Ownership Verified: The wait was long enough: leviathan's Tesla Model 3 Performance

[NooDle]

Yes, afaik it’s all correct. TeslaBjorn is God

 

[leviathan]

Small update time: invested 15€ into some new LED lights for the trunk, and installed them yesterday - surprisingly easy to do, they even come with a useful trim removal lever thingie.

No pics from the trunk, but the difference is quite literally night and day. Wouldn't have thought it for the price, but it's a lot brighter in the trunk now. Totally worth the price, highly recommended to all other Tesla owners in here

Also got some frunk lifters (should let the frunk open all the way when unlocked from the app/screen), and additional door seals. Waiting for better weather to get it all installed.

And finally, tried to get the new summer tires today. Went to the shop, "yeah, tires are ready, it'll take 30 minutes or so", gave them the car, went to get breakfast around the corner. Came back 30 min later: "there's been a problem, the tires aren't here yet". New appointment next Tuesday -.-

 

[eizbaer]

No pics from the trunk, but the difference is quite literally night and day. Wouldn't have thought it for the price, but it's a lot brighter in the trunk now. Totally worth the price, highly recommended to all other Tesla owners in here

links pls?

... I also have the additional door seals flying around in my trunk. I will say they have been there longer than I care to admit

 

[leviathan]

links pls?

... I also have the additional door seals flying around in my trunk. I will say they have been there longer than I care to admit

This is the exact kit I ordered: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B08KT6PT3W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For installation, I looked up a Youtube video. Basically you need to use the included trim remover thingie to open up the pin above the light, then you can pull the fabric covering out from under the plastic and access the rear side of the installed light to unclip it easily (-ish).

And yeah, the door seals have been in my Amazon wishlist since I got the car 2 years ago pretty much, and in the trunk for several months now But once decent weather hits, I'm gonna install them and see if there's any noise improvement. Even if there isn't, it's probably worth it to keep the door entry areas clean from dirt - on a white car, that area gets visibly dirty in any sort of rain very quickly.

 

[93Flareside]

I thought you were leasing this? For some reason that was in my head.

 

[DanRoM]

He is. So? That's presumably a reversible modification.

 

[leviathan]

He is. So? That's presumably a reversible modification.

Honestly, the lights and extra door seals I'm going to just leave in there. If they complain, yeah, it's all very reversible. The frunk lifters are probably the only thing that actually needs reverting to original, if I ever get around to installing them in the first place that is.

 

[Perc]

It's funny how even the hightechest of hightech cars use lightbulbs for things like trunk lighting.

I did the same mod to my Octavia back in the day. Great stuff.

 

[leviathan]

It's funny how even the hightechest of hightech cars use lightbulbs for things like trunk lighting.

I did the same mod to my Octavia back in the day. Great stuff.

The originals were actually already LED, but only a single emitter on the PCB in the casing, with rather weak results. The replacements have 6 LED modules on the board. No idea why Tesla doesn't put something proper in there to begin with.

 

[Matt2000]

It would be interesting to know what current the new LEDs pull and what the wiring it rated for. Always concerns me when the aftermarket makes stuff like this, did they research the wiring properly to see if it was up to the job? Did they care?!

Maybe I've been watching too many of Big Clive's videos of Chinese manufacturers grilling wiring and LEDs in products.

 

[Perc]

It would be interesting to know what current the new LEDs pull and what the wiring it rated for. Always concerns me when the aftermarket makes stuff like this, did they research the wiring properly to see if it was up to the job? Did they care?!

Maybe I've been watching too many of Big Clive's videos of Chinese manufacturers grilling wiring and LEDs in products.

My armchair guess would be that the original leds used "fuck all" and the new ones use "fuck all x 3" while the wiring is rated for "whatever" and enough for at least ten times that anyway.

 

[leviathan]

I can at least report that running the LED until it times out and turns off by itself (~5 minutes with the trunk lid open) does not melt anything immediately

 

[Matt2000]

My armchair guess would be that the original leds used "fuck all" and the new ones use "fuck all x 3" while the wiring is rated for "whatever" and enough for at least ten times that anyway.

Probably, like I said I'm probably just paranoid.

I can at least report that running the LED until it times out and turns off by itself (~5 minutes with the trunk lid open) does not melt anything immediately

One day I will be using the car regularly enough to pick up on things like the light time out.

 

[leviathan]

Swapped to summer tires. Old ones were down to 3mm, so decided to buy a new set - I'm at exactly half time of the lease, this should work out nicely. Looked at options, and went with the Michelin PS4S, same (*ish - see below) as factory - expensive, but proven to be really good.

Interestingly, the factory-mounted tires were a special Tesla variant of the PS4S, with extra sound deadening foam of some sort on the inside. Having now driven on those, and the new "normal" ones without the sound deadening (and winter Contis without it either) - imho it doesn't do shit except make the special variant almost another 100€ per corner more expensive still. They were still listed in the system of the tire shop, and I got a mild shock when they quoted me the price. But after inquiry it turned out the special variant isn't available anymore - and even if it were, no way, I'll take the normal ones thank you very much.

Winter Contis are now at 6mm tread, after ~10'000km driven over two winters. Should be enough to last two more, meaning this was the second and last set of tires I needed to buy for this car, after the winters.

 

[Matt2000]

It's tempting to swap mine this weekend, just had some jacking pads delivered because I didn't have a need for them up to now. There's a rumour of snow next week so I'll wait until Sunday or Monday and see if that looks likely.

Edit: I've had to put the jacking pads outside to air off because they stink.

 

[leviathan]

Finally, at about half-time of my ownership of this, it's getting upgraded to the final form that was promised.

HW3 aka "FSD computer" is finally rolling out to early German Model 3s that have the FSD option and came with HW 2.5. With any luck, in two weeks my car finally learns to mis-read speed limit signs and to nag for confirmation before driving through a green light. I can't wait!

 

[eizbaer]

You‘re gonna love it, it’s so useless!

 

[Matt2000]

Speed limit sign reading is good here, sadly there aren't enough repeater signs to make up for the inaccuracies in the mapping data...

 

[eizbaer]

Speed limit sign reading is good here, sadly there aren't enough repeater signs to make up for the inaccuracies in the mapping data...

My experience so far: the sign reading works ok-ish. It does mostly read the signs correctly, if it does!

Problem 1: it's disabled on the Autobahn. That's literally the place I would want it most. Any other place, it's just not useful to me... may be a German or personal problem though. Doubly worse: my regular stretch of Autobahn has LED overhead speed limit signs that get set according to the current situation. Those it can't read anyway, but instead interprets them as traffic lights sometimes! ON THE AUTOBAHN! FFS there can't be traffic lights on the autobahn... and the car knows it's on the AB because it refuses to read the speed limit signs! Sadly a bit typical of the "Beta" state of these features...

Problem 2: it's not predictive enough... meaning it doesn't look far enough ahead. It'll only read the sign and act accordingly the moment you actually blow past the sign. That's simply too late and I feel results in too harsh of a reaction (both de- and acceleration).

Problem 3: Some sign's it just refuses to see and then doesn't fall back to map data or whatever. I've had the occasional B-road drive where a 70 limit gets lifted after a crossroads... but the car just won't see it! means i'm stuck at 70, because AP will not allow me to freely set the target! At least not if I also want to have it read the limit signs. This really is annoying as shit...

 

[DanRoM]

Gee, it's almost as if you as the driver have to pay attention and drive the car!