Yes.. leaning on the soft aluminum hood of an R1 series
Exactly. Last summer I was parked near a baseball field and a foul ball was hit nearly straight up in the sky and guess where it landed? Yup, right on the panoramic glass roof on my Jeep. Just bounced right off, no damage at all. I'm actually happy that it hit the glass instead of the sheet metal because I surely would have had a dent to contend with. Anyway, in my opinion, a glass roof should have some durability, especially on vehicles meant for "Adventure"
Sorry to hear of your incident. Do you know if the new Rooftop replacement glass is any better quality than the original glass?On Christmas Eve I decided to string some Christmas lights around my roof rails to get in the holiday spirit. The weather was pleasant for that time of year in SC (definitely not freezing). While standing on a 5-rung step ladder with the roof line a little under chest-level, I happened to rest my left elbow about 12-15 inches inside the edge of the roof glass (passenger side, above the area just behind the front passenger seat-back). Immediately there was a crunching sound as if a layer of ice suddenly crushed under my elbow. It was not ice, but it was the glass roof of my brand new R1S.
Now I am not an engineer, but I’d be shocked if I had more than 20 lbs of pressure on that spot—probably about what someone would exert when forgetting their manners at the dinner table). I am, however, an experienced corporate attorney that has worked in-house for a major manufacturer handling their litigation and quality-related claims—so I know a bit more about products liability and manufacturer warranties than the average person.
I’m seeing quite a few reports on this forum about similar issues with the roof glass. Even situations where the glass spontaneously cracks going through a car wash on a hot day.
In my case (and by the sound of it, in many of your cases), I suspect the crack has a lot to do with the misalignment of the body panels that support the edge of the glass which would likely cause the panel to have a slight amount of flex to it, rendering it vulnerable to cracking with very little pressure. I doubt it’s a material selection issue—despite me asking at least 3 customer service reps since the incident, no one at Rivian can tell me how much weight or pressure the glass is designed to withstand before cracking (what happens in the event of a rollover???).
Of relevance to that suspicion, when my R1S was delivered, I had to immediately schedule a service appointment to fix a misalignment in the rear hatch which caused it to make a loud thumping sound each time it opened. The left rear door was also misaligned relative to the rest of the body, and the door handle was missing a bracket or something which caused it to recess inward instead of being flush with the door panel when locked.
At that time I also noticed that the edges of the roof where the body panels meet and support the glass looked to be slightly misaligned by a few millimeters at the joints. I didn’t raise it as an issue for that first appointment because I figured it wasn’t a big deal and that they’d probably fix it during that service appointment if it were.
Fast forward to the glass incident: when I dropped it off for this second service appointment (which was also for them to re-repair the door and door handle issue because the first repair was poorly performed and didn’t resolve the issue), the service center immediately concluded that the glass was not a repair they would cover under warranty, and they plan to charge me $2500 when it is complete.
Here’s the rub: While the warranty states that generally broken glass is not a covered item, there is a very clear exclusion for defective materials and/or workmanship.
When you stop and think about it, Rivian markets itself as an adventure vehicle brand. The vehicles are shown traversing all kinds of rugged terrain, and they obviously include features that enable owners to do all sorts of off-roading. They sell roof rack attachments for all kinds of recreational equipment (kayaks, bikes, skis, boards), and even a tent that gets mounted on the roof. Does it really square with that ethos that such a minor amount of pressure (not even an impact, mind you) would cause it to crack? I do not think so.
Obviously I cannot prove to them that what I said happened actually happened, and that I didn’t smash it with a hammer or drop a kayak on the roof to cause the crack, and I don’t necessarily expect them to automatically take my word for it. However, it was very clear to me they did not bother looking further than the crack in the glass before coming to their conclusion.
I’ve seen people on here weigh in and say “report it to your insurance” or “it’s broken glass, so therefore you should just suck it up and pay.” For one, that doesn’t help Rivian improve (they need this sort of feedback loop from us Beta testers of their almost $100K vehicles), and secondly that completely ignores the warranty language permitting recovery for failure in materials or workmanship.
