Canceled my R1S order :-(

[BigGreenR1S]

Your taste is your taste and that’s fine. Comments about the ride quality are spot on- that’s my main complaint after 10k miles in 6 months. That and how clunky adjusting the second row is.

Only odd bit to me was the comment about latency in acceleration. There’s lots of pedal travel in the R1S but the power is always there, instantly, when I push down. And I came from a manual BMW where I could - as much as is possible in an ICE vehicle - make sure I had power when I needed it. R1S is much better than that. So I am really surprised by this comment given that instant power is a main EV selling point across the board.

When my wife was driving it I could tell by the way she was driving she didn’t think it had balls. I kept telling her to dip her foot in more than she thinks she should. Finally she did and that was one of those too much too late scenarios that didn’t play well…. For me, the pedal was absolutely not linear in terms of travel/power output. I’m 100% sure this is partly a BMW bias, where 80% of the power is always available in the first 20% of pedal travel!

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[BigGreenR1S]

One of my favorite things about my R1S is that after I’ve off-roaded to the trailhead, ready for a hike down into the canyon river, I don’t look like a douche-bag gearing up on the tailgate, putting on my fly fishing waders and rigging up, like I would on the back of an X7. Oh wait, the X7 couldn’t make it there.

You realize that the X7 has a height adjustable suspension and actual 4WD, right? I’ve been in Tahoe with 3+ feet of snow on the road and seen Subarus stranded because they were too low while I cruised by, or got out of parking spots while they were still stuck and spinning wheels. The X7 with snow tires is an absolute BEAST in the snow and I imagine it would do just as well off-road with the right wheels/tires. You realize these things were designed by Germans, right, who like in the UK with RR’s have an actual NEED to get to places you simply can’t go with something like an AWD Subaru or equivalent?

 

[BigGreenR1S]

Would you consider another test drive? If yes, contact Rivian and ask if you have meeting location options. I have owned a few BMWs including a 7. That is a totally different class of car and the ride is very soft, as it should be. As others have noted, the R1S is a truck designed for off roading. So, it should be compared to similar class vehicles.

The X7 isn’t soft at all, even “comfort” mode is sporty-ish. But put it into Sport+ with the dynamic handling pkg and it drives like a sports car; C&D pulled like .92 G’s with it, which is amazing for a 3 ton SUV! The thing with the X7 that I just learned (and always took for granted) is that it is *extremely* bump compliant. One of the things the car magazines often mention in their reviews is something called head toss. Head toss is that feeling of getting tossed around inside the car, or where when you go over a bumpy section your head is being tossed up and down or side to side. The X7 has almost zero head toss in the worst of conditions whereas the R1S had several inches of head toss on the freeway…. Again, CA roads are BAD, but something was wrong with this R1S. Honestly though I will never get on with those vinyl seats—I can’t deal with back sweat and the BMW “Sensatec” fake leather does not make your back sweaty!

 

[BigGreenR1S]

My test drive was great! Very knowledgeable sales guy, and took time to go over all the functionality and capabilities. Got to really floor it in some random business park. It was even raining at the time so got to see how it performed on slick pavement. The ride was super solid and smooth (and this was prior to the software update).

I guess I don’t understand the complaints of the Rivian missing features and being “surprised” at the test drive. Yeah the vehicle doesn’t have massage seats or some of the other niceties of the X7, but I would think this is fairly well-known prior to ordering the car.

Seriously? Why wouldn’t I be surprised, that’s not only my reference point personally, but literally every other ICE vehicle in the same price range has those things I mentioned (which is why I mentioned them).

Why do folks like you continue to be apologists for not getting what you actually should have had for the money you spent? Either you are Rivian employees in disguise, or you are so brainwashed you actually don’t realize what you can actually get for the same amount of money!!

 

[Tango45]

Well, this has progressed well.

 

[DynamoLA]

Seriously? Why wouldn’t I be surprised, that’s not only my reference point personally, but literally every other ICE vehicle in the same price range has those things I mentioned (which is why I mentioned them).

Why do folks like you continue to be apologists for not getting what you actually should have had for the money you spent? Either you are Rivian employees in disguise, or you are so brainwashed you actually don’t realize what you can actually get for the same amount of money!!

Not a Rivian employee, I just read about the features of the vehicle (and what’s not included) prior to ordering. And I am not an apologist for not getting what I “should have had”. I’m getting a very Di3 row fully electric SUV for about $72.5k (after the tax credit). I’ll be fine without the massage seats lol.

Like I said above I own an X7 and enjoy it very much but am dumping it before it becomes a maintenance $ expense monster.

Different people have different wants/needs when it comes to their vehicles, that’s fine. But for some reason you thought the Rivian would be as luxurious as your X7 and I don’t know why, given the plethora of information that exists about the R1S.

 

[BigGreenR1S]

I test drove the R1T and now have an R1S. I think the ride is fine, it does bounce a bit compared to the cars and vans I've owned but much less than the trucks I've owned. I suspect most car-like SUVs are going to have a smoother ride but then they aren't on large all terrain wheels and could never make it to this point on the trail:

Similarly, there really aren't many trucks or cars on the road that are quicker or can corner as well as the R1s. I'm amazed under hard corner how I can feel the torque vectoring working and how little (none really) body roll there is. The reality is the R1 is so fast and corners so well that you can rarely safely test its limits. It isn't perfect and I don't know if I would be a buyer at the new prices. At pre price hike with a tax credit it was an excellent value.

