r/polestar3

Okay, so I'm not sure if I'm just unlucky and the car just needed time to become completely unreliable, but does anyone else feel like the Orin chip made things worse?

I got the car in March, and everything was fine for about 3-4 weeks. A few quirks, but nothing I'd say was exclusive to Polestar.

Then, I got the Orin Upgrade. The system felt kinda laggy afterward, but it could be a placebo effect or needed time to settle.

A week later, my GHCA died. Repaired, everything fine.

Then, I hadn't driven the car much the week after, and I was greeted by a complete system failure when I tried to. No ESC, no A/C, no park sensors, no emergency call, no seatbelt recognition, no high beam system, much more, and worst of all, reduced Power. It was already late, so I didn't feel like calling the shop. The next morning, everything was normal again, so I shrugged it off. (mistake)

The next couple of days seemed fine (didn't drive much, tho).

Then, this morning on the way to work, about 5km from home, everything shut down again, with the same systems as the previous week failing, but I was somehow able to limp home.

Called Polestart Assistance, and they came to tow the car. Sometime later, I was able to pick up a crappy XC60 as a rental... (ice, absolute basemodel and super worn down) without knowing what's next...

--

While we're at it, does anyone have an idea what this complete failure of basically everything could be?

Hey everyone,
I’m hoping we can get some traction on this so the software team in Gothenburg sees it, because the passive entry behavior on the Polestar 3 at home is driving me completely insane.
My kitchen sits right near the garage/driveway. Every single time I walk to the fridge or move around the kitchen with my phone in my pocket, the Ultra-Wideband (UWB) signal bleeds through the wall. The car goes through its entire welcome routine—clicking, popping the flush door handles out, unfolding the mirrors, and flashing the lights—hundreds of times a day. It is a massive drain on the background battery and putting completely unnecessary wear and tear on the handle actuators.
And before anyone suggests it: No, I am not going to disable "Unlock on Approach."
I love the feature when I’m out running errands, at work, or in a parking lot. Disabling a core premium feature just because the software lacks a basic configuration layer is a compromised workaround.
Other luxury brands solved this ages ago. My BMW handles this flawlessly with an OTA update that introduced an "Exclude Home Address" rule for the digital key. The car knows exactly where it is via GPS, stays dead silent when parked at home, and only opens when I explicitly touch the door handle sensor.
The most frustrating part? The Polestar 3 already has location-based geofencing built into the software. The car perfectly tracks coordinates to manage localized charging location profiles and preferences. The underlying logic is already sitting right there in the core system.
Polestar just needs to link that existing location awareness to the Locking/Unlocking menu: [ ] Exclude Home Address from Proximity Unlock.
If your P3 is constantly cycling its door handles while you're just trying to live your life inside your house, please upvote this or drop a comment. This is a fundamental quality-of-life fix that a software-defined luxury vehicle should have had on day one.

So I dropped off my Polestar 3 at the dealership on Monday, May 18th first thing in the morning thinking it would be a long service for the Orin upgrade and software updates. I get there and the service guy tells me that, just to be safe, he's getting me a rental to tide me over until my car is ready just in case it's the next day. I'm thinking "Nice, I don't have to sit here!". Well a promise time of Tuesday turns into Thursday turns into maybe Monday???

Anyways. Here's my question for you guys: When your Polestar 3 got the upgrade, were you able to see the new software version in the app or does that not update until YOU are in the car? Currently the app says my car is on version 1.4.12. Service guy is telling me that the car is currently undergoing updates, but can it really take that long (several days)? What has been your experience? Trying to set realistic expectations for myself. I know the dealership is backed up and the only one in the surrounding area. I just wish if they were thinking that this could take 1-2 weeks that the expectation would be set from the start.

I just did road trip from Tampa to 9k feet in the foothills of colorado.

I had no issues with the car. The lane keeping is outstanding, absolutely blew me away coming from the shitty polestar 2 lane keeping. I used it the entire trip, it didn't once lose the lane. It's reallya enjoyable car to drive, incredibly comfortable the entire trip.

I drove the southern route. Tampa ->Pensacola->Mobile-Shieveport->Dallas->Amarillo

I did 1923 miles, it took 29 hours of just driving. I slept 4 hours in the car, otherwise my naps were at chargers. Consumed 771 kwh, total efficiency was 40.1kwh/100 miles. Before I started climbing up into the Rockies my efficiency was 36kwh/100 at 67mph. Average speed was 65 mpg at the end. though I drove 9 over the speedlimit the entire way in the highways. So usually 74, 79 and 84 mph.

22inch sport wheels on Toyo Proxes ST III.

I exclusively used Tesla Superchargers(used my own adapter A2Z), I bought the membership for the month. I spent a total of 263.25. + the 12.99 membership.

I used ABRP to plan the route, and transferred it to googlemaps. It worked real well.

I made 12 charging stops, for a total of 5 hours and 13 minutes. I tried to get every charging stop under 10% on arrival. Most of the stops got me there right around 10%, the lowest I got was 3%. Usually charged to 60-70%. I charged to almost 100% in Dallas(it was only .17kwh!!! and 2 in the morning)

I never once saw 250kw, I never went over 200kw.

OK this is currently a story without an ending that I'm just relaying for anyone interested or maybe some insights.

