DannyC
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
This is long but technical, if it does happen to you and your stranded you may be able to get going with a 12 volt power supply of some sort with these details.
Happened on October 29th. Went out to check out the Halloween Easter egg and the truck would not unlock, rear brake lights were dimly flashing and that was it! Could not unlock the truck, nothing! Truck was charged to 70% overnight, not cold here in San Diego, maybe got into the 60s at night. I know I checked the charge earlier in the morning and it showed online and charged up as normal. I tried to crack the windows from the app and it never responded and I did not think anything of it at the time. Had the latest update when it died as it had the Halloween surprise in it that I wanted to see.
So I called Rivian service and of course they could not see it online. They were not going to be able to help m on the phone and I decided to pull the 12v jump cords out from the rear bumper and hook up a 12v power supply. According the manual up to 30amp, I just happen to have a 12v 30amp power supply so I connected it up. First I read the power with a meter and 0 volts. Either there is a diode or something to prevent power from flowing back or it was that dead. Here is my hookup.
After hooking up the power lights activated and with the remote I was able to "very slowly" unlock the doors and get in. Driver window would only go down about 1 inch at a time, obviously the 12v was very dead. Computer tried to boot up but just never quite made it all the way, tried for about 30 minutes then gave up. Here is a video of what it looks/sounds like.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mHBuLCeG3ic4sSVV6
Another strange observation was that the truck was in the high suspension mode, did not leave it that way.
Disconnected everything, pulled out as much as I could get access to, did not feel like taking apart fender to get to fronk manual release. Called Rivian again and they were going to have it towed... Not sure how you drag a 7,200 plus pound truck up while it is stuck in park. Apparently there is a manual release for the parking brake but I don't know if the tow truck driver would know how to do that.
Monday comes and no word yet from Rivian, I called them and they decided it would be better to have a mobile tech come out. That is what I was hoping for!
Tech shows up before 9am and got into the fronk through the manual pull and then starts getting access to the batteries, real nice guy, believe his name is Greg. Very knowledgeable and I asked a lot of questions so hopefully I did not bug him too much. Batteries were very dead and I learned that the 12v jump in the back only connects to the main 12v battery.
So yes there are 2 AGM 12 volt batteries, they are NOT connected in any way to each other outside of a common ground. there is a shut on the negative terminals and they are "smart" shunts and actually have a processor on them of some sort. There are roughly 6 or 7 positive terminals on top with integrated fuses, so a massive pain to get to if you had a blown fuse! He connected up both new batteries and charged them up together. Then he held the negative wires over their terminals and it looks like he was praying for a few seconds. He said both batteries need to be connected at the exact same time. He held them there then listened for a relay to click after about 10 or 15 seconds. Then he let go of the left one, tightened up the right negative terminal, then tightened up the left negative terminal.
Both batteries were replaced with new ones but he seemed to think the old ones were not damaged.
Now the truck came to life! He connected his laptop up to the ODB2 port with a network version of an ODB2 reader. Had Rivian proprietary software on his laptop then he started a calibration on everything. Windows, seats, mirrors, etc. Next he pulled logs and did see that the voltage got low, around 9 volts. Saw that one of the shunts on the batteries was not responding, he sent a reset to it and it came online.
I am still trying to get a service advisor to contact me on any root cause. I don't want this to happen to me in the middle of nowhere. The benefit of watching everything is that if it does happen and I am in the middle of nowhere I at least can get it going on my own assuming I have 12 volts of some sort.
Will update if I hear anything back from Rivian.
Happened on October 29th. Went out to check out the Halloween Easter egg and the truck would not unlock, rear brake lights were dimly flashing and that was it! Could not unlock the truck, nothing! Truck was charged to 70% overnight, not cold here in San Diego, maybe got into the 60s at night. I know I checked the charge earlier in the morning and it showed online and charged up as normal. I tried to crack the windows from the app and it never responded and I did not think anything of it at the time. Had the latest update when it died as it had the Halloween surprise in it that I wanted to see.
So I called Rivian service and of course they could not see it online. They were not going to be able to help m on the phone and I decided to pull the 12v jump cords out from the rear bumper and hook up a 12v power supply. According the manual up to 30amp, I just happen to have a 12v 30amp power supply so I connected it up. First I read the power with a meter and 0 volts. Either there is a diode or something to prevent power from flowing back or it was that dead. Here is my hookup.
After hooking up the power lights activated and with the remote I was able to "very slowly" unlock the doors and get in. Driver window would only go down about 1 inch at a time, obviously the 12v was very dead. Computer tried to boot up but just never quite made it all the way, tried for about 30 minutes then gave up. Here is a video of what it looks/sounds like.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/mHBuLCeG3ic4sSVV6
Another strange observation was that the truck was in the high suspension mode, did not leave it that way.
Disconnected everything, pulled out as much as I could get access to, did not feel like taking apart fender to get to fronk manual release. Called Rivian again and they were going to have it towed... Not sure how you drag a 7,200 plus pound truck up while it is stuck in park. Apparently there is a manual release for the parking brake but I don't know if the tow truck driver would know how to do that.
Monday comes and no word yet from Rivian, I called them and they decided it would be better to have a mobile tech come out. That is what I was hoping for!
Tech shows up before 9am and got into the fronk through the manual pull and then starts getting access to the batteries, real nice guy, believe his name is Greg. Very knowledgeable and I asked a lot of questions so hopefully I did not bug him too much. Batteries were very dead and I learned that the 12v jump in the back only connects to the main 12v battery.
So yes there are 2 AGM 12 volt batteries, they are NOT connected in any way to each other outside of a common ground. there is a shut on the negative terminals and they are "smart" shunts and actually have a processor on them of some sort. There are roughly 6 or 7 positive terminals on top with integrated fuses, so a massive pain to get to if you had a blown fuse! He connected up both new batteries and charged them up together. Then he held the negative wires over their terminals and it looks like he was praying for a few seconds. He said both batteries need to be connected at the exact same time. He held them there then listened for a relay to click after about 10 or 15 seconds. Then he let go of the left one, tightened up the right negative terminal, then tightened up the left negative terminal.
Both batteries were replaced with new ones but he seemed to think the old ones were not damaged.
Now the truck came to life! He connected his laptop up to the ODB2 port with a network version of an ODB2 reader. Had Rivian proprietary software on his laptop then he started a calibration on everything. Windows, seats, mirrors, etc. Next he pulled logs and did see that the voltage got low, around 9 volts. Saw that one of the shunts on the batteries was not responding, he sent a reset to it and it came online.
I am still trying to get a service advisor to contact me on any root cause. I don't want this to happen to me in the middle of nowhere. The benefit of watching everything is that if it does happen and I am in the middle of nowhere I at least can get it going on my own assuming I have 12 volts of some sort.
Will update if I hear anything back from Rivian.
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