Rivian Service policy - no alternative transportation unless vehicle kept for 48 hrs

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Umm... Do we have any documentation on this policy change? Besides a person who just joined the forum today saying "a service tech said..."

My experience has always been that the vehicle was serviced while I waited. Bring my laptop and work remotely from the SC for a few hours. I think if they see you waiting, they push you up in the queue (just a hunch). But I have been asked if I wanted a loaner, and have seen the Enterprise folks come in and announce stuff like "does anyone need a rental?"

Would be a shame if this changed, obv. But think I'll reserve bringing out the torch & pitchfork until we have an actual announcement from Rivian.

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[windblowlc]

I got an R1S loaner last Thursday in Gaithersburg SC. I live 3 hours away. They thought I would keep the truck for the weekend so they said RAN charging are included and free of cost. I didn't want to have to drive another 8 hours (with real shitty DC beltway traffic) back to pick up my truck so I said that I'll do some shopping and come back for my truck at the end of the day if they can assure me that service would be done. They just told me to drop off the spare key (I had phone key setup for the loaner) in the drop box, pick up my truck and drive home after hours.

Anyway, nothing is stopping me from getting the launch edition R2.

 

[coasties]

Tesla @ 6 years was better? Rivian didn't start official customer deliveries until '22. Today is first quarter of 2026. It needs time and income to continue to grow and expand in all areas, including service. This isn't a biased defense or excuse. It's just reality of business and time. And the loaner fleet size is not infinite. No brand has an infinite loaner fleet. When I owned a BMW, I didn't always get a loaner. More than half of the time it was Enterprise rental. Did you not realize what you were getting yourself into when you bought from a marque with no local service footprint? Be reasonable.

As for R2, I think Rivian has learned many lessons from R1. And will probably not open config to reservations with no service access.

I owned the Tesla for 6 years.

I'd be very happy with a rental car!

I'm not happy about not having a rental car and waiting 3 months+ for an appointment.

I've been very patient with Rivian. The truck has had 10+ service incidents in 3 years.

I've owned most brands in the past 40+ years. I can't recall a situation where I didn't get a loaner or rental if the vehicle was kept overnight.

A business gets income from repeat business and good customer service. That is reality.

My appointment is on April 16th. I'm trying to escalate to management, but no call back yet. I will try to determine whether this is regional, local, or country-wide.

 

[Hereforthesnacks]

I honestly thought the service issues had been addressed. 2 years ago, all this forum was filled with was service complaints. In the past ) months I’ve barely seen any issues reported…

 

[MikeWilliams_R1T]

Rivian can and should fix the service bottlenecks very quickly.

They already have an onboarding and training program for outside shops to service their vehicles and get access to their software.

They should make that program free… for any VW dealership service department.

By this time next year, there will be an aging and bigger R1 fleet competing with a 10k vehicle R2 fleet for a service center network that does not seem to be growing significantly.

In that sense, it’s not going to be pretty the way things are going. R2 owners are going to be way less patient than we all have been (not as many fanboys).

If Rivian expanded the partnership with VW (or even just their dealer network), it would solve the capacity problem and solve a cash flow challenge for both companies. Rivian does not have to invest in service centers as quickly and VW dealers can add another revenue stream to their service departments.

Most importantly, the owner experience improves.

 

[RivAW]

The distance to a service center doesn’t matter. You know that before you buy and should be part of your personal math.
They also dont have an unlimited supply of loaner vehicles so at some point there has to be a limit. For a 100k vehicle though, there should be an alternative (Uber credit, cheap rental) for anything other than a same day repair …

 

[Mellowyellow]

I’ve had a bunch of service appointments throughout my ownership experience and only one time they gave me a Rivian loaner. All other times it’s been an enterprise rental. This past time I asked how many loaners do they have, I assumed just a handful, but they said 27 loaners. That’s a lot!

 

[Troypassesgas]

I’ll reserve judgement of Rivian for now. I have always received a loaner or rental from the Austin SC, but have not been in for the past year. However, I’m confused by above comments saying Rivian shouldn’t be faulted for not having “infinite” loaners. We have to make appointments for service. These appointments are often weeks to months out. There is clearly a defined number of vehicles that any one service center can accommodate at any one time. Whether that number of loaners being available at any one time is a business decision for Rivian. If they change to a no loaners policy, my next vehicle will be a different brand.

Btw, Lexus dealers I’ve used in DFW and Austin have had this figured out for decades, and they sell plenty of mid range priced vehicles.

