The worst service experience in the industry

[portdirect]

My experience makes me biased, but I’m increasingly aligned with the author. Rivian is effectively encouraging these posts: there is no internal communication or escalation path, yet social media outcry is read and acted on. After my issues I was assigned a named point of contact, who was let go a month later. No replacement was provided.

Rivian service has systemic issues. The people on the ground are generally excellent, but they work in a corporate environment that clearly cannot support them. As others have said, we should help by giving real feedback. Mine is this: I have bought three Rivians because the R1 is that good, but I will not buy another unless the service experience, and especially post-service QA, improves. I also cannot recommend Rivian without warning that if anything goes wrong, you may be in for one hell of a ride.

I am going back for service next week. Appointment availability here is fast, which helps. A recent 12V battery-mount replacement created new issues: the passenger seat fan is not seated correctly and now vibrates the seat while sounding like its bearings are shot, and the center-console plastic pops out. This marks the Nth time I’ve gone in with one problem and come out with different ones—issues that should have been caught before the vehicle was returned. The staff in the SC's simply dont have time to do these checks - as they are encouraged to get straight onto the next job. Until that culture changes (and it has to change from the top) - we will continue to see threads and posts like this.

Sponsored

 

[Donald Stanfield]

My experience makes me biased, but I’m increasingly aligned with the author. Rivian is effectively encouraging these posts: there is no internal communication or escalation path, yet social media outcry is read and acted on. After my issues I was assigned a named point of contact, who was let go a month later. No replacement was provided.

Rivian service has systemic issues. The people on the ground are generally excellent, but they work in a corporate environment that clearly cannot support them. As others have said, we should help by giving real feedback. Mine is this: I have bought three Rivians because the R1 is that good, but I will not buy another unless the service experience, and especially post-service QA, improves. I also cannot recommend Rivian without warning that if anything goes wrong, you may be in for one hell of a ride.

I am going back for service next week. Appointment availability here is fast, which helps. A recent 12V battery-mount replacement created new issues: the passenger seat fan is not seated correctly and now vibrates the seat while sounding like its bearings are shot, and the center-console plastic pops out. This marks the Nth time I’ve gone in with one problem and come out with different ones—issues that should have been caught before the vehicle was returned.

You have a genuine complaint. Even with that, you aren't making overly dramatic comments and threads on it.

 

[captainjp]

The staff in the SC's simply dont have time to do these checks - as they are encouraged to get straight onto the next job.

Chicken or the egg?

 

[portdirect]

Chicken or the egg?

It's a hencoop issue (corporate). Until the environment is correct, neither the chickens or the eggs are able to perform well - let alone set out to solve philosophical issues about the cycle of life.

 

[Erik+]

My experience makes me biased, but I’m increasingly aligned with the author. Rivian is effectively encouraging these posts: there is no internal communication or escalation path, yet social media outcry is read and acted on. After my issues I was assigned a named point of contact, who was let go a month later. No replacement was provided.

Rivian service has systemic issues. The people on the ground are generally excellent, but they work in a corporate environment that clearly cannot support them. As others have said, we should help by giving real feedback. Mine is this: I have bought three Rivians because the R1 is that good, but I will not buy another unless the service experience, and especially post-service QA, improves. I also cannot recommend Rivian without warning that if anything goes wrong, you may be in for one hell of a ride.

I am going back for service next week. Appointment availability here is fast, which helps. A recent 12V battery-mount replacement created new issues: the passenger seat fan is not seated correctly and now vibrates the seat while sounding like its bearings are shot, and the center-console plastic pops out. This marks the Nth time I’ve gone in with one problem and come out with different ones—issues that should have been caught before the vehicle was returned. The staff in the SC's simply dont have time to do these checks - as they are encouraged to get straight onto the next job. Until that culture changes (and it has to change from the top) - we will continue to see threads and posts like this.

Seat vibrator, sounds like you received an upgrade : )

 

[Hereforthesnacks]

I think your situation is highly unusual. I would like to share that our 2022 R1T Adventure with 46k Miles has cost us a pair of 12 batteries (I swapped them myself with OHMMU LiPo) and a set of tires. Onsite service at our Harrisburg PA home has been fast, polite and very professionally done and only for mandatory updates (all free). I would buy another one of these vehicles and recommend it to a friend. Best vehicle we ever owned. P.S. No tonneau troubles either!

