Chewy734
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Ashu
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2020
- Threads
- 27
- Messages
- 1,319
- Reaction score
- 2,732
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Vehicles
- BMW, Ford, Rivian
- Thread starter
- #1
Hey all,
As many of you know, I’m a pretty patient person, and I’ve been overall generally positive and excited about Rivian and our R1S. But, my last service appointment has left me a bit soured.
TLDR: It took a month to do less than a week’s worth of work, and they returned the car pretty dirty on the inside and with a new dent on the outside.
For those of you interested in the details, please read further…
I made my appointment many months ago for 10/17 at the El Segundo SC. The day before, I got a call from Rivian telling me they are backed up and likely won’t be able to look at my truck for a week. My options were to acknowledge and continue with the scheduled appointment, or reschedule with them. The latter doesn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t have to wait a week or longer anyways when I dropped it off then, so why wait? I dropped it off on 10/17 thinking I’d have it back before Halloween and be able to enjoy the special Halloween theme for the first time. Boy, was I wrong.
I took it in for some water ingress near the shark fin on the roof, an interior door trim that was damaged and needed to be replaced, a ticking sound coming from the rear (not chatty suspension related), and excessive wind noise near the driver’s side when driving on the freeway. My last appointment at the service center was back in April and it took over a month to get my vehicle back, because they had to replace the lift gate due to a dent at delivery. My last experience was overall good because they did a great job fixing all the issues, despite taking a long time to get it done. I expected at least a similar service experience this time around.
As in my last experiences, everyone was nice, friendly, and attentive when I dropped it off. They gave me a Wagoneer as a loaner from Enterprise, because that was the only 6+ seater available (we have a large family). As an aside, the Wagoner smelled like cheap cologne the entire time I had it, it drove like it looked (slow and boaty), and gas mileage was expectedly horrible. It actually had CarPlay, so I could see what I was missing out on. And honestly, despite begging Rivian for CP for the past several months, I wasn’t impressed. It seems like Jeep did a pretty poor job of integrating it well with the vehicle. Other than the maps, I wasn’t all that impressed; I missed my RIS display. The maps weren’t even easily interactive on the touch screen. There were a few positives about the Wagoneer, however, that I wish the R1S had: more leg room in the rear rows (but it’s over a foot longer!), saving the seating position in the 2nd row was amazing since we use the 3rd row often and I hate constantly readjusting the 2nd row seats when they are unfolded after letting the 3rd row passenger in, and the tactile feel of the steering wheel was better. But, the bad certainly outweighed the good: slow acceleration, louder than the R1S inside the cabin, not as good sound system, looser steering wheel that felt unconnected to the road, very little road feedback in general, not sporty by any means, auto start/stop was jerky and annoying, interior cabin trim pieces was falling out/missing despite it having less than 20k miles on it, weird overall driving noises on the freeway, and lack of cameras all around the vehicle that made it difficult to park.
Ok, back to my Rivian SC story… when I dropped it off, one of the techs sat with me for a drive to figure out the rear ticking and wind noise complaints. He determined that the rear drive unit either needed re-oiling or had to be replaced, and that the wind noise was “normal” because the noise was due to “wind turbulence” not “wind ingress”, so there isn’t anything they could do there.
They didn’t touch my R1S for over 2 weeks after I dropped it off! When they got to it, they replaced the trim and the shark fin in a day and tested for any water leakage. After another week passed with no movement, I finally got an update saying that they need to replace the rear drive unit. That took a couple of days. When that was fixed I got a call saying that they want to clean it up before giving it back to me, because it’s really dirty due to the construction nearby. They had to talk to the detailer on how to get it done because I have PPF (not sure why it mattered), so that took time.
I finally picked it back up on 11/14. When I got there around 5:15pm, a door to the SC was propped wide open and no one was to be found. I waited 20 mins and there was no activity inside or outside. Finally I called the Rivian service # and asked them to page someone at the El Segundo SC. A few minutes later, the closing shift guy came and apologized for the delay. Oddly, they couldn’t find my paperwork on the computer, which he complained was acting slow. I noticed this was a common complaint every time I got service there… fix your IT! Anyways, my R1S was finally pulled up and they handed me the keys. Before driving off I noticed a small, new dent on the rear driver’s side quarter panel. I complained about it and he took a photo and said someone will contact me about it later this week. He said they need to compare it to the photos they took at acceptance to make sure the damage wasn’t already there. Apparently he couldn’t compare photos at that time because of computer problems.
After inspecting it in the daytime, it seems like they wiped down the exterior without washing it, and the interior still had random trash from all their repairs. So, I’ll need to spend the day to clean everything. Additionally, the rear driver’s side black trim piece above the wheel needed to be snapped back into place (it was obviously not flush). It really makes me wonder if they did any QC before handing me the keys?!?
Oh well, at least she’s back in my hands. I likely would’ve been satisfied with everything, despite the ridiculous delays and being returned a dirty vehicle. But, that first dent annoys me! I really hope someone at the SC contacts me this week and makes things right. Hopefully it’s a straight-forward PDR job, but who knows how easy it’ll be with the PPF installed. Getting reimbursed by Rivian for anything has been a complete nightmare, as a previous request of mine is still pending after 6 months!
