Got alert, brought it to service and was told I may be charged?

[resellpanda88]

No I would never pay. I e gotten that alert before and brought it in. They can check the alert logs and diagnose that way. They will change your front camera pitch if your vehicle is a 2024.

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[Docedward]

So I got the warning that says I need a professional camera cleaning. They are charging me for it. I’ve owned this truck 5 months. Should we prepare for paying for this cleaning every 4-6 months?

 

[PungoteagueDave]

So I got the warning that says I need a professional camera cleaning. They are charging me for it. I’ve owned this truck 5 months. Should we prepare for paying for this cleaning every 4-6 months?

This post is just plain silly. It does not say anything about professional cleaning. Take a tissue around your car and wipe. Hopefully everyone knows how to wipe. ?

If it persists after basic maintenance, then it would be a warranty or repair item.

 

[DaBagBoy]

I tend to think you are both right. The cars can throw a fair amount of spurious errors that go away and don't come back, especially the whole vision/camera thing.

If a camera is blinded it wants to be fixed, but a lot of temporary things can throw that error. BUT in my XP I'd book it and get a service date reserved as the SCs can be very delayed. Then I'd wait and postpone until the issue recurs. If it doesn't recur just cancel the appointment, if it does....then they will fix it under warranty.

 

[Docedward]

This post is just plain silly. It does not say anything about professional cleaning. Take a tissue around your car and wipe. Hopefully everyone knows how to wipe. ?

If it persists after basic maintenance, then it would be a warranty or repair item.

I apologize for making assumptions. Yes I cleaned it. Yes it persists. Yes I made a scheduled appointment to pay to have the camera covering removed and cleaned. ?

 

[HaulingAss]

Should we prepare for paying for this cleaning every 4-6 months?

No. This is caused by off-gassing of the new plastic in a new car when it bakes in the sun. The hydrocarbons condense on the camera lens when a hot car cools. The off-gassing typically drops to near zero after the car has been baked by the sun over the first summer.

 

[not_elon_]

I may be charged the hourly diagnostic fee if they don’t find anything? I’ve never had this happen with my other Tesla vehicle. Is this common practice?

I’ve been dealing with Tesla service since 2018 and these games have only become a reality in 2025. I had a screeching in the drivers window glass when closing that resolved spontaneously so since service couldn’t recreate it they charged me the 200 something diagnostic fee even under warranty. I just paid it but won’t soon forget such shenanigans. Normally I would gone ballistic but because we are stuck in a bad marriage with these people I turned the other cheek.
From now on when I set up service and they pull this crap in the form of having me agree to some estimate I just cancel the appointment.

 

[mongo]

This post is just plain silly. It does not say anything about professional cleaning. Take a tissue around your car and wipe. Hopefully everyone knows how to wipe. ?

If it persists after basic maintenance, then it would be a warranty or repair item.

They may be confusing "professional" with "precision" cleaning. Regardless, a tissue around the car isn't going to fix the inner fogging.

While removing the five subassemblies to access the section of windshield in front of the cameras is in the realm of DIY, having the service center do it is much lower risk.
https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybe...UID-6229D89E-739C-4ABF-BF8B-58E8FD447952.html

 

[dbez]

I got this alert which prompted me to take it into Tesla service. They are saying since I only got one alert and it didn’t show up again, I may be charged the hourly diagnostic fee if they don’t find anything? I’ve never had this happen with my other Tesla vehicle. Is this common practice?

I had the exact same message a few day after I picked up my truck. Made the appointment as instructed by the prompt and they fixed it no issues. I was told it required a software update. When I asked why an update could not be performed remotely, I was told the update doesn't always fix the issue and they are still working to permanently resolve the problem with a future OTA update. This is a known issue and is ABSOLUTELY covered by warranty.

 

[Mwhusa]

Tesla did that to me, charge a diagnostic fee when they couldn’t duplicate the problem. I’m very careful when I report an issue and take pictures of the incident along with date and time stamps where they can look at the logs.

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