Two Month, 2000 miles review

[Markbolick]

I know there are tons of reviews out now on the R1T, but I thought I’d add my thoughts on my R1T after two months and 2000 miles of driving my Rivian Blue with Ocean Coast interior.

This is honestly one of the best vehicles I have ever owned, and definitely one of the best trucks I’ve ever owned. There have been some little issues, which I’ll detail, but overall the truck has been a fantastic daily driver for me.

I’ve driving two different Nissan Leaf’s over the last 9 year and have been driving my wife’s Mustang Mach-E for a year before my R1T was delivered and the R1T easily puts them both to shame. The Leaf feels like a toy car compared to the R1T and the Mach-E is still a great driving car, but the drive quality and dynamics on the R1T are far above the Mach-E in terms of regen handling and Auto-Hold. The Mach-E has improved with software updates, but the R1T still outshines it in terms of comfort, and handling.

My delivery was quick and easy in late October and with all the research I’ve done over the last year waiting on the truck, I knew just about everything about how it functioned so the delivery guide was happy to have an early day to spend some time in Asheville enjoying the town before heading back to Atlanta.

Everything on my truck functioned perfectly upon delivery. Tonneau has not had any issues after being used a dozen or so times. I don’t bother lubricating the channels or anything and, while it does make a lot of noise opening and closing, it hasn’t had any problems doing either yet.

After the first 500 miles, I started getting the “tocking” sound from my front drive when going slowly. That quickly moved to a more constant repeating sound after driving any distance at all. I scheduled a visit to the Atlanta service center where they had the truck for two weeks and determined the front drive unit needed replacement. I’ve had it back a few days and everything seems back to normal now. I guess we’ll see how that goes after another 500 miles or so.

Fit and finish were pretty good. The only mis-aligned piece on my truck was the hood with a larger gap on the driver’s side and very tight fit on the passenger side. The SC fixed this for me as well and the hood looks much better now.

Seats are remarkable comfortable and both the heated and ventilated seats are very good. The seats don’t get super hot, but they get very comfortable fairly quickly. The seats in the Mach-E can burn the daylights out of your bum after a short period and have to be reduced in intensity all the time. The R1T is pretty good at full power and keeps you nicely warm in colder weather. The steering wheel heat is lackluster, but it keeps the steering wheels from being freezing cold on the drive, so I’m okay with that as well.

The speakers are amazing and the sound in the truck is the best sound I’ve ever had any vehicle I’ve ever owned. It completely blows the Mach-E out of the water and the B&O system in the Mach-E is pretty decent. Props to Rivian for appreciating a good sound system.

FM has been spotty and inconsistent in how it works on the infotainment system. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and I’ll often have a station fade in and out of volume while I’m driving around town. Not sure why that happens, but it’s not extreme. I do love that the volumes lowers when you open the door to exit the vehicle so it’s not blasting my music choices to the neighborhood. Nice touch there.

I’ll go ahead and say it here, I wish we had CarPlay as an option. The Bluetooth connectivity is haphazard with my iPhone 12 and its lack of consistency is a major hazard in my opinion. I listen to Audible and Apple Music a lot and both with oftentimes, just stop working. Trying to fiddle with my phone to get my book or music playing again while driving is not safe, but I also don’t want to pull over every 10 minutes to try and figure out why my book or music shows up on the screen but won’t play. CarPlay would be a nice option to more easily access and use the apps I already have on my phone, but I understand their decision to leave it off for now. I just hope that changes In the future or they add Apple Music and Audible to their app choices in the vehicle.

Navigation works really well and I’ve been happy with the few times I’ve needed to use it. I do have to turn the voice guidance off as it will just announce guidance overtop of my audio book that continues to play in the background (another reason I would prefer CarPlay).
It does have interesting choices in charger locations on some trips as it tried to route me to a 50kW charger when a 150kW charger was less than 30 miles away and never even showed as an option on the navigation (ABRP correctly routed me to the faster charger on the trip).

Charging has worked well when I’ve needed it (which is few and far between as I have a ChargePoint Flex at home).

Sorry for the crazy long review and not new information from other reviews, but I wanted to throw out there how great this vehicle has been to drive even with the minor issues. Can’t wait to get another several thousand miles and see how it goes.

Sponsored

 

[mini2nut]

Great review. My thoughts are similar to yours as it’s the best vehicle I have owned to date. It puts a grin on my face everytime I get behind the wheel.

I feel it’s a great value at pre-March pricing. I will say that I would not have considered the vehicle at the new pricing structure. The generous factory warranty also helped in my purchase decision. Virtually everything will be covered until 12-10-2027 and the battery pack is covered for 8-years/175k miles.