The Bay Area SCs can be really bad. San Jose in particular and they are right in the middle of a massive EV community. Within the last few weeks, wait times of 3 months are standard for many issues.

 

[onesoil]

My experience makes me biased, but I’m increasingly aligned with the author. Rivian is effectively encouraging these posts: there is no internal communication or escalation path, yet social media outcry is read and acted on. After my issues I was assigned a named point of contact, who was let go a month later. No replacement was provided.

Rivian service has systemic issues. The people on the ground are generally excellent, but they work in a corporate environment that clearly cannot support them. As others have said, we should help by giving real feedback. Mine is this: I have bought three Rivians because the R1 is that good, but I will not buy another unless the service experience, and especially post-service QA, improves. I also cannot recommend Rivian without warning that if anything goes wrong, you may be in for one hell of a ride.

I am going back for service next week. Appointment availability here is fast, which helps. A recent 12V battery-mount replacement created new issues: the passenger seat fan is not seated correctly and now vibrates the seat while sounding like its bearings are shot, and the center-console plastic pops out. This marks the Nth time I’ve gone in with one problem and come out with different ones—issues that should have been caught before the vehicle was returned. The staff in the SC's simply dont have time to do these checks - as they are encouraged to get straight onto the next job. Until that culture changes (and it has to change from the top) - we will continue to see threads and posts like this.

Unfortunately, I'm in a similar boat. More work/time/expense has been created for Rivian and us on multiple occasions due to either inadequate QA of work done, communication challenges, or otherwise—and none of it per say due to any one individual that I can tell to be lacking. Mechanics seem to be under a lot of pressure to turn vehicles around in SCs that have long wait times, which makes sense, they can see the backlog they have, but a lot of this seems to be self inflicted due to poor scheduling and planning. If a truck is waiting in the SC for a month before it gets worked on, it's pissing the customer off, adding unecessary stress to the SC staff, and likely contributing to mechanics cutting corners or rushing to get work done.

Most recently while at the SC my windshiled was broken while replacing the HVAC and just before that, my father's roof glass was broken while replacing teh rear glass. His truck also had the whole HVAC system replaced and on the trip home, the AXM module failed. I had suspected a link between the HVAC problem and failing AXM modules because my truck had both issues (the AXM module failure exhibited itself before I realized that the HVAC system was draining water into the cab). While my father's truck was down there, I had asked them to run diagnostics on the AXM module, which they dismissed as being unlikely to be related. His truck had to go right back down to have its main computer replaced. The sheer quanity of very costly repairs, as well as expensive remedies to mistakes made would surely be shocking if available. I'm honestly amased when I hear of people with Gen 1 trucks with higher mileage than ours who have never had any major part failure or need for an SC visit. It would be interesting to know if we're just a vocal minority as many suggest, or whether the trucks with no issues are actually rarer than anyone would like to think (I suspect the latter, or somewhere in the middle).

Last year I got my truck back from its first Tonneau replacement, and it jammed up the first time I tried to cycle it (with a Rivian employee who'd just driven a couple hours to meet me in the middle standing right there). On this same trip, they had also hurridly painted my replacement door handle such that primer was visible anytime the truck was unlocked and failed to correctly install a gasket on the triangle glass. This resulted in them sending two mobile techs (one from Rhode Island and our Vermont tech) to complete field repairs on my insistence, since I didn't want to let them have my truck for another 3+ weeks or however long it would have taken.

If I hadn't insisted on this level of service with the right Service Manager (going over his assistant service manager's head, since he was refusing to explore this option), and I'm sure most don't/can't, then it would have been yet another trip to the SC all to repair shoddy work likely due to rushing.

Mechanics are paid hourly at Rivian, not by the job like many car companies do. In theory, this should improve the quality of the work since there's no incentive to rush—however, I think there's a strong psychological incentive to turn trucks around due to inadequate SC density and very trouble-prone vehicles with all sorts of slightly different versions made in a short number of years from components that were reletively untested. My dad had a 2015 Tesla Model S and it was a similar story to ours—it needed all sorts of things replaced and repaired in a fairly short period of ownership, and was clearly a very complex

 

[richguess]

Your first post and you are blowing up Rivian’s service because YOU have had a bad experience? Cool

Listen, your story sucks and I wish it were going better for you. My experience has been largely top notch. In addition, they are opening new service centers all the time.

