Rivian reliability is a problem

[zefram47]

Once again, I'm even a CR subscriber and haven't gotten the car survey in over a decade. So I have no clue who the hell they're surveying, but this Rivian owner sure wasn't asked about their experience. Take their car stuff with a *large* grain of salt, because they suck at reviewing cars.

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[PsyTrance]

I’ll give you another data point. I don’t recommend the r1s, purely because the service center experience is so bad. It is really unbelievable how abysmal my experience is every single time.
Don’t buy a Rivian unless they got a grip on their service infra at that point.

 

[DayTripping]

Once again, I'm even a CR subscriber and haven't gotten the car survey in over a decade. So I have no clue who the hell they're surveying, but this Rivian owner sure wasn't asked about their experience. Take their car stuff with a *large* grain of salt, because they suck at reviewing cars.

I'll have to disagree regarding their review of the R1T. I personally found it to be pretty positive. Not sure if you read the same one I did. They gave the road test score of 84/100.

Here is what CR wrote. Doesn't sound inaccurate to me. What do you disagree with?

Road Test
The R1T is a cutting-edge, all-electric pickup with an impressively wide repertoire of capabilities. The 835-horsepower truck can accelerate with the ferociousness of a supercar, claw its way up and over boulders with the tenacity of a Jeep Wrangler, carve through corners better than many SUVs, and tow a trailer of up to 11,000 pounds, albeit for a relatively short distance before requiring to be recharged. Slotting in sizewise between a midsized pickup like the Honda Ridgeline and a full-sized Ford F-150, the R1T has a luxurious cabin and features numerous innovations, including a transverse storage tunnel between the cab and bed. All of these positive attributes enabled the R1T to achieve a very high road-test score in our testing.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/rivian/r1t/2025/overview/

 

[sfvR1S]

TLDR

I've had my R1S for almost 14 months/~6,700 miles and only had a couple minor issues.

I wonder how many "issues" are owners' lack of familiarity with EVs. I don't doubt others have had real problems, but I wonder if losing range in could weather, unreliable public charging stations, etc is part of their gripe against Rivians.

 

[iansriv]

OP: If you love the Rivian and are concerned about quality-lease it.

 

[DayTripping]

TLDR

I've had my R1S for almost 14 months/~6,700 miles and only had a couple minor issues.

I wonder how many "issues" are owners' lack of familiarity with EVs. I don't doubt others have had real problems, but I wonder if losing range in could weather, unreliable public charging stations, etc is part of their gripe against Rivians.

While lack of EV familiarity might be at play, It would also impact other companies such as Tesla. I would bet the average Rivian owner is more informed about their vehicle than many other companies, except for companies like Porsche, Ferrari, Lambo, etc. My experience with those companies is many know what they want very precisely going in. Obviously there are exceptions to every thing but I someone wanting a 992 or 458 typically knows exactly what they want and why.

Rivian isn't the first EV to market so it should be less of those issues overall. It is also a new company and some of that is to be expected.

 

[DKM_R1S]

I had a drive unit fail at 3K miles while on a cross country camping trip. The R1S was smart enough to disable the rear motor and run on front motors power. The interior frame filled up with water during a rain due to faulty drain plugs and leaked into the passenger compartment. rivian replaced the carpet. The vehicle has been in the shop 6 times in 7 months. Now there is a coolant leak and it’ll be back in the shop. I am highly satisfied with Rivian because of how they’ve handled these situations and hopefully will lease another in the future.

 

[jasonthepro]

I just got my R1T and it's having serious issues, I hope I won't be regretting buying it. I traded in my Model Y for this hoping it was better quality. Having the suspension fail, reverts to front wheel drive and all the safety controls disable on snow and ice is unnerving. Especially when the suspension sinks to the bump stops, not a good feeling and this is the 2nd its happened in a week.

 

[adam12]

I think one of the highly weighted metrics also are connectivity to the charging network. So a bum charger session can get lumped in with poor reliability. This is a very common issue that "weight " down pure BEV manufacturers. I believe this was discussed last year when this reliability score was discussed.

If everyone followed CR reports every one will be driving Toyota Camry.... (which I believe Toyota gamed the system for a number of years).

so far personally I don't have any reliability issues.

 

[postcromag]

2.5 years with my R1T. A few minor issues. Taken care of in a timely manner, maybe not quite Honda service level, but good. Best vehicle I have ever owned. And the most fun to drive.

 

[BCondrey]

I would never let CR be the reason i did or did not buy a vehicle. The subs are full of people complaining about the reliability, and it is probably higher than a vehicle that has been in production for 20 years. People are more likely to post when they have a problem than when they don't. For many of us, the benefits of the Rivian outweigh the potential for any unreliability. Personally, my Gen1 has been rock solid and I plan on driving it forever.

 

[LeeY]

A query to ChatGPT provides a detailed description of CR’s reliability methodology.
I filled in their questionnaire regularly when I was a subscriber. I’ll make no judgements, but if I were still a subscriber I would have reported honestly, like I suspect most subscribers do. I was a victim of the 12v battery fail.
My only question is how large of a sample of Rivians on the road did the questionnaire capture.

 

[richguess]

C/R doesn’t break down these issues, which is a problem. I think it’s safe to say Rivian isn’t Honda or Toyota yet regards reliability or service. Hopefully they will. Our 3+ year old RAV4 Prime has been flawless. We turned down our R1 reservation, as it was too big for us. We have an R2 on order. Fast, right sized, good range. I leased ($200/mo total!!) a Chevy Equinox EV for 24 months while waiting. Finding that I like it, fortunately.

 

[David Yunker]

I think the customer satisfaction rating speaks volumes. It means that whatever reliability issues caused the poor rating are minor issues and that the customer would buy another Rivian. I have had two years and 32,000 trouble free miles. My charge port door has become out of adjustment and my Rivian wall charger has stopped working. They are sending me a new wall charger and Ill get the charge port door adjusted on my nest service. Super happy with my choice. The truck is better today than when I bought it with the software updates.

 

[Dhevey]

Another perspective - I’ve never seen the inside or outside of a SC and never met a service tech. My R1S was flat bedded to me and I’ve had 17,000 trouble free miles. That may end tomorrow, who knows, but I love the vehicle and have a reservation for an R2.

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