My Tesla triggered alarm randomly in middle of night
I took my car for a wash and simply used a pressure washer to rinse off dirt. After that, I parked my car at 5 PM on Saturday. Then, at 2:40 AM on Sunday, my car’s alarm suddenly went off, and I received a notification that the alarm had been triggered. I rushed to the parking area, but there was no apparent reason for the alarm.
I went back to my apartment, and the alarm triggered again. This time, I noticed the driver’s side door was open, even though I was certain I had closed it earlier. I closed the door again, returned to my apartment, and just 7 minutes later, the alarm went off again. The app once again showed the driver’s door as open.
At this point, I asked my wife to come with me to verify that I was closing the door properly. I also rebooted the car from the screen (without holding the scroll wheels for 15 seconds). About 50 minutes later, the door appeared to open by itself again, triggering the alarm. I went back to the car, sat inside for a while, defrosted it, rebooted it again, and downloaded a software update. After starting the installation process, I left the car and returned to my apartment.
Thankfully, this seems to have fixed the issue.
While troubleshooting, I noticed that when I tried to close the door, it wouldn’t close properly, and the windows were slightly rolled down (though not completely). After rolling up the window and trying again, the door finally shut correctly. I also checked the locking mechanism to make sure nothing was stuck in it, but everything looked clean and fine.
For context, I own a Model 3 RWD Standard Range Highland, purchased at the end of November 2024. I live in Germany and the temperature was around -9 degree centigrade. It was snowing too.
Happened to me when there was an insect inside of the car
Same here. Fly in the car. Alarm went off.
that damn thing is so sensitive I would not be surprised if it triggers when (for example) a plastic bottle deforms while temperature is rapidly dropping. I had to disable these alarms as it was all false positives nonsense.
how to disable them? my Sentry mode is already off
I think under security (in car) there you can toggle these alarms off. fwiw I am also in Germany and would rather deal with police once car is damaged rather than with cranky neighbours who get woken up by random alarms triggering. (nothing happened for 4 years since I got the car in 2021)
Oh boy, it was pin drop silence aside from my Tesla screaming, I was extremely afraid of facing someone coming to scold me, especially because I am still learning German and my only argument would’ve been “Entschuldigung, sprechen Sie Englisch? Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut”
Just came to say that I also live in Germany and I'd also take dealing with the police over my cranky neighbors any time 🤣
Why would that cause the door to randomly pop open though?
Same. I’ve switched off the alarm since then. I was tired apologising to the neighbours
Lmao that's so annoying
Mine went off at 9am once when I wasn't home. Tesla remotely diagnosed it as a faulty boot latch.
So i should just ask them for assistance then (though I called and they didn’t pick, i’ll try again tomorrow)
Submit a service request on the app so they can remotely diagnose it.
Thank you for the info
I have never succeeded in contacting Tesla by phone (literal hours on hold) but a service request in the app will probably work. USA if it matters…
I had this problem on an S. It would freak out while driving saying the frunk was open and trigger the alarm in the middle of the night. It was just the latch sensor going bad. There’s no redundant sensor so they can’t tell it’s a false signal unless you ask service
This is mostly due to bugs. The internal alarm is very sensitive. I catch them during cleaning day buy if they are hidden keep the car under the sun for a day or in cold freeze, they will eventually die
Fly
Too cold in Germany for flies right now it was -9c at the time of incident
Ist bei mir vor ein paar Wochen passiert, 3 mal ging der Alarm an. Ich würd fast irre, dann hab ich die Fliege gefunden, dann war Ruhe. Lass einfach mal paar Minuten alle Fenster auf. Versuch ist es wert
I had the same issue on my model S, Tesla quoted me for a replacement trunk latch, turns out while doing some research I found out if you tighten the two clip things (one at the right and one at the left) it’ll stop the alarm from randomly going off, also try a reboot, it fixed my issue and haven’t had an issue in weeks, always worth giving that a try
Wait until you have a gang of raccoons trying to make off with it 🦝
Did you have sentry on
no, sentry is off, (for 2 reasons: 1. it’s too power consuming, 2. I don’t think leaving a camera for surveillance in Germany is legal)
Second reason isn't a problem because Teslas come with sentry and cameras standard. Don't know about aftermarket ones.
I am not aware of these laws here so I asked the Germany subreddit and they had some very harsh things to say so I thought i just can’t use sentry legally xD
If it was banned, they would not let you use it in any way, so it wouldn't even be a feature that comes with the car
I can pretty reliably trigger my alarm by enabling sentry mode and then remotely turning the A/C on…or at least I get a notification that the alarm is going off. When I’ve gone outside to check (only happens at work), car was sitting quietly and no coworkers ever mentioned anything. I stopped using sentry at work, hasn’t happened since.
I don’t use sentry
Yesterday I heat up the cabin (there was snow on the car) and all of a sudden the alarm start. I had to stop heating then it stop. I'm wondering if moving snow on the windshield is enough to trigger the alarm, I suspect so. A little too sensitive IMO, but who am I to tell the camera it is only snow...
Is the drive poodle light (under the door) working? If that goes bad, the window could not fully close properly.
Oh I didn’t observe that :/ But could it be cause of a one off issue? After defrosting the car everything worked fine
What did Sentry mode or your home security cctv reveal?
Had my car think the rear door was open while in the car wash. This triggered the window to lower and got water and soap everywhere.... I checked inside the door and the cable connecting the door to the car was not perfectly put in. I put it in properly but still called support to check, and thy confirmed it was the high pressure water that shorted some contacts in the cable.
Looks similar to what happened to you. Some water got it while washed it, the car suddenly though the door opened and triggered the alarm.
Edit : missing 'not'
for me the door was actually open, i closed the door properly but when the alarm went off and then i checked the car the door was popped off slightly, every time