Motortrend article on Conserve Mode causing tire wear

[jeeden]

IMO, this is a marketing problem and I still say that Rivian should rebrand conserve mode to reserve, stretch, or something else that discourages full time usage of the mode...

https://www.motortrend.com/features/rivian-r1t-r1s-tire-wear-conserve-mode-opinion/

Rivian Owners Are Unknowingly Doing a Dumb Thing and Killing Their Tires. They Should Stop.
It turns out something Rivian owners think is helpful is actually causing premature tire wear.

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[Redline]

I've used conserve on long highway trips and my tire wear is just fine at 7k miles.

 

[Dark-Fx]

I've used conserve on long highway trips and my tire wear is just fine at 7k miles.

My first fronts were past the wear bars after 7k miles, used conserve a lot on my commute and the alignment was bad. Rivian comped those two tires.

 

[NeedSumCoffee]

Great info!

 

[JeffreyD]

I only use Conserve Mode on my R1S on long trips. I don't feel it rides as well or feels as secure as All Terrain mode. So far I have no problems with tire wear. I found the article interesting as it pointed out the change in the tire angle as the culprit. This is exactly the problem that my tire shop pointed out when I noticed the inside edge tire wear after they took off the winter tires on my wife's Tesla Model Y, which gets about 15K miles per set of tires. He told me the Model Y alignment was slightly angled in to give it better handling. Thanks for sharing the article; I will be more conscious of only using Conserve mode when I really need the extra range to get to the next charging station.

 

[SwampNut]

Is the conserve mode locked out while towing? It won’t lower the vehicle with a trailer connected for obvious reasons.

 

[prism7118]

Motor Trend forgot to mention that you can change the suspension height in conserve mode. Once you change it to Normal height from Auto, it sticks so that next time you use conserve, it stays in Normal height.

Also, they say that the dual motor doesn’t have a conserve mode, but on long stretches of highway where most people will use conserve on the quad, the dual motor will also be FWD.

 

[cbrcanuck]

This was one of the nuggets of info I learned on here a long time ago. I only use conserve on long highway stretches, and then go back to AP if it gets hilly or curvy to “save” the tire wear. I also noticed on downhills it only regens with the front wheels when in conserve, and I assume it’s a weaker regen than if in AP.

 

[S.Mueller]

My take from the article is to only use “Conserve” mode on highway or other trips where speed is fairly consistent and put the suspension in “Standad/Normal”. I also usually change to “All Purpose” on longer downhills to gain more regen from the rear motors.

 

[Mathme]

15k miles on my R1T with 20" ATs. Tires always wore evenly in AP, Auto height. Never really used Conserve - always in AP until recently when I gave conserve a try for a change. In those 300ish miles, I noticed cupping on the outside of the front tires. Now back to my original plan -- AP it is unless I really need the extra miles to get to a charge stop.

The extra tire wear isn't worth the extra 15-18 miles per usable charge in the long run.

 

[mkg3]

R1S 22”, 12k miles and one tire rotation at 7.5k miles.

Have used conserve mode for roughly 2.5k miles, all on road trips on highways only with moving traffic. In steady state cruise.

My F/R tire wear is even, the same, and about 40% wear from original. Fully expect 25k~27K miles on the OE tires.

Its the stop and go, like city driving, heavy traffic that really affect the tire wear differently from the driving tire vs rolling tire; hence, conserve mode using FWD wears the front faster if used in daily driving. Also FWD the propelling wheel in addition to directional change wheel so its worse than just RWD.

 

[iansriv]

My take from the article is to only use “Conserve” mode on highway or other trips where speed is fairly consistent and put the suspension in “Standad/Normal”. I also usually change to “All Purpose” on longer downhills to gain more regen from the rear motors.

That makes sense. I'm at about 7k so far and have not used conserve yet. I'm sure it's useful where you mentioned but I've had it on auto since day 1 and just leave it on that.

 

[evguy]

We drive in All Purpose locked into standard height 95% of the time. We only use auto height, and sometimes Conserve, on long road trips. We got 28,000 miles on the first set of tires, and when we switched them out, the wear on the inside edge was still noticeably worse. That said, I think we only rotated them once. Planning to rotate the new set every 7,000 miles or so and hopefully squeeze more miles out of them.

 

[Steve A.]

IMO, this is a marketing problem and I still say that Rivian should rebrand conserve mode to reserve, stretch, or something else that discourages full time usage of the mode...

https://www.motortrend.com/features/rivian-r1t-r1s-tire-wear-conserve-mode-opinion/

Rivian Owners Are Unknowingly Doing a Dumb Thing and Killing Their Tires. They Should Stop.
It turns out something Rivian owners think is helpful is actually causing premature tire wear.

I sent the author the reply below.

I just read your article on Rivian tire wear and it was spot on as far as the Conserve mode being the primary cause. ​

​

However, ride height is not a major factor as demonstrated by my almost perfectly even tire wear while driving neatly 100% in Sport mode with lowest ride height and still on my original set of tires (22" wheels) with 30k miles coming up on my delivery anniversary date in a couple weeks. When I rotated them @11k and 22k I measured the inside, middle, and outside tread wear and they were all within 0.5mm of each other. ​

​

Another factor which definitely contributes to tread wear is inflation; I keep mine inflated at the max since most of my miles are highway miles.​

 

[usofrob]

I wonder if alignment differences might account for you being able to stay in sport mode lowest all the time versus others.

I've also wondered if sport mode uses the rear motors more than all purpose. Has anyone spent time looking at the power output/input per motor in different modes to see if they work differently?

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