Proactive replacement of 12v battery

[Jacopa]

So this is an interesting one. I happened to be wasting time in the app and i saw a pending service appt to replace my 12v’s. This was added on 12/24 but they never actually contacted me about it. I havent had any warnings or issues but they are preempting any issues with replacement. Of course the earliest appt was Feb 6 but they said they would contact my service center (Shelton) to try and get it moved up. Literally ended chat and Shelton was calling me to come in 9am tm!
Service beats the hell out of my Tesla service for sure. With all the cold i would recommend keeping your Rivs on a level 2 especially if you see Vampire Drain going up mostly likely due to more frequent top ups of the 12v from the HV batt.

BTW ‘24 R1S delivered in Feb ‘24. Software 2024.47.01, VIN 36xxx

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[risingphoenix]

So this is an interesting one. I happened to be wasting time in the app and i saw a pending service appt to replace my 12v’s. This was added on 12/24 but they never actually contacted me about it. I havent had any warnings or issues but they are preempting any issues with replacement. Of course the earliest appt was Feb 6 but they said they would contact my service center (Shelton) to try and get it moved up. Literally ended chat and Shelton was calling me to come in 9am tm!
Service beats the hell out of my Tesla service for sure. With all the cold i would recommend keeping your Rivs on a level 2 especially if you see Vampire Drain going up mostly likely due to more frequent top ups of the 12v from the HV batt.

BTW ‘24 R1S delivered in Feb ‘24. Software 2024.47.01, VIN 36xxx

Your build would suggest a single 12V. I have a fall 2023 R1S build with a single 12V and had service (in for unrelated issues) specifically address my 12V battery health (they said mine was fine). If I were you I'd put the battery on a battery tender at least once over night to charge and condition it. Not sure if Rivian's high voltage battery does any conditioning when it charges the 12V (ie leaving the vehicle plugged into a Level 2 charger). Given that other users have solved vampire drain issues with the battery tender approach would suggest that the Rivian does NOT condition the 12V when charging. I like having a 3amp battery tender with the OBD adapter for this very purpose as it's brain dead easy and does not require getting into the battery compartment in the frunk for those that don't like tinkering.

 

[Jacopa]

It doesn’t get “ conditioned” per se, but like every other 12v battery it naturally has less capacity as it gets colder. When it hits a discharge threshold the HV batt wakes up to top it up, as the 12v gets older the HV wakes up more and more. What people perceive as increased vampire drain is a result of this increased activity to maintain a potentially defective or poorly engineered 12v battery.
If the car is left on a level 2 charger the car will pull from shore power instead of the HV batt

 

[risingphoenix]

It doesn’t get “ conditioned” per se, but like every other 12v battery it naturally has less capacity as it gets colder. When it hits a discharge threshold the HV batt wakes up to top it up, as the 12v gets older the HV wakes up more and more. What people perceive as increased vampire drain is a result of this increased activity to maintain a potentially defective or poorly engineered 12v battery.

I understand how batteries work thanks. Do what you want. It's well documented on this forum (one of the longest thread on the entire forum) that some users that have used a battery tender on their 12V batteries have improved their vampire drain. It follows that this approach would also reduce the risk of 12V battery failure and bricking in a battery already identified as potentially defective.

 

[Jacopa]

No need for tone, i just am passing along my experience with Rivian being proactive about 12v battery issues.
you do you regarding a battery tender but why would anyone do that if they have a level 2 charger at home? Tesla used to say a plugged in Tesla is a happy Tesla, especially in cold weather

 

[risingphoenix]

why would anyone do that if they have a level 2 charger at home? Tesla used to say a plugged in Tesla is a happy Tesla, especially in cold weather

Yes, if your vehicle is always plugged into a level 2 charger when not traveling then the risk of the 12V failure bricking your vehicle is extremely low. For those of us that are adventurous, there are instances when we are parking without Level 2 charging (or ANY electricity). A 12V battery failure and vehicle bricking at the end of the Rubicon trail without cellular coverage (or on a long road trip with family) is an event I'd like to avoid. The battery tender is a $50 insurance policy to minimize the risk of 12V related bricking of the vehicle in these situations because the battery tender is not only optimally charging and conditioning the battery but also independently testing the health of the battery in a less opaque way than the built in Rivian charging. I'm not suggesting to plug in the tender all the time - personally I would just use it periodically and before a long road trip/off road adventure. I hope that answers your question.

