2kwik4u
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Michael
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2025
- Threads
- 11
- Messages
- 841
- Reaction score
- 1,093
- Location
- Western NY State
- Vehicles
- 2024 Rivian R1T ; 2018 Nissan Rogue
- Thread starter
- #1
We've had our Rivian since late Sept last year. Only had a few chances to tow our boat until last weekend aside from some quick trips to take it to and retrieve it from storage. Finally had a chance to actually use the boat, so we towed it to our favored local lake and back. Results weren't nearly as grand as I had hoped.
I'll start with a little backstory. We've had this '17 Yamaha AR190 since April of '17, and have towed it all over the eastern part of the US. When we bought it I had a Trailblazer SS. 400hp/400ft-lb 6.0L Midsized SUV. Traded that for a '15 GMC Sierra 1500 SLT. Traded that for a '17 Audi Q7 Prestige. All of those served as "official tow vehicles" for the Yamaha. Also used my wifes car a few times when she had a '10 Chevy Traverse. Before this, we had a '98 Rinker 182 that I towed with everything from a 4dr S10, to a GMC Yukon, to that same Traverse. The Q7 was traded for the Rivian, and the Audi was the best tow vehicle yet. By a large margin. It has plenty of power, a great chassis and phenomenal brakes. This boat weighs right at 3,200lbs loaded and ready for the lake, as verified on CAT scales a few summers ago. Boat does NOT have brakes on the trailer, as it's under the 3,500 limit most states have. So it's not like it's a super heavy or even difficult item to pull. Our Rivian is a '24 dual motor (non-performance), with the large (131kWh) battery. Has the factory 20in AT wheel/tire package.
Here's a picture of the setup. It does look really sharp with the white/black matching across the boat/truck.
We also recently moved to Buffalo from southern Indiana. MOST of our tows are relatively short distances (under 200mi), however once a year we typically take the boat somewhere "far away". Last year we towed from Buffalo to St. Augustine. Year before it was Destin, FL. Few years before that it was Douglas Lake , TN. I would wager we've got well over 20k miles of towing between the two boats. That's all laid out just to give some context to where I'm coming from, and what I'm comparing to as I move through this "review" style post.
This trip we went from the southtowns of Buffalo (Orchard Park area) to Alleghany Reservoir on the PA/NY state line. Notably launching from the Onoville park ramp in NY. This is about 147mi according to ABRP, although I think Rivian Nav took us a slightly different path. I pre planned the trip assuming a departure of 100%, and a usage of 1.3mi/kWh (based on some towing research and other Yamaha owners reports). This route takes us "up" from the Erie lake shore of about 650ft asl and "over" the ridge just to the east that peaks at ~1,800ft asl. Then back down slightly to the lake. I knew we were going to burn up some range on that first part coming out of Buffalo from the elevation, but we also had a terrible wind out of the southwest, so that didn't help either.
That route looks like this:
Overall, the trip was pretty uneventful. Arrived at the marina with 56% SoC, so I figured we could make it back without charging. I had some planned detours should we need to get energy, but they would have added an easy 50mi to the trip as compared to what Rivian mapped us. There are fast chargers in Salamanca had we needed them. After a day of boating, we decided to just push straight home, and made it there with 20% SoC just as ABRP predicted. The elevation helped on the way back in, and so did the tail wind. Used 44% on the way there and 36% to get home.
Here's what the trucks trip meter read when we got home. My 1.3 guestimate appears to be spot on for this "mixed use" trip. I'm certain it will go down if I stayed on the interstate completely. Lots of backroads along this route that helped keep the speed down. I'm sure the tower on the boat doesn't do the aero any favors. I'll probably pull the bimini top off the tower for the next trip. Sound bar is permanently mounted though, so nothing I can do there.
The experience of towing overall though.......was a little underwhelming. I've read many threads here about how the electric drivetrain is a game changer, and I would completely forget about some of my small complaints once I pulled the first hill......well, none of that really materialized, and was largely overshadowed by missing features and constant nagging of warning and range anxiety.
The bad stuff first I suppose; Most notably, no adaptive cruise and the constant warning from the dash "Manual Braking While Towing" were constant reminders of missing features. No adaptive cruise is a big disappointment here, especially on our longer towing trips. We had this on the Q7, and it worked great. I'm sure I don't have to explain the benefits here, and I'm really sad the Rivian doesn't have that tech built in. I mean, they figured out how to "weigh" the trailer (albeit it's 1k lbs over what it really weighs), but they can't figure out how to do ACC while towing. This is a big miss. The constant "manual braking" warning is absurd as well. I get that they want you to know that normal ACC isn't activated, but I think the GIANT icon at the top pretty well represents that something is different from normal. I just don't get the lack of this feature.