 

[R1Sky Business]

I know there are tons of reviews out now on the R1T, but I thought I’d add my thoughts on my R1T after two months and 2000 miles of driving my Rivian Blue with Ocean Coast interior.

This is honestly one of the best vehicles I have ever owned, and definitely one of the best trucks I’ve ever owned. There have been some little issues, which I’ll detail, but overall the truck has been a fantastic daily driver for me.

I’ve driving two different Nissan Leaf’s over the last 9 year and have been driving my wife’s Mustang Mach-E for a year before my R1T was delivered and the R1T easily puts them both to shame. The Leaf feels like a toy car compared to the R1T and the Mach-E is still a great driving car, but the drive quality and dynamics on the R1T are far above the Mach-E in terms of regen handling and Auto-Hold. The Mach-E has improved with software updates, but the R1T still outshines it in terms of comfort, and handling.

My delivery was quick and easy in late October and with all the research I’ve done over the last year waiting on the truck, I knew just about everything about how it functioned so the delivery guide was happy to have an early day to spend some time in Asheville enjoying the town before heading back to Atlanta.

Everything on my truck functioned perfectly upon delivery. Tonneau has not had any issues after being used a dozen or so times. I don’t bother lubricating the channels or anything and, while it does make a lot of noise opening and closing, it hasn’t had any problems doing either yet.

After the first 500 miles, I started getting the “tocking” sound from my front drive when going slowly. That quickly moved to a more constant repeating sound after driving any distance at all. I scheduled a visit to the Atlanta service center where they had the truck for two weeks and determined the front drive unit needed replacement. I’ve had it back a few days and everything seems back to normal now. I guess we’ll see how that goes after another 500 miles or so.

Fit and finish were pretty good. The only mis-aligned piece on my truck was the hood with a larger gap on the driver’s side and very tight fit on the passenger side. The SC fixed this for me as well and the hood looks much better now.

Seats are remarkable comfortable and both the heated and ventilated seats are very good. The seats don’t get super hot, but they get very comfortable fairly quickly. The seats in the Mach-E can burn the daylights out of your bum after a short period and have to be reduced in intensity all the time. The R1T is pretty good at full power and keeps you nicely warm in colder weather. The steering wheel heat is lackluster, but it keeps the steering wheels from being freezing cold on the drive, so I’m okay with that as well.

The speakers are amazing and the sound in the truck is the best sound I’ve ever had any vehicle I’ve ever owned. It completely blows the Mach-E out of the water and the B&O system in the Mach-E is pretty decent. Props to Rivian for appreciating a good sound system.

FM has been spotty and inconsistent in how it works on the infotainment system. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and I’ll often have a station fade in and out of volume while I’m driving around town. Not sure why that happens, but it’s not extreme. I do love that the volumes lowers when you open the door to exit the vehicle so it’s not blasting my music choices to the neighborhood. Nice touch there.

I’ll go ahead and say it here, I wish we had CarPlay as an option. The Bluetooth connectivity is haphazard with my iPhone 12 and its lack of consistency is a major hazard in my opinion. I listen to Audible and Apple Music a lot and both with oftentimes, just stop working. Trying to fiddle with my phone to get my book or music playing again while driving is not safe, but I also don’t want to pull over every 10 minutes to try and figure out why my book or music shows up on the screen but won’t play. CarPlay would be a nice option to more easily access and use the apps I already have on my phone, but I understand their decision to leave it off for now. I just hope that changes In the future or they add Apple Music and Audible to their app choices in the vehicle.

Navigation works really well and I’ve been happy with the few times I’ve needed to use it. I do have to turn the voice guidance off as it will just announce guidance overtop of my audio book that continues to play in the background (another reason I would prefer CarPlay).
It does have interesting choices in charger locations on some trips as it tried to route me to a 50kW charger when a 150kW charger was less than 30 miles away and never even showed as an option on the navigation (ABRP correctly routed me to the faster charger on the trip).

Charging has worked well when I’ve needed it (which is few and far between as I have a ChargePoint Flex at home).

Sorry for the crazy long review and not new information from other reviews, but I wanted to throw out there how great this vehicle has been to drive even with the minor issues. Can’t wait to get another several thousand miles and see how it goes.

Excellent experience....even with drive unit woes...

 

[Markbolick]

I’m beginning to see why Rivian is moving to making their own drive units in-house. Seems like the Bosch units have a lot of reliability issues production wise.
Hopefully, if you have a unit that doesn’t fail right away, then it will last a long time. Seems that units that need to be replaced fail pretty quick. Just glad that they were able to get a new unit and replace it in two weeks. I hated being without the truck after having it for a month and a half. Glad it’s back home.

