Compare Rivian service to Tesla service

[Richinwalla]

I'm currently a Tesla Model Y owner and have a Rivian R2 reserved. For those that have made the switch from Tesla to Rivian how would you rate the respective companys' service (and mobile) service on responsiveness and satisfaction. My experience with Tesla has been quite positive so far (4 years).

Sponsored

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Tesla service appointments were available sooner than Rivian but Tesla tends to rush vehicles in and out of service and they don't provide loaners unless the vehicle will be in service for 3 days or longer.

Rivian prioritizes service based on the issue. So for example the soonest available appointment right now for service is November 11th and today is August 22nd. So two and a half months.

Rivian would likely move that up if the vehicle was out of service or had a safety issue. Cosmetic or other non critical issues require patience to be addressed.

Rivian tends to spend a little more time on the vehicles to get them right and prevent them from coming back for the same issue which I really appreciate.

Rivian does provide a vehicle or Uber credits. With the vehicle they will provide either a service center loaner or enterprise rental.

Would be cool if Rivian provided Turo credits as an option too so one could choose their vehicle but that isn't as convenient.

Tesla has a service network that's been built out a little more because they've had time to do so. Rivian is trying hard but service still requires a lot of patience.

 

[Richinwalla]

So 2 1/2 months using Uber or a rental. Wow.

 

[beatle]

I thought Tesla service was slow, but Rivian is next level slow. My R1T went in for a suspension issue that was present on delivery day, and I'm finding it's not completely fixed, so I'll have to send it back again.

It was nice to have a rental with Rivian instead of Uber credits with Tesla. I had not heard of Rivian provided Uber credits. Uber may be actually be more expensive for Rivian than a rental, especially for people who are hour(s) away from their closest service center.

 

[1stEVR1S]

So 2 1/2 months using Uber or a rental. Wow.

Actually, the 2.5 months that Ken mentioned was for the appointment for non-emergency issues. It doesn't mean that you'll get Uber or rental for 2.5 months. For example mine was a small dent at delivery that I of course wanted fixed. I waited for around 2 months back then for the first available appointment at a service center. Once it's in, I got a rental for around 3 to 4 days for it to be fixed if I remember correctly.

My experience with service so far is good, though I haven't got any major issues that require me to schedule an emergency appointment. Aside from that dent at delivery, I've scheduled a loose B pillar sealant/trim repair (very minor, covered under warranty) and regular service (tire rotation/inspection), which were both done via mobile service and that was a couple of weeks wait time if I'm not mistaken.

 

[COdogman]

Unfortunately it completely depends on your local service center. Certain parts of the country have either overwhelmed SCs due to volume or just poor performance. Other areas have high volume and SCs that somehow keep up with it.

The Denver SC has been amazing. In April they had to replace my HV battery due to a fault detected. They offered me an appointment within 7 days of my call, gave me a loaner R1T while they worked on it and had mine back to me in 6 days. Can’t ask for much more than that. And they are an extremely busy SC…

I’ve never owned a Tesla so I can’t compare the two…

 

[CBRacerX]

If your vehicle is down they offer quick service either mobile or in a service center. Otherwise you have to get in line and how long the line is depends on the Service Center(s) near you.

 

[Move]

I would also add that the documentation post fix is impressive in regards to the level of detail that the service center performed. Gives you a sense of satisfaction in their attention to detail. At least that's been my experience from the Houston SC. One negative I've noticed is that when you do arrive for your visit, in some cases it seems like they don't work on the vehicle immediately. So the overall time without the vehicle can be a day or two longer than if they started working on it once it arrived. Just my opinion based on tracking the location of my R1 while at the Service Center.

 

[SwampNut]

Tesla has done a good job of prioritizing the requests by importance. We only had one urgent thing; the 12v battery failing. They had scheduled it a week out, I sent a message and said we were taking a road trip on Wednesday and could we get some sort of priority. They immediately changed it for Tuesday with mobile service. My neighborhood has one assigned tech which is kinda neat, I see her for all mobile service (we have a few Teslas here).

There was one challenging Tesla experience where they felt something was not under warranty, and we had to fight. They finally did cover it. I found it IMPOSSIBLE to call a live human, anywhere in Tesla. Rivian is *barely* a bit better. Both push your calls to a national number and it's very hard to get a local SC person.

Our only Rivian service was not super urgent, but did include one item that would be challenging to live with. The powered bed cover was stuck closed, so basically couldn't use the bed other than shoving things under it if they fit. Rivian scheduled a removal of the cover in a few days at my house with mobile service (Hulk smash, not a disassembly).

Rivian has a very stupid policy regarding anything that looks like a "mod."

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...anted-200-for-about-13-seconds-of-work.30318/

Tesla sometimes has loaners, otherwise they give Uber credits, not a rental. Rivian sometimes has loaners, otherwise they give you $52/day credit at Enterprise. You''ll need it, because it seems very universal that Rivian will have you bring the car in, and do NOTHING for a long tme. Mine was in for 14 days, out of which, they worked on it the last 3-4 days. This was already scheduled in advance by over a month! So stupid.

 

[SwampNut]

I would also add that the documentation post fix is impressive in regards to the level of detail that the service center performed. Gives you a sense of satisfaction in their attention to detail.

Except when it's just a made-up story and the work wasn't done. So now I don't believe ANY of it.

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...n-on-the-invoice-could-be-total-fiction.31185

 

[hroussel]

As other people mentioned it depends on where the SC is.

Here in Montreal things are fairly quiet and I could get an appointment within 10 days.

I'm a bit disappointed though that I don't get another R1 as a loaner. In the earlier days of Tesla I would get another model S as a loaner (when taking my S for service). I'm curious as to what I will get from Enterprise this morning, but I doubt it will be electric. I'll post again once I'm back.

 

[hroussel]

My first experience with the SC is in many ways similar to what I experienced with Tesla (and the service was overall good), with some text messages through the app, the vehicle status in "maintenance mode", etc.

Staff is friendly. They took care of providing the rental (a Grand Cherokee BTW, monstruous gas guzzler!). My R1T was ready later in the afternoon.

Sadly, and in a similar comparison to Tesla SC (and my old S), they could not fix the suspension squeaking. Apparently it's "according to spec". I'll post separately with video/audio clip to see if it's really according to spec, based on other forum member feedback.

 

[SANZC02]

I think to compare you need to consider how long they have been building out the service centers. I bought a Tesla back in 2016 when Tesla was 4 years into the release of the Model S. Back then service was slow and appointments hard to get, it has improved a lot in the 8 years I have owned the vehicle.

I picked up my R1S in January ‘23, it was about 1.5 years after deliveries started. I had a couple of issues initially, a bad module preventing OTAs and a slow leak in my suspension. Both were in the first 3 months and neither prevented me from using the vehicle. It took several weeks to get appointments but once in the vehicles were fixed and have not had further issues.

Based on my experience the initial service experience for my Tesla and my Rivian were pretty similar even with the 2.5 year head start Tesla had. It seems like Tesla service really started expanding and improving with the Release of the Model 3/Y. My hope is we will see the same thing with Rivian with the release of the R2/R3.

Sponsored