I found the ride to be exceptionally "jerky" as well. Almost like the cruise and the trailer were fighting each other. In particular on downhill sections where there was no "dead band" for the system to absorb changes. I could feel, and watch on the display, how the truck was rapidly changing from adding to removing power from the driveline. It was bad enough that the open top drinks in the cupholder were sloshing around. Not sure if that's a function of how the hitch works, or if the truck is expecting the trailer to have brakes, or if there just needs to be more allowance for speed variance while towing.....but it was mildly frustrating at best. Wife was complaining because she couldn't read her book (I know, first world problems here) because of the "jerkyness" of the ride. Beyond that weird calibration issue, the suspension was overly harsh. We tried all 3 settings and none of them would dampen out the fore/aft up/down ride harshness. It reminded me of some times I've driven with a loose or "rattley" hitch assembly and the whole system develops a kind of resonance. Something like an expansion joint or similar disturbance would calm the system for a few moments, then it would come right back. If it was like this on the 4-days of towing to FL and back, the family would be considerably pissed at me. It's really pretty awful.
The power was, well, just OK. I fully expected to be amazed with the towing performance surrounding this aspect, and it was quite underwhelming. I know it's only the dual motor, but the lack of transmission I thought would be a bigger player. For instance, the Q7 would have downshifted once or twice and just "hung out" in that rev range while pulling a hill. I've never had a problem maintaining speed, or pulling a hill, or with the transmission hunting. Coming back from FL last year, as we climbed out from Charlotte into Virginia along I-77 there is a section that is several miles long of constant uphill. It's not climbing the Rockies, but it's a significant hill. The Audi pulled it just fine with no loss of speed, no overheating, no loss of A/C and no real drama. I think the Rivian would do the same, so no real benefit to moving to an EV like I expected. I will admit it's an interesting feeling to not have a downshift, but otherwise, well, meh. Perhaps those that report such stellar results are coming from much lower powered, poorer performing tow vehicles? My Q7 had almost the identical lb/hp ratio as my Rivian, so perhaps I shouldn't have expected so much from the Rivian here?
Another slight nit pick here.....I couldn't turn the parking lights off. Those options on the light selection area are "greyed out". If the trailer is connected, the trailer lights are on. Period. I have no control over that. Doesn't really hurt anything I suppose, but just seems silly that I can't turn those off. No idea why that is.
I somewhat think it's a bug, because I noticed the other day I couldn't turn them off when driving without the trailer. I spend one day a week in Canada, and I think the daytime running lights requirement over there might be "stuck" in the enabled position. Truck automagically swaps to kph, and metric distances in the Nav when I cross the border, wondering if this change happens as well, but it never went back.
I will say the Rivian did well launching and retrieving the boat, and I got many comments about launching with an EV. Some good, some bad; which isn't completely surprising considering I was in deep rural PA/NY at that point. That part, that I thought was going to be an issue because I'm used to using a parking brake, and shifting to park, and all that, wasn't a problem at all. I did leave the door open because I trust PaaK about as far as I can hold my breathe under water at this point. Speaking of which, the truck did lock/unlock multiple times while we were drying the boat off. I need to figure out how to "run the car" with the doors/windows closed to get the A/C going while I prep the boat for the tow home. Luckily each time it locked the doors, someone was inside and was able to unlock them for me again. Guess I'll have to start putting my fob in the bed or something. This digital access BS really sucks when you're having to move on/around/near the truck and trying to keep it "on" at the same time. I, honestly, give ICE the edge here, because once the engine is running there's no doubt about the A/C staying on, or the accessories staying powered. Feels silly to have to worry about "how do I keep the truck on while I prep the boat", but here I am.
To pull it all together, I was really expecting this to be an exceptionally great tow vehicle. It's just OK. Between the lack of tech, the comfort issues, and the reduced range it really feels like a downgrade all around on the towing front. I knew the range would be low, and it clearly wasn't a problem for this trip, but there is no way I'm taking this thing cross country riding like this, and having to stop for 30min every 100mi. While that's a once a year trip for us, it was still something that was reasonable with the last tow vehicle. I'm not going to call the whole experience to be disappointing, but I'm pretty certain my expectations were not set well. There is, in actual use, VERY little difference between my '24 R1T and my '06 TBSS. That's almost 20yrs of automotive development there, and I have the same tech, the same range, and the same comfort.