In my mind one of these must be true 1. Rivian designed the vehicle this way—-it selected glass for the roof that should and will crack under the slightest pressure (seems unlikely, and I didn’t see any warnings about that in the manual—you can literally stand on a Tesla Model X glass roof without it cracking). If that’s the case then they should let owners know that it is unusually fragile for a luxury adventure vehicle (to the point where I’d argue a reasonable person would not expect it to be so fragile), or 2. The glass was installed in such a way that made it especially vulnerable to cracking when any pressure was applied to the vulnerable areas. If that’s the case, then it’s clearly an issue of poor workmanship or defective materials, which is covered under warranty.
At any rate, I would love to hear from anyone that has experienced a similar event and got more information out of Rivian which could be helpful (especially if they’ve told you how resilient the roof glass is designed to be). I have included some pictures of my issue for your reference.
[UPDATE 1/25/24]: Service Center agreed to repair it for free, and that they will test the resiliency of the glass to ensure it isn’t so fragile before they get it back to me. That said, they’re still researching what the designed load/impact resistance is supposed to be in order to validate the repair resolved the issue permanently (the technician off the record said that it definitely should not crack that easily). My obvious concern is that if it’s an issue with how the body panels supporting the glass are aligned, then it will still have uneven tension around the glass and eventually crack again. Will update with more info on that front if and when I get it.
[UPDATE 2/2/24]: Here's a wild coincidence I just learned of while dropping my kids off at school this morning. My kids go to a small elementary school (certainly fewer than 200 kids total). We already knew there was another family at school with the same exact Rivian configuration right down to the forest green color (Launch Edition R1S, Large Battery Pack, etc.). I've walked to the wrong one in the parking lot on more than one occasion because their R1S was delivered around the same time as or shortly after mine (within a week or two, I believe).
The guy who owns it noticed I was driving a Compass Yellow R1T today (the loaner they gave me) and he asked if I had purchased a second Rivian. I started to explain my situation and barely got the words "and then the roof cracked" out of my mouth when he interrupted me to tell me about how their R1S was just in the Service center for the same repair because the roof cracked spontaneously while they were driving (he thinks he may have hit a pot hole or something right when it happened) only a couple weeks after delivery. Rivian did their repair free of charge as well. Small world.
Side note: Yes, I am still driving a loaner (after more than 2 weeks since dropping it off). Rivian called last night to inform me that will be another 2 weeks until I get it back because they haven't been able to solve the issue with the misaligned rear passenger door. So they had to send it back to a local body shop to try and put on a new door because the first new door they put on didn't work out.
He did say they fixed the glass, but they still could not say what the designed stress tolerance was for the roof glass not to crack or even what type of glass it was--the Service rep could only say that "it was not designed to be weight bearing" in a tone that told me he didn't think it really made sense either (give my questions about squirrels and acorns triggering $2,500 repairs and the fact that they literally sell a tent that mounts on the roof rails but somehow didn't foresee that a hand or other limb may come in contact with the glass at some point when mounting, entering or exiting the thing--not to mention kayaks and paddle boards). Anyhow, I'll pass along any other info they give me for anyone it might help.
At this point in time, the OEM roof glass is the only replacement available, no aftermarket/3rd party offerings available.
Got the R1S back but Rivian would not cover it under warranty. The tech said he'd never seen it or heard about it before. $1200 replacement cost.
You can go to any vehicle owner site and hear complaints about the glass. The fact is that all vehicle manufacturers have made a concerted effort to reduce weight of their vehicles to increase range or mileage. One of the low hanging fruit is the glass. If you reduce the glass thickness you remove a not inconsequential amount of weight. This increases range by a small amount, and means we all buy more windshields and sunroofs. Since more manufacturers add electronics to the front glass, such as cameras and moisture sensors, this means they all cost more, and require calibration when replaced. If you want the range and the electronics, you live with the consequences.
I have sat on my sunroof without damage.
