DevSecOps
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Todd
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2023
- Threads
- 2
- Messages
- 169
- Reaction score
- 409
- Location
- Sacramento, CA
- Vehicles
- 2023 R1T, 2023 M3P, 2021 Audi SQ5
- Occupation
- CISO
- Thread starter
- #1
Preface:
The purpose of this thread is to discuss my experience with service and failure of the bidirectional mode module, something I couldn't find any other instances of. Some of you might know me from the MachE forum. For those who don't, I wrote the HVBJB failure thread and assisted Ford triaging hundreds of HVBJB failures. I've also done a few posts highlighting the differences between the MME and the R1T over on the MachE Forums.
That being said, I love my R1T and I have no agenda other than to bring light to the positives and negatives regarding my service experience. I'm a Rivian stock holder and only wish them the best, but I do feel there's room for improvement.
I picked up my R1T on June 14th, 2023. This failure happened exactly 2 months after I picked it up.
Failure of the Bidirectional Mode Module:
08/14/23 - While driving about 60 mph I received an error on the IPC which stated "Vehicle Battery Issue - Service Truck Soon". Based on my preface, and if you're familiar with the HVBJB fiasco from Ford, you would know that "Service Vehicle Soon" is a very ominous message and one that I have a lot of experience with.
I immediately pulled into a shopping center parking lot and called Rivian. They asked me to do a full reset, a partial reset and also leave the car for 30 minutes and return. Nothing resolved the issue. I asked the person who I was speaking with if the truck would eventually brick itself from this message. I was told that this particular message isn't one they see often, and they didn't know. I decided to drive back home (about 10 miles) and diagnose it further from there. Rivian called me back and asked if I wanted to bring it in for service on the 25th, 11 days later. I asked them if it was safe to drive it for 11 days or even to the service center. I was told that he would call me back. About 30 minutes later I received a call saying that they were going to send a tow. The tow arrived at my house and took the truck.
08/15/2023 - I received a call first thing in the morning from the service center. They said that they were unable to clear the codes and that they would have to get back to me after they sent the logs to corporate.
08/18/2023 - I called to ask what was going on with the truck. I was told it was escalated to Engineering and that they replaced the LVB in an attempt to clear the code, to no avail.
08/25/2023 - I called again and asked what was going on and was told that someone would call me back. I received a call back from the SC Manager who informed me that Engineering was deciding on next course of action. I was told at this point that the failure was the Bidirectional Mode Module. Based on my conversation with the manager I was also told that this module resides within the battery pack. Per Rivian policy, battery packs are not to be field serviced and therefore I would likely be receiving a new pack. This was what the SC was waiting for approval on from Engineering.
I contacted someone at Ford Corporate about the pack replacement and found out that Ford originally did the same thing, they replaced packs and didn't field service them. This was due to training requirements that are industry standard according to him. There's different levels of EV battery certifications and opening and working in a pack is something that they didn't originally want to train dealerships/technicians to do. They have since revised their way of thinking and do have specially trained technicians who can open packs.
08/31/2023 - Received a text from the manager that the pack would arrive on 09/02
09/05/2023 - Pack Installed and the truck was returned on 09/06. Rivian paid for a Lyft for me to get to the SC.
Re-Manufactured HV Packs:
Originally, Rivian was sending out new packs when a pack needed to be replaced. Per my SC, I was one of the first to receive a re-manufactured pack. It would appear that Rivian is now sending out remanned packs instead of new ones. To be quite honest, I'm not too thrilled about this. My original pack was only 2 months old and now I have a pack that had unknown previous problems and age. That just doesn't sit well with me. I know they have to do something with old packs and it could very well be that I got a pack that's brand new that never made it through the first QC on the line. While I understand that the warranty is still the same, it's just something that rubs me a bit wrong. I honestly feel that Rivian should be putting new packs in, basically new, vehicles. If it's under 6 months old (as an example), it should be a new pack.
Edit: After consulting with Rivian on this, they pulled the serial number of the pack and told me it was actually brand new. They sent me the information on the pack proving as such. I think the service manager was just mistaken.
