After 2 years and 70000 kilometers my automatic door handles started to die one after another.
First front passenger side, after 2 weeks rear left side, after another 2 weeks driver side so only right rear passenger side is working OK but I don’t think it will last for long
It was to be expected.
I have a lot of short trips during the day so opening and closing of the doors should be overall counted in thousands so I think they managed well.
Repair will be covered under extended warranty.
I’m considering enabling only driver side at approaching to the car and opening of the trunk won’t open the whole car - settings are available in IVI.
It should provide much longer life of door handles, except the driver side of course.
Does ‘driver side only’ mode only open the driver’s door handle though? To be honest I’ve never seen just one of the handles opening. But then I haven’t enabled the driver only mode Curious about your findings!
It worries me a little that a technique like this, retracting door handles, cannot handle (hah) that kind of usage. You would expect them to last a very long time otherwise they wouldn’t be using it.
If You enable driver only mode then only driver handle will be opened when You approach the car from driver side.
Normally all of them open.
To open rest of them You have to press the button on the remote pilot.
One thing is that it’s not only that it doesn’t open the handles of other doors but it also keeps the lock closed so when You want to pick someone on the way You have to press the lock button inside the car twice after a stop so that locks will open the rest of the doors. (I have automatic door locking disabled while driving)
If You enable option of only trunk opening then if You open the trunk then the doors won’t open which is also okay.
70% of the time I drive alone using the trunk so those two options are OK for me to be enabled.
Only thing is that I have to remember to open the doors from remote when I travel with my family on short distances or change those options when we are traveling together farther like now on vacation.
You know there is no magic in those handles.
If they open few thousand times they have to damage at some point.
That’s why Tesla changed those from Model S (automatic) to Model 3 (You press them mechanically by Your finger) so that they don’t have electrical element to broke at some point.