TL/DR; Different people have different needs and expectations of their Rivians.

 

[dradam]

It doesn’t get “ conditioned” per se, but like every other 12v battery it naturally has less capacity as it gets colder. When it hits a discharge threshold the HV batt wakes up to top it up, as the 12v gets older the HV wakes up more and more. What people perceive as increased vampire drain is a result of this increased activity to maintain a potentially defective or poorly engineered 12v battery.
If the car is left on a level 2 charger the car will pull from shore power instead of the HV batt

I know that shore power will charge the HV battery which in turn charges the 12V, but you seem to imply that shore power is direclty caharging the 12 V. Is that correct? Thanks

 

[dradam]

Yes, if your vehicle is always plugged into a level 2 charger when not traveling then the risk of the 12V failure bricking your vehicle is extremely low. For those of us that are adventurous, there are instances when we are parking without Level 2 charging (or ANY electricity). A 12V battery failure and vehicle bricking at the end of the Rubicon trail without cellular coverage (or on a long road trip with family) is an event I'd like to avoid. The battery tender is a $50 insurance policy to minimize the risk of 12V related bricking of the vehicle in these situations because the battery tender is not only optimally charging and conditioning the battery but also independently testing the health of the battery in a less opaque way than the built in Rivian charging. I'm not suggesting to plug in the tender all the time - personally I would just use it periodically and before a long road trip/off road adventure. I hope that answers your question.

TL/DR; Different people have different needs and expectations of their Rivians.

Would be great if you m ight post links to your tender/obd setup and even a few pics. TIA

 

[risingphoenix]

Would be great if you m ight post links to your tender/obd setup and even a few pics. TIA

I was an idiot about this 3 weeks ago. Credit to Tim-in-CA for the following:

1. OBDII adapter. I got the same brand Battery Tender for this (https://shorturl.at/BCA6e) but you could use any brand. Be careful that some OBDII adapters are only for keeping the car memory when you switch to a new battery and are not compatible with battery charging. This adapter is also 3A (see below).
2. Battery conditioner. I initially bought a 4amp Battery Tender and of course that blew the fuse in the OBD adapter on first use (stupid, I know). Any 3amp Battery conditioner should work fine but I have this one (https://shorturl.at/6kY8w).

I keep both of the above in my frunk, and add my Anker Solix C1000 when going off road out of cell range. If my car bricks and I cannot get into it, I have a T20 and T25 Torx stored in a Hide a Hitch and can access the frunk (see Rivian towing operator instructions here: https://rivian.com/support/article/r1-tow-operator-guide). I can plug the tender directly to the 12V battery and power with the Solix to charge the battery. This may or may not work as the 12V battery needs 30amp sustained to power up. If remote I would likely pull the fireman's loop connector and then disconnect the 12V battery ground connector. That would isolate the 12V and allow me to charge it without the Rivian wanting to draw power. Then after charging for a few hours (this is where I would yell at myself for not having a JNC660 or similar jump box), reconnect the fireman loop and then reconnect the 12V ground.

Complexities:
1. Rear pigtail connectors to the right of the rear hitch. A lot of people (myself included) have thought this could be used to charge a dead 12V battery. Unfortunately, this is NOT a direct 12V battery connection and you cannot use a low amperage battery charger like above. Furthermore, this requires 30A input for up to a few minutes, which will only give you access to the frunk, charging port, and door (different for gen1 vs gen2). Because it's not a direct battery connection unless you have OVERRIDE mode on your charger it won't work. So to use the rear pigtails you've got to have a large amperage battery jump box that has override function. These pigtails are really intended for a direct 12V charging situation (jumper cables to an ICE). It seems to me if I can access the frunk manually utilizing the manual release I would just charge the 12V directly as above. Furthermore, this only connects (AFAIK) to one battery so if the second battery has failed, this will not work (see tow operator guide above).
2. In cabin charging. The OBD port is the best option here as the 12V cigarette lighter ports will not charge the battery if the car is not awake. The OBD port is limited to 3 amps, so if the battery is dead it may take 6 hours or more to charge the 18Ah 12V battery (and that's just a single battery). This likely will not work with a dead battery given the Rivian's desire to boot up the entire system which requires up to 30A sustained.
3. Direct battery charging. You have to take off the cowling under the frunk hood to access the battery(ies). It's also a little of a PITA to get access as the frunk tub interferes with easy access to the batteries. If you have direct access to the battery you'd ideally want high amperage charging and have the advantage of being able to disconnect the high voltage battery (see above). Depending upon how psychotic you want to be about all this a dual function charger/maintainer or separate devices would be an insurance policy to cover more possibilities above. For me, I already have a smaller NOCO GB70 (which I thought would cover my dead battery needs) that I keep in the frunk that I can use to charge a dead 12V battery directly after disconnecting the high voltage battery.