Return of the vehicle:
I think Rivian has to do something about cleanliness of their serviced vehicles. Let me first say that I know some people might be thinking "It's a truck, get over it"... while yes it's a truck and I have used it for dump runs, hauling trailers, generators, stacks of lumber, solar panels and server racks, I always clean it. I take pride in keeping my vehicles clean.
My ocean coast interior was unacceptably dirty. There was grease all over the door handles, kick marks all over the doors, foot prints all over the frunk liner (how the hell that happened I don't know), the seats were filthy and hand prints all over the dash. The outside was extremely filthy as well. While the outside doesn't bother me that much, the inside does. Call it OCD, whatever, I have a policy that no one can even eat in my vehicles (that's what the bed, and gear tunnel seats are for). It doesn't sit well with me when I can smell and see grease all over the place. In the clean/dirty picture, just zoom in, you'll see where I cleaned the seat.
Second, while inspecting the under side of the truck I noticed that there's a loose bolt. This is just poor workmanship. Do better Rivian.
Conclusion:
I love the truck and like most of us here, we all want to see Rivian grow and succeed. These little things, while they might be slightly nit-picking are things that people care about. These vehicles are, for the most part, classified as luxury vehicles and should come with the decency of at least protecting the interior while working in them. Furthermore, I don't think it would cost much to have one of the employees who cleans new vehicles for delivery assigned to cleaning vehicles that have extended repair periods. I don't think you need to wash vehicles that are in-and-out in the same day. But if you keep a vehicle for 20 days in a dirty lot, next to the train tracks, I think it would be nice to return it in better condition than it was received in.
As for the remanned packs... I said what I said. I don't like the fact that a 2 month old truck is getting a remanned pack. I know in tech that we say sometimes the best products are the refurbished ones because they go through them with a fine tooth comb, but I can't get past it in this case. I know everyone will have their own opinion here.
On a positive note, the SC manager was amazing and deserves a lot of credit. He went out of his way to explain everything and gave me a way to communicate with him directly so that I could ask anything and get the answers I needed. Based on my experience with Ford and other mfgs, the Rivian service experience was much better. Especially on the day of failure, they called me 3-4 times checking on me and the truck and they had a tow there immediately.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss my experience with service and failure of the bidirectional mode module, something I couldn't find any other instances of. Some of you might know me from the MachE forum. For those who don't, I wrote the HVBJB failure thread and assisted Ford triaging hundreds of HVBJB failures. I've also done a few posts highlighting the differences between the MME and the R1T over on the MachE Forums.
That being said, I love my R1T and I have no agenda other than to bring light to the positives and negatives regarding my service experience. I'm a Rivian stock holder and only wish them the best, but I do feel there's room for improvement.
I picked up my R1T on June 14th, 2023. This failure happened exactly 2 months after I picked it up.
Failure of the Bidirectional Mode Module:
08/14/23 - While driving about 60 mph I received an error on the IPC which stated "Vehicle Battery Issue - Service Truck Soon". Based on my preface, and if you're familiar with the HVBJB fiasco from Ford, you would know that "Service Vehicle Soon" is a very ominous message and one that I have a lot of experience with.
I immediately pulled into a shopping center parking lot and called Rivian. They asked me to do a full reset, a partial reset and also leave the car for 30 minutes and return. Nothing resolved the issue. I asked the person who I was speaking with if the truck would eventually brick itself from this message. I was told that this particular message isn't one they see often, and they didn't know. I decided to drive back home (about 10 miles) and diagnose it further from there. Rivian called me back and asked if I wanted to bring it in for service on the 25th, 11 days later. I asked them if it was safe to drive it for 11 days or even to the service center. I was told that he would call me back. About 30 minutes later I received a call saying that they were going to send a tow. The tow arrived at my house and took the truck.
08/15/2023 - I received a call first thing in the morning from the service center. They said that they were unable to clear the codes and that they would have to get back to me after they sent the logs to corporate.
08/18/2023 - I called to ask what was going on with the truck. I was told it was escalated to Engineering and that they replaced the LVB in an attempt to clear the code, to no avail.