Maybe I should move to Europe?
I'll start with a little backstory. We've had this '17 Yamaha AR190 since April of '17, and have towed it all over the eastern part of the US. When we bought it I had a Trailblazer SS. 400hp/400ft-lb 6.0L Midsized SUV. Traded that for a '15 GMC Sierra 1500 SLT. Traded that for a '17 Audi Q7 Prestige. All of those served as "official tow vehicles" for the Yamaha. Also used my wifes car a few times when she had a '10 Chevy Traverse. Before this, we had a '98 Rinker 182 that I towed with everything from a 4dr S10, to a GMC Yukon, to that same Traverse. The Q7 was traded for the Rivian, and the Audi was the best tow vehicle yet. By a large margin. It has plenty of power, a great chassis and phenomenal brakes. This boat weighs right at 3,200lbs loaded and ready for the lake, as verified on CAT scales a few summers ago. Boat does NOT have brakes on the trailer, as it's under the 3,500 limit most states have. So it's not like it's a super heavy or even difficult item to pull. Our Rivian is a '24 dual motor (non-performance), with the large (131kWh) battery. Has the factory 20in AT wheel/tire package.
Here's a picture of the setup. It does look really sharp with the white/black matching across the boat/truck.
We also recently moved to Buffalo from southern Indiana. MOST of our tows are relatively short distances (under 200mi), however once a year we typically take the boat somewhere "far away". Last year we towed from Buffalo to St. Augustine. Year before it was Destin, FL. Few years before that it was Douglas Lake , TN. I would wager we've got well over 20k miles of towing between the two boats. That's all laid out just to give some context to where I'm coming from, and what I'm comparing to as I move through this "review" style post.
This trip we went from the southtowns of Buffalo (Orchard Park area) to Alleghany Reservoir on the PA/NY state line. Notably launching from the Onoville park ramp in NY. This is about 147mi according to ABRP, although I think Rivian Nav took us a slightly different path. I pre planned the trip assuming a departure of 100%, and a usage of 1.3mi/kWh (based on some towing research and other Yamaha owners reports). This route takes us "up" from the Erie lake shore of about 650ft asl and "over" the ridge just to the east that peaks at ~1,800ft asl. Then back down slightly to the lake. I knew we were going to burn up some range on that first part coming out of Buffalo from the elevation, but we also had a terrible wind out of the southwest, so that didn't help either.
That route looks like this:
Overall, the trip was pretty uneventful. Arrived at the marina with 56% SoC, so I figured we could make it back without charging. I had some planned detours should we need to get energy, but they would have added an easy 50mi to the trip as compared to what Rivian mapped us. There are fast chargers in Salamanca had we needed them. After a day of boating, we decided to just push straight home, and made it there with 20% SoC just as ABRP predicted. The elevation helped on the way back in, and so did the tail wind. Used 44% on the way there and 36% to get home.
Here's what the trucks trip meter read when we got home. My 1.3 guestimate appears to be spot on for this "mixed use" trip. I'm certain it will go down if I stayed on the interstate completely. Lots of backroads along this route that helped keep the speed down. I'm sure the tower on the boat doesn't do the aero any favors. I'll probably pull the bimini top off the tower for the next trip. Sound bar is permanently mounted though, so nothing I can do there.
The experience of towing overall though.......was a little underwhelming. I've read many threads here about how the electric drivetrain is a game changer, and I would completely forget about some of my small complaints once I pulled the first hill......well, none of that really materialized, and was largely overshadowed by missing features and constant nagging of warning and range anxiety.
The bad stuff first I suppose; Most notably, no adaptive cruise and the constant warning from the dash "Manual Braking While Towing" were constant reminders of missing features. No adaptive cruise is a big disappointment here, especially on our longer towing trips. We had this on the Q7, and it worked great. I'm sure I don't have to explain the benefits here, and I'm really sad the Rivian doesn't have that tech built in. I mean, they figured out how to "weigh" the trailer (albeit it's 1k lbs over what it really weighs), but they can't figure out how to do ACC while towing. This is a big miss. The constant "manual braking" warning is absurd as well. I get that they want you to know that normal ACC isn't activated, but I think the GIANT icon at the top pretty well represents that something is different from normal. I just don't get the lack of this feature.
