Preoccupy7513
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Just sharing my experience with a new R1S I picked up last Friday. Received the car with 85% charge did some driving around town, and planned on doing a little beginner off-roading the following day. I started the road trip out to the desert with around 55%, and topped up to 80ish% with an EVGO fast charger, everything worked as expected!
On the return trip home, I had around 30% when I arrive back in town, and tried using a Circle K fast charger. It would not work, continually displaying "Error, The car detected a problem". I tried 2 different lines / machines there. This station had a good plugshare rating, and a R1T owner commented on it working fine just the day before.
The next day I went out and tried 2 separate EA stations, and multiple lines / dispensers. All of those machines errored out on me, with the R1S screen continually cycling between "starting" and "re-plug the cable". EA reset the machines several times and pushed through the payment on their end in case there was some kind of billing issue. I did a soft reset and a full reset as well, still did not charge. At least EA offered me one free charging session for going through the troubleshooting with them.
During my call with EA support, various vehicles were able to pull in and use the chargers I was just attempting to use.
Rivian phone support had me do the same resets, and also put the car in sleep mode. After these steps I went back to the Circle K station to try again. Same error. AC charging at home (using a regular wall plug) was working, so at least I got the car charged enough to make it to the service center.
Pretty disappointing to experience a problem with such a fundamental part of the vehicle this early on. The service center said that they have a bunch of cars ahead of me, and that I was going to be lucky to have it looked at by Wednesday. Contacted my guide about this experience hoping that he can help push the service earlier, but have not heard back.
On a side note, the off-roading was amazing, we made it up a steep sandy hill that a few experienced drivers with trucks did not attempt, they said they did not have enough power.
Update 11/15:
Wednesday has come, and as expected, they have not looked at the vehicle. Estimated date to diagnose has been pushed to Friday.
Update 11/17
Received my car back around 6 PM last night. I felt service center went above and beyond to make me happy. The strange part is the car was fast charging for them no problem. They did note that they could see the errors I was having in the vehicle logs. They attempted charging at a local EvGO with success, but still wanted to keep the car for further diagnostics. The service manager even offered to drive up a loaner R1T to swap out with the enterprise rental I had. Wanting my new car back as soon as possible, I suggested they drive my car up to swap out, but first try the local Circle K station that was failing me. They accommodated, had a 10 minute pit stop there, and it charged! After receiving the R1S I immediately went down to the same Circle K to verify, and sure enough it was working. Not sure what happened, but I am glad to finally enjoy the R1S!
In addition, they were able to fix a rattle and some door trim that was not flush. Overall I want to thank the San Diego service center, and I hope that weird charging bug does not come back.
Update 11/19
So, to continue the adventure...
Against the will of all my family members who learned of the car issues, I decided to take a road trip to my parents house for the thanksgiving holiday, from souther California to the bay area. Before driving to our first stop, about 100 miles away, we stopped at an Electrify America fast charger. Worked as advertised. Awesome! We thought we were good to go. Visited some friends, and level 2 charged to 100% overnight at my in-laws.
Woke up early, excited to do our first road trip with the new car. Hit the road and drove straight to the buttonwillow RAN charger. As we we got closer the car indicated it was preconditioning the battery, perfect! Everything going smoothly.
As we pulled into the RAN charger, there were two other Rivians charging with 7 other empty stalls. I told my wife, don't worry, Rivian chargers are the best, no one ever has issues.
And it was true... kind of...
I plugged in the car, the charger indicated "authenticating"... waited... waited... "unplug and try again" (or something like that). The light bar on the charger glowed red. Ok... great, we are in the middle of no where, tons of flys, at least there was a starbucks next door. I sent my wife and toddler there to relax, "don't worry, ill figure it out".
Tried again. Same error. Pulled into another charger, same thing. Another charger, then another.
Hard reset the car. Nothing.
Went to the 60~Kw chargepoint in the same parking lot, no connection, no charge. The screen just indicated "connecting to vehicle" indefinitely.
Called support, they had me do a soft reset, then a full reset. Plug in. Not working.
Then they had me do sleep mode. Had to explain to the family that we had to unbuckle all the seatbelts, turn off the gear guard, turn off the bluetooth on our phones, and force close the Rivian app. The next part is the easiest - we just got to wait 40 minutes for the car to go to sleep!
Already having done these same steps in the comfort of my house last weekend, I was not hopeful, but that is what my Rivian roadside service expert advised, I had to give it a shot right?
Came back after grabbing another round of coffee at Starbucks, and toured the local fly infested motel (it was bad), and to my surprise, charging still did not work.
Called in to Rivian again. Got another representative. Had to explain the entire situation again. Was asked if I tried another charger... Was asked if I did a reset...
Tried my best to catch the gentleman up, and to be fair he was pretty nice, but my patience was wearing thin. I suggested that since I can't get the car charging, could I please get this car towed, be provided with a rental? He asked if level 2 charging worked. I explained once again that level 2 charging works fine on my car, but level 3 has been inconstant at best, not working now, and that I was around 230 miles from my destination, he came up with a great idea.
