Conserve mode: Need new tires!

[Leo21]

Totally interested. Which way off?
Any issues with range estimates?

speedo show higher speed than actual by 10%, so 77 is 70 and so on.
range dont seem to be impacted, maybe very very light change.

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[Leo21]

Not rotating?

no, all honestly, dont have time for that.
im good with tire change every 18K.
though the one i chose come with 50K warranty, lets see what happens.

 

[Rob O]

I’m at about 5500 miles on my Conti TerrainContact AT 22s, which i mounted in place of the factory Pirelli P Zero Sport tires almost immediately after delivery. A little more than half of those 5k+ miles were done in Conserve Mode at Low suspension setting, entirely on the highway (road trip / long journey miles). Otherwise, the majority of the remaining miles were in All Purpose at Standard ride height. When using Conserve Mode on road trips, I wasn’t terribly disciplined about activating before getting on the Interstate or after I was at speed; nor was I diligent about when I deactivated it (as I approached an exit, after exiting, etc) … I just engaged it as I drove and disengaged it when I stopped to charge.

Anyway, my treadwear to this point is perfectly even at all four corners, and I’ve seen hardly any change in depth from new. Might be too early in their life to make for a good comparison to tires with 18k miles, but is still a relevant data point.

 

[KingTodd]

So after only 1 year and 18k miles, I already need new front tires. Maybe 50% of that driving was done using conserve mode.

My recommendation, do not use conserve mode unless if you have to. In our situation, conserve mode was the difference between stoping at a 50kw charger vs +100kw or having to add another stop, especially driving through Vermont or upstate NY.

I don’t think I would use it going forward, unless I absolutely have to. I would confess that I often forgot to turn it back to « All purpose » when exiting the highway. My recommendation for Rivian is to create a « Smart Conserve Mode » that only turns off the rear motors if over (maybe) 50mph.

Anyway, hoping my experience will help others.

We love our truck!

I’m not going to read through 4 pages of posts so though likely said already, when my R1S was delivered the person dropping it off told me this would happen if I used Conserve mode a lot. He said use it when you need the extra range but not otherwise

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

I get your point about steering. But, why do you think stopping wears the front tires more in All Purpose Mode?

Physics. Watch every vehicle when braking. They all “dive forward” a bit. Even if you had perfect 50/50 weight distribution, the vehicle wants to continue moving forward so the weight effectively transfers more to the front and those tires effectively get more grip and have more braking potential. An object in motion wants to stay in motion.

same reason rear wheel drive beats front wheel drive for off-the-line acceleration. An object at rest wants to stay at rest…. Weight transfers rearward, pushes rear (drive) tires into ground, more grip, able to put more power down effectively.

 

[HaveBlue]

What's the teadwear number on the tires? If they are in the 200s that's your answer for 25k miles max. Take the treadwear number and multiply by 100.

 

[fbitz777]

speedo show higher speed than actual by 10%, so 77 is 70 and so on.
range dont seem to be impacted, maybe very very light change.

That is not practical! Is your odometer off by 10 percent too?
Seems like there should be a setting to allow for different tires on same wheel.

 

[s4wrxttcs]

Physics. Watch every vehicle when braking. They all “dive forward” a bit. Even if you had perfect 50/50 weight distribution, the vehicle wants to continue moving forward so the weight effectively transfers more to the front and those tires effectively get more grip and have more braking potential. An object in motion wants to stay in motion.

same reason rear wheel drive beats front wheel drive for off-the-line acceleration. An object at rest wants to stay at rest…. Weight transfers rearward, pushes rear (drive) tires into ground, more grip, able to put more power down effectively.

I think I might finally have the answer to the question I pondered yesterday.

I think it might be braking related because in conserve mode only the front motors go into regen, and I think most Rivian owners are using high-regen for the highest efficiency. This means 90% of the braking is being done by the front tires. This is an addition to doing all the acceleration, and turning.

Maybe the conserve mode should be known as the rear tire saver mode.

 

[shap]

That is not practical! Is your odometer off by 10 percent too?
Seems like there should be a setting to allow for different tires on same wheel.

you may consider using 275/50/21XL, like these

MICHELIN DEFENDER LTX M/S are $410 installed + tax. 70k warranty. The only problem I guess is the load index - it is a bit lower. So if you load your track to the maximum - you probably should not use it. Otherwise - I think it may work. As for the legality of this - I have no idea. I saw people using them on RT1.

 

[Greg Chick]

I thought it was the low chassis height that created the tire angle that caused wear, not the front wheel drive being the cause. I use conserve but regular height.
Does anyone know the percentage of wear caused by the two possible causes?

 

[Handb94]

Not gonna lie. I didn't read all of the replies but the tech at the Miami service center said if you leave it in conserve mode all the time it will burn through tires. I am used to rotating every 5K miles.

He said between it running in fwd and the torque the motors put out it, it wears the tires more. He said all purpose mode will keep them lasting longer.

 

[Davis]

I have the 21” Pirelli Scorpions, with 22k on them. They look to to have close to 30% wear left, I am hoping to get 50k out of them. I drive 99% in conserve mode with no abnormal wear showing. I did rotate at 15k which is very important if you want the max wear out of any tire. If you are seeing any abnormal wear rotate sooner.

 

[ironpig]

I ran in to a Rivian engineer yesterday who works on Driver+ so probably not the expert on tires, but he did say avoid convserve mode unless you really need it.

It was part of a large conversation which was mostly about tow mode and updates to driver+ (which I don't really use) but using Converse Mode sparingly seems to be a common refrain when speaking to anyone at Rivian.

 

[Goose]

I ran in to a Rivian engineer yesterday who works on Driver+ so probably not the expert on tires, but he did say avoid convserve mode unless you really need it.

It was part of a large conversation which was mostly about tow mode and updates to driver+ (which I don't really use) but using Converse Mode sparingly seems to be a common refrain when speaking to anyone at Rivian.

Then why would they make the dual motor front wheel drive?!

 

[ironpig]

Then why would they make the dual motor front wheel drive?!

According to Rivian:

Why don’t Dual-Motor AWD and Performance Dual-Motor AWD vehicles have Conserve mode?

Dual-Motor variants use our Automatic AWD drive system. In All-Purpose mode and above about 19 mph (30 kmph), Dual-Motor vehicles are propelled by the front motor and front wheels only. Similarly, a Quad-Motor vehicle in Conserve mode de-couples the rear motors so that only the front motors are in use. Dual-Motor vehicles will decouple the rear axle to maximize range whenever possible. Automatic decoupling and recoupling on demand makes a separate Conserve mode in Dual-Motor vehicles unnecessary.

Automatic AWD in a Dual-Motor vehicle automatically maintains the rear axle coupling during high acceleration or disconnects the rear axle when not in high acceleration. This also helps reduce cases of increased front tire wear as power is more evenly distributed across all four wheels when needed.

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