M3 - Issues/Complains (what I wish I had known before buying thread)

[FrankTheTank]

I love my M3 and would not trade it for the world. However, like anything there are things I wish I had known before buying. Here is my short list. Hope it helps someone and feel free to add to this.

1. No garage door opener or homelink by default. If you want to control your garage doors or gates you have to pay an extra $325 for Tesla Homelink. This seems crazy as all of my "cheap" cars have come with this feature for at least the past 10 years. Its Tesla though so if they can make an extra buck from it they will.
2. Horrible blind spot checking/visualization system. Tesla will give you a beep or warning if you are entering into a lane and there is a car in your blindspot. What I am talking about here is the ability to easily check if someone is in your blindspot. In my wife's Honda Odyssey when you turn the blinker on it will show the side camera on the screen with a nice visual marker to see cars in your blindspot. In other cars they have a nice visual clue that lights up in the side mirror. None of this on the M3. I find myself going back 10 years in time to really having to check the mirrors and turn my head to check blind spots which is probbaly not a bad thing but annoying in car that is supposed to be very high tech. In the M3 the best I have found is tapping the screen once to zoom out a bit and looking at that in combination with mirrors in order to check blind spots.
3. Its loud. Highway noises seem very loud for an electric vehicle and even while parking the fan noises and air flows are very loud (at least compared to my last car which was a Prius and very quiet).
4. Seats are hard to get in and out of and low to the ground. This is more of a personal preference thing but I find the seats to be low and hard to get in and out of without a handle or reaching onto the roof. In hindsight I may have been better off with the MY because I like to sit a bit higher off the ground.
5. Rainbow road/cowbell. When you press the right stick down 4 times the road turns rainbow and the old SNL cowbell skit plays. This was hilarious the first time I did it, somewhat funny the next few times, and then annoying after about the 5th time. I cannot seem to figure out how to turn this off and I always accidently start it at the worst possible time
6. Dirty road water/mud seems to get kicked up from the rear tires onto the trunk. Every time is rains the white car looks awful and has to be cleaned. Someone suggest mud flaps but that seems odd.
7. No floor mats. I would rather just pay an extra $750 at the start to have the M3 include decent floor mats plus garage door control/homelink.

Again, love my M3 and these are just my personal things I have noticed so far that I wish would be changed. Even with these I would buy it again.

 

[CSOTH7]

I do notice on my M3P the rear-end gets really dirty after just one drive. I keep and good stash of detail spray and clean if often.

 

[Sorny]

PROPERLY adjust mirrors and then turn head and use mk1 eyeball; no blind spots. Just like they taught in driver's ed decades ago when I took it...

My car came with floormats. Maybe you should have clicked through the more info buttons to see SR/SR+ lacks a bunch of stuff...

Agree about the homelink though. Strikes me as nickel and diming for sure.

Not sure how you can accidentally enable rainbow road. Seriously, how do you click down 4 times in rapid succession by accident?

 

[UncertainTimes]

I do notice on my M3P the rear-end gets really dirty after just one drive. I keep and good stash of detail spray and clean if often.

That’s just asking for scratches

 

[UncertainTimes]

Tesla probably didn’t want to pay any of the licensing fees associated with including Homelink, blindspot, and CarPlay/Android Auto. They tried to do everything in house. That’s why the premium sound system has no brand name attached to it. The brakes on the Performance models are probably made by Brembo but they don’t advertise it.

 

[Ecoli]

Things I wish I had known before buying.
How much more driving I’d be doing

 

[cougar1968]

I agree with the home link option…although I can never get it to work on other cars so I’m worried I’ll pay the $325 and it won’t work on the M3.

 

[Sam1]

That’s just asking for scratches

The car I just traded in had 74k miles on it and it was washed with water fewer than 5 times. It was always waterless wash, unless I was stripping the sealant. Zero scratches anywhere on that car. Use the right towels, the right chemicals, and you don't need water to clean a vehicle 9 out of 10 times.

