Trim (Fender Flare) dislodged from a puddle

[SoCal Rob]

I’ve never seen the car without the flares on so I don’t know what they are supposed to look like. It was a situation where rate of rainfall exceeded drainage capacity of curbs/gutters (which doesn’t take much rain in SoCal) so excess water was pooling back from the curb onto the street. Definitely no pothole.

As @CrazyOne asked in this post do you have the drive cam footage? My understanding is that you can pull it from the external storage after it’s connected to a device capable of reading the files: desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. That would help you prove to Rivian that the water wasn’t especially deep and you didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. It could also show if something happened to your vehicle before that drive in case you didn’t walk past the passenger side to notice anything unusual.

edit:typo

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[R1Tom]

Manual says 5 mph when fording deep water.

Sounds like a serious "cover your ass" line in the manual. 5MPH for deep puddles. Prefer not getting rear ended!

Not to mention....for the $100 it would have cost Rivian to just handle this as goodwill for the customer, it will take many times that to repair the PR damage internet posts about poor service center decisions that are being made.

Fwiw....I had several fasteners mis-installed when new. Some were folded completely over because installer missed the holes. So it wasn't flush. Service removed and reinstalled with new fasteners.

 

[JonnyWat]

I had the same issue, Rivian actually just replaced the fender flare free of charge yesterday

thanks for sharing!

 

[JonnyWat]

As @CrazyOne asked in this post do you have the drive cam footage? My understanding is that you can pull it from the external storage after it’s connected to a device capable of reading the files: desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. That would help you prove to Rivian that the water wasn’t especially deep and you didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. It could also show if something happened to your vehicle before that drive in case you didn’t walk past the passenger side to notice anything unusual.

edit:typo

I don’t have external storage/drive cam set up.

 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Looks like pretty standard automotive retainers. I've got a bucket full in my garage. Should be able to pry 'em out of the fender and reinstall in the trim piece, then just push it back in. If they break pick up replacements at any auto parts store. Of course, since it's Rivian they probably used something proprietary. ?

 

[SoCal Rob]

I don’t have external storage/drive cam set up.

Hopefully you’ll consider buying some external storage and setting this up. In a case like this, the relatively low cost of the storage could save the time and hassle of trying to convince Rivian that everything was fine until you went through shallow water and then the trim piece came off.

 

[JonnyWat]

Found this when I got to the office after a rainy commute. Apparently the water spraying into the wheel well from an ordinary puddle on a paved road dislodged the fender flare. The camera still works but the alignment is off because I can’t figure out how to secure it completey - any tips would be helpful. I can’t seem to move the piece far enough forward so I can slide the connectors back into the blue pegs/clips. I opened a warranty claim ticket with Rivian and to my utter shock they told me to take it to a body shop because it isn’t covered under the warranty. I’ve escalated the claim and still haggling with them over it. I’ve never had this happen on any other car I’ve owned, let alone something that is supposed to be an off road rated beast. There is clearly something wrong with the connection/clips that attach this trim to the body. This shouldn’t happen at 25-30mph on a run of the mill rainy day.

Update here is Rivian agreed to take care of it after a couple days of back and forth.

 

[John B]

I just had the exact same thing happen to my R1T. Yesterday morning I went to get into my R1T and was shocked to see the front right black fender trim piece hanging off just as in the original post. There appeared to be no damage to the fender or the trim piece, but two of the blue attachment pins were broken and remained in the fender while two others stayed in the trim and pulled out from the fender. I was easily able to remove the two pieces in the fender and clip them back into the trim, although they were now somewhat compromised. As I tried to determine the cause of this my immediate reaction was that someone must have just knicked my truck while it was parked. It’s a big vehicle and does take up a lot of space in a parking spot. I could have easily not noticed this at night while getting in from the other side. It didn’t seem quite right though as there wasn’t even the slightest scratch or mark anywhere. I recalled I hit a pretty large puddle at about 40 mph while I was almost home. I admit I may have given it a little extra speed for the splash ?. I thought this 7,000 lb “Adventure” truck with AT tires would easily handle it. That started seeming like the most likely cause so I googled “Rivian fender trim dislodged in puddle” and this is the first thing that popped up!

I didn’t take any pics, but it was exactly like those from the original poster. I’ll be asking Rivian for a new set of blue clips, but they certainly need to come up with a better solution. I may be able to pull some dash cam footage if it was recorded as an incident.

