The worst service experience in the industry

[lefkonj]

Did you ever to tire rotation? What about air filter? Did you do that all on your own?

Your experience sucks but it isn't the general experience out here. Service times do vary depending on location and the available service centers. In NJ it was terrible, then Trenton opened up and it got better but now with 3 center in NJ alone I can get an appointment tomorrow or at least within a week.

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[CrazyOne]

I was a huge Rivian fan. I bought our R1T nearly two years ago, and for the first 25,000 miles all was well. It started when I was prompted in the app to take it in for service. I was curious what "service" meant, as I also have a Tesla and have managed most of that "maintenance" on my own. But seeing it was a relatively new truck, I decided to make an appointment.

The first thing that stood out to me was that the earliest I could schedule an appointment was 4 months, and that was if I took the next available. I took it in, and I was able to get it back the next day. As far as I could tell is that they rotated the tires, touched up some fluids, and replaced the windshield wipers. I assume they also checked it over for any issues.

Fast forward to 7 days later, and suddenly I was getting errors that my front camera wasn't working. I called customer service, ran through the troubleshooting steps, tried to "reboot" the R1T more than once, but still the same errors. I scheduled another appointment to bring it in for diagnostics, and the soonest I could get it in was FIVE months. This happened at the beginning of April, and the next appointment was late August. It wasn't bothering me at the time, I find the front camera fairly useless compared to my Tesla, so I didn't make a big deal of it.

Another issue, but outside of this conversation, is that my 12V battery died between the two appointments, while I was in the middle of a camping trip in a Canadian National park, about 800 miles from home. Knowing the battery could make my truck a very heavy paperweight at any time caused me to cut my trip early and come home. Thankfully, I only had to wait 4 weeks for an "emergency" appointment.

Now back to the front camera...
I brought it in to the Bellevue, WA Service Center on August 23rd. I thought this would be a simple same-day appointment. However, they immediately stated that it would be over a week before they could even perform a diagnostic to determine the issue. Why make me stop driving if you are not ready for the truck? It's like me going to the doctor's office and having to camp in the parking lot to be seen.

Over the last four weeks, it has been in the shop, and there has been minimal communication. I have been promised delivery on three separate Saturdays (9/13, 9/20, and now this Saturday). I tried to message through the Rivian app, and I finally received a callback from someone who claimed to be in Leadership at the Bellevue Service Center, but unfortunately, it went to voicemail. During that call on Monday afternoon, they promised that someone would call me yesterday, and it "should" be ready, but you may have guessed it, no one called, no one messaged.

We have been waiting for over a month now, as my RIT has been in the shop for a repair that we were told would take no more than 20 hours of work.

Until Rivian's service issues are resolved, we will not be purchasing a new vehicle and will share this story with anyone who asks. I love the truck when it works...but the folks that we have dealt with in the service center need some remedial training on customer service.

Something went wrong here. I had a minor issue and the appointment for Bothell was 2 months out. But they called me in 2 days to expedite it and got me in within a week total.

Edit: For people not in Seattle area, Bothell SC is about 10 miles from Bellevue.

 

[Riviot]

Good point, just Bellevue. I have not tried Seattle (are only other SC according to the Rivian website)... from where we are, that would be a trek, especially through traffic, but I would easily do it if this issue was isolated to Bellevue.

Bellevue
Seattle
Fife
Redmond

They opened in that order. I've used 3/4, Seattle is hands down the best.

I'm going back to the backseat with my bag of popcorn 🫱

 

[doubledown]

I apologize, looks like I edited and added to my post while you were typing. I highly recommend other SCs that I've been to (the now-closed Auburn was amazing, Seattle was great the few times I've been, and I've got an appointment for a PTC retrofit at Fife in a month) in Washington.

Bellevue is absolutely slammed all the time and I would sooner drive to Portland than deal with that location. Best of luck friend! It's a blessing and a curse that all SCs don't provide the same experience.

Interesting that you feel compelled to drive out of state for service, that is definitely a problem. Well, I am going to be stuck with this truck for awhile as it doesn't keep its value. Hoping for a long life, but the service part is killing me. Thanks for the info!

 

[doubledown]

Did you ever to tire rotation? What about air filter? Did you do that all on your own?

Your experience sucks but it isn't the general experience out here. Service times do vary depending on location and the available service centers. In NJ it was terrible, then Trenton opened up and it got better but now with 3 center in NJ alone I can get an appointment tomorrow or at least within a week.