I think all of this is way overkill for normal vehicle uses in civilization. But if you are adventurous with this vehicle away from power/cellular/civilization/easily accessed roads preparing for the worst can be useful.

Disclaimer: I am not an electrician and there are likely hundreds of active users on this forum that know a lot more about this than I. YMMV, etc.

 

[Alanparkcity]

After reading the various reports of Rivian owners being stranded when their 12v battery died, I am considering replacing mine proactively. I decided to ask Rivian to confirm if my R1S has one or two lead acid batteries. While support could not answer that question (after initially stating that all Rivians have 2 12v batteries), they suggest I let Rivian perform this service. After finally securing a service appointment, I found out that Rivian will only replace the 12v battery with a similar lead acid battery for about $300. I suspect this would be a foolish replacement. Instead, I'm considering replacing the 12v myself (well, with my handy brother's assistance) with a lithium battery. Am I making the right choice by replacing with a lithium battery in hopes of avoiding a dreaded 12v battery issue? Or are the 12v battery issues related to the build date? Maybe Rivian received a bad batch of lead acid batteries? My build date was in 11/2023 so I'm fairly certain I only have one battery. Am I overthinking this? Thanks!

Rivian replaced my 12v battery proactively and free when I did an alignment at the service center. I had no battery issues. I was told that most battery failures were from a certain date range. Mine is Vin# 22xxx delivered 8/23.

 

[TollKeeper]

From my delivery adventure thread...

Just got a call from Rivian that they are needing to replace my low voltage battery. I told them I have an appt coming up in late February to fix something else. They indicated that it cant wait..

So I asked a very straight forward question... "Are you saying that this is a recall, or a quiet recall"

To my surprise, he responded with a "Yes"

So I got it scheduled, and added in the spare tire (that I have been waiting a year on), and a new rattle somewhere on the right side front interior of the truck. Been driving me batty for a couple weeks now.

 

[Singletracker]

No need for tone, i just am passing along my experience with Rivian being proactive about 12v battery issues.
you do you regarding a battery tender but why would anyone do that if they have a level 2 charger at home? Tesla used to say a plugged in Tesla is a happy Tesla, especially in cold weather

Here’s my question regarding “plugged in”, as this term has been thrown around a lot. What does just plugging the car into a level 2 charger do, IF it’s not actively programmed to be charging? As far as I can tell, just ”plugging in” doesn’t do a darn thing. It would be nice if the car could determine, on its own, when it needs to top off the 12v battery and could initiate that process via the land line, if it is hooked up. But, I don’t think that is what happens. If references to “plugged in” actually mean actively charging the high voltage battery, then that’s a whole different thing and the terminology should probably be “plugged in AND charging”.

 

[dradam]

I was an idiot about this 3 weeks ago. Credit to Tim-in-CA for the following:

1. OBDII adapter. I got the same brand Battery Tender for this (https://shorturl.at/BCA6e) but you could use any brand. Be careful that some OBDII adapters are only for keeping the car memory when you switch to a new battery and are not compatible with battery charging. This adapter is also 3A (see below).
2. Battery conditioner. I initially bought a 4amp Battery Tender and of course that blew the fuse in the OBD adapter on first use (stupid, I know). Any 3amp Battery conditioner should work fine but I have this one (https://shorturl.at/6kY8w).

I keep both of the above in my frunk, and add my Anker Solix C1000 when going off road out of cell range. If my car bricks and I cannot get into it, I have a T20 and T25 Torx stored in a Hide a Hitch and can access the frunk (see Rivian towing operator instructions here: https://rivian.com/support/article/r1-tow-operator-guide). I can plug the tender directly to the 12V battery and power with the Solix to charge the battery. This may or may not work as the 12V battery needs 30amp sustained to power up. If remote I would likely pull the fireman's loop connector and then disconnect the 12V battery ground connector. That would isolate the 12V and allow me to charge it without the Rivian wanting to draw power. Then after charging for a few hours (this is where I would yell at myself for not having a JNC660 or similar jump box), reconnect the fireman loop and then reconnect the 12V ground.