I I totally get that, and I respect your point of view, especially in terms of looking at the car in terms of its off-road capabilities, which are no joke! However, in terms of true sports car-like handling and overall suspension compliance, you really need to test drive some of the ice counterparts like an X7 with the dynamic handling package to have a realistic reference point in terms of what big SUVs are actually capable of.
Rivian touts this suspension derived from F1 technology and 0 to 60 times of three seconds and yet at the end of the day the actual track handling isn’t that great on paper as measured by respected publications such as car and driver.

I 100% respect your personal reference point, but if you start comparing the Rivian to other vehicles in the same price range in back to back drives(same day), you are going to be really surprised and understand my point of view in terms of the overall lack of refinement with this vehicle.

 

[BigGreenR1S]

Well, this has progressed well.

Just replying individually to every comment, especially since I’ve already been accused of posting and running, even though I may not have commented for like a whole 24 hours

Not only that, how much fun do you think it is to look at your email that the thread needs attention and instead it’s a bunch of fuking trolls?

Particularly, I’m going to defend myself here against bullying, so bullies might want to go ahead and go do something else. Especially whatever it is you suggest to the people you prey on here yourselves, just go ahead and do that to yourselves, ok?

To anyone else, I’m here to answer questions and if not, that’s fine too—this is just a perspective of a former fanboy being disappointed by the actual drive…I’d be 1000% happy to just close this thread already!

I was genuinely sad the R1S didn’t live up to my expectations, but it’s not the end of the world. I can wait until either Rivian gets their shit together, or until whatever comes next in the EV world that might be right for my particular wants/needs (which is really just that EVs will hopefully be as good in all respects and more so than their ICE counterparts at the same price point!)

 

[BigGreenR1S]

Not a Rivian employee, I just read about the features of the vehicle (and what’s not included) prior to ordering. And I am not an apologist for not getting what I “should have had”. I’m getting a very Di3 row fully electric SUV for about $72.5k (after the tax credit). I’ll be fine without the massage seats lol.

Like I said above I own an X7 and enjoy it very much but am dumping it before it becomes a maintenance $ expense monster.

Different people have different wants/needs when it comes to their vehicles, that’s fine. But for some reason you thought the Rivian would be as luxurious as your X7 and I don’t know why, given the plethora of information that exists about the R1S.

My wife has a bad back and we do a lot of 4 to 10 hour road trips and sometimes in back to back days. The masssge feature is not at all a luxury—it literally does nothing in terms of what you would think an actual massage should feel like. What it does do is move your spine around on long drives so you don’t get sore from sitting in the same position for so long. It’s a game changer, especially if you would otherwise have to stop every 60-90 minutes and get out of the car and stretch! The massage feature allows her to sit for up to 4 hours (minus pee breaks here and there) which is incredible!

 

[BigGreenR1S]

I refused to buy a Phantom Series 2 a few years ago because there was a Walmart in the same zip code as the RR dealer. Don’t they know who I am?

?

 

[emoore]

My wife has a bad back and we do a lot of 4 to 10 hour road trips and sometimes in back to back days. The masssge feature is not at all a luxury—it literally does nothing in terms of what you would think an actual massage should feel like. What it does do is move your spine around on long drives so you don’t get sore from sitting in the same position for so long. It’s a game changer, especially if you would otherwise have to stop every 60-90 minutes and get out of the car and stretch! The massage feature allows her to sit for up to 4 hours (minus pee breaks here and there) which is incredible!

Ok massaging seats seem good. But why ding Rivian for not having them? They never said they would.

 

[BigGreenR1S]

Different cars for different people. I’ve owned 4 BMWs, and I’ll never go back to them. Especially once that year 4 warranty period ends, it’s $thousands of dollars every 6 months or so to fix something

You are perpetuating a stereotype that is literally decades old! I am going on 5 years and 45k miles with this X7 and have had precisely zero issues. Before that I had a RR which also had zero issues in 5 years. Before that I had an X5 which did have a few small issues but all covered under warranty.

Ask yourself how that honestly compares to how many issues you’ve had with your own Rivian in the short amount of time you’ve had it. From everything that I’ve read here, the issues are many and massive!

 

[docwhiz]

Well, this has progressed well.

I'm very bump compliant but this thread has me head tossing

 

[BigGreenR1S]

I'm very bump compliant but this thread has me head tossing

I agree!

 

[BigGreenR1S]

Ok massaging seats seem good. But why ding Rivian for not having them? They never said they would.

That’s the thing, none of my observations were about intentionally dinging Rivian, or anyone else here for that matter. Our review, my review, here was about comparing it to the X7 and convincing us to trade in an already 5 year old X7 for a brand new state of the art R1S. I made that super clear in the original post. That review was a stream of consciousness review in real/time as we were testing it, especially in terms of having just gotten out of a 5 year old X7. Nothing more, nothing less .

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