RJ on high $ collision repairs: "should never happen"

[Electron]

This reminds me of Tesla's decision to use a two-piece rear hatch design on the new Model Y Juniper. On the pre-refresh Model Y, many people would often open the hatch into garage doors, and even minor damage could mean a costly paint job of the entire hatch or replacing the entire hatch assembly in accidents.

With the new design, the rear spoiler section is a separate piece, making it much easier and less expensive to repair or replace. It seems like Rivian may apply the same kind of practical thinking, designing components in a way that helps reduce repair complexity and costs down the road. Maybe we'll see a multi-piece design soon?

Out with the old one piece design:

In with the new two piece design: (The spoiler part is now plastic too.)

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[Rade]

I follow the YouTube channel, "Truck Up EV's". The host loves EV trucks and has many videos pertaining to him taking his F-150 Lightning into the Canadian wilderness for camping and excursions. Much like the Doug Munroe videos, he has been all over his truck, disassembling, reassembling, upgrading, etc. Showing that the vehicle is very much built to take whatever comes it's way.

Until he went off the road and wracked up the front end.

And the insurance company, rather than make effective repairs, just totaled the truck "...because it's an EV with a big battery". And that's the other side of the equation - insurance companies being unwilling to make expected repairs to EV's. Even though, though his personal journey with learning about how his Lightning was (over) built, and that the damage was not impacting the batteries, they decided to write off the truck.

But that is a Canadian insurance company.

I do understand that here in the States, it comes down to the cost of repair over the residual cost of the vehicle which determines if an insurance company will effect a repair. When we are talking about unicast sections that have to be replaced by an aluminum specialist...

Anyhow.

 

[beatle]

My truck went to the body shop a little over a year ago to repair the rear quarter. Needed the giant panel to do it. Rivian shipped three of them in flimsy cardboard and styrofoam. The first two panels were so badly creased that they were unusable. The 3rd finally went into service. The body shop said this is a cheap way to send such a fragile panel. Total repair time was over 2 months.

While cleaning the car a little while after getting it back, I could see the remnants of a crease on the C-pillar that the panel arrived with and the shop corrected. At this point I don't really care since it's really not obvious, and the truck is a lease anyway, but it's still disappointing to see. As I said in another thread while talking about this, Rivian picked a pretty expensive way to save money.

 

[Rivdog]

RJ can’t place the blame on inexperienced/mom and pop body shops. Rivian won’t sell parts to anyone other than a Rivian-certified repair facility so it’s not likely that many people are taking their vehicles to some inexperienced repair facility.

The only one in Oregon through at least 2023 was Precision Collision Repair in a suburb of Portland. They knew it and knew that insurance would pay whatever they said. The cash grab was sickening - they charged enhanced rates and ordered parts that didn’t need replacing. I ended up paying about $8,500 to repair a deep scratch on my drivers side door and they decided to replace my rear view mirror too, for example. There was literally no where else I could go because Rivian wouldn’t allow anyone else to buy parts - that’s on Rivian.

 

[Nixapatfan]

His answers seem a little disingenuous here, there is no way he doesn't know repair costs are very high for this class of vehicle. If this trend continues with R2, Rivian will feel it hard in about 3 years as R2 owners are going to be way more sensitive to prices and less forgiving than R1 early adopters. I can already picture all the whining threads coming over the next couple months.

 

[100jacks]

It's tempting, but I just had weird transient issues and it will be an uphill battle to convince Rivian about the source of issues with aftermarket batteries. If I was out of warranty, I would go for these. And I believe we need Rivian to reset the 12v warning, not sure if that has changes recently.

Not really, you can reset on your own. Once you go to Settings > RIDE and you'll see the 12v battery reset option there. Its built in basically and it the whole reset procedure takes few seconds. It takes longer to get to the RIDE menu lol.

 

[Riviot]

You can buy entire vehicles for the price

No printer just fax

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/d4db4464-ba7f-4e8c-a910-b636baf8028f/

 

[richguess]

My old Ionic 5, which I have since sold, had a slow speed, foot off the brake etc. parking lot collision. 7 months to repair, over $12k. Hyundai had no repair parts and assigned an “ambassador “ to help me thru the process. No real help. I have voted with my feeT/wallet, and chosen other vehicles. Ionic 5, however, was a very fine EV.

 

[Weck]

I ended up having my windshield replaced at the Rivian service center because it was $100 more than having Safelite do it. For the extra money I got real OEM glass and actual Rivian techs to do the ADAS calibration, which Safelite wanted $900 for all by itself. Rivian brought Caliber in to do the actual glass replacement.

Wife's 9 yr old Mazda 3 is in for windshield replacement today... The glass itself is cheap, but it has that useless automatic braking feature, so once you add the calibration (which they will not replace the glass if you don't do it for "safety" reasons) that took the price up to $800 bucks. Safelite wanted almost a grand.

Everyone basically charges what the market will bear these days...

 

[Time2Roll]

It's tempting, but I just had weird transient issues and it will be an uphill battle to convince Rivian about the source of issues with aftermarket batteries. If I was out of warranty, I would go for these. And I believe we need Rivian to reset the 12v warning, not sure if that has changes recently.

Service mode battery reset starts about 5:20

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

My old Ionic 5, which I have since sold, had a slow speed, foot off the brake etc. parking lot collision. 7 months to repair, over $12k. Hyundai had no repair parts and assigned an “ambassador “ to help me thru the process. No real help. I have voted with my feeT/wallet, and chosen other vehicles. Ionic 5, however, was a very fine EV.

So fine you don’t remember the sub-brand is spelled with a Q?

 

[CrazyOne]

Not really, you can reset on your own. Once you go to Settings > RIDE and you'll see the 12v battery reset option there. Its built in basically and it the whole reset procedure takes few seconds. It takes longer to get to the RIDE menu lol.

That's great to know. Thanks!

 

[nsuglerio]

I will die on this hill...

RJ I made a mock up of two potential changes. ( he will never see this ) Please do this for Gen 3 my god...

My PDR guy told me over 90% of his Rivian jobs are the rear quarter panel. Same spot on the infamous $42k Rivian dent video.

A) Mostly because of the non-existent bumper that barely extends out.

B) One panel from rear quarter panel to the driver side door that requires a ton of work and even replacing the one time use rear window if you do the exhaustive fix.

Though some body shops do cut the single piece right below the back window but its still a ton of extra work for one of the most common dent areas.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

I will die on this hill...

RJ I made a mock up of two potential changes. ( he will never see this ) Please do this for Gen 3 my god...

My PDR guy told me over 90% of his Rivian jobs are the rear quarter panel. Same spot on the infamous $42k Rivian dent video.

A) Mostly because of the non-existent bumper that barely extends out.

B) One panel from rear quarter panel to the driver side door that requires a ton of work and even replacing the one time use rear window if you do the exhaustive fix.

Though some body shops do cut the single piece right below the back window but its still a ton of extra work for one of the most common dent areas.

And if you look at production version of R2, the rear quarter, you can tell they learned.

 

[nemith]

My back glass just shattered. I don't know how. There is zero damage on the rest of my truck and I never have seen a crack or a dent or anything that would say that my back glass was stressed in anyway.


TO REPLACE THE GLASS THEY HAVE TO CUT OUT AND REPLACE THE SPOILER!

The glass is ~$600-700. The Spoiler is $1500!!!! It apparently has all the antenna and shark fins and isn't at all replacable.


RJ. This isn't a collision shop don't damage. This is just awful design and designed not to be repairable at all. For glass!

Nearly $4000 all-in to replace the rear window that I am still not sure why it broke.

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