Rivian - Accident survivor & DriveCam

[MountainBikeDude]

Final Update on My Rivian Repair Journey

Hey folks, time to close the loop on this one.

I got my truck back on Wednesday, May 7th—total repair time: 70 days. Final repair cost came to $27K, with another $4K for some non-accident-related fixes I decided to tackle while it was in. It also spent an extra two weeks bouncing around: first towed from Bremerton to Rivian Seattle to replace and re-pressurize the hydraulics, then down to TREW Auto Body in Olympia for a final “calibration.”

Overall, TREW did a solid job keeping me updated and getting things repaired. That said, I was disappointed the truck came back dirty—compound dust all over and grease marks on the plastic bumper. Also surprised that some light pinstriping wasn’t touched up.

Would I use them again? I guess I have to—seems like they’re the only real option in the region for Rivian.

On the plus side, the new suspension cleared up some old creaking noises and rides noticeably better. One wrinkle: they couldn’t just replace the damaged tie rod. It required an updated design, which meant redoing the whole front end. That triggered the bigger delay since TREW didn’t have the $50K hydraulic tools and had to work with Rivian to get it done without waiting two full months. Thankfully, that part worked out.

That said, this whole experience did sour me a bit on Rivian. I still love the truck—it’s an incredible vehicle—but it’s just hard to get them fixed. I got a great trade-in offer on a G2, but I’m honestly not sure I want to sign up for this kind of pain again. Especially considering the mixed reviews on the G2 and how expensive they are.

It's nice that it wasn't a full write off, and they were able to repair the vehicle. Personally, I'd keep the repaired gen 1 over trading to a Gen 2.

Unfortunately repairs on all vehicles suck. My 2010 Xterra was rear ended christmas eve 2022 funny enough caused by another xterra merging, not realizing traffic was stopped, hit a mercedes SUV, which in turn hit me. Bike rack literally saved the rear end of the turck, but still cost 13k to repair, which is nuts considering the truck was maybe worth 16k at the time.

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[Electrified Outdoors]

I don’t blame you for feeling frustrated. A lot of what Rivian is experiencing is an industry wide issue (aside from the SC wait times for appts). Rivian is opening new SC and we ordered a Gen2 which will be a 24mo lease.

Setting expectations I think is important. I know when we initially decided to buy the Rivian we knew that there could be some growing pains. A lot of my recent frustration I think comes from the fact that the issue seem to have gotten worse in the last two years versus better, which I expected better.

If you read forums for other manufacturers though they have issues with certain parts supply as well on the collision repair side of things.

Rivian opened a new warehouse in NJ is my understanding which …at least on the east coast…should help.

With that said, owning a Rivian can and will be both one of the most exciting vehicles you will ever own….and can be very frustrating for service and collision repair.

I was so frustrated with Rivian on my wife’s R1S collision repair but in the end there is no vehicle like it and Rivian ultimately took care of us so we opted to get another to produce more content and just stay adventurous.

my wife brought up an important point that I hadn’t really realized. There are a lot of Rivian Owners now that are using the R1S as a “mom mobile”. She seems to think, and I agree, that particular customer is less willing to deal with a lot of of these issues.

This is definitely on Rivian’s radar and I’m confident that RJ et al are working diligently to improve this…so I have no hesitation in recommending.

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