As many of you know, I’m a pretty patient person, and I’ve been overall generally positive and excited about Rivian and our R1S. But, my last service appointment has left me a bit soured.
TLDR: It took a month to do less than a week’s worth of work, and they returned the car pretty dirty on the inside and with a new dent on the outside.
For those of you interested in the details, please read further…
I made my appointment many months ago for 10/17 at the El Segundo SC. The day before, I got a call from Rivian telling me they are backed up and likely won’t be able to look at my truck for a week. My options were to acknowledge and continue with the scheduled appointment, or reschedule with them. The latter doesn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t have to wait a week or longer anyways when I dropped it off then, so why wait? I dropped it off on 10/17 thinking I’d have it back before Halloween and be able to enjoy the special Halloween theme for the first time. Boy, was I wrong.
I took it in for some water ingress near the shark fin on the roof, an interior door trim that was damaged and needed to be replaced, a ticking sound coming from the rear (not chatty suspension related), and excessive wind noise near the driver’s side when driving on the freeway. My last appointment at the service center was back in April and it took over a month to get my vehicle back, because they had to replace the lift gate due to a dent at delivery. My last experience was overall good because they did a great job fixing all the issues, despite taking a long time to get it done. I expected at least a similar service experience this time around.
As in my last experiences, everyone was nice, friendly, and attentive when I dropped it off. They gave me a Wagoneer as a loaner from Enterprise, because that was the only 6+ seater available (we have a large family). As an aside, the Wagoner smelled like cheap cologne the entire time I had it, it drove like it looked (slow and boaty), and gas mileage was expectedly horrible. It actually had CarPlay, so I could see what I was missing out on. And honestly, despite begging Rivian for CP for the past several months, I wasn’t impressed. It seems like Jeep did a pretty poor job of integrating it well with the vehicle. Other than the maps, I wasn’t all that impressed; I missed my RIS display. The maps weren’t even easily interactive on the touch screen. There were a few positives about the Wagoneer, however, that I wish the R1S had: more leg room in the rear rows (but it’s over a foot longer!), saving the seating position in the 2nd row was amazing since we use the 3rd row often and I hate constantly readjusting the 2nd row seats when they are unfolded after letting the 3rd row passenger in, and the tactile feel of the steering wheel was better. But, the bad certainly outweighed the good: slow acceleration, louder than the R1S inside the cabin, not as good sound system, looser steering wheel that felt unconnected to the road, very little road feedback in general, not sporty by any means, auto start/stop was jerky and annoying, interior cabin trim pieces was falling out/missing despite it having less than 20k miles on it, weird overall driving noises on the freeway, and lack of cameras all around the vehicle that made it difficult to park.
Ok, back to my Rivian SC story… when I dropped it off, one of the techs sat with me for a drive to figure out the rear ticking and wind noise complaints. He determined that the rear drive unit either needed re-oiling or had to be replaced, and that the wind noise was “normal” because the noise was due to “wind turbulence” not “wind ingress”, so there isn’t anything they could do there.
They didn’t touch my R1S for over 2 weeks after I dropped it off! When they got to it, they replaced the trim and the shark fin in a day and tested for any water leakage. After another week passed with no movement, I finally got an update saying that they need to replace the rear drive unit. That took a couple of days. When that was fixed I got a call saying that they want to clean it up before giving it back to me, because it’s really dirty due to the construction nearby. They had to talk to the detailer on how to get it done because I have PPF (not sure why it mattered), so that took time.
I finally picked it back up on 11/14. When I got there around 5:15pm, a door to the SC was propped wide open and no one was to be found. I waited 20 mins and there was no activity inside or outside. Finally I called the Rivian service # and asked them to page someone at the El Segundo SC. A few minutes later, the closing shift guy came and apologized for the delay. Oddly, they couldn’t find my paperwork on the computer, which he complained was acting slow. I noticed this was a common complaint every time I got service there… fix your IT! Anyways, my R1S was finally pulled up and they handed me the keys. Before driving off I noticed a small, new dent on the rear driver’s side quarter panel. I complained about it and he took a photo and said someone will contact me about it later this week. He said they need to compare it to the photos they took at acceptance to make sure the damage wasn’t already there. Apparently he couldn’t compare photos at that time because of computer problems.
After inspecting it in the daytime, it seems like they wiped down the exterior without washing it, and the interior still had random trash from all their repairs. So, I’ll need to spend the day to clean everything. Additionally, the rear driver’s side black trim piece above the wheel needed to be snapped back into place (it was obviously not flush). It really makes me wonder if they did any QC before handing me the keys?!?
Oh well, at least she’s back in my hands. I likely would’ve been satisfied with everything, despite the ridiculous delays and being returned a dirty vehicle. But, that first dent annoys me! I really hope someone at the SC contacts me this week and makes things right. Hopefully it’s a straight-forward PDR job, but who knows how easy it’ll be with the PPF installed. Getting reimbursed by Rivian for anything has been a complete nightmare, as a previous request of mine is still pending after 6 months!
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