Tonneau cover usability in real world? Not current/known issues

[Dman250]

I’ve read a lot about the tonneaus, took a test drive yesterday and played with the power cover, which worked fine on the test unit. I’d like some more general feedback on tonneau experience before I lock down my configuration, and my question is for actual owners who get their trucks dirty, maybe load soil/yard waste etc, or park their trucks under trees with leaves/needles/acorns that fall on the bed cover. I have a Tacoma with an inexpensive rollup soft cover and it gets filthy. I try to brush large debris off before rolling it up, but it’s not necessary and it always works. At worst I have to wipe down the Velcro to seal the sides. Also, my soft-tonneau works easily with a tailgate pad for bikes. Can the same be said for the Rivian tonneau or should I just wait for an aftermarket soft tonneau? The power tonneau is cool, the manual multi-piece tonneau seems like a less worthy compromise as it still needs to have clean guide slots etc. Again, I’m asking for actual experience on the overall concept, from people whose trucks are regularly exposed to the elements, not about specific issues with the early design which are well-documented. Thanks in advance.

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[Blueassassin]

I've been using mine without worry and it has worked every time. My only real concern is winter but i suspect it will just stay closed.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

I like my powered tonneau. I’ve had a lot of problems with my R1T but, knock on wood, the tonneau hasnt been an issue. I use it regularly, and it works. It’s not waterproof, so plan accordingly. Don’t have any cardboard or water-sensitive stuff in the bed if you’re going in a car wash or hard rain. But it does keep light mist out, and also protects against curious eyes while out-and-about.

if you are curious about a tonneau, I’d suggest the powered one. Soft tonneaus seems like just “worse” from my perspective.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

I've had no problems with mine either. Granted I haven't had my truck very long, but I still like it and wouldn't change from it.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

I’ve read a lot about the tonneaus, took a test drive yesterday and played with the power cover, which worked fine on the test unit. I’d like some more general feedback on tonneau experience before I lock down my configuration, and my question is for actual owners who get their trucks dirty, maybe load soil/yard waste etc, or park their trucks under trees with leaves/needles/acorns that fall on the bed cover. I have a Tacoma with an inexpensive rollup soft cover and it gets filthy. I try to brush large debris off before rolling it up, but it’s not necessary and it always works. At worst I have to wipe down the Velcro to seal the sides. Also, my soft-tonneau works easily with a tailgate pad for bikes. Can the same be said for the Rivian tonneau or should I just wait for an aftermarket soft tonneau? The power tonneau is cool, the manual multi-piece tonneau seems like a less worthy compromise as it still needs to have clean guide slots etc. Again, I’m asking for actual experience on the overall concept, from people whose trucks are regularly exposed to the elements, not about specific issues with the early design which are well-documented. Thanks in advance.

I never had a tonneau on my Ridgeline. Didn’t underhand the purpose of one. If I wanted a cover or a cap, I could have bought an SUV.

When I bought my F-150 Lightning, no tonneau and didn’t miss it one bit. I need to use my bed.

I got my R1T and…I don’t hate it. My truck gets dirty. I drive it. It goes through dirt and gravel. In the month I’ve had it, it’s hauled a couch to the dump. Furniture back from Costco. A set of wheels to a buyer. Cardboard boxes to the recycling center. Picked up a large metal toolbox. Goat feed. Straw. Luggage. Etc.

I’ve gotten looks and questions as to why I’d buy a 100k truck and use it like a work truck.

Open and close it goes as I usually keep it closed if I don’t have anything tall. I thought I’d be annoyed at it. I’m not. I thought it would break. It hasn’t. Mine is a LOT more quiet and smooth than the ones I saw during my Venice hub. I asked my delivery person if there was a change and they said they weren’t aware of one, so I’m not sure.

But what I am sure of is, if I had a manual one. I’d never use it. I also asked myself if I would pay for it again and thought “no” but after giving it more thought. This truck doesn’t have enough storage for me, so I probably would just to get that extra “trunk” space.

 

[Dman250]

Thanks for the comments. Just to be clear, I’m not “curious about a tonneau”. I have a soft tonneau on my current truck and find it exceptionally useful and functional; best $200 accessory I’ve ever bought. @Yellow Buddy your experience sounds good. Dirt, gravel, goat feed, straw etc are the thing so could imagine messing up the Rivian slats and it sounds like it’s worked for you. @NWCamper your comment about using the tonneau to restrain longer pieces of lumber is interesting and clever. With my current truck (5’ bed) I just open the rear sliding window and can slide a few pieces of long goods like 2x4’s or pipe all the way up to the base of the windshield. Can’t do that with Rivian’s fixed rear window.

