diranged
Active Member
- First Name
- Matt
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2022
- Threads
- 12
- Messages
- 44
- Reaction score
- 118
- Location
- SF Bay Area, Ca
- Vehicles
- 2022 Rivian R1T
- Occupation
- Engineer
- Thread starter
- #1
Ok, writing this up on my phone - so forgive the brevity. Short story.. we took a snowy drive in South Lake Tahoe to Lower Echo Lake. I stopped short of driving down the last section of the trail because it seemed like a bad idea. Then while walking down to the lake, we found a stuck Subaru with the family (and small child). Against my better judgement, I drove down the last section of the hill and we got them out. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that while trying to make it up the hill to leave we slid a little off track and bashed into a rock probably 2’ in diameter. Because we were trying to maintain upward momentum, we were moving pretty quick when we hit it, so it was not a light tap. We backed up, took a different line, and made it out.
Ok! So it’s obviously driver error.. but we did learn a few things.
1. No matter how much snow-experience you have, 7000+ Lbs is really hard to handle in the snow. There really isn’t much I think Rivian can do here.. other than lighten the car over the years as battery tech improves.
2. I hit that rock HARD. I did damage the wheel and front corner bumper… but surprisingly everything is solid still. I’m really surprised the damage isn’t worse.
3. I’m not going to repair the wheel for now - just going to swap it with my full sized spare. If I did replace it, it’s apparently a $500-$600 wheel. That’s a very reasonable price for how solid it is. My wife’s Infinity wheels are $1100 each!!
4. Rivian is going to replace the corner bumper piece, and the wheel well liner. They’ll come to my house to do it. The cost of parts and labor is $750, which seems like a deal. Sure, I might be able to do It cheaper myself - but honestly it’s still like $500 in parts, so spending $250 more for them to do the work is a no brainer.
The bad news is that while trying to make it up the hill to leave we slid a little off track and bashed into a rock probably 2’ in diameter. Because we were trying to maintain upward momentum, we were moving pretty quick when we hit it, so it was not a light tap. We backed up, took a different line, and made it out.
Ok! So it’s obviously driver error.. but we did learn a few things.
1. No matter how much snow-experience you have, 7000+ Lbs is really hard to handle in the snow. There really isn’t much I think Rivian can do here.. other than lighten the car over the years as battery tech improves.
2. I hit that rock HARD. I did damage the wheel and front corner bumper… but surprisingly everything is solid still. I’m really surprised the damage isn’t worse.
3. I’m not going to repair the wheel for now - just going to swap it with my full sized spare. If I did replace it, it’s apparently a $500-$600 wheel. That’s a very reasonable price for how solid it is. My wife’s Infinity wheels are $1100 each!!
4. Rivian is going to replace the corner bumper piece, and the wheel well liner. They’ll come to my house to do it. The cost of parts and labor is $750, which seems like a deal. Sure, I might be able to do It cheaper myself - but honestly it’s still like $500 in parts, so spending $250 more for them to do the work is a no brainer.
Sponsored