Motor failure message

[boney]

Interesting timing. I just had this issue a couple of days back while I was about to merge onto a highway.

I have a Gen 2 performance dual motor, which I took delivery of in September 2024.

I called the service line while sitting on the sidelines of the highway ramp. They advised doing a hard reset, which fixed the issue, and it hasn’t happened again so far.

It is quite unsettling that this occurred with a fairly new vehicle. This incident has further damaged Rivian's reputation in my eyes.

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[boney]

Interesting timing. I just had this issue a couple of days back while I was about to merge onto a highway.

I have a Gen 2 performance dual motor, which I took delivery of in September 2024.

I called the service line while sitting on the sidelines of the highway ramp. They advised doing a hard reset, which fixed the issue, and it hasn’t happened again so far.

It is quite unsettling that this occurred with a fairly new vehicle. This incident has further damaged Rivian's reputation in my eyes.

An update on this issue. We were on a long road trip as a family and got the motor failure multiple times times in spite of multiple hard restarts.
Rivian is going to tow the vehicle and provided us the loaner while we were stranded.

3 month old vehicle, low mileage and nothing but issues - first it was in the shop for a couple of weeks due to driver assistance issues and now a serious issues like this related to motor failure.

This is just unacceptable by any standards - start up or an established manufacturer. We all are the guinea pigs that Rivian is testing their “ beta” products on, it feels.
Horrible!

 

[Dave Bratton]

Update.
Well, it happened again yesterday. Same message that speed was restricted and got several icons on the drivers display. I got stopped at a red light, so I hit the "park" button and everything reset and it's been fine since. I called Rivian service and they retrieved data and will get back to me (hopefully).

 

[GoBlueR1T]

I'm dealing with this right now too. Yesterday, driving home from work on the highway received this error and pulled to the side of the highway. As I was on the phone with Rivian roadside assistance, I noticed the error had cleared after being in park. Decided to try to drive home. Made it another 5 minutes, and then it happened again. Pulled over again and did a restart as requested by Rivian roadside assistance. The error cleared again, and I was able to drive the remaining 10 minutes home. Rivian roadside assistance also had me do a sleep cycle when I got home.

Drove around a bit last night with no issues. This morning I drove to work (on the highway) with no issues. Thought I was in the clear.

Frustratingly, driving home tonight, at almost the exact same spot in the drive as yesterday, the error happened again. Was a but scarier this time since I also had my kids with me. Did a reset and it cleared the error, but Rivian wants to service the truck now. They are picking up the truck on Thursday. (I said that I did not feel safe driving it to the service center 1 hr away)

It's very cold here (between 0 and 10 F today). I asked roadside assistance if this was at least partially due to the cold. They said no, but I'm skeptical.

I love the truck, but this (and a few other service things) is very frustrating. I'm thankful that Rivian seems to be handling this one well so far. They set me up with a rental car near my house and are picking up the truck.

Hopefully they can identify the problem and easily fix it!

I had almost convinced my wife to get an R1S, but things like this keep her wanting a reliable ICE.

 

[RivAW]

Make sure to make a diagnostic snap shot and record the time/day. Doing so will make it significantly easier and more efficient for service to remotely pull from your vehicle to analyze and determine what’s wrong…

 

[GoBlueR1T]

Make sure to make a diagnostic snap shot and record the time/day. Doing so will make it significantly easier and more efficient for service to remotely pull from your vehicle to analyze and determine what’s wrong…

Yeah I was on the phone with roadside assistance and I'm pretty sure they did.

 

[John B]

I just had the same exact problem with my 2023 Gen 1 R1T Quad. Got in to drive home from work and as soon as I started driving I got the “Motor Failure Detected” message and it said “Max Speed 42”. A bunch of warning lights were illuminated at the bottom of the dash. A red motor one, and two other yellow ones. Also, when looking at the vehicle dynamics page it showed the rear wheels were not driving or regenerating, just the front, but it was in All Purpose mode which would drive all wheels. I tried switching to Conserve mode (FWD only) but it said get service before changing modes. I drove it 10 miles home this way, and would accelerate very slowly, then cap itself at 42 mph. Once home, I tried a soft reset and it came back fully normal and remained so for a 5 mile test drive. Fingers crossed it’s OK tomorrow as I need it to get to work. It was also fairly cold here and it was outside all day in 16 F temps.