 

[CharonPDX]

I'm in "camp no problems", but I have a few caveats:

Day one, I tried to open it, and it "caught" with the very last panel trying to go in. It closed again just fine. I quickly figured out it was that the last panel didn't "overlap" the second-to-last the way the rest of them did. I pushed up on the center of the panel while it was retracting again, causing it to "pop" back in to place and have the correct overlap. I noticed this while the delivery person was still there. Hopefully they will check other vehicles pre-delivery.

A few days later, on another open, it stuck again, the "overlap" had again fallen out of place. Popped it back in to place again, and it worked fine.

From then on, 99% of the time I open it, I stop it opening (press the button again) just before the last panel is about to go in. Have opened it many dozens of times since, and doing this, have never had it fail.

The few times I need to fully open it, I just manually guide the last panel in to make sure it goes in smoothly. Again, never had it fail since starting this. But I've only fully opened it maybe half a dozen times.

 

[MoreTrout]

I'm in "camp no problems", but I have a few caveats:

Day one, I tried to open it, and it "caught" with the very last panel trying to go in. It closed again just fine. I quickly figured out it was that the last panel didn't "overlap" the second-to-last the way the rest of them did. I pushed up on the center of the panel while it was retracting again, causing it to "pop" back in to place and have the correct overlap. I noticed this while the delivery person was still there. Hopefully they will check other vehicles pre-delivery.

A few days later, on another open, it stuck again, the "overlap" had again fallen out of place. Popped it back in to place again, and it worked fine.

From then on, 99% of the time I open it, I stop it opening (press the button again) just before the last panel is about to go in. Have opened it many dozens of times since, and doing this, have never had it fail.

The few times I need to fully open it, I just manually guide the last panel in to make sure it goes in smoothly. Again, never had it fail since starting this. But I've only fully opened it maybe half a dozen times.

Interesting. That's exactly what mine started doing a couple weeks after I got it. Never looked that closely and I just manually stop it 1 or 2 panels before full retraction. I'll give your fix a try. Mine was making some really nasty sounding grinding noises when it got to that last panel too, and also as it reached the tailgate when closing fully, so I manually stopped it both directions. Did yours also make that grinding noise or just stop? It seems to have stopped the grinding noise when fully closing though.

Other than that, it is working pretty well for me. Got it fairly dirty a few times with no additional problems. About to go into the season when I'll have it on some pretty dirty roads a lot more frequently, but also not sure how much I'll even need to open and close it. I'm just crossing my fingers it stays functional until the re-engineered replacement is available next year.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

@Yellow Buddy your experience sounds good. Dirt, gravel, goat feed, straw etc are the thing so could imagine messing up the Rivian slats and it sounds like it’s worked for you. @NWCamper your comment about using the tonneau to restrain longer pieces of lumber is interesting and clever. With my current truck (5’ bed) I just open the rear sliding window and can slide a few pieces of long goods like 2x4’s or pipe all the way up to the base of the windshield. Can’t do that with Rivian’s fixed rear window.

I used to do this all the time, for me it was typically trim or pvc pipe. It was a tad annoying on my F-150L without the rear sliding window. I haven't used the tonneau to restrain anything, I might be concerned especially with the weight of lumber. But I have used the cross to essentially sandwich the pieces, but I always end up adding a strap. I thought I'd be annoyed at the limited tie downs but they've been easy to use, the cross bars mounts have been used as tie downs, and the bed height being accessible and able to be walked around has been a tremendous plus.

Some additional data of use.
- Truck goes through an automatic car wash about once a week, tonneau gets beat around both in the open and closed position. It accumulates plenty of dust, dirt, etc. during that week but by no means is it really built up during that time.

- I drive for Roadie/UPS as a side gig. The truck gets plenty of deliveries from Tractor Supply and those tend to be deliveries that require a bed.

- I put stuff on top of my tonneau. I was told by CS a while back that the cover is load rated that "up to a foot of snow" can be supported by the cover. Based no that I have been using it. Not in terms of loading and transporting, but I've definitely used it as a holding spot while I open up the tailgate or gear tunnel to load other smaller items.