 

[Sam1]

I agree with the home link option…although I can never get it to work on other cars so I’m worried I’ll pay the $325 and it won’t work on the M3.

Homelink is a licensing thing, that's why it's so expensive. The part itself isn't that much.

 

[UncertainTimes]

The car I just traded in had 74k miles on it and it was washed with water fewer than 5 times. It was always waterless wash, unless I was stripping the sealant. Zero scratches anywhere on that car. Use the right towels, the right chemicals, and you don't need water to clean a vehicle 9 out of 10 times.

I’ve done the Gary Dean method with 16 800 GSM towels, I’ve used a sponge, I’ve used mitts still left marring on the car. It was a lease so didn’t really care. Now I just use a traditional 2 bucket wash and a leaf blower to dry. If anything it’s faster and I don’t need to wash a ton of dirty towels in my washing machine and contaminate my clothes and dump a ton of micro plastics in to the ocean.

 

[focher]

HomeLink is terrible. Just buy a Tailwind. Cheaper and much better, including actually knowing if the door is open or closed. My 2018 3P came with HomeLink and I just use Tailwind because … it’s better.

As for the More Cowbells, I’m surprised anyone could accidentally activate it. But I’m even more surprised why anyone would think it’s a negative. More cowbell!

 

[techzelle]

Yes, Rainbow Road is just terrible. Once or twice is about the most anyone will want to do it for themselves.

two stalk presses to start auto-pilot = does not engage perhaps 30% of the time, two more presses to try again = rainbow road (argh!)
You learn the hard way that there must be some time gap before trying again.

Rainbow Road is fine for an easter egg. However it is catastrophically dumb to have the 4 stalk down presses to launch.
NOBODY wants to launch rainbow road using a gesture that is not uncommon.

Then to have no way to quit or even mute the damn song is frankly unforgivable. An utterly horrible implementation.

Please TESLA change that to 10 stalk down presses in a row, or better just have it only launch-able via touch screen or voice command.

 

[oreobbq]

Yes, Rainbow Road is just terrible. Once or twice is about the most anyone will want to do it for themselves.

two stalk presses to start auto-pilot = does not engage perhaps 30% of the time, two more presses to try again = rainbow road (argh!)
You learn the hard way that there must be some time gap before trying again.

Rainbow Road is fine for an easter egg. However it is catastrophically dumb to have the 4 stalk down presses to launch.
NOBODY wants to launch rainbow road using a gesture that is not uncommon.

Then to have no way to quit or even mute the damn song is frankly unforgivable. An utterly horrible implementation.

Please TESLA change that to 10 stalk down presses in a row, or better just have it only launch-able via touch screen or voice command.

Lol understandably frustrating. I've never had AP not activate when available with the two stalk presses though. Maybe there's something wrong with yours.

Now I'm curious if OP is activating it the same way. Or he just likes yanking on the stalk like a slot machine for some reason.

 

[PITA]

Maybe Rainbow Road needs 4 up-presses to deactivate, or an additional 4 down-presses when activated... to deactivate

Legal Note : I take no responsibility for whatever chaos, carnage, command buffering or breakages result from this total dumb-ass guess.

 

[ODWms]

I just did the rainbow road thing yesterday for the first time after I saw something about it online. Had the car 3 years now and never knew it was a thing.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

FWIW, when you say, "what I wish I had known before buying [...]" that sort of implies it would've changed your purchasing decision even though you say otherwise. Maybe the title should be:

M3 - Issues/Complains (small things that don't diminish my enjoyment of my Tesla)



Anyway ...