Tire & Brakes for all my EVs at Les Schwab. Air filter is a fairly trivial replacement. Fluids I keep up on my own with Rivian approved fluids. I had to find someone different for my alignment on my Tesla, but that wasn't too hard to find an alignment shop that would do it, I am sure its the same for Rivian. Any thing related to computers I obviously need to go through Rivian, which is the current pain point.

 

[doubledown]

Dunno about worst... My Volt's EGR valve seized while I was on a trip out of state. I had to call around to about ten different dealers until I found one that had a Voltec-certified technician on staff so they could even look at the car later in the week. The dealer claimed that mice had chewed up the entire wiring harness (high and low voltage) and that the car wasn't worth repairing and that I should buy a Suburban from them as a replacement. I had to push back on them multiple times before they plugged in an OBD-II scanner (or maybe they had already and just wanted to sell me more service time or an entirely new vehicle). Four hours of service time later, they finally did what I could have done if I'd had my bluetooth dongle with me. A quick search on the codes reveals "Oh hey, EGR valve has an issue, which is a known thing for these cars". Fun part of the design is that the thermostat and the actuator for the EGR is on the same fuse, and the thermostat rests in the shut position, which was what caused the car to overheat.

Now, that's shitty, but the thing that made it even worse is that GM was refusing the actually have the part produced, so it was on a nationwide backorder. It took 13 months to acquire the part. When contacting GM directly, they wanted me to just rent a car at a cost of about $1200 per month and maybe possibly get reimbursed. (The dealer refused to give me a loaner).

Getting a rental car to get home and then having some more time to research the issue once they told me it was the EGR valve, I came to realize that the valve could just be unplugged and the fuse could be replaced, and that's how the car has been operating since then. (I drove back out of state to get the car after a month and it's been fine ever since). Oh, and guess what, there was no chewing of any wiring harness anywhere; the dealer just straight up lied in an attempt to push me into something new. Meanwhile, the dealer and GM kept playing the blame game at each other about why the part wasn't there.

Is Rivian service awesome? No clue, I haven't taken my R3X in for service yet.
Are they the worst in the industry? Dunno, I do most service stuff myself on the cars I've had, but my run-in with Chevy service would have had me paying $15,600 in rental car fees while my car was trapped at the dealer lot for 13 months if I hadn't taken it into my own hands, which sounds a lot worse than this.

OK, this is a valid argument...I obviously have not been to every make and service shop in the country. Is it bad? Yeah, I would call it bad...really bad. The worst? You make a fair argument....

 

[Dark-Fx]

Not sure what that means...but I think the cameras could at least pick up the vehicle that is 10 feet away from me in my blindspot, thats all I ask.

I assume Tesla's have much greater range forward, because of the autonomous driving.

Rivian doesn't give us access to view what the windshield cameras are seeing. I have to assume that's what you're talking about about because Tesla doesn't have front bumper cameras until very recently.

 

[R1Tacoma]

Interesting that you feel compelled to drive out of state for service, that is definitely a problem. Well, I am going to be stuck with this truck for awhile as it doesn't keep its value. Hoping for a long life, but the service part is killing me. Thanks for the info!

To clarify, I mean that I would drive to Portland rather than deal with Bellevue and their terrible scheduling, not that I necessarily feel compelled to do so- They're just too backed up. For what it's worth, the one experience I've had at the Portland SC (just upgrading to 20's- no sales tax!) was very pleasant. I've really enjoyed every other interaction I've had at the other Washington SCs! Happy to have my work done at any of the other WA locations any time.

If possible, see if you can take your truck to any of the others next time. Bothell just opened up recently if that's closer to you!

 

[Erik+]

If you move far enough away from an SC, the Rivian mobile service has been absolutely amazing in my experience. Hope your service center experience improves!

 

[doubledown]

If you move far enough away from an SC, the Rivian mobile service has been absolutely amazing in my experience. Hope your service center experience improves!

Thanks, ok, maybe this experience is isolated to the Bellevue SC....Seems like whoever that called me from leadership thinks its ok to over promise and under commit.

 

[C.R. Rivian]

I was a huge Rivian fan. I bought our R1T nearly two years ago, and for the first 25,000 miles all was well. It started when I was prompted in the app to take it in for service. I was curious what "service" meant, as I also have a Tesla and have managed most of that "maintenance" on my own. But seeing it was a relatively new truck, I decided to make an appointment.

