First real tow with Rivian - Generally underwhelming experience

[2kwik4u]

Sounds like you should have stayed with the Audi.

Yea, I likely would have. Honestly, I was looking hard at an SQ7 when this deal on the Rivian came up.

The old Q7 was suffering from an oil burn issue that was signaling engine replacement. I needed to make a move out of that vehicle and into something else. I had read and watched a TON of reviews about the Rivian, and took the gamble.

Between a couple design decisions I don't like, and now the poor towing experience, I doubt I'll have another. To be clear, there's a LOT to love here, but there's a few things that suck just enough to keep me from sticking with it. Unsure if I'll go back to the Audi 4M chassis on the next vehicle, but there's a good chance of it.

Sponsored

 

[Yossarian]

I’m glad we have a more functional truck for towing every time I haul my trailers. It’s clear that the towing experience is not a priority for Rivian but given the demographic I can’t say I’m very surprised.

This may soon change. Rivian is doing a promotional/information gathering tour with a larger Airstream in tow. The idea apparently is as much to get a better feel for towing as it is to make the Rivian brand better known. There is a little bit about the Airstream promo in the R2 video that is linked in one of the posts.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Reading the rest of this it sounds like the title of your post is better said as “first time towing with an EV is underwhelming” as your problems seem to be more EV driven than Rivian centric.

That is understandable, as towing is probably EVs weakest area.

 

[pickupman2022]

That's what I was thinking as well. I didn't even ask if it was possible because of the otherwise really strong tech in the truck. This feels like a "we didn't include it because the lawyers thought it was a bad idea" kind of decision.

Oh, 100%, No adaptive cruise, no regen assist, no blndspot, no emergency braking. Some lawyer at Rivian is terrified of trailer towing.

 

[2kwik4u]

Reading the rest of this it sounds like the title of your post is better said as “first time towing with an EV is underwhelming” as your problems seem to be more EV driven than Rivian centric.

That is understandable, as towing is probably EVs weakest area.

I think it's a solid 50/50, and likely poor expectations on my part for both halves of that.

Some of it is Rivian design decision stuff. No ACC, constant nags about braking, poorly calibrated cruise control, poor chassis dynamics (like due to poorly calibrated cruise control) aren't really EV centric. The prep time around the boat with lock/unlock hassle, and the oddly placed tow hitch are things I can easily work around, but still Rivian specific.

The range (and subsequent long distance hassles) thing, that's EV based and I admit to being more overconfident there than I should have been. Rose colored glasses and all. That can likely be slightly mitigated with a bigger battery and faster charging (reference GM pickup towing reviews and data). With that said, I'm now significantly gun shy on reading online reports of "best towing vehicle I've ever had" because of this experience. Heck, reading this thread there are a good number of people that are vehemently defending the Rivian as the best tow vehicle (as they should in their experience) they've owned, and the experience was relatively "whelming" for me. Not great, but not terrible either.

 

[Fraslin]

As someone who tows a large airstream with an R1S, the part that stuck out the most was the jerkiness you reported. I have never experienced that with the Rivian and a couple different trailers. Haven't seen that reported by anyone else either - maybe that is hitch related? Sounds super-annoying so might look at that.

 

[greyboundary]

I didn't read the replies, but things I do during towing:

- Turning off auto height (locking it at say standard ride height) to ensure you're not towing in low. Towing in low is fine but the ride quality degrades as a tradeoff.
- Suspension to firm
- Regen on high

I tow trailer setups at double the weight and experience incredibly smooth rides, even through all of the insane temporary construction roadway we have. I now use a damper hitch, but even before then with a regular hitch it was great. If you leave everything in auto, the ride is a lot less great.

Also I just ignore the manual braking thing. From what I can tell, it's literally just informing you that trailer brakes won't activate just from regen, but when you're using the actual brake (because when you do, it will indicate the trailer brake being applied). I don't think that's a warning about all of the missing features you want.

Which, TBH, cruise control but more so any self driving is something that I absolutely do not want to use with a trailer. Legality aside, I would prefer people towing around me to be in complete control and paying attention 100% of the time. I also understand why some of the sensors would be disabled, particularly the rear sensors since you're going to have a trailer back there triggering other potentially confusing them. However I'm not sure why the side blindspot detection is affected (er, is it? I don't actually remember).

 

[2kwik4u]

As someone who tows a large airstream with an R1S, the part that stuck out the most was the jerkiness you reported. I have never experienced that with the Rivian and a couple different trailers. Haven't seen that reported by anyone else either - maybe that is hitch related? Sounds super-annoying so might look at that.