1. Extra opener, 3M'ed in the drivers door pocket, totally hidden, works perfectly, "free". Otherwise see @focher's post. I mean, I did sort of chuckle when I found out it wasn't standard, but I did my fix and shopping something way more automated (that integrates into HomeKit)
2. No issues for me, but I've had quite a few performance cars / convertibles (when the top is up), so I've gotten good at eliminating blind spots in cars that have more limited visibility - FYI, there's aftermarket side mirrors, inexpensive, easy to install, that give a much wider field of view
3. Most noise on the highway, from any car, is from the tires and wind, so it's not all that much of an EV consideration, though with all the engine noise eliminated I am more aware of other sources - I've found certain types of music is excellent for sort of cancelling out that kind noise
4. Sits like any sporty sedan I've ever been in, do you have some kind of physical/mobility issues? Have you checked out the easy entry mode for your driver profile? It might let you get the seat (and wheel) into a much better entry position (you know, where you can just sort of sit down perpendicular to the car)
5. Never done this on accident, no idea how you could keep doing it repeatedly since it requires such intent, or maybe you're sort of stuttering when you're clicking (like when people multi-click a mouse for no reason). I found the drive stalk likes a firm, assertive, not overly quick press
6. All cars do this, modern designs/aero cause accumulation on the rear, it was the same for all of my recent vehicles - I'm in Florida, so we get a lot of showers, so a lot of wet roads, and my last few rides (two GTs, S2K, Z06, even our DD/RT) would be clean everywhere but the rear
7. Is this an SR vs. LR vs. P thing? I got a full set of mats, but it's not the first time I've heard people say they didn't, and not like they were forgotten, but not included (which is why I was wondering if it was model variant specific)

 

[rpiotro]

I thought long and hard about the Homelink add on. I have the MyQ app on my phone that does the same thing. The hardware was $35.00 for my compatible opener. I decided "good enough". I also can open the door while I am waiting at the always red traffic light three blocks from my home. That's a plus.

I've heard that Tesla's market research has found that Homelink just wasn't that important to most people. I suppose many people are just used to using the clicker their opener came with. Also, I believe there are some people that just don't want the hassle of setting it up. It can be problematic sometimes.

I imagine that Tailwing thing will do the same thing as MyQ.

 

[techzelle]

Lol understandably frustrating. I've never had AP not activate when available with the two stalk presses though. Maybe there's something wrong with yours.

Now I'm curious if OP is activating it the same way. Or he just likes yanking on the stalk like a slot machine for some reason.

I use two rapid presses.. It always engages on the second try, so I it's not the press speed.

Also, double presses when no gray wheel indicator = beep beep warning
When first double press fails, there is just silence and the speed control is engaged. So I know gray wheel is present.

It may be that the gray wheel needs to be on for more than a second or something - that I'm trying to activate too soon. I am not sure.

It's been a few months since my last traumatic rainbow road experience..
I did try to shut if off with volume, activating santa mode, pressing stalk, voice commands, changing auto selection. It's a long song, so there's a lot of time to try different things.

 

[roblab]

I agree with the home link option…although I can never get it to work on other cars so I’m worried I’ll pay the $325 and it won’t work on the M3.

Do you folks realize how many people do NOT have a garage, or won't be parking their Teslas in one? Come on. If you plan to park in a garage (and many, many don't) why should Tesla put homelink on every car? And if you know you'll want it, it's a paltry $325. Or, if you want one included in the purchase price whether you need one or not, but a Model S. Only double the price, but it's got homelink!!

My garage door also comes with a little garage door remote that I can keep on the dash, so I don't have to blow the extra for my wife's Model 3. I wonder if Tesla will refund your money if homelink doesn't work.

 

[cougar1968]

Do you folks realize how many people do NOT have a garage, or won't be parking their Teslas in one? Come on. If you plan to park in a garage (and many, many don't) why should Tesla put homelink on every car? And if you know you'll want it, it's a paltry $325. Or, if you want one included in the purchase price whether you need one or not, but a Model S. Only double the price, but it's got homelink!!

My garage door also comes with a little garage door remote that I can keep on the dash, so I don't have to blow the extra for my wife's Model 3. I wonder if Tesla will refund your money if homelink doesn't work.

$325 isn’t “paltry” to everyone, but good for you!