The first thing that stood out to me was that the earliest I could schedule an appointment was 4 months, and that was if I took the next available. I took it in, and I was able to get it back the next day. As far as I could tell is that they rotated the tires, touched up some fluids, and replaced the windshield wipers. I assume they also checked it over for any issues.

Fast forward to 7 days later, and suddenly I was getting errors that my front camera wasn't working. I called customer service, ran through the troubleshooting steps, tried to "reboot" the R1T more than once, but still the same errors. I scheduled another appointment to bring it in for diagnostics, and the soonest I could get it in was FIVE months. This happened at the beginning of April, and the next appointment was late August. It wasn't bothering me at the time, I find the front camera fairly useless compared to my Tesla, so I didn't make a big deal of it.

Another issue, but outside of this conversation, is that my 12V battery died between the two appointments, while I was in the middle of a camping trip in a Canadian National park, about 800 miles from home. Knowing the battery could make my truck a very heavy paperweight at any time caused me to cut my trip early and come home. Thankfully, I only had to wait 4 weeks for an "emergency" appointment.

Now back to the front camera...
I brought it in to the Bellevue, WA Service Center on August 23rd. I thought this would be a simple same-day appointment. However, they immediately stated that it would be over a week before they could even perform a diagnostic to determine the issue. Why make me stop driving if you are not ready for the truck? It's like me going to the doctor's office and having to camp in the parking lot to be seen.

Over the last four weeks, it has been in the shop, and there has been minimal communication. I have been promised delivery on three separate Saturdays (9/13, 9/20, and now this Saturday). I tried to message through the Rivian app, and I finally received a callback from someone who claimed to be in Leadership at the Bellevue Service Center, but unfortunately, it went to voicemail. During that call on Monday afternoon, they promised that someone would call me yesterday, and it "should" be ready, but you may have guessed it, no one called, no one messaged.

We have been waiting for over a month now, as my RIT has been in the shop for a repair that we were told would take no more than 20 hours of work.

Until Rivian's service issues are resolved, we will not be purchasing a new vehicle and will share this story with anyone who asks. I love the truck when it works...but the folks that we have dealt with in the service center need some remedial training on customer service.

Which Washington (DC or state)? Had mine since April 2022, service experience for me has been great.

 

[R1Tacoma]

Which Washington (DC or state)? Had mine since April 2022, service experience for me has been great.

This person is in Washington state. Service here can be a mixed bag, though I've also only had stellar service here.

 

[Zoidz]

I guess I didn't realize that there was some sort of forum rule that in my first post I must be 'pro-Rivian'. I want to be pro-Rivian, I really do.

Sorry you are having these issues. As you can see, others have had quite the opposite. I have had zero issues - no service needed after 25K miles and 28 months, other than a 12v proactive battery replacement visit by Rivian Mobile Service that they initiated.

You're getting some pushback because it is a community here. We full well know the good, bad and ugly of Rivian service. It's been discussed in hundreds of threads about service since Rivian shipped the first vehicle. Nobody expects all posts to be fan posts, but when someone's first post is a service complaint, it tends to follow a pattern we have seen numerous times. Vent about Rivian, post one or two follow up comments and then gone forever. I'm not saying your post goes this way, but it does happen repeatedly and people coming here just to vent and pee on Rivian gets old to the community. It's like regularly going to a school, club or government meeting and a person shows up once to complain at the meeting, never to be seen or contribute again.

 

[CosmicRivian]

To clarify, I mean that I would drive to Portland rather than deal with Bellevue and their terrible scheduling, not that I necessarily feel compelled to do so- They're just too backed up. For what it's worth, the one experience I've had at the Portland SC (just upgrading to 20's- no sales tax!) was very pleasant. I've really enjoyed every other interaction I've had at the other Washington SCs! Happy to have my work done at any of the other WA locations any time.

If possible, see if you can take your truck to any of the others next time. Bothell just opened up recently if that's closer to you!

As someone who has had great experiences with the Portland Service Center, you are right, it's worth the drive! Exceptionally strong service support in Portland.

Sorry for the bad experiences reported elsewhere.

 

[CANCERDOC]

Your experience almost sounds like how it used to be in 2023 and 2024 when appointments were months in the future. Nowadays with mobile service they can get to it much earlier. I’ve never had a situation where Rivian did not call me back within 24 hours usually much sooner. Did you call the 800 service number? They can message the service center directly and you will get a call back in short order.

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