Very disappointing snow experience

[Marchin_MTB]

I’ve been driving in some wet snow and snow covered ice for a few weeks here. We also did a trip up to the RMNP area for the weekend where it seemed like every single parking lot was covered in ice. I have to say the 21” stock all seasons + Snow Mode has given me no issues. Knowing how incredibly heavy this truck is, I’m pretty impressed actually. I was even in a parking lot where a van with ATs had to bail on parking entirely because they couldn’t handle the slope of the lot in all the ice…. They just kept going sideways. Though to be fair they may not have had awd… still no problems for us and I didn’t even detect wheel slip. Of course YMMV.

Sponsored

 

[mabowden]

I would at least have taken snow socks with me, and I live in socal and almost never see snow. I've taken socks or chains every time I hit the mountains and luckily never have had to use them, but you still take them for times like this.

Just seems wildly unprepared. Makes me cringe a little.

 

[crashmtb]

All seasons? More like no seasons!

performance oriented all season Tires are useless in winter.

 

[NY_Rob]

I had a Plug-in-Prius with X-Ice winter tires that was way better in snow than our Expedition with AT tires.

 

[MichaelD]

Given the title, I opened this thread with some concern. Then I LOL'd.

 

[DTown3011]

I had a Plug-in-Prius with X-Ice winter tires that was way better in snow than our Expedition with AT tires.

This^^^^

tires will trump everything including 4WD/AWD every. Single. Time.

 

[Dark-Fx]

The bottom line is, there is no substitute for winter tires!!!

Pff, studded tracks and skis

 

[SDH]

So many people think they will be okay in the snow if they have a 4x4 or awd . Tires matter, a lot. Ive had rear wheel drive sports cars with snow tires, and they were great. Watch this, really is cool.

I would echo this 100%. The tires are a massive factor in snow/off road regardless of drivetrain.

 

[Inkedsphynx]

All the power and software in the world mean nothing if your tires don't have good contact. It'd be like slapping MTs on a Bugatti and wondering why it's getting roasted in the quarter mile (to be fair, it would still probably beat most things lol).

Anyway, yea, as others have said, this isn't Rivian's poor performance, it's your unrealistic expectations for 22" street tires.

 

[cbrcanuck]

R1T on 22" all-season tires: I live in the Utah mountains and we have 3+ feet of snow on the ground, so I have driven up and down the mountain passes to the ski resort 12 mins away many times, with little issue. However, today we headed up to Snowbird as the snow was falling hard. It had turned from rain to slush to snow and was admittedly slicker than normal, but as we progressed up a steeper incline, I couldn't keep the truck from sliding sideways as the tires slipped. The truck slowed to 8 to 9 mph and wouldn't go faster. I couldn't even make the tires spin if I wanted to. It was like it went into a turtle mode but had no indicators. I decided to put it in Sand mode as none of the other modes seemed to help, as I hadn't updated the software to have access to a Snow mode yet. I barely made it to snowbird. Yes, i don't have dedicated snow tires and I am sure I will get a lot of "duh" comments saying they aren't meant for snow and they are also 22" but it is disappointing performance regardless. Unlike a traditional 4x4 (5 Jeep Grand Cherokees in our family over the years), there wasn't that clear sense of the 4x4 doing some extra work despite poor tire grip.

Time to bite the bullet for snow tires.

We see this all the time in Vancouver. 4x or AWD does not compensate for a lack of snow tires. It may help with a certain specific set of circumstances but slick conditions + hills = need snow tires. Disappointing experience for sure, but it's with the tires not the truck.

 

[sierraskier]

You should pickup some snow socks, I hear they work really well on street tires in the snow.

 

[Tejkalra]

Only thing I m disappointed at is heater. The heating system sucks. And I live in California. It sucks even for California.

 

[Mathme]

And the Darwin Winter Driving Award goes to.........

 

[Dark-Fx]

Only thing I m disappointed at is heater. The heating system sucks. And I live in California. It sucks even for California.

My heater is great in Michigan.

 

[Marchin_MTB]

Only thing I m disappointed at is heater. The heating system sucks. And I live in California. It sucks even for California.

They need to address this. When it’s really cold out, it does well initially raising the temperature but after a while does some funny switching between cold and hot that is just plain uncomfortable … but there’s already a separate thread on this.

Sponsored