Service Review: tl;dr its fine

[Nuclianba]

Placing this here for the future potential buyer reading the forums who wants to get a sense of service, since the forums are filled with 'Service is Awful!' notes.

I got my truck back from service a week ago (San Jose service center), experience was fine. Not good. Also not awful! I think if you go in with appropriate expectations you'll be fine. Also, I recommend signing up for electrafi before service, you can keep an eye on the truck while there and know whats going on.

WHAT WORKED WELL:
- Reporting stuff works really well. Fire up the app, take a photo, quick description, and its off...I did this 5 times for minor things and in each instance got a call from Rivian within a few hours asking for more details so they could add it to the ticket. I am impressed with this part of the process, it works well.
- They took care of everything I asked about, without question or complaint. I really only had one issue that needed the visit (passenger read window always reported as 'open' even when closed, and self/home calibration didn't resolve it). I then had 6 other things that can be best described as 'prima-donna BS' like a slightly misaligned tailgate, noise from the steering column when rotating beyond 180degrees left, vibration in the front speaker grill that only popped up on one very specific road near my house for like 5 seconds, etc.
- I'll repeat the prior bullet, they took care of everything, for free, under warranty, basically without question. And they did fix all issues.
- Dropoff/pickup was fast and easy. Was in/out within 15 minutes on each end, and they got me a rental that fit 3 car seats for the duration of the service.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK WELL:
- Wait time...admittedly all my stuff was minor but it was ~10 weeks from first service notice to drop off. I was OK with this, during that period I added 5 more things to the ticket, but at first all I needed was a window calibration, a 10 week wait was a bit much.
- They had my car 9 days before working on it. I know because of electrafi. I dropped it off, it got parked, and it sat there....for 9 days....and then suddenly it was moving. I'll note that at day 7 I got a text saying "update: your car is still in the queue, we'll reach back out when there's news". So not total radio silence. Anyways, that day they drove it around the block 3 different times in one day, presumably testing my dash rattle. Total of ~5 hours between it first moving and it being parked again. Things in the app got checked off throughout the day.
- I had to call to confirm it was done. Two days after seeing it get fixed in electrafi (and all items marked complete in the app) I called the national number, they put me on hold to call the SC, and then confirmed for me it was ready for pickup. That's annoying! Clearly the file was in a pile for somebody to get to and inform me it was ready to go, I have no doubts they would have gotten to it and called me, I just don't know how many more days that would have taken.
- Car wasn't cleaned prior to return...this one I do think is a big miss for them, very low-hanging fruit and easy to improve, just run it through a quick wash, it was obvious the truck was parked outside for 2 weeks in an industrial area, just lots of dirt on the truck.

So there you go. Everything was fixed and done for free. But it took them 14 days to do 5 hours of work.

Mostly this just feels like understaffing, and I don't think Rivian can snap their fingers and fix that overnight, there aren't enough trained techs. If you go in expecting to have limited communications and no Rivian (but you will have a rental!) for a couple weeks, you'll be fine. If you expect daily updates and white glove service, you will be pissed. To be clear, I'm not arguing that Rivian has nothing to improve or is doing great, but I am arguing that everything is a tradeoff and my service wasn't terrible. It took forever and they gave few updates and the user experience was bad, but they fixed my truck and gave me a ride in the interim and didn't waste my time...mostly it sucked because I like the truck a ton and just wanted it back!

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[Paradigm_Shift]

What is “Electrifi”?