- When loading, I do push my load all the way back to center. Here's a pic of wheel delivery where you can see the wheels are up against the back wall. (Ignore the off center strap, I fixed that after the pic)

I'll report back if it breaks. I was extremely worried about it before I got the truck, but so far so good. I wouldn't say I'm abusing the cover, but I am using it as I normally would without any additional extra care. The truck is getting approximately 500 miles per week of normal use - these aren't road trip miles either.

PS @larrydallas look at that beautiful grey. Not a cloud in the sky. I can't make rhyme or reason as to why it's grey sometimes and blue other times.

 

[larrydallas]

PS @larrydallas look at that beautiful grey. Not a cloud in the sky. I can't make rhyme or reason as to why it's grey sometimes and blue other times.

Stop tempting me! You know I’m weak! Haha. Beautiful, man. Now off to the configurator to spend another 45 minutes switching color and wheel combos back and forth…

 

[louisdeg]

I didn’t want one but now I have it (store didn’t have any manual ones) and aside from one stall* I've grown to like it. I really want a cap with operating side windows but this will do for now. I stacked two folding sawhorses on it after padding it with no problem. It makes a lot of noises that make me nervous when in operation. I sprayed the tracks with pure silicone spray and that seemed to help. *The stall occurred when it hit an object on the bed that caused an error message inside. I could get no response after that. I tried restarting the screens with no effect. Service advised a reset procedure: wake the truck up so the transverse doors work then push the tonneau button four times and hold the last time… that worked.

 

[MStillman]

I’ve read a lot about the tonneaus, took a test drive yesterday and played with the power cover, which worked fine on the test unit. I’d like some more general feedback on tonneau experience before I lock down my configuration, and my question is for actual owners who get their trucks dirty, maybe load soil/yard waste etc, or park their trucks under trees with leaves/needles/acorns that fall on the bed cover. I have a Tacoma with an inexpensive rollup soft cover and it gets filthy. I try to brush large debris off before rolling it up, but it’s not necessary and it always works. At worst I have to wipe down the Velcro to seal the sides. Also, my soft-tonneau works easily with a tailgate pad for bikes. Can the same be said for the Rivian tonneau or should I just wait for an aftermarket soft tonneau? The power tonneau is cool, the manual multi-piece tonneau seems like a less worthy compromise as it still needs to have clean guide slots etc. Again, I’m asking for actual experience on the overall concept, from people whose trucks are regularly exposed to the elements, not about specific issues with the early design which are well-documented. Thanks in advance.

I just had my 2nd replacement cover installed. I actually use my truck as it is supposed to be used. I have filled up that bed regularly either tree limbs, shrubs, lumber, and equipment. I never abuse it & I keep it clean. I’d expect more than this quality and longevity.

 

[onesoil]

I just had my 2nd replacement cover installed. I actually use my truck as it is supposed to be used. I have filled up that bed regularly either tree limbs, shrubs, lumber, and equipment. I never abuse it & I keep it clean. I’d expect more than this quality and longevity.

Did they give you the new V2 version? The roll-up one with the small slats? I hope they did... I just had my fourth one installed on my 2022 Quad. The new one is everything I had hoped the original would be: smoother, faster, much quieter, and doesn't sound like it's grinding and snapping metal every time it cycles. It's awesome.

My truck was a demo that came with what I assume was a V1 (I also assume it was the original, though I have no real way of knowing that). It worked ~95% of the time, but on hot/sunny days the second slat (closest to the window) would catch on the gasket below the rear glass. If I didn't give it a strong whack right at the right time, it would stop due to the resistance of the thermally expanded slat bowing into the gasket. V1.5 was out, so I requested a replacement due to it intermittently jamming up (even though I could usually smack it into compliance). When I was with the Rivian employee halfway between where I live and the SC to exchange my truck for the loaner, I cycled the freshly installed V1.5. It failed catastrophically the first time I cycled it (can't remember if it jammed going in or out).

They sent two field technicians to do the re-install (to some extent on my insistence). The next one lasted almost a year, but it also developed the thermal expansion issue where it would catch and not return to its closed position unless I whacked it with force at the right time. So here we are on my fourth, and very much hopefully, final Tonneau

 

[skyguyscott]

No issues so far, works like a charm. Helps on your mileage, offers a fair amount of protection for anything you’re hauling in the bed that will fit under the cover. Every once in a while, I might squirt some WD-40 white grease in the track, but it doesn’t seem to need it.

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