08/25/2023 - I called again and asked what was going on and was told that someone would call me back. I received a call back from the SC Manager who informed me that Engineering was deciding on next course of action. I was told at this point that the failure was the Bidirectional Mode Module. Based on my conversation with the manager I was also told that this module resides within the battery pack. Per Rivian policy, battery packs are not to be field serviced and therefore I would likely be receiving a new pack. This was what the SC was waiting for approval on from Engineering.
I contacted someone at Ford Corporate about the pack replacement and found out that Ford originally did the same thing, they replaced packs and didn't field service them. This was due to training requirements that are industry standard according to him. There's different levels of EV battery certifications and opening and working in a pack is something that they didn't originally want to train dealerships/technicians to do. They have since revised their way of thinking and do have specially trained technicians who can open packs.
08/31/2023 - Received a text from the manager that the pack would arrive on 09/02
09/05/2023 - Pack Installed and the truck was returned on 09/06. Rivian paid for a Lyft for me to get to the SC.
Re-Manufactured HV Packs:
Originally, Rivian was sending out new packs when a pack needed to be replaced. Per my SC, I was one of the first to receive a re-manufactured pack. It would appear that Rivian is now sending out remanned packs instead of new ones. To be quite honest, I'm not too thrilled about this. My original pack was only 2 months old and now I have a pack that had unknown previous problems and age. That just doesn't sit well with me. I know they have to do something with old packs and it could very well be that I got a pack that's brand new that never made it through the first QC on the line. While I understand that the warranty is still the same, it's just something that rubs me a bit wrong. I honestly feel that Rivian should be putting new packs in, basically new, vehicles. If it's under 6 months old (as an example), it should be a new pack.
Edit: After consulting with Rivian on this, they pulled the serial number of the pack and told me it was actually brand new. They sent me the information on the pack proving as such. I think the service manager was just mistaken.
Return of the vehicle:
I think Rivian has to do something about cleanliness of their serviced vehicles. Let me first say that I know some people might be thinking "It's a truck, get over it"... while yes it's a truck and I have used it for dump runs, hauling trailers, generators, stacks of lumber, solar panels and server racks, I always clean it. I take pride in keeping my vehicles clean.
My ocean coast interior was unacceptably dirty. There was grease all over the door handles, kick marks all over the doors, foot prints all over the frunk liner (how the hell that happened I don't know), the seats were filthy and hand prints all over the dash. The outside was extremely filthy as well. While the outside doesn't bother me that much, the inside does. Call it OCD, whatever, I have a policy that no one can even eat in my vehicles (that's what the bed, and gear tunnel seats are for). It doesn't sit well with me when I can smell and see grease all over the place. In the clean/dirty picture, just zoom in, you'll see where I cleaned the seat.
Second, while inspecting the under side of the truck I noticed that there's a loose bolt. This is just poor workmanship. Do better Rivian.
Conclusion:
I love the truck and like most of us here, we all want to see Rivian grow and succeed. These little things, while they might be slightly nit-picking are things that people care about. These vehicles are, for the most part, classified as luxury vehicles and should come with the decency of at least protecting the interior while working in them. Furthermore, I don't think it would cost much to have one of the employees who cleans new vehicles for delivery assigned to cleaning vehicles that have extended repair periods. I don't think you need to wash vehicles that are in-and-out in the same day. But if you keep a vehicle for 20 days in a dirty lot, next to the train tracks, I think it would be nice to return it in better condition than it was received in.
As for the remanned packs... I said what I said. I don't like the fact that a 2 month old truck is getting a remanned pack. I know in tech that we say sometimes the best products are the refurbished ones because they go through them with a fine tooth comb, but I can't get past it in this case. I know everyone will have their own opinion here.
On a positive note, the SC manager was amazing and deserves a lot of credit. He went out of his way to explain everything and gave me a way to communicate with him directly so that I could ask anything and get the answers I needed. Based on my experience with Ford and other mfgs, the Rivian service experience was much better. Especially on the day of failure, they called me 3-4 times checking on me and the truck and they had a tow there immediately.
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