Hope your issue gets sorted.

I’d blow them up too for this crap. I’ve owned at least 30 cars, never had to wait 2 months for an appointment.

 

[Acoustic71]

I’d blow them up too for this crap. I’ve owned at least 30 cars, never had to wait 2 months for an appointment.

Startups will always have issues in getting all processes up to speed and timely. If you can’t deal with that simple fact of life, perhaps a Rivian isn’t for you.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I’d blow them up too for this crap. I’ve owned at least 30 cars, never had to wait 2 months for an appointment.

I have, but I've never done so with Rivian.

 

[Taco Corp]

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 is IMO, to be avoided, it's a really small facility with limited capacity. Seattle and Bothell are far larger and, in my experience, much faster to deal with. To me, the biggest issue that's never really improved over the 3+ years I've been driving Rivian is the communication while in service. Really seems like it shouldn't be as difficult as they make it. R2 is coming, they'll probably sell a bunch of them. If the SC can't manage the current workload, I don't feel overly optimistic about how they'll deal with a doubling of customers in the region.

 

[captainjp]

It's a hencoop issue (corporate). Until the environment is correct, neither the chickens or the eggs are able to perform well - let alone set out to solve philosophical issues about the cycle of life.

I don’t get it. The complaint is about how long service takes and then in the same breath how quick they are to move on to the next ticket. It’s contradictory

 

[onesoil]

I don’t get it. The complaint is about how long service takes and then in the same breath how quick they are to move on to the next ticket. It’s contradictory

The problem is that the wait times may be increased due to them doing poor work that they have to fix, or creating new issues when repairing known ones and then not catching it.

for example: my truck is back in the shop, 3+ hours away for the second time in two months (3 week first trip, 1 week for this one) because when they replaced the windshield they broke while replacing my faulty/leaking HVAC system, they forgot to calibrate/flash my rain sensor. My truck came back with a new problem and had to go back in—this adds to wait times and adds cost and inconvenience to all involved.

My father’s truck recently went in because it became a brick due to the same HVAC problem. He also needed a rear windshield, which he had scheduled to have done at a Rivian authorized body shop closer to us. Once his truck bricked, he decided to have the rear glass replaced while in Chelsea. They broke the roof glass while replacing the rear glass. This added a week or so of waiting for parts. His truck had to go back almost immediately after 3 weeks away because the AXM module was failing. I had even asked them to check this module since mine also failed around the time the HVAC drain issue was backing water up into my cab—I have no evidence per say that these are related issues, but since both of our trucks did have the same problems, I figured they should check the logs for AXM thermal spikes (which mine had as it was beginning to fail). They brushed this off when it was down there the first time, but literally on the drive home it was showing telltale signs (no ADAS, intermittent lack of proximity sensing, etc.).

These extra trips to the SC undoubtedly delayed someone else from getting an appointment or their truck back. Hence the comments. It would be better if they could schedule as close to when the work is going to happen, get parts on hand ahead of time when possible, and then take the necessary time to make sure the work is done properly so it doesn’t need to come back.

 

[Riviot]

I'm skipping like 6 pages...how's this thread still going?

 

[richguess]

Startups will always have issues in getting all processes up to speed and timely. If you can’t deal with that simple fact of life, perhaps a Rivian isn’t for you.

Maybe not. But when companies put their efforts into production and sales with insufficient customer support for inevitable repairs, it’s a prescription for disaster. Remember, the R1 was first delivered to customers 12/21. That’s pushing 4 years. I would expect better by now. I’m waiting to take delivery on an R2, but may wait a bit for the bugs to get shaken out. A used Audi Q8 etron will be 60% of a well optioned R2, and would n my take a good EV while awaiting the R2. And service appointments will be very short. I’m the first to note that people with service problems are more likely than those without to voice opinions on forums. Definitely a skewed distribution. But it amazes me when people just say, in effect, “if you can’t deal with a 4-5 mo wait for an appointment, don’t get a Rivian. “ I doubt the Rivian execs would take that approach.

Sponsored