 

[GoBlueR1T]

I just had the same exact problem with my 2023 Gen 1 R1T Quad. Got in to drive home from work and as soon as I started driving I got the “Motor Failure Detected” message and it said “Max Speed 42”. A bunch of warning lights were illuminated at the bottom of the dash. A red motor one, and two other yellow ones. Also, when looking at the vehicle dynamics page it showed the rear wheels were not driving or regenerating, just the front, but it was in All Purpose mode which would drive all wheels. I tried switching to Conserve mode (FWD only) but it said get service before changing modes. I drove it 10 miles home this way, and would accelerate very slowly, then cap itself at 42 mph. Once home, I tried a soft reset and it came back fully normal and remained so for a 5 mile test drive. Fingers crossed it’s OK tomorrow as I need it to get to work. It was also fairly cold here and it was outside all day in 16 F temps.

Thanks for thinking to take pictures. I may use them when I talk to the service center. I was so focused on calling roadside assistance and restarting so I could get off the shoulder of the highway that I didn't stop to take pictures either time it happened.

Edit: Not sure if it matters for figuring what the defect is, but I'm also a 2023 Gen1 R1T Quad

 

[GoBlueR1T]

I'm dealing with this right now too. Yesterday, driving home from work on the highway received this error and pulled to the side of the highway. As I was on the phone with Rivian roadside assistance, I noticed the error had cleared after being in park. Decided to try to drive home. Made it another 5 minutes, and then it happened again. Pulled over again and did a restart as requested by Rivian roadside assistance. The error cleared again, and I was able to drive the remaining 10 minutes home. Rivian roadside assistance also had me do a sleep cycle when I got home.

Drove around a bit last night with no issues. This morning I drove to work (on the highway) with no issues. Thought I was in the clear.

Frustratingly, driving home tonight, at almost the exact same spot in the drive as yesterday, the error happened again. Was a but scarier this time since I also had my kids with me. Did a reset and it cleared the error, but Rivian wants to service the truck now. They are picking up the truck on Thursday. (I said that I did not feel safe driving it to the service center 1 hr away)

It's very cold here (between 0 and 10 F today). I asked roadside assistance if this was at least partially due to the cold. They said no, but I'm skeptical.

I love the truck, but this (and a few other service things) is very frustrating. I'm thankful that Rivian seems to be handling this one well so far. They set me up with a rental car near my house and are picking up the truck.

Hopefully they can identify the problem and easily fix it!

I had almost convinced my wife to get an R1S, but things like this keep her wanting a reliable ICE.

Update: Truck was towed to MH service center on Thursday. They started looking at it Friday. Just talked to them, and they are replacing the front drive unit (two front motors).

I'm disappointed I'm likely in my rental ICE another 7-10 days, but I'm really glad they think they identified the problem and are fixing it!

 

[JeromePowell]

Update: Truck was towed to MH service center on Thursday. They started looking at it Friday. Just talked to them, and they are replacing the front drive unit (two front motors).

I'm disappointed I'm likely in my rental ICE another 7-10 days, but I'm really glad they think they identified the problem and are fixing it!

Happy to hear that Rivian seems to be addressing it properly at least.

 

[KootenayEV]

Ugh, I just experienced this today in my May 2023 build quad large. I was at highway speed, 20 mins into my commute to work, when I received the red message indicating motor fault, which changed pretty quickly to 'system fault detected' and it limited my speed to 67 km/h (42mph). I was able to pull off safely and put it in Park, then called Rivian. I noticed the codes had cleared as soon as I put it in Park, and put it in gear with no messages showing. They had me reset anyway and stayed on the phone with me for a few minutes while I drove it. Said that when this happens, if it doesn't show up again, they don't pursue it, but have a record and the logs.

Rather than drive to work (another 45 mins away) and possibly get stranded, especially with the pack fairly low (I was planning to use an L2 near work), I turned around and headed for home. No issues trying various speeds, going slow, going fast, using Conserve mode. Plugged in for the day and drove it another 30 mins this evening. I work from home tomorrow and Friday, so I will at least get a few days to see how it is working before I have to commute back to work.

I'm hoping this doesn't turn into anything, as we are supposed to leave on a trip to Utah/Arizona for 4 weeks in mid-March! My nearest SC is several hours away, so it would be hugely inconvenient... but I think Calgary is still new enough (i.e. not that many vehicles to service) that it might be a relatively quick turnaround compared to some in the US.

Wish me luck!

