kizamybute'
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- Joined
- Oct 17, 2021
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- This one, that one and the other one.
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EDIT 12/21/2023: Read my later posts for the daily updates. The situation just gets more interesting as each day goes on......
EDIT: 01/02/2024: Truck fixed, see details at end of post or new post in this thread if interested.
-----------------
I LOVE MY TRUCK. That's why I have one.
This is going to get long, but something I feel really needs to change if Rivian (or Tesla) is to succeed in the long run. We are the customers. We can make a difference if we all stand up for what's right. I hope others feel the same and together, we can get through to them to enact changes to their process that make it SO MUCH EASIER and far more cost efficient for Rivian.
I loved my Tesla's for 9 years. For the first two years, I LOVED Tesla's service. Then, their heads got big and we became just a number. It got worse and worse and worse until it finally reached a point where after 9 years, I was done with Tesla, despite still loving their cars. Hate the company.
Had hoped with Rivian, we'd get the white glove service experience for at least the first couple of years. But, they've followed Tesla's footprint so much that they've skipped much of that.
So far, every service experience I've had has not been the most positive one. I absolutely hate the fact that I can't pick up the phone and get a quick answer to a quick question n 30 seconds.
As much as I don't miss the "dealer" experience of traditional manufacturers, I have to say, when it comes to service, they are all MUCH easier to deal with.
Regular dealer: If my car needs service, I simply show up in the morning and drop it off. If I forgot to put something on the list of repairs, I simply call my service advisors direct contact number and have it added in a matter of seconds. Very simple.
With Tesla. EVERYTHING must be done through the app. No phone calls whatso ever. Have a quick question, be prepared to wait at least a day to get a reply. Need to get in for service for non-critical items, be prepared to have to wait at least a month, more likely several months, before they'll schedule you to come in.
To Rivian's SLIGHT credit, you can still pick up the phone. But, It's really not any better. All calls are routed to a national call center. They then put you on hold and attempt to reach the actual service center your car is at, attempting to reach the person assigned to your ticket. 99% of the time, that person doesn't answer the phone and the national service center person comes back and says "wasn't able to reach them, will have them call you". Then it's usually a day before they get back to me. What's worse, Rivian has a computer make the call. Thus, if I'm not able to pick up the phone, my outgoing voicemail message is playing a computer. By the time the human actually picks up the call, the "beep" after my outgoing message has already happened and it's recording the message. However, the person who picked up the phone, has no clue since it's quiet on his/her end. So, I constantly get voicemails of "Hello, hello, hello" then click. Because the human can't dial the number, they can't simply leave a message to answer the question and have to start the process all over again. Very annoying.
Last week, I called Service because my truck wasn't connecting to the internet. Expecting them to send out a mobile service tech to reset the truck in a matter of minutes and be done with it. I was told they could do a mobile service call. But then, they came back and said it would be toward the end of January!!! WHAT? NO! These vehicles live by the internet connection. I use my vehicle FOR work, not to commute to and from work. I NEED my navigation. I need the features that require internet connection. Not to mention, the SOS button wasn't working. So, if I ended up over a cliff somewhere, I'd be screwed. For my use, truck was unusable for my needs in this condition.
I called back to say that's simply not acceptable. It's a critical issue that needs to be addressed ASAP. After more round and round and round with the national call center, they finally got to a human who agreed, it needed to be fixed right away. They scheduled me for the next day and told me I could potentially wait for them to do the very quick fix and be on my way with my truck. At worst, they said it would be ready by the end of the day. They scheduled my appointment for Saturday at 10:00 AM.
I arrived as scheduled. Went to the front desk. The guy asked what I was there for. He had no record of my appointment. Wanted me to provide him with who specifically I spoke to. I said "whoever answered the call at the national call center". After nearly an hour, they finally found the person who approved the appointment and agreed to take my truck in.
Then said, they could not get it in immediately, thus could not wait for it, but would call me by the end of the day to pick it up. Given, my service center is two hours away. So, that meant 8 hours of round trip driving in the same day.
