So your alignment is bad? Maybe this is why.

[SecretService]

My R1T has been making progressively worse noises from the front end. There’s suspension squeaking and clunking going over ”soft” 20mph residential street speed bumps, there’s creaking when starting from a standstill, and now there’s even a small thud when you transition from accel to decel (similar to differential lash, but I swear it wasn’t there before). I *finally* have a service appointment next week (only after me calling service multiple times to follow-up on why my tickets were seemingly ignored), but I am planning on doing some towing this weekend, so I really wanted to know if there was something about to fall apart. So I looked under my truck today.

Well, I didn’t find any fastener that was outright about to fall off, but I did find that three of the lower A-arm eccentric alignment bolts are apparently not tight enough.

Note that none of the green torque marks are aligned anymore on these fasteners, meaning that my alignment has almost certainly shifted.

I can only think of two explanations for this, and neither is really that great:
1) the folks responsible for setting the torque wrenches in the factory are not doing their job right, and none of the torque wrenches are properly calibrated, or
2) the engineers who spec’d the fastener tightening torque don’t know how to properly calculate clamping loads, and so the fastener is tightened to spec, but that’s not enough to keep the joint from slipping. Maybe the fastener is tightened as much as the fastener type allows, but the fastener is underspec’d for the loads it sees.

Or maybe I just got a truck assembled on a Friday afternoon (or Monday morning)? I’m very curious to see if others are seeing the same slipping on their alignment bolts. When I get my truck back from service I’m definitely going to be re-marking the fasteners to see if they start slipping again.

Oh, and I didn’t figure out where the noise is coming from. I half-expect that the motor mounts are also slipping, but I couldn’t easily see to inspect, and I don’t want to take anything apart and take away the opportunity for Rivian to learn that none of their fasteners are staying put.

So I just got my truck back last week with alignment concerns that they claimed to fix and now I’m noticing my truck is making louder creaks/groans and such sort of like your describing… I wonder if that’s due to the “over torque” mentioned in this post… this is pretty concerning. Parts shouldn’t just slowly come apart… rivian needs to figure this out pronto and get trucks in before something seriously bad happens.

Sponsored

 

[moosehead]

Wondering if this is related to the broken control arm trailside in another thread. Seem to recall they welded another threaded bolt to the broken arm.

Thanks for posting this.

 

[AxelR]

I'm in the 8XXX VIN range and have what'd I'd consider a noisy a hell suspension. My service appointment is a month away and I don't really intend to do any long distance travel until I can get to service. I'm not new to early adopter woes but for a company pushing a premium product I'd think they'd be able to torque bolts correctly so that they stay put, its not exactly a new thing.

I feel you on the long distance. In reality, if something could get undone, it could happen anytime unfortunately.
This whole thing makes me a bit worried. Every weekend we drive between 350-500 miles and some of it is off-road (not rock crawling but more intense than a gravel road).
I agree that any company, especially a company claiming that they are selling a higher end vehicle, should have quality at the top of their list.

 

[ATL_R1S]

Wondering if this is related to the broken control arm trailside in another thread. Seem to recall they welded another threaded bolt to the broken arm.

Thanks for posting this.

That was a tie rod end, not a control arm. Steering related, not suspension.

 

[kanundrum]

So that is a standard camber bolt that is yes suppose to not be adjusted and torque to spec, with that in mind on a suspension that lowers and raises with height you get natural camber the minute you go down (simple physics) the lower you are the more natural camber you have. You have to dial out suspension at a happy medium (I am guessing all purpose) where you basically have it set to a perfect config to account for every scenario. Here are factory specs, if the camber bolt is getting loose it needs to be torqued more or get some locktite going as the constant raising and lowering is probably loosing the bolts.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

if the camber bolt is getting loose it needs to be torqued more or get some locktite going as the constant raising and lowering is probably loosing the bolts.