I thought that might be the case as well. This trailer hasn't exhibited this behavior on any of the other vehicles I've used in the past. The truck and the hitch are both new to the setup.

I bought a purposeful "anti-rattle" hitch setup. It appears to be of good quality and is similar to most other "drop hitches" on the market. Here's the hitch I'm running: https://www.fastwaytrailer.com/products/flash-silent-ball-mount/

Here's what it looks like in the truck:

It is significantly more drop than I've run on any other vehicle in the past. However, given the geometry of the truck and the trailer I'm not sure what kind of options I might have there. Trailer needs to be level, and the truck is tall.

Truck and trailer look to both be about as "level" as I think I can get them.

Here's the weights from when I scaled the Audi with this setup. I'm around 11% tongue weight, which is a shade light by RV standards, but about right for boats in my experience.



I'm open to other options, as I'm not completely enamored with this hitch setup.

 

[R1Tiger]

Well I know you're disappointed that your expectations weren't met. I've told a car back from Florida with my r1t. I have a 30 ft camper that I've towed. The Rivian has been my best tow vehicle ever. I had a Ford F-250 Super Duty diesel the rode like crap while towing trailers. The rivian if is far superior. In my humble opinion.
With all the bouncing and jerking you're talking about. There's got to be something wrong with the suspension setup on the trailer, tongue weight, something...

I do have the quad motor version

 

[Leeda]

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?

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?

Very detailed. I have to agree with you about the adaptive cruise control when towing. That doesn't make sense not to have it, even when I used my Tesla Model Y for towing I was able to use adaptive cruise control and autopilot. In my opinion it made the trip much easier and much safer.

Here's the ElectraFi data for anyone interested.

First leg down (stopped for ice):

Second leg (short into the marina):

First leg home (we stopped for Ice Cream by the side of the road)

Final leg home.

 

[Leeda]

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?

Very detailed. I have to agree with you about the adaptive cruise control when towing. That doesn't make sense not to have it, even when I used my Tesla Model Y for towing I was able to use adaptive cruise control and autopilot. In my opinion it made the trip much easier and much safer.

 

[csharp]

I thought that might be the case as well. This trailer hasn't exhibited this behavior on any of the other vehicles I've used in the past. The truck and the hitch are both new to the setup.

I bought a purposeful "anti-rattle" hitch setup. It appears to be of good quality and is similar to most other "drop hitches" on the market. Here's the hitch I'm running: https://www.fastwaytrailer.com/products/flash-silent-ball-mount/

Truck and trailer look to both be about as "level" as I think I can get them.

I'm around 11% tongue weight, which is a shade light by RV standards, but about right for boats in my experience.

I'm open to other options, as I'm not completely enamored with this hitch setup.

It is definitely weird that you felt porpoising like that. I agree with you that your weight and levelness look spot on. Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions to fix that.
Your trailer doesn't have a hydraulic surge on the tongue, does it?

 

[2kwik4u]

It is definitely weird that you felt porpoising like that. I agree with you that your weight and levelness look spot on. Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions to fix that.
Your trailer doesn't have a hydraulic surge on the tongue, does it?

No brakes at all on the trailer. Also checked the swing away tongue connection. All feels well there.

Might have just been the roadway, but the fore/aft leads me to feel like a poorly calibrated cruise control causing it.

 

[CBRacerX]

I've got the same truck you have. Towed a car trailer with weight of 5500-7000 lbs multiple times. Electric brakes and standard hitch (not weight distributing or anti-sway). Experience has been great. No "fighting the trailer" issues. Something isn't right with your setup and from the symptoms it seems like possibly too little tongue weight at some ride heights. I appreciate all the detail - can you share a close up pic of the hitch on the trailer itself?

Quite agree that ACC should be available. "first, we kill all the lawyers who work with Rivian..."

 

[Jonger1150]

Yea, I likely would have. Honestly, I was looking hard at an SQ7 when this deal on the Rivian came up.

The old Q7 was suffering from an oil burn issue that was signaling engine replacement. I needed to make a move out of that vehicle and into something else. I had read and watched a TON of reviews about the Rivian, and took the gamble.

Between a couple design decisions I don't like, and now the poor towing experience, I doubt I'll have another. To be clear, there's a LOT to love here, but there's a few things that suck just enough to keep me from sticking with it. Unsure if I'll go back to the Audi 4M chassis on the next vehicle, but there's a good chance of it.

The earth's atmosphere says, "thank you".

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