Late Saturday comes, I've heard nothing. I called, again, get directed to the national call center. Again, he tries to reach my service advisor at my actual service center. Again, he didn't pick up the phone. Again, was told he left a message and they would call me back. Of course, got no call back.
Called again on Monday. Same thing again. No return call. Again on Tuesday. Same thing again. Again, on Wednesday, same thing. This time, finally they called back, but got the "hello, hello, hello" message because I wasn't able to pick up at the moment and second they called. Thus, got no voicemail with any type of status update. Called again, again through the national call center. This time, I received a text. They apologized, but somehow "lost my truck" and just now got it checked in for service for the first time. This is now late Wednesday after an early Saturday drop-off!!
Seriously??? Then, they said they had to get it in to diagnose the problem and would get back to me. This, despite the fact that they already knew what the problem was.
They did diagnose it and as expected, was a very quick fix and called late Thursday to say it was ready to pick up. So, 5 days for a 10-15 minute quick fix. I asked if they also took care of the suspension problem too.
Since I've owned the truck, the front air bags appear to lose air while the truck sits. I park and it's at normal ride height. By morning, the front end is lowered 2-3 inches. I've had the truck in for service three prior times and this was on the ticket to fix each time. Clearly, whatever "fixes" they attempted, have not worked. It hasn't been critical "YET", so I haven't scheduled service just for that. But, clearly there's a leak and I worry that eventually, it could get worse, causing the compressor to overtax itself trying to keep up with the leak. Which then could lead to a critical failure of the air suspension and possibly leave me stranded. I appreciate that they've "attempted" to fix it each time, but sadly, after three tries, still haven't found the actual problem.
My issue isn't with them not getting it solved. I know they've tried. My issue however, is with getting it added to the ticket to begin with.
I always hope for mobile service appointments as naturally, that's much preferred over driving 8 hours round trip twice to get to the service center. But, when it has to go in, might as well get everything taken care of while it's there. The first three times, same exact issue over and over. Once I knew it had to go to the service center, I told them to add it to the service ticket. EVERY SINGLE TIME, they fight me on it and say, "no, we can't add it, you'll need to schedule another service call". Every time, I have to go round and round and round with them before they add it. Such a waste of my time and their time. Something unheard of at a traditional dealer. Two of the three times, despite them adding it to my ticket, they called me to say it was ready. When I asked about the air suspension, they said they didn't have it on the ticket. Even went as far as to accuse me of lying, in saying I didn't request it soon enough. Fortunately, I had all the documentation of when the request was made and per their own ridiculous rules, the requests were made 5 days in advance, photos sent, etc, etc, etc. Each time, they delayed the pick up of the truck so they could fix the suspension. As noted, they have been unsuccessful thus far. That's not my problem with it. The stupid, pointless round and round and round is what I have a problem with.
Then here we are again, for the fourth service call and again, SAME THING. Somehow, didn't get added to the service ticket, didn't get checked. So, now pickup is delayed to "likely next week". This because they are so unorganized and somehow cannot simply have the ticket show all items that are to be addressed.
So, my truck was lost for four days. Then fixed in a matter of minutes, but the air suspension not addressed, so a "quick fix" that I was supposed to be able to wait for and have back in less than an hour, has turned into likely more than a week.
Honestly, my schedule is very jam-packed. I don't have excess amounts of times to waste. Rivian (and Tesla), with their policies, certainly result in far longer wait times. Are certainly far more complicated to get answers about. Are far more complicated to add an item. With a regular dealer, truck would have been dropped off, would have called my service advisor at his direct contact number to add the additional item. He would have said, "no problem, we'll take care of it" and I'd have been off the phone in 30 seconds. With Rivian, it's at least a full day process. In this case, a 5-7 day process.
Tesla got away with it because they were the only logical EV game in town. It was their way or no way.
Rivian, is trying to do the same and can somewhat get away with it right now since EV trucks are still limited.