He told me that his leadership probably wouldn't offer me a tow and rental if I had level 2 charging nearby. Being at around 20% SOC, I had to explain to the gentleman that sitting in a parking lot for 16 hours was not a good option for me, my wife, or my 3 year old.
He was hesitant, but agreed to discuss this with his boss.
After waiting for a decision for another hour, they came back and said that I could get a rental, and a tow, but warned me that I would have to pay for the tow if this "wasn't a warranty issue".
Here is the best part...
Before sending me to the nearest enterprise, I was told to try the chargepoint charge one more time. I was told to do one more hard reset and plug-in. Standard procedure, I am an expert by now. Left wheel button, hazard light, hold... reset. But it wouldn't. The pop up that says keep holding for reset came and went. Screens never blacked out. Car never reset. The gentleman on the phone told me I had to buckle up, put the seat in the full upright position, and try again. Did not work. He said, well... at least we got the diagnostic logs, lets try to charge. I complied, and guess what? The car started charging.
Same charger I tried 3 hours earlier.
WTF
60KW is not 200+, but you know, at least we were able to make it to where we were going after another 1hr + in the car actually charging. Did not dare to unplug and charge at the RAN chargers 20 feet away in case they didn't take. Had some grumpy people making comments at me, "you know there are Rivian charger over there". I don't blame them, I was taking 1/3 spots at the chargepoint chargers, but I was determined to get out of the middle of nowhere. Not the worst outcome. We made it. Long day.
Options:
1) Risk the drive back down in a week.
2) Have the car towed back to my home service center, if the technicians do not find an issue (like the last time they had it), I have to pay for the 400+ mile tow.
Good times! Life is an adventure!
P.S. We saw about 25 happy rivian owners at the buttonwillow RAN, had some fun conversations. Our car was the only one that was having issues. Thanks for reading my rant.
Update 9/20
After looking at the logs captured during the hard resets, Rivian service finally has diagnosed the issue. A "communication module" needs to be replaced. I assume this device is responsible for conducting the handshake with chargers. Strange to me that it works intermittently, if anyone has any ideas I would be curious to hear them.
Rivian is going to tow my vehicle 400 miles back to my hometown for service and give me a rental.
Update 9/30
Received my car back yesterday.
They were able to duplicate the issue with DC fast charging and replaced the Central Gateway Module
Charging only failed for me when the vehicle was at ~30% SOC or lower.
Looking forwards to testing it out soon! I have high hopes!
On the return trip home, I had around 30% when I arrive back in town, and tried using a Circle K fast charger. It would not work, continually displaying "Error, The car detected a problem". I tried 2 different lines / machines there. This station had a good plugshare rating, and a R1T owner commented on it working fine just the day before.
The next day I went out and tried 2 separate EA stations, and multiple lines / dispensers. All of those machines errored out on me, with the R1S screen continually cycling between "starting" and "re-plug the cable". EA reset the machines several times and pushed through the payment on their end in case there was some kind of billing issue. I did a soft reset and a full reset as well, still did not charge. At least EA offered me one free charging session for going through the troubleshooting with them.
During my call with EA support, various vehicles were able to pull in and use the chargers I was just attempting to use.
Rivian phone support had me do the same resets, and also put the car in sleep mode. After these steps I went back to the Circle K station to try again. Same error. AC charging at home (using a regular wall plug) was working, so at least I got the car charged enough to make it to the service center.
Pretty disappointing to experience a problem with such a fundamental part of the vehicle this early on. The service center said that they have a bunch of cars ahead of me, and that I was going to be lucky to have it looked at by Wednesday. Contacted my guide about this experience hoping that he can help push the service earlier, but have not heard back.
On a side note, the off-roading was amazing, we made it up a steep sandy hill that a few experienced drivers with trucks did not attempt, they said they did not have enough power.
Update 11/15:
Wednesday has come, and as expected, they have not looked at the vehicle. Estimated date to diagnose has been pushed to Friday.
Update 11/17
Received my car back around 6 PM last night. I felt service center went above and beyond to make me happy. The strange part is the car was fast charging for them no problem. They did note that they could see the errors I was having in the vehicle logs. They attempted charging at a local EvGO with success, but still wanted to keep the car for further diagnostics. The service manager even offered to drive up a loaner R1T to swap out with the enterprise rental I had. Wanting my new car back as soon as possible, I suggested they drive my car up to swap out, but first try the local Circle K station that was failing me. They accommodated, had a 10 minute pit stop there, and it charged! After receiving the R1S I immediately went down to the same Circle K to verify, and sure enough it was working. Not sure what happened, but I am glad to finally enjoy the R1S!
In addition, they were able to fix a rattle and some door trim that was not flush. Overall I want to thank the San Diego service center, and I hope that weird charging bug does not come back.
