SoCal Rob
Well-Known Member
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- #1
After just over a year of ownership and finally taking a real off-road adventure, I’m giving up on keeping my Rivian... looking like new. 
Seriously, we’re not intentionally trashing it, but now that we’ve scratched a wheel and scuffed the lower plastic trim on a door it’s going to take a lot of the pressure off our next adventure.
Regarding the trash suspension of the Gen1 R1S and the potato-quality cameras of the Gen 1 R1 siblings, our Rivian was at least as good as our capable and comfortable 2006 LR3.
With the Rivian, we were able to keep our settings in all-purpose, soft ride feel, standard right height most of the time whereas we would’ve needed the equivalent of high ride height on our Land Rover. This meant the ride was more comfortable than what we’re used to. I’m sure the Gen 2 is better, but even Gen 1 is a major improvement from my perspective. More importantly, when traversing larger obstacles I could see using the firm ride feel to keep the suspension from getting unsettled. While this will undoubtedly reduce the comfort for passengers, my experience is that excessive bouncing / unsettled suspension can make things more difficult, especially in tight quarters.
We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere and on a 3-hour off-road drive we didn’t see another vehicle or person.
Unless I’m missing something, I have a minor gripe: the nav screen doesn’t show a scale indicator, even while zooming, like most other navs and map apps I’ve used. The pic above was zoomed out pretty far, ut there’s no way to judge. At 4:10 with the temperature down to only(!) 100 the air conditioning and ventilated seats kept us comfortable the whole time. I cheated a bit, however, by using Pet comfort mode whenever we stopped to stretch, take pictures, or hike. Like our Rivian, Rover had a large glass roof but with mesh roller sun shades. Still, given the volume of the interior, once these vehicles heat up it’s tough to cool them back down in 100+ temps and bright sun. Another major win for the Rivian.
Now, regarding the dreadful cameras in the Rivian Gen1, our perspective is coming from a 2006 vehicle with an XGA (1024x768) touchscreen with no camera support. I added a backup and forward facing camera to our LR3, but the Rivian’s camera views and surround video in particular are truly game-changing for us. Yes, I’m sure the Gen 2 blow them away, but from my perspective the Gen 1 are the best I’ve ever used. Another minor gripe is that it would be really nice if we could move the off-road instrumentation view to the driver display and continue to use the sender display for cameras.
Since this is Show & Tell, here are some more pics from our little adventure:
I wish I knew about geology. I am fascinated by the rock formations in the Joshua Tree area. This giant boulder was very curvilinear on the outside yet one end of it sheared off so cleanly it looks like it was done by a human.
We saw an awful lot of green and what appeared to be large trees through a little canyon. We took another trail we hoped would take us there and it did. Compare the plants in the foreground with the hills in the background for an idea of how unusual this is. With an R1S to provide a sense of scale, these are seriously large trees for the desert.
Another rock which interested me, you can see that the left end is cantilevered with nothing below that side to support it.
Again, to show the size of the rock, here’s our R1S next to it.
As we pulled up to this giant rock pile which is part of a mountain, I told my husband that it looked like there was a person up there.
From a different angle and zoomed in, I was close:
Who lugged this up there, and why? It’s a bit of a mystery so I’ll just assume it’s an art installation which and adds to the general quirkiness of the high desert.
Here are some views from a ridge on a mountain we hiked to.
Some more rock formations.
Edit:typo
Seriously, we’re not intentionally trashing it, but now that we’ve scratched a wheel and scuffed the lower plastic trim on a door it’s going to take a lot of the pressure off our next adventure.
Regarding the trash suspension of the Gen1 R1S and the potato-quality cameras of the Gen 1 R1 siblings, our Rivian was at least as good as our capable and comfortable 2006 LR3.
With the Rivian, we were able to keep our settings in all-purpose, soft ride feel, standard right height most of the time whereas we would’ve needed the equivalent of high ride height on our Land Rover. This meant the ride was more comfortable than what we’re used to. I’m sure the Gen 2 is better, but even Gen 1 is a major improvement from my perspective. More importantly, when traversing larger obstacles I could see using the firm ride feel to keep the suspension from getting unsettled. While this will undoubtedly reduce the comfort for passengers, my experience is that excessive bouncing / unsettled suspension can make things more difficult, especially in tight quarters.
We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere and on a 3-hour off-road drive we didn’t see another vehicle or person.
Unless I’m missing something, I have a minor gripe: the nav screen doesn’t show a scale indicator, even while zooming, like most other navs and map apps I’ve used. The pic above was zoomed out pretty far, ut there’s no way to judge. At 4:10 with the temperature down to only(!) 100 the air conditioning and ventilated seats kept us comfortable the whole time. I cheated a bit, however, by using Pet comfort mode whenever we stopped to stretch, take pictures, or hike. Like our Rivian, Rover had a large glass roof but with mesh roller sun shades. Still, given the volume of the interior, once these vehicles heat up it’s tough to cool them back down in 100+ temps and bright sun. Another major win for the Rivian.
Now, regarding the dreadful cameras in the Rivian Gen1, our perspective is coming from a 2006 vehicle with an XGA (1024x768) touchscreen with no camera support. I added a backup and forward facing camera to our LR3, but the Rivian’s camera views and surround video in particular are truly game-changing for us. Yes, I’m sure the Gen 2 blow them away, but from my perspective the Gen 1 are the best I’ve ever used. Another minor gripe is that it would be really nice if we could move the off-road instrumentation view to the driver display and continue to use the sender display for cameras.
Since this is Show & Tell, here are some more pics from our little adventure:
I wish I knew about geology. I am fascinated by the rock formations in the Joshua Tree area. This giant boulder was very curvilinear on the outside yet one end of it sheared off so cleanly it looks like it was done by a human.
We saw an awful lot of green and what appeared to be large trees through a little canyon. We took another trail we hoped would take us there and it did. Compare the plants in the foreground with the hills in the background for an idea of how unusual this is. With an R1S to provide a sense of scale, these are seriously large trees for the desert.
Another rock which interested me, you can see that the left end is cantilevered with nothing below that side to support it.
Again, to show the size of the rock, here’s our R1S next to it.
As we pulled up to this giant rock pile which is part of a mountain, I told my husband that it looked like there was a person up there.
From a different angle and zoomed in, I was close:
Who lugged this up there, and why? It’s a bit of a mystery so I’ll just assume it’s an art installation which and adds to the general quirkiness of the high desert.
Here are some views from a ridge on a mountain we hiked to.
Some more rock formations.
Edit:typo
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