Time to bust out the Vibratite VC-3. Good enough for fighter jets... Should be good enough for Rivian.

https://www.vibra-tite.com/threadlo...ble-threadlockers/vibra-tite-vc-3-threadmate/

 

[kanundrum]

Time to bust out the Vibratite VC-3. Good enough for fighter jets... Should be good enough for Rivian.

https://www.vibra-tite.com/threadlo...ble-threadlockers/vibra-tite-vc-3-threadmate/

My wife wanted to throw away my fav pair of jeans because the zipper had become loose over time, in comes the vibra tite. Worked too well, zippers were locked for months. Ill let @opnwide handle the innuendo

 

[opnwide]

My wife wanted to throw away my fav pair of jeans because the zipper had become loose over time, in comes the vibra tite. Worked too well, zippers were locked for months. Ill let @opnwide handle the innuendo

This will definitely result in a broken control arm and seized ball joint.

 

[mindstormsguy]

you get natural camber the minute you go down (simple physics) the lower you are the more natural camber you have

That’s how a MacPherson strut works, but this isn’t a MacPherson strut. If you design a suspension with 6 inches of nominal ride height adjustment, you’re going to try to keep the camber pretty constant, which Rivan did. It’s not “simple physics”, it’s 100% dependent on the suspension design. You could design a suspension that gained camber during compression if you wanted to. You just wouldn’t, because that would be stupid, and would be detrimental to handling. I don’t really see what this has to do with fasteners being loose anyway.

camber bolt is getting loose it needs to be torqued more or get some locktite going as the constant raising and lowering is probably loosing the bolts

It’s three bolts, so that’s probably two camber and a castor. Locktite wont prevent the joint from slipping. Locktite isn’t a solution to “my fastener doesn’t have enough preload”, which is what I’m more afraid of here. I’ve never worked on a vehicle that required locktite to keep alignment bolts from backing out. Normally the amount of preload required by the joint to hold the alignment is also more than enough to keep the threads from backing off. As crash pointed out above though, I suppose it‘s not uncommon for some vehicles to have a problem holding an alignment (though that’s more a 90s thing I thought, before we got the fancy simulation tools we have today). A factory car, driven on the street, under normal loads shouldn’t lose an alignment in only a few thousand miles :/.

The only thing I really agree with is that this is likely a difficult engineering problem due to the massive ride height adjustment. I’ve always wondered “how do they get a bushing to rotate so much?” I guess the answer might be “they don’t”. I wouldn’t be surprised if the torque on the inner sleeve of the bushing ends up slipping. …though that wouldn’t explain why the fastener itself seems to be moving.

 

[bwoodahl]

Maybe update the title to include "and/or you have odd suspension noises..."

 

[crashmtb]

My first question was whether they were TTY, TTA or what? I'd want to know that before Rivian serviced my truck and just stuck the same TTY bolts back in instead of replacing.

That depends how much they are being overtightened, probably. Either way they're likely stretching the fastener to the point of it becoming single use.

If the fix is "more ugga-dugga" I'd insist on new bolts..

 

[Acoustic71]

Time to bust out the Vibratite VC-3. Good enough for fighter jets... Should be good enough for Rivian.

https://www.vibra-tite.com/threadlo...ble-threadlockers/vibra-tite-vc-3-threadmate/

Cool! That would also let me mount my trusty M2 .50 Cal on a swivel mount in the bed! Ah, the memories....

 

[kurtlikevonnegut]

Cool! That would also let me mount my trusty M2 .50 Cal on a swivel mount in the bed! Ah, the memories....

ALL HAIL MA DUECE!

 

[Acoustic71]

 

[lostpacket]

Or......you could have this. How about the nut that holds the upper ball joint on wasn't tightened and it comes off, leaving you incredibly close to a spectacular crash? Very, very, scary.

My right front suspension continually slowly bled off, so it went in for service for replacement. Within a few miles after it's return, on making a turn the whole front end (and steering wheel) lurched to the side for a second, and then straightened back out. Fortunately I've worked in the 4x4 world enough to know something was seriously, and dangerously wrong. My stomach turned when I saw how close the ball joint was to pulling all the way out. I had my kid with me and had been cruising at 70 just minutes before. It could have been very bad. That's what holds the front wheel vertical and the front end together. I've seen them fail in offroad racing, and it isn't pretty, but this was simply a lack of quality control in service.

They did take care of me (loaner,expedited service), but swore up and down that the tech had torqued everything to the proper specs, which obviously wasn't true.

So I think someone posted on FB the whole front left wheel came off. And I think it was missing this bolt as well.

Brand new truck 98XX VIN.

I am not in the FB group but this was shared by @kanundrum on discord:

Sponsored