But, competition is heating up and in the next year or two or three, there will several viable options available to consumers. That's when all aspects become important. I hope that both, Tesla and Rivian will improve their Service Centers to be more customer friendly and efficient. Might be efficient for them this way, but they need to think of the customer's time too. Our time is valuable. The time I've wasted chasing this thing down is quite costly for me. If I'm not working, I'm not making money. So every hour I waste jumping through their hoops is literally, cash out of my pocket.
For my GM ICE cars, I literally drop them off in a matter of 15 minutes and pick them up in 15 minutes. I probably have 10+ hours into just this service call alone. Plus however much time I invested into prior service calls, which weren't far off.
I hope the consumers will stand up and make it known that we deserve better and speak up. If they do, change will come. If we simply accept it as it is, it never will. I just know that the same reasons that drove me to leave Tesla after 9 years, are appearing in my Rivian experience. Again, I LOVE MY TRUCK, but, there are some pretty good options coming to market. When they do, Customer Service is absolutely one of the factors I'll be considering in my next purchase.
EDIT: 01/02/2024 - Truck fixed and home again......
After nearly a month, finally got the truck back today. Feels a bit odd as I really did start to adjust to life without a Rivian. Have to go through that "get to know you" period again with her! LOL
Anyway, sharing the service records for anyone that may have the same issue. Not that they'll help as Rivian doesn't seem interested when you try to guide them in the right direction to save them time. But, here they are anyway. Shocked that the bill would have been over $6,400 to fix the module that broke, preventing it from connecting to the internet and to fix the sagging air suspension. Certainly will not be owning this vehicle once the warranty expires. Wondering if they will follow Tesla's lead and offer extended warranties in the future?
Do appreciate that they delivered the truck to my house and picked up the rental car and will return it for me. Happy to have saved that 3-4 hour round trip. Also, whenever they did call with updates, they were very nice each time, aside from the time that I told them about the front end sagging and when they called back and said there was nothing wrong with it, come get it. That was over two weeks ago. Only for the service advisor to walk past the truck the next day and realize.........the front end was sagging and that I wasn't lying after all. They re-entered it into service. They indicated in their testing, it no longer sags. Will check tomorrow morning to see if the third time was the charm in finding the solution.
EDIT: 01/02/2024: Truck fixed, see details at end of post or new post in this thread if interested.
-----------------
I LOVE MY TRUCK. That's why I have one.
This is going to get long, but something I feel really needs to change if Rivian (or Tesla) is to succeed in the long run. We are the customers. We can make a difference if we all stand up for what's right. I hope others feel the same and together, we can get through to them to enact changes to their process that make it SO MUCH EASIER and far more cost efficient for Rivian.
I loved my Tesla's for 9 years. For the first two years, I LOVED Tesla's service. Then, their heads got big and we became just a number. It got worse and worse and worse until it finally reached a point where after 9 years, I was done with Tesla, despite still loving their cars. Hate the company.
Had hoped with Rivian, we'd get the white glove service experience for at least the first couple of years. But, they've followed Tesla's footprint so much that they've skipped much of that.
So far, every service experience I've had has not been the most positive one. I absolutely hate the fact that I can't pick up the phone and get a quick answer to a quick question n 30 seconds.
As much as I don't miss the "dealer" experience of traditional manufacturers, I have to say, when it comes to service, they are all MUCH easier to deal with.
Regular dealer: If my car needs service, I simply show up in the morning and drop it off. If I forgot to put something on the list of repairs, I simply call my service advisors direct contact number and have it added in a matter of seconds. Very simple.
With Tesla. EVERYTHING must be done through the app. No phone calls whatso ever. Have a quick question, be prepared to wait at least a day to get a reply. Need to get in for service for non-critical items, be prepared to have to wait at least a month, more likely several months, before they'll schedule you to come in.
