In what world are these types of paint issues acceptable on new R1S?

[strangelove]

Congrats on your upcoming delivery. What’s your VIN? Mine is 7999 but I’m waiting for the opportunity to schedule delivery to unlock in my portal.

I took delivery of my black R1S last Thursday, #6860. After seeing this I decided to take a flashlight to mine and really inspect the nooks and crannies, and can't find anything like this (insert "praise Jesus" gif here).

It's definitely not acceptable for a luxury vehicle, but I do think we all signed up to be early adopters and guinea pigs to some extent. Won't make it easy, but is kinda the truth. Our other car is an XC40 Recharge, which was Volvo's first all-electric car. Even from an established brand there were plenty of "first time" issues to deal with, I expect exponentially more from the Rivian. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised

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[Tonka]

any pictures?

These are the ones that showed up when I snapped a couple of pictures. The one of that lower horizontal bend in the door is circled just so the guy in Dallas would know where the run his hand down and feel all of the wobbles. The crease at the back of the door was hard to get in pictures but my wife saw it without me pointing it out. I was the car business and I’ve never accepted a repair that looked like this from a body shop so why would I accept it on a brand new vehicle

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Yeah, production issues are a lot more forgivable if they have a proper QC/PDI and they don't make it out the door and into owners hands.

Do people want their new rides after they've waited months/years? Absolutely. But I'd bet that the OP would've waited another 30 days to get a properly painted/QC-ed $75K+ vehicle.

(And for us plebs who are waiting post-price hike, we're talking about a $95K truck)

 

[astonius]

Yeah, production issues are a lot more forgivable if they have a proper QC/PDI and they don't make it out the door and into owners hands.

Do people want their new rides after they've waited months/years? Absolutely. But I'd bet that the OP would've waited another 30 days to get a properly painted/QC-ed $75K+ vehicle.

(And for us plebs who are waiting post-price hike, we're talking about a $95K truck)

100%. The bigger problem is that no one between paint and delivery noticed and reported these issues. It should not be the customer's responsibility to perform a proper PDI.

 

[R1Tom]

100%. The bigger problem is that no one between paint and delivery noticed and reported these issues. It should not be the customer's responsibility to perform a proper PDI.

And then have to start the dance of getting all this handled by a service center....traveling hours in some cases...each way....waiting long periods of time....watching truck not move for almost a week while sitting at service center...etc...

 

[invernite]

@astonius any updates since you dropped the vehicle off a couple of weeks ago?

 

[Tonka]

What’s really nuts about this is they’re throwing around the idea of maybe me taking delivery of the replacement 3 hours away at the Dallas sc so I can inspect it there and save them the trip. If amazon delivered me something with damage they’re not going to request I come to the fulfillment center to inspect the replacement and save them shipping. Rivian is charging $1,800 for delivery either way so they should hire someone capable of doing what I did before they schedule delivery and then maybe bring the customer something in NEW condition.

 

[astonius]

@astonius any updates since you dropped the vehicle off a couple of weeks ago?

None. I'm going to call today to get an update.

 

[Trandall]

I'm not super picky about panel alignment and paint flaws but Rivian should not expect a customer to accept this regardless of whether they consider themselves a premium brand. The combination of quantity and severity of flaws is too much IMO.

 

[Tonka]

So yesterday morning I was told that I needed to send them the photos to review (they've got the vehicle in Dallas) and determine if it met their specs for what is acceptable for delivery and if so then they would cancel my reservation and issue me a refund. Later in the day I did recieve a voicemail that they've decided that it did have unacceptable damage and they're working to get me placed with a new vin either from the plant or r1s shop. No word yet on whether they will make me drive 3 hours to inspect it at their Dallas facility but I'll update whenever they tell me.

Astonius are there any updates from your phone call yesterday?

 

[White Shadow]

FWIW, many of those pictures are actually seam sealer that was applied and painted over, which is a pretty normal thing to see, although not in the locations pictured. If you pop the hood on most new cars, you'll see long beads of seam sealer applied where the sheet metal folds under. It's there to prevent corrosion and/or rusting and it does get painted over.

 

[astonius]

FWIW, many of those pictures are actually seam sealer that was applied and painted over, which is a pretty normal thing to see, although not in the locations pictured. If you pop the hood on most new cars, you'll see long beads of seam sealer applied where the sheet metal folds under. It's there to prevent corrosion and/or rusting and it does get painted over.

Yeah, I'm not poo-pooing "C" level (never visible) surfaces with this sealer. Totally get that. My issue is these are "B" level surfaces (sometimes visible). I know for sure my previous two R1Ts did not have this issue in the locations pictured here.

 

[astonius]

Astonius are there any updates from your phone call yesterday?

They never called me back yesterday. This has been a consistent experience with Rivian SCs. They do not return calls.

I called late last night to let them know I hadn't heard anything back. They said I would get a callback this morning. I did, but not from my local SC, just another front-line SC agent. He said the updated completion date for my S is 5/9. I told him this is concerning to me because I can tell based on the app the S hasn't moved from the SC, and the SC doesn't do large-scale body work or any paint work. I asked him to get clarification on the status of the paint and body concerns I reported. He put me on hold and attempted to contact the SC directly, but they did not pick up. He said he would request a callback and either the local SC or he himself would let me know later today.

Before Rivian, any time I've had a vehicle in service for more than a week the service advisor would proactively reach out to me on a weekly basis and provide an update on the status of the repair. Here it's been over two weeks with complete radio silence. That's unacceptable at this price point.

 

[Tonka]

What sucks is if you were getting this treatment from a dealer on a warranty you could reach out to the manufacturer and they’d become the hound dog raising hell on your behalf daily but not with Rivian. Price point shouldn’t be a part of the conversation when it comes to quality of service.

 

[astonius]

Almost feels like they were watching this thread.

I just got a call from the SC directly. They said they've addressed most of the trim issues I reported. The body shop is supposed to take care of the rest, they are just waiting on them to do the work. Apparently they are going to attempt to correct the paint and PDR the dents in the doors. They said they will clean up the seam sealer spots, but they will not completely disappear. I guess we'll see how it looks when it comes back.

I asked why these seam sealer issues are present on this particular S but weren't on my R1Ts. The SC wasn't sure, but they would ask someone further up the chain to make sure they were aware of the issue and understand why it's happening.

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