 

[virgnia_rivian]

I’m 10 days and 1,000mi in and agree with your review. This is our first EV coming off a Porsche Macan and Jeep Grand Cherokee. Knock on the wood dash we haven’t had any mechanical issues. Just one minor paint item that will get fixed and then PPF, and a minor issue with some under body screws.

The ride quality, stability of the vehicle and handling are excellent.

 

[mini2nut]

I’m sure the drive unit failures are an extremely small amount of production.

Automotive forums are weighted around the negatives WAY more than the positives. Bosch has been making electric motors for a long time. When electronics fail it’s usually at the beginning of ownership.

 

[WSea]

I know there are tons of reviews out now on the R1T, but I thought I’d add my thoughts on my R1T after two months and 2000 miles of driving my Rivian Blue with Ocean Coast interior.

This is honestly one of the best vehicles I have ever owned, and definitely one of the best trucks I’ve ever owned. There have been some little issues, which I’ll detail, but overall the truck has been a fantastic daily driver for me.

I’ve driving two different Nissan Leaf’s over the last 9 year and have been driving my wife’s Mustang Mach-E for a year before my R1T was delivered and the R1T easily puts them both to shame. The Leaf feels like a toy car compared to the R1T and the Mach-E is still a great driving car, but the drive quality and dynamics on the R1T are far above the Mach-E in terms of regen handling and Auto-Hold. The Mach-E has improved with software updates, but the R1T still outshines it in terms of comfort, and handling.

My delivery was quick and easy in late October and with all the research I’ve done over the last year waiting on the truck, I knew just about everything about how it functioned so the delivery guide was happy to have an early day to spend some time in Asheville enjoying the town before heading back to Atlanta.

Everything on my truck functioned perfectly upon delivery. Tonneau has not had any issues after being used a dozen or so times. I don’t bother lubricating the channels or anything and, while it does make a lot of noise opening and closing, it hasn’t had any problems doing either yet.

After the first 500 miles, I started getting the “tocking” sound from my front drive when going slowly. That quickly moved to a more constant repeating sound after driving any distance at all. I scheduled a visit to the Atlanta service center where they had the truck for two weeks and determined the front drive unit needed replacement. I’ve had it back a few days and everything seems back to normal now. I guess we’ll see how that goes after another 500 miles or so.

Fit and finish were pretty good. The only mis-aligned piece on my truck was the hood with a larger gap on the driver’s side and very tight fit on the passenger side. The SC fixed this for me as well and the hood looks much better now.

Seats are remarkable comfortable and both the heated and ventilated seats are very good. The seats don’t get super hot, but they get very comfortable fairly quickly. The seats in the Mach-E can burn the daylights out of your bum after a short period and have to be reduced in intensity all the time. The R1T is pretty good at full power and keeps you nicely warm in colder weather. The steering wheel heat is lackluster, but it keeps the steering wheels from being freezing cold on the drive, so I’m okay with that as well.

The speakers are amazing and the sound in the truck is the best sound I’ve ever had any vehicle I’ve ever owned. It completely blows the Mach-E out of the water and the B&O system in the Mach-E is pretty decent. Props to Rivian for appreciating a good sound system.

FM has been spotty and inconsistent in how it works on the infotainment system. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and I’ll often have a station fade in and out of volume while I’m driving around town. Not sure why that happens, but it’s not extreme. I do love that the volumes lowers when you open the door to exit the vehicle so it’s not blasting my music choices to the neighborhood. Nice touch there.

I’ll go ahead and say it here, I wish we had CarPlay as an option. The Bluetooth connectivity is haphazard with my iPhone 12 and its lack of consistency is a major hazard in my opinion. I listen to Audible and Apple Music a lot and both with oftentimes, just stop working. Trying to fiddle with my phone to get my book or music playing again while driving is not safe, but I also don’t want to pull over every 10 minutes to try and figure out why my book or music shows up on the screen but won’t play. CarPlay would be a nice option to more easily access and use the apps I already have on my phone, but I understand their decision to leave it off for now. I just hope that changes In the future or they add Apple Music and Audible to their app choices in the vehicle.

Navigation works really well and I’ve been happy with the few times I’ve needed to use it. I do have to turn the voice guidance off as it will just announce guidance overtop of my audio book that continues to play in the background (another reason I would prefer CarPlay).
It does have interesting choices in charger locations on some trips as it tried to route me to a 50kW charger when a 150kW charger was less than 30 miles away and never even showed as an option on the navigation (ABRP correctly routed me to the faster charger on the trip).

Charging has worked well when I’ve needed it (which is few and far between as I have a ChargePoint Flex at home).

Sorry for the crazy long review and not new information from other reviews, but I wanted to throw out there how great this vehicle has been to drive even with the minor issues. Can’t wait to get another several thousand miles and see how it goes.

You can customize the nav for higher kWh charger locations and which vendors

Sponsored