To Rivian's SLIGHT credit, you can still pick up the phone. But, It's really not any better. All calls are routed to a national call center. They then put you on hold and attempt to reach the actual service center your car is at, attempting to reach the person assigned to your ticket. 99% of the time, that person doesn't answer the phone and the national service center person comes back and says "wasn't able to reach them, will have them call you". Then it's usually a day before they get back to me. What's worse, Rivian has a computer make the call. Thus, if I'm not able to pick up the phone, my outgoing voicemail message is playing a computer. By the time the human actually picks up the call, the "beep" after my outgoing message has already happened and it's recording the message. However, the person who picked up the phone, has no clue since it's quiet on his/her end. So, I constantly get voicemails of "Hello, hello, hello" then click. Because the human can't dial the number, they can't simply leave a message to answer the question and have to start the process all over again. Very annoying.
Last week, I called Service because my truck wasn't connecting to the internet. Expecting them to send out a mobile service tech to reset the truck in a matter of minutes and be done with it. I was told they could do a mobile service call. But then, they came back and said it would be toward the end of January!!! WHAT? NO! These vehicles live by the internet connection. I use my vehicle FOR work, not to commute to and from work. I NEED my navigation. I need the features that require internet connection. Not to mention, the SOS button wasn't working. So, if I ended up over a cliff somewhere, I'd be screwed. For my use, truck was unusable for my needs in this condition.
I called back to say that's simply not acceptable. It's a critical issue that needs to be addressed ASAP. After more round and round and round with the national call center, they finally got to a human who agreed, it needed to be fixed right away. They scheduled me for the next day and told me I could potentially wait for them to do the very quick fix and be on my way with my truck. At worst, they said it would be ready by the end of the day. They scheduled my appointment for Saturday at 10:00 AM.
I arrived as scheduled. Went to the front desk. The guy asked what I was there for. He had no record of my appointment. Wanted me to provide him with who specifically I spoke to. I said "whoever answered the call at the national call center". After nearly an hour, they finally found the person who approved the appointment and agreed to take my truck in.
Then said, they could not get it in immediately, thus could not wait for it, but would call me by the end of the day to pick it up. Given, my service center is two hours away. So, that meant 8 hours of round trip driving in the same day.
Late Saturday comes, I've heard nothing. I called, again, get directed to the national call center. Again, he tries to reach my service advisor at my actual service center. Again, he didn't pick up the phone. Again, was told he left a message and they would call me back. Of course, got no call back.
Called again on Monday. Same thing again. No return call. Again on Tuesday. Same thing again. Again, on Wednesday, same thing. This time, finally they called back, but got the "hello, hello, hello" message because I wasn't able to pick up at the moment and second they called. Thus, got no voicemail with any type of status update. Called again, again through the national call center. This time, I received a text. They apologized, but somehow "lost my truck" and just now got it checked in for service for the first time. This is now late Wednesday after an early Saturday drop-off!!
Seriously??? Then, they said they had to get it in to diagnose the problem and would get back to me. This, despite the fact that they already knew what the problem was.
They did diagnose it and as expected, was a very quick fix and called late Thursday to say it was ready to pick up. So, 5 days for a 10-15 minute quick fix. I asked if they also took care of the suspension problem too.
Since I've owned the truck, the front air bags appear to lose air while the truck sits. I park and it's at normal ride height. By morning, the front end is lowered 2-3 inches. I've had the truck in for service three prior times and this was on the ticket to fix each time. Clearly, whatever "fixes" they attempted, have not worked. It hasn't been critical "YET", so I haven't scheduled service just for that. But, clearly there's a leak and I worry that eventually, it could get worse, causing the compressor to overtax itself trying to keep up with the leak. Which then could lead to a critical failure of the air suspension and possibly leave me stranded. I appreciate that they've "attempted" to fix it each time, but sadly, after three tries, still haven't found the actual problem.
My issue isn't with them not getting it solved. I know they've tried. My issue however, is with getting it added to the ticket to begin with.
