push it you wait for the acceleration. I found some long ranges locally I want to test drive this weekend for comparison but man the loaner was way more fun. For what its worth too I switched out our 20 inch wheels for some lighter 18 inch wheels which I heard improves the P performance.
Agree with the other posts above. You must have your M3 in chill mode. We have a Long Range Y and a Model 3 Performance. While the Y's acceleration is brisk, you should be instantly planted in your seat with the 3 Performance! I always liken the acceleration to a slingshot or instantly 'lunging' forward.
Touch Controls > Pedals & Steering > Acceleration to choose a preferred acceleration mode: Chill limits acceleration for a slightly smoother and gentler ride. When Chill is selected, Chill displays on the instrument panel, above the driving speed.
Touch Controls > Pedals & Steering > Acceleration to choose a preferred acceleration mode: Chill limits acceleration for a slightly smoother and gentler ride. When Chill is selected, Chill displays on the instrument panel, above the driving speed.
If thats what they told you, its a pretty BS answer since acceleration boost on a LR only gets the car "mostly" to the acceleration of a model 3P. The only thing I could think of other than chill mode is that you have a cold soaked battery, because when the car has a cold soaked battery it limits acceleration.
To answer the usually inevitable "its not that cold right now" questions, I live in southern california, and my car is parked in a fully enclosed, drywalled garage, and it still gets cold enough here for the battery to be cold.
I mean this could be part of it too. Model 3s traction controls are pretty aggressive. The loaner would have had factory standard wheels on it.
Did you go into the software menus and change the wheel size?
Note also, that it would be a lot easier to read your posts if you included some paragraph spacing. I am not sure what platform you are interacting from, but on a laptop these look like 1 big block of text and its very hard to read through it.
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I did change the wheel settings in the software yes. Im on a mobile device and the browser doesn't seem to integrate with the forum format very well so sorry about that.
The previous post is nails the feeling we felt exactly, the loaner felt like an absolute slingshot. Didn't need much throttle at all. Our P needs much more push to get the car to go but doesn't give us the slingshot feeling.
Saturday I had to take the kid to work and we were running late. Its mainly backroads so I was hauling butt and man the loaner got up to speed so damn fast it was almost hilarious. We would be to the speed limit in absolutely no time. After getting our car back I floor the car and have time to sit there and wait for it to hit the speed limit almost like there is some sort of lag.
The previous post is nails the feeling we felt exactly, the loaner felt like an absolute slingshot. Didn't need much throttle at all. Our P needs much more push to get the car to go but doesn't give us the slingshot feeling.
Saturday I had to take the kid to work and we were running late. Its mainly backroads so I was hauling butt and man the loaner got up to speed so damn fast it was almost hilarious. We would be to the speed limit in absolutely no time. After getting our car back I floor the car and have time to sit there and wait for it to hit the speed limit almost like there is some sort of lag.
E90alex
Active Member
Is it actually “Standard” or Sport? The Performance should say Sport.
But LR+AB is still slower than Performance so the service center was spitting pure BS.
Those are chill mode times, almost exactly. If the car is not in valet mode, or valet mode wasnt renamed as a regular profile or something, you need to take it back to Tesla.
No model 3P runs >6 seconds to 60mph, unless its in chill mode, or unless something is broken. If you were talking about the difference in running 3.1 or 3.3 then perhaps your device might be inaccurate, but I doubt its THAT inaccurate, so there is a definite issue here with something.
E90alex
Active Member
So here is another question. You say you bought a model 3 P private party. Your sure its a performance model, right? The service centers "but that car has acceleration boost" as compared to a performance version makes no sense (however Tesla SCs are known to make no sense).
When you tap the car on the bottom of the screen then tap software, you see the red line under the car, right? (this is the only way to see performance on the vehicle, as brakes, spoilers, or badging dont really mean anything). I am not trying to be insulting just to try to help you get to the bottom of this. Here is a pic of my own model 3 performance (2018).
Wait.. I missed that you said "I took some runs in track mode as well"... Only model 3 performance have track mode so that cant be it. The only thing that makes any sort of sense is either valet mode or chill mode. Those times are consistent with that. I havent seen anyone run a model 3 performance ( any model 3 performance ) with anything close to 6+ seconds to 60MPH without chill mode being involved.
Since you are sure you dont have chill mode on, and I am assuming you are sure you dont have valet mode on or you didnt rename valet mode to the profile you are using or something (which would be a stretch), then you need to take it back to tesla. There isnt any world where a model 3 P running almost 7 seconds to 60 is anywhere near normal at all.
If you can demonstrate this to them, they will either need to fix it, or figure out why its in chill mode when the software says its not per what you are saying.
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I seriously would be an idiot if I came here or to Tesla with the car in chill mode. Its not in chill mode and was only once when we let our son drive it home after work. Its in sport with obstacle aware acceleration off.
Best way to describe is is the long range made my head dizzy almost taking off. Our P it just doesn't happen I dont get it.
Best way to describe is is the long range made my head dizzy almost taking off. Our P it just doesn't happen I dont get it.
Star K1tty
Member
The chill mode explanation makes a lot of sense. Is it possible that you are only changing the car mode while you are in park? There is a default “easy access” profile, if this is enabled and you are changing the drive mode before you are shifting the car into drive you could be only changing that profile and not the one you are driving around in. This could lead the “easy access” profile having Performance or Standard mode while your driving profile still being in chill.