Update 11/19
So, to continue the adventure...
Against the will of all my family members who learned of the car issues, I decided to take a road trip to my parents house for the thanksgiving holiday, from souther California to the bay area. Before driving to our first stop, about 100 miles away, we stopped at an Electrify America fast charger. Worked as advertised. Awesome! We thought we were good to go. Visited some friends, and level 2 charged to 100% overnight at my in-laws.
Woke up early, excited to do our first road trip with the new car. Hit the road and drove straight to the buttonwillow RAN charger. As we we got closer the car indicated it was preconditioning the battery, perfect! Everything going smoothly.
As we pulled into the RAN charger, there were two other Rivians charging with 7 other empty stalls. I told my wife, don't worry, Rivian chargers are the best, no one ever has issues.
And it was true... kind of...
I plugged in the car, the charger indicated "authenticating"... waited... waited... "unplug and try again" (or something like that). The light bar on the charger glowed red. Ok... great, we are in the middle of no where, tons of flys, at least there was a starbucks next door. I sent my wife and toddler there to relax, "don't worry, ill figure it out".
Tried again. Same error. Pulled into another charger, same thing. Another charger, then another.
Hard reset the car. Nothing.
Went to the 60~Kw chargepoint in the same parking lot, no connection, no charge. The screen just indicated "connecting to vehicle" indefinitely.
Called support, they had me do a soft reset, then a full reset. Plug in. Not working.
Then they had me do sleep mode. Had to explain to the family that we had to unbuckle all the seatbelts, turn off the gear guard, turn off the bluetooth on our phones, and force close the Rivian app. The next part is the easiest - we just got to wait 40 minutes for the car to go to sleep!
Already having done these same steps in the comfort of my house last weekend, I was not hopeful, but that is what my Rivian roadside service expert advised, I had to give it a shot right?
Came back after grabbing another round of coffee at Starbucks, and toured the local fly infested motel (it was bad), and to my surprise, charging still did not work.
Called in to Rivian again. Got another representative. Had to explain the entire situation again. Was asked if I tried another charger... Was asked if I did a reset...
Tried my best to catch the gentleman up, and to be fair he was pretty nice, but my patience was wearing thin. I suggested that since I can't get the car charging, could I please get this car towed, be provided with a rental? He asked if level 2 charging worked. I explained once again that level 2 charging works fine on my car, but level 3 has been inconstant at best, not working now, and that I was around 230 miles from my destination, he came up with a great idea.
He told me that his leadership probably wouldn't offer me a tow and rental if I had level 2 charging nearby. Being at around 20% SOC, I had to explain to the gentleman that sitting in a parking lot for 16 hours was not a good option for me, my wife, or my 3 year old.
He was hesitant, but agreed to discuss this with his boss.
After waiting for a decision for another hour, they came back and said that I could get a rental, and a tow, but warned me that I would have to pay for the tow if this "wasn't a warranty issue".
Here is the best part...
Before sending me to the nearest enterprise, I was told to try the chargepoint charge one more time. I was told to do one more hard reset and plug-in. Standard procedure, I am an expert by now. Left wheel button, hazard light, hold... reset. But it wouldn't. The pop up that says keep holding for reset came and went. Screens never blacked out. Car never reset. The gentleman on the phone told me I had to buckle up, put the seat in the full upright position, and try again. Did not work. He said, well... at least we got the diagnostic logs, lets try to charge. I complied, and guess what? The car started charging.
Same charger I tried 3 hours earlier.
WTF
60KW is not 200+, but you know, at least we were able to make it to where we were going after another 1hr + in the car actually charging. Did not dare to unplug and charge at the RAN chargers 20 feet away in case they didn't take. Had some grumpy people making comments at me, "you know there are Rivian charger over there". I don't blame them, I was taking 1/3 spots at the chargepoint chargers, but I was determined to get out of the middle of nowhere. Not the worst outcome. We made it. Long day.
Options:
1) Risk the drive back down in a week.
2) Have the car towed back to my home service center, if the technicians do not find an issue (like the last time they had it), I have to pay for the 400+ mile tow.
Good times! Life is an adventure!
P.S. We saw about 25 happy rivian owners at the buttonwillow RAN, had some fun conversations. Our car was the only one that was having issues. Thanks for reading my rant.
Update 9/20
After looking at the logs captured during the hard resets, Rivian service finally has diagnosed the issue. A "communication module" needs to be replaced. I assume this device is responsible for conducting the handshake with chargers. Strange to me that it works intermittently, if anyone has any ideas I would be curious to hear them.
Rivian is going to tow my vehicle 400 miles back to my hometown for service and give me a rental.
Update 9/30
Received my car back yesterday.
They were able to duplicate the issue with DC fast charging and replaced the Central Gateway Module
Charging only failed for me when the vehicle was at ~30% SOC or lower.
Looking forwards to testing it out soon! I have high hopes!
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