The car left me high and dry the other day. I was driving from Los Angeles to Portland to move my daughter out of school - about a 16 hour drive that we usually do over two or three days. This is a trip we've done several times, and I really enjoy the tempo of EV road trips. So I stopped in Redding to charge at a Supercharger - that's a couple hours north of Sacramento and about a little more than halfway between LA and Portland. As a former Tesla owner I just really prefer the simplicity of the way Superchargers work.

When I get back to the car and unplug, I get in the car and have this "critical suspension fault" message saying to pull over safely. Having had a P3 for over a year now I know (very well...) there can be random little errors that pop up and then disappear, so I pulled out just to see how it was driving, and it did feel a bit rough, like the air suspension wasn't working right or something. (it rode kind of like a Tesla!)

So I pulled over in a spot where I could try some things to clear this issue. Googled the message and didn't find things really helpful – some people had cleared it with just waiting, or various resets, and others ended up with their car in the shop for weeks.

So I tried everything I could think of because I was in a pretty screwed up situation, halfway between home and my destination. I wasn't able to do the hard reset using the brake and the down arrows on the steering wheel - it just did nothing - and then I also started to get the "PARK" icon on the screen flashing, which I hadn't seen before. I tried putting the car into reverse to see how it was driving and it just immediately started taking off backwards. Weird. I put it into drive to move back into my parking spot and it did the same thing, just took off forward. So at that point I accepted that the car was not gonna be drivable in this state and I was screwed.

After trying everything I did a full factory reset just to see if that would get rid of the message - I figured why not - and it didn't fix it. I'd already been on the phone with Polestar support and they were sending a tow to take the car to the nearest service center, which given this is a Polestar was about 3 hours away in San Rafael, north of San Francisco.

Turned out I was lucky (hahaha) that the car broke down in Redding, because they have a small municipal airport and I was able to catch a plane to Portland via San Francisco that afternoon so I could at least get to my destination and rent a car to deal with the move out and then probably fly back to LA.

Now the car is in the shop in San Rafael and I have no idea how long it's gonna take or how I'm gonna get the car back. The woman at the service center in San Rafael did mention something about "reuniting" us with the car, I guess by shipping it down to our home in Los Angeles, about seven or eight hours south. My wife talked to Polestar and it sounded like we'd get some compensation for a few days of renting a car but obviously we've incurred a bunch of other expenses that I feel are Polestar's responsibility, like flying from Redding to Portland and then flying both my daughter and home.

So I guess I'm wondering if others have run into the same problem, how the solution worked out, if I should have handled it differently, etc. We love driving the car and the software issues have really settled down from the way it was in the beginning, but this once again makes me lose faith in the car. It's really too bad they didn't get this stuff all worked out before they put it on the market because it really is a pleasure to drive.

Curious if anyone else has had this and has any ideas? I sent it over to the service center as well, waiting to hear back. It's difficult to reproduce, but there's one onramp near me where it does it every time. If the steering wheel is turned to the right and I'm stopping with regenerative breaking at low speed, the right rear wheel shudders and makes noise. Same when I get going again. Once I'm up to speed it seems to stop. It happens a few times each day, not consistently, other than that onramp which is a banked, downhill, sharp right turn.

Video is of accelerating, it's like something is rubbing or hitting something as the wheel is turning?

https://reddit.com/link/1te8jv7/video/nkbm5jdu4d1h1/player

Potentially buying a CPO 2023 Polestar 2 LRDM Performance (~30k miles) and looking for honest ownership feedback from people who live far from a Polestar service center.

The nearest service locations for me are several hours away, so I’m trying to better understand the realities of long-distance ownership before pulling the trigger.

A few questions:

- How has reliability been long-term?

- I’ve read about occasional front strut / suspension issue, how common is that really?

- Any other known issues I should specifically watch for on a ~30k mile P2?

- How has warranty service been handled for those of you far from service centers?

- Has Polestar actually arranged towing / pickup transport for major issues outside the official service radius?

- How painful is body work / collision repair given the limited certified body shop network?

- Any regrets owning one outside a major metro area?

A little context:

- Cross-shopping against a Volvo C40 Recharge

- Looking for something sporty but still practical 

- Used to AWD vehicles and Northeast winters

- Considering either dedicated winter wheels/tires or high-quality all-seasons

I recently drove a Volvo C40 and liked the overall platform a lot, but the Polestar 2 seems like a more driver-focused fit. I didn’t love the size of the infotainment screen. The P2s is a bit larger. 

Would appreciate any honest feedback, especially from owners outside major cities or in colder climates.

Cheers!

I'm strongly considering the Polestar 3, however I'm just seeing neither loyalty or conquest applies to current Volvo owners? As someone that has purchased 4 Volvos in the past 10 years, I am a bit stunned -- not loyal enough for loyalty, but too loyal for conquest? You really can't have it both ways, Polestar.

True, they don't have to offer an incentive at all, but this seems like a very poor business decision their part, alienating a high propensity customer base. It's not about the money, it's about the fact the purchase just doesn't feel good. And it's a $90K SUV, it's not about practical transportation, it's about feeling.

Any Volvo owners have luck with incentives?

From user Haulr on Polestar Forums. Not mine so credit where it's due. From the OP it was spotted in South Carolina.

I'm definitely considering one of these if we have another baby, curious to see more of the green color in different lights.

https://preview.redd.it/ooj909t2rqzg1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=b83953eb788d7d576afccc012e082e5d5da8d9f1