Complexities:
1. Rear pigtail connectors to the right of the rear hitch. A lot of people (myself included) have thought this could be used to charge a dead 12V battery. Unfortunately, this is NOT a direct 12V battery connection and you cannot use a low amperage battery charger like above. Furthermore, this requires 30A input for up to a few minutes, which will only give you access to the frunk, charging port, and door (different for gen1 vs gen2). Because it's not a direct battery connection unless you have OVERRIDE mode on your charger it won't work. So to use the rear pigtails you've got to have a large amperage battery jump box that has override function. These pigtails are really intended for a direct 12V charging situation (jumper cables to an ICE). It seems to me if I can access the frunk manually utilizing the manual release I would just charge the 12V directly as above. Furthermore, this only connects (AFAIK) to one battery so if the second battery has failed, this will not work (see tow operator guide above).
2. In cabin charging. The OBD port is the best option here as the 12V cigarette lighter ports will not charge the battery if the car is not awake. The OBD port is limited to 3 amps, so if the battery is dead it may take 6 hours or more to charge the 18Ah 12V battery (and that's just a single battery). This likely will not work with a dead battery given the Rivian's desire to boot up the entire system which requires up to 30A sustained.
3. Direct battery charging. You have to take off the cowling under the frunk hood to access the battery(ies). It's also a little of a PITA to get access as the frunk tub interferes with easy access to the batteries. If you have direct access to the battery you'd ideally want high amperage charging and have the advantage of being able to disconnect the high voltage battery (see above). Depending upon how psychotic you want to be about all this a dual function charger/maintainer or separate devices would be an insurance policy to cover more possibilities above. For me, I already have a smaller NOCO GB70 (which I thought would cover my dead battery needs) that I keep in the frunk that I can use to charge a dead 12V battery directly after disconnecting the high voltage battery.

I think all of this is way overkill for normal vehicle uses in civilization. But if you are adventurous with this vehicle away from power/cellular/civilization/easily accessed roads preparing for the worst can be useful.

Disclaimer: I am not an electrician and there are likely hundreds of active users on this forum that know a lot more about this than I. YMMV, etc.

Thank You for this Info !!

 

[joesmith315]

So this is an interesting one. I happened to be wasting time in the app and i saw a pending service appt to replace my 12v’s. This was added on 12/24 but they never actually contacted me about it. I havent had any warnings or issues but they are preempting any issues with replacement. Of course the earliest appt was Feb 6 but they said they would contact my service center (Shelton) to try and get it moved up. Literally ended chat and Shelton was calling me to come in 9am tm!
Service beats the hell out of my Tesla service for sure. With all the cold i would recommend keeping your Rivs on a level 2 especially if you see Vampire Drain going up mostly likely due to more frequent top ups of the 12v from the HV batt.

BTW ‘24 R1S delivered in Feb ‘24. Software 2024.47.01, VIN 36xxx

After reading this post, I checked my Rivian app and sure enough, I got the same pending service appointment message, added on the same day 12/24. I called it in and they scheduled my mobile on 1/30. For what it's worth, the service agent indicated that as long as we didn't have an error message the car is fine to drive.

I do have Home Assistant with the Rivian integration, and the 12V sensor has always shown NORMAL_OPERATION.

'24 R1S, May '24 delivery, VIN 41XXX.

 

[DB-EV]

The 12v batteries are a weak spot on these trucks. With that said, you can view the state of health for the 12v in the RIDE menu. I wouldn't spend all the money to proactively replace it. I would instead purchase a good battery bank. If/when it fails you can jump the truck back to life and then replace them. The aftermarket lithium LifePo4 batteries are pretty good. One vendor claims to have heating. As long as they have a bms and provisions to warm them up when it's really cold (LFP can be damaged by charging below freezing though they can still be discharged).

Your not overthinking it as it's a valid concern. Just better to be prepared if there is a failure because even if you spend the money to replace, there's no guarantee that you won't have a failure.

Very helpful! How do you access the RIDE menu?

I have a 22 R1s that has performed well (still getting above EPA even in moderately cold temps) but I do travel in the northeast to hit the mountains so . . . .

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