DIY - Fix rattle of door tweeters

Both the front door tweeters developed a creaking noise. Not caused by the sound being produced from the speakers, rather when going over road bumps and imperfections, and it drove me nuts. At first, I couldn't identify where the sound was coming from except from the A-pillar area. Eventually putting a little pressure on the tweeter while driving made me realize the tweeter enclosures were the culprits. I asked my daughter to try the same with the passenger side and it was the identical issue.

Upon removal of the entire tweeter enclosure, and just squeezing it with just slight pressure reproduced the creaking noise. Essentially the enclosure comprises two pieces of plastic snapped together with the tweeter encased. The grade of plastic used, lack of foam lining, and the general position of the case between the rubber door gasket and door frame are all responsible for the creaking symptoms.

Fortunately the fix was easy and took all but 5 minutes per site. I inserted a small piece of foam under the door panel and lined the two edges of the enclosure with thin double-sided 3M tape and then replaced the tweeter. SO far in 3 weeks and many 100s of miles of driving they have not made a sound!

A piece of foam and some double sided 3M tape fixed creaking from tweeters

To remove the tweeter enclosure...

DIY - Tire rotation. Recommend doing it every 5-6k miles.

I rotated the tires this morning. The rear tire depth was a hair above 7/32nd and the front tire depth was just under 9/32nd (not quite to 8/32nd) at 5100 miles. These tires at new come as 9/32nd per the specs at Tire Rack. 

Rear tires wear out much quicker even on an AWD

So the rear tires seem to wear out at approximately 1.5/32nd in 5000 miles and the front at 0.5/32nd in the same periods, or 3x faster in the rear. Since these tires are rated 400AA and should last ~40,000 miles when they reach 2/32nd and I seriously find that is going to be impossible to achieve.

They key for longevity is both correct pressure and frequent rotations. 

DIY Xpel Ultimate PPF on Hood, Mirrors and Front Bumper

After doing the DIY Xpel PPF for the top of the rear bumper and rear rocker panels by cutting a standard Xpel roll myself, I decided to try the mirrors, hood and front bumper. Arguably a lot harder, and required lots of patience, learning on the fly and attention to details was key. But it is done and I am happy with the results, specially for a DIY project.

DIY Xpel on Hood - Bikini Cut

I bought my pre-cut kits at a discounted price, compared to OEM pricing listed on the Xpel website, by contacting Chad Baker. Paid via PayPal and got the Fedex shipments in 2 days. I took my time and did this over 2 days in the garage.

Here are some tips:

Update Sept. 2020 - Green Light Chime and Speed Limit Sign Detection

 Busy Summer for Tesla, I feel that I am getting updates every week. This week (or month) it seems that Autopilot is getting smarter. Almost seems like different teams at Tesla are competing to get updated out.

For those that use the Autopilot feature of Stop Light/Sign recognition, a few updates ago Tesla added the feature that the stop line drawn on the screen would turn red or green depending on the color of the traffic lights. Seems maybe too many Tesla drivers were distracted 😏 while waiting for the light to turn green and tap the accelerator pedal, so now it appears that upon a green light, the car will chime as a notification to make a decision to move.

Green Traffic Light Chime

Additionally, the cameras can now read the traffic limit signs. This is good because I often observed that using the GPS data, usually the car would slow down a little past the sign. When I am driving through small remote towns, whose main source of income is traffic speed violations (you know exact the ones I am talking about), the car was susceptible to tickets especially when the speed goes from 55mph --> 35mph --> 25mph --> 35mph --> 55mph in the stretch of 1 mile, and there are cops parked right at the 35 mph sign in both directions.

Others improvements include: