RJ, Rivian Service is Broken

[Cascadian]

It appears there is a lot of inconsistency between SCs.

My concern is I have had 2 major repairs in first 6 months of ownership and getting into a SC was at first was not going to be quick enough. I have not had urgent repairs on any of my other cars over the last 25 years.

On both occasions CS eventually found acceptable dates for the work.

During service I found the updates from the service support to be frequent and informative.

Therefore some bad and some good with room for improvement.

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[State11]

I'm really sorry for those of you that have had terrible experiences. I've had nothing but great experiences. The first 2 were at West Sacramento and were very good. I just had my first 2 experiences with Sparks, NV and they were truly outstanding. The best SC/mechanic experience I've ever had. It's crazy the insane differences.

 

[RivianOwner2022]

Glad I put windshield protection film (Exoshield) on there. After getting two cracks (fillable) within the first few months of ownership...that were really barely audible, I concluded that it would only be a matter of time before I would have to replace my windshield. Did some research and found that the SC would have to order and install it. Looking at this thread, it would have likely taken forever to get that windshield replaced. Guess the $500 for the protection film was $$ well spent!

 

[LL75]

Yeap. same issues since a year ago. I thought it would get better as well but nothing is changed as of today. The amount of money RJ is wasting on car rental is INSANE !!! It takes a week or two to fix an hour of labor job. Everytime i see the enterprise car rental bill, I'm thinking of how much longer can RJ let this continue

 

[pepe]

I don't like to complain but I do believe that Rivian needs to be aware, if they were not, of the situation with the service center in Tampa, FL. I have been driving a rental car for 8 days now without any idea when my R1S is going to be serviced. It has about 6,000 miles and it needs suspension service plus a few other details, including a noisy AC unit that seems ready to take off. I think Rivian is bleeding money by this lack of proper scheduling. I told them that I didn't need to be driving a rental (GMC Acadia) if they had told me that the service was falling behind. I was happy to reschedule as my car was drivable. That day, June 5th, they told me that was going to take 2-3 weeks as they didn't have enough help around. Sad. I work at a boat dealership and now very well how customers can make you successful or take your brand down, according to how good your post sale service is and how secure they feel.

 

[ModelXer]

I love my R1T. I am an early adopter, having received my truck in March of 2022. I am also a shareholder. Those things said, Rivian service is downright painful. In my current encounter, I dropped my truck at the temporary service center in Trenton, NJ eight days ago for the tonneau cover update and a comprehensive inspection.

I‘ll Spare you the details of how difficult it was just to get the status of my repair. My truck has not been taken into the shop yet. “When should I schedule a day to come pick it up? We don’t know yet. When will it go into the shop. We don’t know.” I can see the writing on the wall. When they finally look at my truck, they will find that they need a part. I will be driving this wonderful Chrysler minivan for weeks. I cannot arrange my life around an unknown pickup date. This is not the service I was promised when I purchased the vehicle and it is certainly one of the worst customer service experiences of my life.

RJ, this is fixable. It is costing company money, prestige and customers.

Sounds like some of the problems with Tesla Service in the early days. It will likely improve over time. Be patient, but report the problems so they don't get ignored.

 

[R1TS]

It appears there is a lot of inconsistency between SCs.

My concern is I have had 2 major repairs in first 6 months of ownership and getting into a SC was at first was not going to be quick enough. I have not had urgent repairs on any of my other cars over the last 25 years.

On both occasions CS eventually found acceptable dates for the work.

During service I found the updates from the service support to be frequent and informative.

Therefore some bad and some good with room for improvement.

I think it’s more of a “not enough service centers in regions where there are more Rivians.”

All of West coast SC locations just plain suck most of the time. No different from OP’s experience.

 

[Wing]

I really wish you could call them? Like they have my truck they call me I'm busy and miss call then they send me a message and it's a game of tag because I can't call them back? Why can't I call them? Calling the main line is pointless I need to talk to the local guy to arrange pickup.

 

[Cascadian]

I think it’s more of a “not enough service centers in regions where there are more Rivians.”

I agree with that statement.

Where I live in Seattle there are almost as many Rivians as Subarus ;-)
There are 3 in my son’s baseball team. We should request sponsorship from RJ.

There really should be an SC in N Seattle, Shoreline or Lynnwood.

 

[DuoRivian]

My R1T has been at Gaithersburg three weeks tomorrow for some minor alignment issues (drivers door, charge port and tailgate). I have a Tacoma rental and only need contacted once two weeks ago to reconfirm that they are super busy and will get to mine at some point. I contacted support yesterday because the contact service center message option just gives a black screen. They said Gaithersburg would be in contact - two days and nothings.

My state law says if a vehicle is out of service for more than 30 days or three times to fix an issue then lemon law applies. This is the second visit (first was mobile) for driver door alignment and associated noise issues. So should I wait for 30 days then try lemon law - thoughts??