Troy

 

[VandalSibs]

With a 4.5 hour drive to a "nearest" service center, it makes me wonder if Rivian is expanding such locations?

They are - both to cover more and more R1's being sold, and the launch of R2. Last I heard they are aiming for about 120 service centers by the end of 2026, and 150 or so in the year after that. There's about 100 right now (with 87 on the website map, but they don't seem to update that as quickly as they are building SCs).

 

[hsctiger]

12 year Tesla owner here and I've witnessed the decline of their Richmond VA Service Center first hand. You can't get an appointment there for at least 30 days, and that's after they sent in a special team to try and reduce the backlog. Loaner? Forget about it. But they have a lot full of cybertrucks that aren't selling.
The other thing I've noticed with Tesla is the turnover. Nobody stays there more than a year and I've never had the same mobile service tech twice. Part of my problem now is that they only have 1 person capable of working on the older models. The rest left the company.
I do have concerns about this with Rivian as I'm a late R2 reservation holder. But the Rivian SC in Richmond is significantly larger than Tesla's. And despite this market selling a bunch of R1's I walked into the service area to see a SC not working anywhere near capacity. They can handle more as long as they have enough techs.
The solution as someone pointed out is giving 3rd party mechanics the opportunity to service non-warranty items. I shudder to imagine what a dealership would do to you if they became authorized to service Rivian. Legalized theft I imagine.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I’ll reserve judgement of Rivian for now. I have always received a loaner or rental from the Austin SC, but have not been in for the past year. However, I’m confused by above comments saying Rivian shouldn’t be faulted for not having “infinite” loaners. We have to make appointments for service. These appointments are often weeks to months out. There is clearly a defined number of vehicles that any one service center can accommodate at any one time. Whether that number of loaners being available at any one time is a business decision for Rivian. If they change to a no loaners policy, my next vehicle will be a different brand.

Btw, Lexus dealers I’ve used in DFW and Austin have had this figured out for decades, and they sell plenty of mid range priced vehicles.

Troy

Same thing with BMW. I'd hate to lose the extra space that going to an iX would cause, but if I have to drive 7 hours round trip to deal with service appointments, but am not going to get a loaner car to do it, that's a bridge too far. The BMW dealer is 30 min from my house, and it's never a question whether you'll get a loaner or if it will be complimentary. They don't care if you're paying for the repair or not as far as loaner vehicles are concerned.

It's a level of service you should expect at this price point.

 

[neodescis]

I have an R1T, but I still have my prior vehicle: a 1996 Honda Civic. I had an oil change and various fluids replaced last October at Fisher Honda in Boulder, CO. They gave me a free loaner for the day! It was a very pleasant experience. Come on, Rivian!

 

[norivian]

I just had mine serviced last week. Rivian got me a car rental. Getting a rental car actually worked more seamlessly than previous service appointments. A rivian loaner is based on availability and my SC just didn’t have one this appointment. I stand by my belief that having access to good service and SC makes ownership more gratifying and is sort of half the battle. Shoutout to Rivian SC in Las Vegas!

 

[Noplacelikeloam]

The AI tool is as good as fart in thunderstorm. Slapping a LLM on the back of an app and attaching it to a few policies only fools some of the people some of the time.

Customer service needs be built around one thing, the customer.

 

[Blackwater]

I'm a fan of my R1T (2023, 68k miles). But the service continues to be unacceptable. Long wait times, even when I lived in the SF Bay Area. Up in Oregon, it is worse.

And now, they don't provide alternative transportation unless they keep the vehicle for 48 hrs. (Loaner or Rental car).

I live 2+ hours' drive, over 100 miles from the nearest service center. Tualatin, outside of Portland, Oregon. I've been waiting months for this appointment (April 16).

I owned a Tesla for 6 years. They got service sorted in a couple of years. And always provided transportation.

FYI from service tech "

I referenced the Rivian app message thread and it looks like the Mobile team is not available till long after your currently scheduled appointment. Regarding the tailgate repair and your current afternoon appointment, we do not provide alternate transportation for visits less than 48 hours in duration and it would be an overnight timeline for repair.

"

This is not acceptable. I won't be buying the R2. The R2 will make service delays worse.

Wow. I have an hour and a half drive to my nearest service center too. Because they’re backlogged is why they need to keep it overnight. It’d be nice to have it fixed while you wait maybe a couple hours.
I bought the Rivian because they did offer that service if my vehicle needed repair while it was in warranty
How can you change the game plan and not be grandfathered in?
Maybe if JR wasn’t paid so much money they could’ve used that money to buy more mobile trucks?

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