I found the ride to be exceptionally "jerky" as well. Almost like the cruise and the trailer were fighting each other. In particular on downhill sections where there was no "dead band" for the system to absorb changes. I could feel, and watch on the display, how the truck was rapidly changing from adding to removing power from the driveline. It was bad enough that the open top drinks in the cupholder were sloshing around. Not sure if that's a function of how the hitch works, or if the truck is expecting the trailer to have brakes, or if there just needs to be more allowance for speed variance while towing.....but it was mildly frustrating at best. Wife was complaining because she couldn't read her book (I know, first world problems here) because of the "jerkyness" of the ride. Beyond that weird calibration issue, the suspension was overly harsh. We tried all 3 settings and none of them would dampen out the fore/aft up/down ride harshness. It reminded me of some times I've driven with a loose or "rattley" hitch assembly and the whole system develops a kind of resonance. Something like an expansion joint or similar disturbance would calm the system for a few moments, then it would come right back. If it was like this on the 4-days of towing to FL and back, the family would be considerably pissed at me. It's really pretty awful.
The power was, well, just OK. I fully expected to be amazed with the towing performance surrounding this aspect, and it was quite underwhelming. I know it's only the dual motor, but the lack of transmission I thought would be a bigger player. For instance, the Q7 would have downshifted once or twice and just "hung out" in that rev range while pulling a hill. I've never had a problem maintaining speed, or pulling a hill, or with the transmission hunting. Coming back from FL last year, as we climbed out from Charlotte into Virginia along I-77 there is a section that is several miles long of constant uphill. It's not climbing the Rockies, but it's a significant hill. The Audi pulled it just fine with no loss of speed, no overheating, no loss of A/C and no real drama. I think the Rivian would do the same, so no real benefit to moving to an EV like I expected. I will admit it's an interesting feeling to not have a downshift, but otherwise, well, meh. Perhaps those that report such stellar results are coming from much lower powered, poorer performing tow vehicles? My Q7 had almost the identical lb/hp ratio as my Rivian, so perhaps I shouldn't have expected so much from the Rivian here?
Another slight nit pick here.....I couldn't turn the parking lights off. Those options on the light selection area are "greyed out". If the trailer is connected, the trailer lights are on. Period. I have no control over that. Doesn't really hurt anything I suppose, but just seems silly that I can't turn those off. No idea why that is.
I somewhat think it's a bug, because I noticed the other day I couldn't turn them off when driving without the trailer. I spend one day a week in Canada, and I think the daytime running lights requirement over there might be "stuck" in the enabled position. Truck automagically swaps to kph, and metric distances in the Nav when I cross the border, wondering if this change happens as well, but it never went back.
I will say the Rivian did well launching and retrieving the boat, and I got many comments about launching with an EV. Some good, some bad; which isn't completely surprising considering I was in deep rural PA/NY at that point. That part, that I thought was going to be an issue because I'm used to using a parking brake, and shifting to park, and all that, wasn't a problem at all. I did leave the door open because I trust PaaK about as far as I can hold my breathe under water at this point. Speaking of which, the truck did lock/unlock multiple times while we were drying the boat off. I need to figure out how to "run the car" with the doors/windows closed to get the A/C going while I prep the boat for the tow home. Luckily each time it locked the doors, someone was inside and was able to unlock them for me again. Guess I'll have to start putting my fob in the bed or something. This digital access BS really sucks when you're having to move on/around/near the truck and trying to keep it "on" at the same time. I, honestly, give ICE the edge here, because once the engine is running there's no doubt about the A/C staying on, or the accessories staying powered. Feels silly to have to worry about "how do I keep the truck on while I prep the boat", but here I am.
To pull it all together, I was really expecting this to be an exceptionally great tow vehicle. It's just OK. Between the lack of tech, the comfort issues, and the reduced range it really feels like a downgrade all around on the towing front. I knew the range would be low, and it clearly wasn't a problem for this trip, but there is no way I'm taking this thing cross country riding like this, and having to stop for 30min every 100mi. While that's a once a year trip for us, it was still something that was reasonable with the last tow vehicle. I'm not going to call the whole experience to be disappointing, but I'm pretty certain my expectations were not set well. There is, in actual use, VERY little difference between my '24 R1T and my '06 TBSS. That's almost 20yrs of automotive development there, and I have the same tech, the same range, and the same comfort.
Maybe I should move to Europe?
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