 

[John B]

Nope, unfortunately it didn't record the puddle splash as an "Incident".

 

[sfvR1S]

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. I parked my R1S on the driveway because I was having a compact spare tire installed and noticed the right front flare was slightly dislodged. At first couldn't figure out what happened, but then I remembered there was some standing water on the right side of the street a few days before and I drove through it around 25-30 mph.

I tried to reattach it myself, but couldn't move the blue fasteners. When the mobile tech arrived, I mentioned it and it took him about 30 seconds to reattach it. He snipped off the existing fasteners, reattached new ones to the flare, and then popped it back in.

 

[bbonkk]

Here are all the clips available from what I can find. The black one is original Rivian. Notice the large retained area that pushes into the female hole on the truck is deeper than all the others. The turquoise one is what rivian may now use and is what they gave me but they don't click in. The others are angled and pop out easy. I plan to try and knock off about a half a millimeter on the turquoise one and see if that’ll pop in and hold without popping right back out.

 

[Glembi2]

Here are all the clips available from what I can find. The black one is original Rivian. Notice the large retained area that pushes into the female hole on the truck is deeper than all the others. The turquoise one is what rivian may now use and is what they gave me but they don't click in. The others are angled and pop out easy. I plan to try and knock off about a half a millimeter on the turquoise one and see if that’ll pop in and hold without popping right back out.

I need to pick up an assortment of those clips. Any idea what they are called? Panel bolts? Panel clips?

I have an assortment of toggle bolts (one the ubiquitous 1000+ piece sets) but none looks like the ones pictured.

 

[bbonkk]

I need to pick up an assortment of those clips. Any idea what they are called? Panel bolts? Panel clips?

I have an assortment of toggle bolts (one the ubiquitous 1000+ piece sets) but none looks like the ones pictured.

The black one is the one I’m trying to find, the turquoise clip are the ones that Rivian gave me and the gray one I believe was for my Mercedes van and the kind of whitish clear one came in a kit of generic panel clips which is what I believe they’re called. I checked all over Amazon and you could probably get the teh non-Rivian ones but I found that they don’t really hold it very well sometimes they kind of work. And I see that most of the people that have problems have the turquoise ones my R1 S was built in October 2022 and I have the black ones . If I do find replacements for the black ones, I will put it up on the forum. You may try and get this selection because they have that extra rubber washer. That’s what I believe BMW used when I pulled that one apart so they’re a little better. It’s like a GMC would have lock washers where Chevy would not. That was a joke.

https://a.co/d/i46xsdi

 

[Glembi2]

The black one is the one I’m trying to find, the turquoise clip are the ones that Rivian gave me and the gray one I believe was for my Mercedes van and the kind of whitish clear one came in a kit of generic panel clips which is what I believe they’re called. I checked all over Amazon and you could probably get the teh non-Rivian ones but I found that they don’t really hold it very well sometimes they kind of work. And I see that most of the people that have problems have the turquoise ones my R1 S was built in October 2022 and I have the black ones . If I do find replacements for the black ones, I will put it up on the forum. You may try and get this selection because they have that extra rubber washer. That’s what I believe BMW used when I pulled that one apart so they’re a little better. It’s like a GMC would have lock washers where Chevy would not. That was a joke.

https://a.co/d/i46xsdi

Awesome, thanks!

 

[rivian_rider]

Here are all the clips available from what I can find. The black one is original Rivian. Notice the large retained area that pushes into the female hole on the truck is deeper than all the others. The turquoise one is what rivian may now use and is what they gave me but they don't click in. The others are angled and pop out easy. I plan to try and knock off about a half a millimeter on the turquoise one and see if that’ll pop in and hold without popping right back out.

I have the turquoise clips on my 2nd gen R1s. I had a couple go bad, so the trim wasn't snug. The problem is, the "shoulder" pieces, that get inserted into the panel, are breaking right where they attach to the flared cap. So they wont expand back out properly, to catch the inside of the panel (which is what holds the trim snug to the panel).

I couldn't find any replacements on Amazon, and didn't want to wait on Rivian support. I was able to "DIY" fix the broken ones by...wrapping tiny rubber bands, like the kind you wear with braces (teeth), around where the break in the shoulder pieces are. Then making sure the shoulder pieces were on the outside of the bands. This helps force the shoulders out, after inserting the clip into the panel. Voila, worked like a charm.

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