R1S liftgate opened while driving and all luggage fell out! (Drive Cam video added)

[Dark-Fx]

This is the type of content I come to this forum for!! Potential issue, FUD, video evidence, then real explanations as to why this might happen. Great stuff.

Only thing missing is for the OP to break their accelerator pedal now.

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[VSG]

Only thing missing is for the OP to break their accelerator pedal now.

... it's a lot easier to do than you would expect ...

Oh, wait, I'm mixing my metaphors ...

 

[Mathme]

I’m surprised you’re still alive to tell the story and your wife didn’t kill or divorce ya on the spot for throwing her purse and luggage all over the road ‘for that little trick.’ (While throwing you that satanic eye glare).

I’d be sleeping in the guest room for that

 

[dleepnw]

speculation:
its possible as you were loading the luggage you might have hit the button to open the tailgate. perhaps it didnt lower but it wasnt latched. then lets assume the liftgate was lowered and you figured it was all closed when in fact the lower tailgate was not latched. the launch and luggage hitting the tailgate caused it to fully open and boom, there goes the dynamite.

if something not latched, the sensor should have gone off. maybe you should test this.

sounds like youre saying when you stopped both the tailgate and liftgate were fully open. its a bit odd though that in the video you shared the liftgate is not up nor does it appear to be lifting up. does it show that later in the video?

is it possible something was caught/stuck either in the tailgate (from before the airport) or in the liftgate after loading the luggage not allowing it to latch properly? were you on a slope when you closed the liftgate?

 

[Ecupip]

When my liftgate is closed, I can see my license plate very clearly in gearguard footage. No license plate in your footage. So the liftgate (and probably tailgate) must have been partially open before you floored it.

Still, there should have been some sort of error message when you drove off with the back open.

Will the top portion of the tailgate close automatically without the lower portion up and latched? It looks to me like the upper gate was closed, but the lower half was down and open.

 

[Hillbilly]

So I pick my wife up at the airport, and it's her first time riding in my R1S. I put her hard top suitcase, her back pack, and her jacket in the back of the R1S. I only opened the top door to do this, and left the bottom back door in the closed position. As I'm leaving the airport, I hit a stretch of straight road, glanced in my rearview mirror, and noticed there were not any cars behind me, so I came to a stop in the road. My wife asked me what I was doing, and I said, "Put your head on the back of the seat because I don't want you to hurt your neck, I'm going to blast off". She does, and I put the pedal to the metal to show off my 835 horsepower, and the zero to 60 thing in 3 seconds. Well her suitcase was loose in the back of the car, and, as you can imagine, it slams with great force into the back doors when I took off. I wasn't thinking about this at the time, but it is to be expected. What I didn't expect is to notice about a quarter mile later down the road that the back doors were open. I quickly pulled over, and ran to the back of the R1S, when I noticed her suitcase, backpack, and jacket were no longer in the vehicle. I looked back to where we came from, and her stuff was in the middle of the road. Another couple had pulled over to gather my wife's belongings and place them on the side of the road. I rushed back to the scene of the incident, and collected her things. It infuriated me that this happened, and could have been very dangerous for all your gear to leave your vehicle in front of other drivers, and could have been much worse. There was no messages from the R1S that my tailgate was not latched, but the force of the suitcase hitting the tailgate forced it open, and all items in the back of the R1S were ejected into the roadway. If this doesn't constitute a good reason for a recall, I don't know what does. I'm now scared to punch my accelerator pedal for fear that all my stuff will come flying out the back of the car. Beware, and I will be contacting Rivian Service Center, but hopefully someone important will read this and take action to contact me immediately. This is unacceptable.

You should accept some of the responsibility for what you consider be an unacceptable situation.

 

[diehlryan]

This was 100% operator error. I'm sure you bumped the liftgate button when loading your wifes stuff in the back. When you closed the tailgate I'm sure the vehicle gave you the sound it was not latched. You were too excited to see your wife and take her for a spin in your new S so you didn't notice. This isn't a Rivian problem. You, as an adult, should own your mistake and move on.

 

[LL75]

I’m surprised you’re still alive to tell the story and your wife didn’t kill or divorce ya on the spot for throwing her purse and luggage all over the road ‘for that little trick.’ (While throwing you that satanic eye glare).

I’d be sleeping in the guest room for that

Probably tell the story from the dog house !

 

[brancky3]

You should accept some of the responsibility for what you consider be an unacceptable situation.

Accountability? Here? No way, it's definitely Rivian that causes all these 'safety issues' that people complain about.

 

[ModestoMan]

Sweet post. Totally fits!

 

[SDH]

All I can say is at least you didn't have a dog in the back!

 

[OldGoat]

So I'm reminded of a story from many, many years ago. I take the day off to aerate the yard, so my wife takes my car to work. I take her Explorer to the rental place to rent an aerator for the day. The people at the rental place load it up and off I go. At the top of the exit ramp on the way home there is a stoplight. When the light turns green, I take a left turn. Now this is a Ford Explorer, starting from a stop so it's not like I am flying. Boom!!! I thought someone fired a shotgun at me. Nope, the aerator went through the back window.

Fortunately, I was able to get the glass replaced that day. However, the kicker was that when I took the aerator back, the person noticed some pieces of glass in the back. He turned to me and said "the aerator went through the window, right?" I said, "yes". He then said, "that always happens when you put it in with the handles pointing backwards" I said "y'all loaded it!" His response: "well we put it in backwards." Thankfully, the good Lord gave me the strength to just smile without saying a word.

 

[OldGoat]

A second story. Again, many years ago my wife got an X3. Brand new, first time I'm driving it. We are out on country roads, I round a bend and there are a bunch of buzzards on a kill. I figure they'll fly away once I get close, so I don't bother to brake.

Yeah, you guessed it, they didn't take flight until it was too late. A couple of direct hits to the front of the car. Fortunately, once I cleaned off the feathers and guts, there was no real damage...well to the car that is. Even after all these years, my wife will still pull out the buzzard incident. (Yeah, I deserved it.)

So to the OP, if your wife is like mine, you will be reliving this incident for a long, long time!

 

[Skigh]

Oh man... I wish AJdelange was around to weigh in on this one.... miss that guy.

 

[PappaBolt]

Maybe we need an unsecured luggage sensor that rate limits the horsepower. I sense a safety campaign if this happens one more time. Any volunteers?

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