I always hope for mobile service appointments as naturally, that's much preferred over driving 8 hours round trip twice to get to the service center. But, when it has to go in, might as well get everything taken care of while it's there. The first three times, same exact issue over and over. Once I knew it had to go to the service center, I told them to add it to the service ticket. EVERY SINGLE TIME, they fight me on it and say, "no, we can't add it, you'll need to schedule another service call". Every time, I have to go round and round and round with them before they add it. Such a waste of my time and their time. Something unheard of at a traditional dealer. Two of the three times, despite them adding it to my ticket, they called me to say it was ready. When I asked about the air suspension, they said they didn't have it on the ticket. Even went as far as to accuse me of lying, in saying I didn't request it soon enough. Fortunately, I had all the documentation of when the request was made and per their own ridiculous rules, the requests were made 5 days in advance, photos sent, etc, etc, etc. Each time, they delayed the pick up of the truck so they could fix the suspension. As noted, they have been unsuccessful thus far. That's not my problem with it. The stupid, pointless round and round and round is what I have a problem with.
Then here we are again, for the fourth service call and again, SAME THING. Somehow, didn't get added to the service ticket, didn't get checked. So, now pickup is delayed to "likely next week". This because they are so unorganized and somehow cannot simply have the ticket show all items that are to be addressed.
So, my truck was lost for four days. Then fixed in a matter of minutes, but the air suspension not addressed, so a "quick fix" that I was supposed to be able to wait for and have back in less than an hour, has turned into likely more than a week.
Honestly, my schedule is very jam-packed. I don't have excess amounts of times to waste. Rivian (and Tesla), with their policies, certainly result in far longer wait times. Are certainly far more complicated to get answers about. Are far more complicated to add an item. With a regular dealer, truck would have been dropped off, would have called my service advisor at his direct contact number to add the additional item. He would have said, "no problem, we'll take care of it" and I'd have been off the phone in 30 seconds. With Rivian, it's at least a full day process. In this case, a 5-7 day process.
Tesla got away with it because they were the only logical EV game in town. It was their way or no way.
Rivian, is trying to do the same and can somewhat get away with it right now since EV trucks are still limited.
But, competition is heating up and in the next year or two or three, there will several viable options available to consumers. That's when all aspects become important. I hope that both, Tesla and Rivian will improve their Service Centers to be more customer friendly and efficient. Might be efficient for them this way, but they need to think of the customer's time too. Our time is valuable. The time I've wasted chasing this thing down is quite costly for me. If I'm not working, I'm not making money. So every hour I waste jumping through their hoops is literally, cash out of my pocket.
For my GM ICE cars, I literally drop them off in a matter of 15 minutes and pick them up in 15 minutes. I probably have 10+ hours into just this service call alone. Plus however much time I invested into prior service calls, which weren't far off.
I hope the consumers will stand up and make it known that we deserve better and speak up. If they do, change will come. If we simply accept it as it is, it never will. I just know that the same reasons that drove me to leave Tesla after 9 years, are appearing in my Rivian experience. Again, I LOVE MY TRUCK, but, there are some pretty good options coming to market. When they do, Customer Service is absolutely one of the factors I'll be considering in my next purchase.
EDIT: 01/02/2024 - Truck fixed and home again......
After nearly a month, finally got the truck back today. Feels a bit odd as I really did start to adjust to life without a Rivian. Have to go through that "get to know you" period again with her! LOL
Anyway, sharing the service records for anyone that may have the same issue. Not that they'll help as Rivian doesn't seem interested when you try to guide them in the right direction to save them time. But, here they are anyway. Shocked that the bill would have been over $6,400 to fix the module that broke, preventing it from connecting to the internet and to fix the sagging air suspension. Certainly will not be owning this vehicle once the warranty expires. Wondering if they will follow Tesla's lead and offer extended warranties in the future?
Do appreciate that they delivered the truck to my house and picked up the rental car and will return it for me. Happy to have saved that 3-4 hour round trip. Also, whenever they did call with updates, they were very nice each time, aside from the time that I told them about the front end sagging and when they called back and said there was nothing wrong with it, come get it. That was over two weeks ago. Only for the service advisor to walk past the truck the next day and realize.........the front end was sagging and that I wasn't lying after all. They re-entered it into service. They indicated in their testing, it no longer sags. Will check tomorrow morning to see if the third time was the charm in finding the solution.
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