PSA: Don't leave seatbelts connected

[Alice]

I'm sure some of you know this, but just as a PSA. Don't leave anything connected to your seat belts. I went out of town this weekend and took my dogs to a friends before I left. I left the dog seatbelt harness plugged in while I was gone. I was gone for 4 days. Apparently when something is connected to the seatbelts, the truck doesn't shut off .. like at all. It drained my battery within a day and now 4 days later when I get back, I can't even get the charge door open. I worked with the call center last night and got the truck jumped enough to get the door open, but could never get it to start charging from the wall. By the time I was done working with them, the truck is completely dead to the point that even a jump wont turn anything on. I'm being told it will take at least a week for someone to come look and they might have to tow it 2.5 hours to the service center. Even better, they are telling me its not a warranty issue so all towing and rentals are my costs. Even though its an obvious design flaw that the truck would let itself drain down to inoperable state in 4 days.

So yea, never leave anything plugged into the seatbelt

As a completely related question: Anyone know how to directly get in touch with Rivian Corporate?

Sponsored

 

[Alice]

I too had to learn this the hard way. Don't leave seatbelts fastened when you leave the R1S. ALSO, the same happened to me when I left a box on a backseat. The car presumed someone was sitting there and didn't shut off.

 

[TheRiviAnswer]

Is this true just for the front seat?

I have my car seats buckled up in the back.

Suck this happened, thanks for sharing

 

[TollKeeper]

Is this true just for the front seat?

I have my car seats buckled up in the back.

Suck this happened, thanks for sharing

I have been wondering the same thing... No answers as of yet.

 

[TheRiviAnswer]

I have been wondering the same thing... No answers as of yet.

For sure this isn't the case for the back seats. I've had car seats in the back since day one.

 

[HaveBlue]

My 15 year old Lexus is smart enough to turn off the headlights after a while if left in on mode, instead of auto, before the battery dies. Rivian just doesn't have the ability to turn off the vehicle at all. I agree that after 4 days, the baby is dead and the car should just switch off. Probably 4 hours would be a good sanity check.

The annoyance with the seat sensor is bad as well. It's impossible to back up and look out the side window to place the tires exactly without it shifting into park. I feel like they have never really 4 wheeled where exact tire placement is critical and a seat belt is a hinderance rather than an asset.

 

[TheRiviAnswer]

My 15 year old Lexus is smart enough to turn off the headlights after a while if left in on mode, instead of auto, before the battery dies. Rivian just doesn't have the ability to turn off the vehicle at all. I agree that after 4 days, the baby is dead and the car should just switch off. Probably 4 hours would be a good sanity check.

The annoyance with the seat sensor is bad as well. It's impossible to back up and look out the side window to place the tires exactly without it shifting into park. I feel like they have never really 4 wheeled where exact tire placement is critical and a seat belt is a hinderance rather than an asset.

You do get phone notifications when the battery gets low. Also, what is the appropriate amount of time to assume the baby/dog is dead? That's a lot of liability for the company to assume.

Also what if that time limit is set to 1 day, but you only have 12 hours of battery left. Then what happens?

A better fix would be improved "dead battery" scenario management. It should keep like 0.25% charge left so that it can be charged again in the future without requiring service.

 

[Stickboy46]

You do get phone notifications when the battery gets low. Also, what is the appropriate amount of time to assume the baby/dog is dead? That's a lot of liability for the company to assume.

Also what if that time limit is set to 1 day, but you only have 12 hours of battery left. Then what happens?

A better fix would be improved "dead battery" scenario management. It should keep like 0.25% charge left so that it can be charged again in the future without requiring service.

This is the core of it .. if the truck drains to completely dead, nobody left inside is going to benefit. Then you also have the downside that when dead .. NOTHING operates. I couldn't get anything to move. So it would make it worse. That's where the design flaw comes in.

Update from my service. They charged me roughly 730 for the service. 480 for the new batteries and charged me 1 hour of labor for 200 bucks plus tax. They definitely spent more than an hour here not including travel time, so I think they did try to work on the price, but I'm still going to challenge to Rivian corporate on this.

 

[HaveBlue]

You do get phone notifications when the battery gets low. Also, what is the appropriate amount of time to assume the baby/dog is dead? That's a lot of liability for the company to assume.

Also what if that time limit is set to 1 day, but you only have 12 hours of battery left. Then what happens?

A better fix would be improved "dead battery" scenario management. It should keep like 0.25% charge left so that it can be charged again in the future without requiring service.

Probably not very much liability considering the millions of cars on the road for the last hundred years that don't keep running because a box of paper is sitting on a seat. I'm proposing virtually no time to keep the car on and then have parents take responsibility and not leave their kids alone in the car like a box of paper. Somehow that makes the most sense to me. Honestly the car continuing to "run" for hours while in park is ludicrous.

 

[HaveBlue]

This is the core of it .. if the truck drains to completely dead, nobody left inside is going to benefit. Then you also have the downside that when dead .. NOTHING operates. I couldn't get anything to move. So it would make it worse. That's where the design flaw comes in.

Update from my service. They charged me roughly 730 for the service. 480 for the new batteries and charged me 1 hour of labor for 200 bucks plus tax. They definitely spent more than an hour here not including travel time, so I think they did try to work on the price, but I'm still going to challenge to Rivian corporate on this.

Sorry to hear this happened to you. Sad thing is that these 18ah (motorcycle/ generator) batteries cost about $40 each on the open market. At the rate that people are going through them, I don't think the Rivian ones are anything special. It's great that they fixed the issue quick, but I don't think they did you any favors. Keep in mind that people used to leave their headlights on and kill their battery before automatic lights. We have progressed much in that area I guess.

 

[Stickboy46]

Sorry to hear this happened to you. Sad thing is that these 18ah (motorcycle/ generator) batteries cost about $40 each on the open market. At the rate that people are going through them, I don't think the Rivian ones are anything special. It's great that they fixed the issue quick, but I don't think they did you any favors. Keep in mind that people used to leave their headlights on and kill their battery before automatic lights. We have progressed much in that area I guess.

The favor I think I got is them only charging for 1 hour labor when a tech drove 5 hours round trip just for my truck and spent about 3 hours working on it.

I'll at least give them credit for that

 

[TheRiviAnswer]

Probably not very much liability considering the millions of cars on the road for the last hundred years that don't keep running because a box of paper is sitting on a seat. I'm proposing virtually no time to keep the car on and then have parents take responsibility and not leave their kids alone in the car like a box of paper. Somehow that makes the most sense to me. Honestly the car continuing to "run" for hours while in park is ludicrous.

Turning off immediately would be a poor user experience. You don't want climate to turn off when the driver gets out when there's a passenger waiting in the car in front seat

Sponsored