 

[jayg]

I can't agree more, and I don't have my truck yet, my first two Vin numbers didn't work out, I'm on my 3rd try. I have called literally hundred times. At least now they local cs numbers. Right now I'm suppose to get delivery next week and they have not updated new lease.
.

 

[hilld]

So I'm also a early preorder and stock owner... I'll be honest I can only imagine what you're going through, but I too went through service hell, but it wasn't with my Rivian, it was with my Tesla.

I live 50 min away from the Normal Plant and their factory based service center is well above average approaching excellent in my overall rating. In 2015 I had my Tesla Model S 90D and I had to sue Tesla once my car blew a tie rod and air strut because I flat out new that Tesla would never be able to fix my car despite being drivable.

I told Tesla that I knew my vehicle would not be repaired in less then 6 months (based on forums threads) and that if they were to let me out of my lease I would Immediately lease another Model S, or they would have to provide me with a 90D while my vehicle was being repaired. Tesla told me they absolutely would have my car back to me in a month, despite having to send the it to a authorized third party repair shop since TESLA DIDN'T HAVE ANY SERVICE CENTERS!

Yes you heard that right, Tesla in 2015 had not a single service center, it was all third party service. My Tesla got bumped into while in a parking lot and my car had to be flat bed towed to another state to be repaired and it took 4 weeks. This was just a dent in my rear bumper.

Needless to say Tesla never fixed my car, the repair shop had my car for 8 months and my lease had by then expired and they called me to let me know that they finally fixed my Tesla almost a year later. I had to sue to get all my lease payments back after they vehicle was sent off for service. I've never had a Tesla after that. I loved the car and would happily get one now.

So in retrospect Rivian is miles ahead of Tesla at this stage of the company, but yes, if Tesla had the foresight to establish a charging network Rivian should've seen the service issue as a major bottleneck and found a way to improve it prior to now. Honestly considering the cash crunch, adding trained authorized third party repair partners would be a good idea to better support owners. Not that this would completely solve the issue, but for less involved vehicle issues I feel this would definitely improve availability of service providers and turn around times.

As for Rivian's "mobile service vans" is that even still going on? I had one come to fix my tailgate release once, but now I don't think they're even doing that any more.

I had mobile service a couple of days ago from the Tualatin, OR service center, I am about an hour north of there. The service vehicle was a R1T, the tech said they also use some EDV's, but he prefers the pickup.

 

[Hopper]

I really wish you could call them? Like they have my truck they call me I'm busy and miss call then they send me a message and it's a game of tag because I can't call them back? Why can't I call them? Calling the main line is pointless I need to talk to the local guy to arrange pickup.

Agreed. It’s frustrating. When I dropped my R1T off this time, they called a Lyft to take me to the Enterprise rental location. When I go there, I had no appointment! It took 40 minutes of waiting on hold AND using the chat feature in the app to get Rivian to contact Enterprise. I asked to have someone in management call me. No one ever did.

 

[SparkyR1t]

In addition to the lack of an acceptable scheduling/ communication system it’s about time Rivian makes available service literature to those of us that like to make repairs on our own. and unless the manufacturer is performing all services for free I am not sure it’s even legal to withhold the repair information which they could charge a fee for. Assume the data is available online if released to owners

 

[misterturbo]

I'm sure it's not a profit panacea, but I'm a bit dubious it's even a revenue-generation problem (well, consideration).
I contacted service to schedule a 'comprehensive' inspection (per Rivian's updated recommendations) on April 29th. I was told Gaithersburg doesn't have that "Express Service" in their systems yet.

I was told by the service advisor I spoke to that he'd figure out what the best next steps were by working with the SC and get back to me within a day. It's been crickets, but I still have an active "Request" listed as "in Review" since then...

When I asked if they could do this via mobile and I was told that they needed to put the vehicle on the lifts for the comprehensive, and that mobile can only do the 7500 intervals. Due to the timing of when I rolled over 22,500, I never even had a 7500. You'd think they'd have just had them come out and do the lower-level checkup if they're really all that concerned with preventive maintenance/proactive checks.

So, here's a non-warranty situation that by all accounts *should be* in and out and I pay them money for their time, and they apparently cannot accommodate that.

And to wit: by not performing proactive maintenance on vehicles earlier in the game, if there might be a minor problem they can find and correct now, they're just opening themselves up for bigger repairs in the future, one would surmise... At least they have a record that I requested it, even if I'll be having my 22,500 service somewhere around 45k...

From what i've been reading, you aren't the only one who's had trouble up in Gaithersburg. With time, these things should get sorted out. I had a good experience with purchase pickup in Richmond, and am hoping the same will hold true for an upcoming service appointment.

Having lived in the DMV for 15 odd years, and having owned a plethora of vehicles I can tell you there are very few dealerships in the area that take service to a level that would wow you. BMW and Porsche has been the top of a sad heap... but both still treat you worse than a Chevy owner in Ohio. lol. Something about living in the DMV that desensitizes you to the abuse and poor service.

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