 

[Taz355]

Ugh, I just experienced this today in my May 2023 build quad large. I was at highway speed, 20 mins into my commute to work, when I received the red message indicating motor fault, which changed pretty quickly to 'system fault detected' and it limited my speed to 67 km/h (42mph). I was able to pull off safely and put it in Park, then called Rivian. I noticed the codes had cleared as soon as I put it in Park, and put it in gear with no messages showing. They had me reset anyway and stayed on the phone with me for a few minutes while I drove it. Said that when this happens, if it doesn't show up again, they don't pursue it, but have a record and the logs.

Rather than drive to work (another 45 mins away) and possibly get stranded, especially with the pack fairly low (I was planning to use an L2 near work), I turned around and headed for home. No issues trying various speeds, going slow, going fast, using Conserve mode. Plugged in for the day and drove it another 30 mins this evening. I work from home tomorrow and Friday, so I will at least get a few days to see how it is working before I have to commute back to work.

I'm hoping this doesn't turn into anything, as we are supposed to leave on a trip to Utah/Arizona for 4 weeks in mid-March! My nearest SC is several hours away, so it would be hugely inconvenient... but I think Calgary is still new enough (i.e. not that many vehicles to service) that it might be a relatively quick turnaround compared to some in the US.

Wish me luck!

Calgary when I wa there was fairly busy but I would reach out to them for piec e of mind

 

[defcon888]

An update on this issue. We were on a long road trip as a family and got the motor failure multiple times times in spite of multiple hard restarts.
Rivian is going to tow the vehicle and provided us the loaner while we were stranded.

3 month old vehicle, low mileage and nothing but issues - first it was in the shop for a couple of weeks due to driver assistance issues and now a serious issues like this related to motor failure.

This is just unacceptable by any standards - start up or an established manufacturer. We all are the guinea pigs that Rivian is testing their “ beta” products on, it feels.
Horrible!

I have felt your pain. We have a May 2023 delivery Gen 1 R1T and within a month we got a "headlight system" error. We could drive the truck, but just not at night because the lights wouldn't come on.

We called Rivian and we dropped it off and they gave us a rental car from enterprise. They called 3 days later and said they did a software update and it is ok. So, we went and picked it up. We weren't more than 5 miles from the SC and the message popped up. We immediately got on the phone with Rivian and they could hear the beeping and were able to pull the logs.

They said it is ok to drive home and they would come pick it up again and leave a loaner R1T. They came and picked it up and started looking into it. They had it for a week and the manager called and said they can't figure it out and they are bringing in a advance tech to look at it. After another week they called and said "we can't figure it out, we are flying in a tech from the Normal plant". After another week they called and said they figured it out. THey had to run a video scope through all the wiring runs and they found the issue....it was a connector that was shorting out.

They fixed and it has been 18 months and nothing like that has happened since. We did have the 12v battery issue and it was fixed via a mobile appointment 3 days later.

I don't care if it is a Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Toyota, Honda etc.......there will be vehciles that are lemons. That isn't a negative against the car company, it just happens......remember, we are basically driving a computer on wheels.

 

[GoBlueR1T]

Update: Truck was towed to MH service center on Thursday. They started looking at it Friday. Just talked to them, and they are replacing the front drive unit (two front motors).

I'm disappointed I'm likely in my rental ICE another 7-10 days, but I'm really glad they think they identified the problem and are fixing it!

Another update: My R1T is still being fixed, and they were expecting it to be done late today or tomorrow. I truly cannot believe this, but I was driving home from work yesterday in a R1S loaner, and I got hit with the motor fault error at the exact same spot on the highway as the previous two times! I had to pull over, and restarting cleared the error (for now). I was able to drive to the gym and work this morning (including highway driving) without getting the error, so I don't know if it was a one-off or if there is an actual issue. Since my R1T isn't quite ready yet, they are bringing me a new loaner.

It makes no sense to me that there is something about this specific stretch of highway that would have now caused it in two vehicles.

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

Another update: My R1T is still being fixed, and they were expecting it to be done late today or tomorrow. I truly cannot believe this, but I was driving home from work yesterday in a R1S loaner, and I got hit with the motor fault error at the exact same spot on the highway as the previous two times! I had to pull over, and restarting cleared the error (for now). I was able to drive to the gym and work this morning (including highway driving) without getting the error, so I don't know if it was a one-off or if there is an actual issue. Since my R1T isn't quite ready yet, they are bringing me a new loaner.

It makes no sense to me that there is something about this specific stretch of highway that would have now caused it in two vehicles.

This is very unnerving...on a side note, I would purchase some Mega Million tickets if I were you...I imagine the odds of the Rivian failure on two vehicles at the same location are close to winning the big one...

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