Can't imagine a worse car-buying experience

[Bristlecone]

I am sorry you didn't enjoy it. However, it sounds lovely to me. I've never been a fan of the time it takes to purchase a vehicle or house. Some people naturally prefer a more drawn-out process because of the dollar amount. To me buying a car should be like picking up any product off the shelf.

I don’t necessarily disagree. And I was pretty familiar with the vehicle from reading everything the past two years. But my wife, no. She deserved a solid familiarity tour.

Rivian is my second worst car delivery process. This was mostly due to it being the early days where there was so many disconnects in the process.

The worst was when company they contracted out to wanted to me to do an oath statement on a bible. I refused and I think they internally contacted the company to straighten it out.

When I did pick up my Rivian there was bird poop on it, and when I pointed it out the delivery specialist just shrugged. I could have forced the issue, but I was surprised that they weren't more proactive about it.

My worst experience was taking delivery of my Tesla Model 3P. It was so bad in terms of fit/finish that they should not have wasted my time. I did take delivery, but only after 3 hours of abusing their detailer and them owing me a fix for body alignment issue.

I don't really think of a taking delivery of an online order as a car buying experience. A traditional car buying experience is a game so losing the game is a bad car buying experience.

ok you win hands down with that oath statement thing. No more complaints from me.

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[Robin]

Opposite experience in Denver. In fact, I’d say Denver definitely has their act together compared to some other SC’s., if not the top SC in the country, as I’ve followed this forum for 4 years. I’ll admit, purchasing a Rivian is a different horse compared to traditional dealership model. It’s a bit , take-it-or-leave-it., but don’t take it if you don’t like it.

I’ll be at the Denver SC tomorrow morning for the first time for a service issue in 14 months bc my camp speaker won’t release when I play @COdogman’s favorite Vanilla Ice song, “Ice Ice Baby”.

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[Robin]

Did I ever tell you the story about when I took my Tesla Model Y in for an alignment? The place was mobbed and it took several hours of waiting and when I got the car back they just threw the frunk pan back in. Attached it with one bolt and the tech left all his tools in the frunk!

I hope you kept the tools ?️?

 

[Robin]

Move along. Move along. Others want one too, move along.

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[Prime]

27 months after pre-order, 6 months after locked configuration, went with my wife to take delivery of our R1S at the Denver Service Center. Person who handled the paperwork and the car introduction acted like he had to get to an urgent appointment. Total rush job. Impatient, rude, uninformative, couldn't bear to go over anything slowly, cursory explanation of everything, acted like I was a total pain when I started to inspect the exterior ("you've got 7 days to reject it."). He pushed us out of there in like 20 minutes and acted peeved that it took that long. And, he had the gall to insist that Rivians don't have a vampire drain issue. Hey Denver, you've got a problem.

This sounds like Costa Mesa, you sure you didnt get teleported?

 

[strykerwsu]

Sorry to hear as my person in KC was awesome. Definitely report the individual to Rivian corporate as they definitley don't want that to represent their brand.

Also, they do have most Vampire drain gone. I lost less than 1% a day over a 4 day weekend for the eclipse with Gear Guard on. Much better than the 10% for the CT folks.

 

[Doug]

Sorry the op had a bad experience. I will give another shout out to the MSP service center they have been awesome with every interaction. They met us halfway to do a test drive and then two members of the team delivered to our house and spent over an hour with us. Granted that was over a year ago so things probably have changed. Every tire rotation everyone we have talked to at the service center is super helpful and willing to talk for a few minutes.

 

[Dave Cundiff]

After the hyper-rigid purchase process, our in-person delivery at Portland (OR) Service Center on Friday 2024-02-16 was AWESOME!

"Ally" and the crew at Portland SC made us proud! She told us she would take all the time we needed, and then she delivered 100% on that promise.

The team in Portland appears to like each other, appears to like the customers, and appears to work together well as a team.

By the time we left the Service Center, we felt well-prepared to manage this complicated vehicle.

***

We never saw a survey -- maybe this unsolicited "shout out" to Ally and the team will help some.

@Bristlecone, I'm sorry your experience was stressful. I hope you like your Rivian now!

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

I hope you kept the tools ??

? I took it to another service center and gave them the tools. I also informed Tesla that they were using 12-point ratcheting wrenches. The 12 point variety usually round off bolts!

 

[dilsherd]

ughh sounds like this person needs to go. I've had nothing but a pleasant experience with the Houston service center for the 6-7 months I've owned the car.
Minor cosmetic build issues inside the car were fixed by prompt mobile service repairs with great communication.

 

[docwhiz]

27 months after pre-order, 6 months after locked configuration, went with my wife to take delivery of our R1S at the Denver Service Center. Person who handled the paperwork and the car introduction acted like he had to get to an urgent appointment. Total rush job. Impatient, rude, uninformative, couldn't bear to go over anything slowly, cursory explanation of everything, acted like I was a total pain when I started to inspect the exterior ("you've got 7 days to reject it."). He pushed us out of there in like 20 minutes and acted peeved that it took that long. And, he had the gall to insist that Rivians don't have a vampire drain issue. Hey Denver, you've got a problem.

Sounds like the guy was having a bad day. Sorry for your bad experience.
However, how does it compare to the standard car dealer hustle where you get jerked around between the salesperson and the sales manager to extract maximum dollars and patience?

 

[Bristlecone]

Sounds like the guy was having a bad day. Sorry for your bad experience.
However, how does it compare to the standard car dealer hustle where you get jerked around between the salesperson and the sales manager to extract maximum dollars and patience?

My 3 previous car buys never got the hustle. 2022 Volvo electric pretty low key and got plenty of time to familiarize us with the world of BEV’s. 2007 4 runner and 2003 BMW also low pressure. Maybe I’m spoiled.

 

[gingerjet]

Having owned about 20+ cars over 20 years - I can imagine and have had worst car buying experiences than just a dude having a bad day. Buying the Rivian is easily in the top 5 car buying experiences that I have had. Tesla is also in the top 5. I have literally had someone refuse to sell a car to my 25 year old self paying cash.

 

[mpw81]

Besides my Rivian experience, which was amazing, the only other time I have had a car buying experience I would say I didn't hate was when we purchased our Audi Q5 PHEV in May 2020. I 100% attribute it being a halfway decent experience because of COVID limitations and the fact that no one at the dealership seemed to have any idea about EVs so the interaction was mostly quick.

 

[b_ack51]

So far this has been the worst drawn out experience of car sales and that includes having a salesguy yelling when I mentioned other dealerships had better deals. That was an easy hang up on the phone. This will be my 12th car purchase, so definitely not a great experience for the most expensive vehicle.

This has been 23 days since purchase and 16 days since due at signing payment has been made. 3 delivery reschedules and now waiting on the 4th to be scheduled. Heard different stories about the vehicle/situation from different people in the company. Add in no contact from them for days really adds to the bad experience. My experience is an unique situation, but one that Rivian created.

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