 

[Nuclianba]

What is “Electrifi”?

https://electrafi.com/

 

[edman007]

WHAT DIDN'T WORK WELL:
- Wait time...admittedly all my stuff was minor but it was ~10 weeks from first service notice to drop off. I was OK with this, during that period I added 5 more things to the ticket, but at first all I needed was a window calibration, a 10 week wait was a bit much.
- They had my car 9 days before working on it. I know because of electrafi. I dropped it off, it got parked, and it sat there....for 9 days....and then suddenly it was moving. I'll note that at day 7 I got a text saying "update: your car is still in the queue, we'll reach back out when there's news". So not total radio silence. Anyways, that day they drove it around the block 3 different times in one day, presumably testing my dash rattle. Total of ~5 hours between it first moving and it being parked again. Things in the app got checked off throughout the day.
- I had to call to confirm it was done. Two days after seeing it get fixed in electrafi (and all items marked complete in the app) I called the national number, they put me on hold to call the SC, and then confirmed for me it was ready for pickup. That's annoying! Clearly the file was in a pile for somebody to get to and inform me it was ready to go, I have no doubts they would have gotten to it and called me, I just don't know how many more days that would have taken.
- Car wasn't cleaned prior to return...this one I do think is a big miss for them, very low-hanging fruit and easy to improve, just run it through a quick wash, it was obvious the truck was parked outside for 2 weeks in an industrial area, just lots of dirt on the truck.

Did you try rescheduling? The app has a reschedule function, I tried it, and after a week of hitting the button I got a date only a month out (this is Brooklyn). Though like you, I had a bunch of minor issues by the time I got there, totaled 3.6 hours of work, they needed multiple days (though turns out they did it all in 3 days, after claiming it would take 5). Also, I too track it via the API (I just wrote my own script to pull the data), and they pushed it into service mode the second I dropped it off, and left it that way when I picked it up, service mode disables the API so you can't see anything.

They also called me on the day they said they'd call, gave me a loaner when the phone people claimed it was going to be a rental (the loaner was way better than a rental, but the interior needed more than a vacuum)

And they did clean mine after (I could tell, the rear was cleaned), but man, that brooklyn location is so dusty, it was apparently sitting for ~24 hours after the wash and I sprayed the washer fluid and watched the wipers pull literal mud off the window.

Overall, my experience was excellent, the wait time was actually on par with my chevy dealer , the time to work on the vehicle was also on par with chevy, the communication was excellent. And importantly, they fixed the alignment first try.

Honestly, my only complaints, if they are going to tell me that 3 hours of work takes a week, and they are not going to actually work on it during the scheduled timeframe they should just instruct you to drop it off at whatever time works for you. It would have been very helpful if I could have dropped it off at 6pm instead of the timeslot I had to fight for. And they messed with all the settings (like disabled motion cam, is that a SW bug?).

 

[VSG]

"Service Review: tl;dr its fine"

You, sir, suck at clickbait.

Keep up the good work. ?

 

[jfornelli]

https://electrafi.com/

Still doesn't tell "what" it is. To get any information, it appears you have to create an account. Maybe I missed a link to some page that has information on their site.

 

[Nuclianba]

Still doesn't tell "what" it is. To get any information, it appears you have to create an account. Maybe I missed a link to some page that has information on their site.

It reads from the rivian API to give you an interface with granular detail on what your truck reports back to home base. Every drive (location, speed, battery charge, etc), charge session, etc etc. Not that useful really, but interesting. With my truck in service I could see exactly when it moved, for how long, where, etc... So you can keep an eye on the vehicle. Although apparently if they put your vehicle in service mode API access is turned off for that period, mine apparently wasn't put in to service mode.

 

[jfornelli]

It reads from the rivian API to give you an interface with granular detail on what your truck reports back to home base. Every drive (location, speed, battery charge, etc), charge session, etc etc. Not that useful really, but interesting. With my truck in service I could see exactly when it moved, for how long, where, etc... So you can keep an eye on the vehicle. Although apparently if they put your vehicle in service mode API access is turned off for that period, mine apparently wasn't put in to service mode.

Oh, that is interesting. Thanks!

 

[Scoiatael]

Not sure how you can consider 7 days of no communication, 14 days total for a small fix to be ok.

 

[Nuclianba]

Not sure how you can consider 7 days of no communication, 14 days total for a small fix to be ok.

I don't. I said it was fine (if you go in with appropriate expectations) and everything is a tradeoff. Truck is fantastic, service is "not awful". I'll take that trade.

 

[zeezz]

Seems really similar with my experience at San Jose, but they did get working on my car much faster.

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