The Truth About Reliability

[s0ysauce]

It's obvious who the trolls are. Don't feed the troll. It worked throughout school and also works online.

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[Brian A]

Sure, we could look at the JD Power survey that came to the same conclusion or the hundreds of pages of comments on this forum about Rivian problems. Or, and call me crazy, it's just possible they're right. Do I still like my truck? Yeah! Is it the least reliable vehicle I've ever owned? You bet! Would I buy it again? Probably not at the current pricing but man was it was a smokin' deal at early preorder pricing.

What would satisfy you? It's a bold claim saying their rankings are for sale. What's your evidence? Of course surveys are a small percentage of the whole group. You don't have to survey every owner. That's how sampling works. I have no idea how trustworthy Consumer Reports are but I don't see why this is so hard to believe or why anyone is taking the very odd stance that as long as the vehicle drives, it's somehow reliable? When I couldn't open my driver's door, the vehicle still drove. If someone thinks that shouldn't count against the vehicle's reliability rating, I guess I don't know what to say. It hasn't left me stranded but it stopped charging, the charge door wouldn't open, Driver+ module failed, the door release broke, it was dented at delivery, the mirror came apart, rattles, etc. , etc.

Earlier this year, I stopped recommending Rivian to friends here because of my experience with service issues and how long service takes to schedule. I'm lucky enough to have other cars so it's not such a big deal to have it in the shop but for people who rely on their car, it's hard for me to stand behind the brand. However, the local West Sacramento service center here has really stepped up their game, improved wait times, and more things have been fixable by mobile service. At least for me they have. I always share that with friends now when they ask if I like my truck. We've got to give them credit when they improve.

If your Rivian has been more reliable than mine, that's awesome. I hope it stays that way. I would love it if that was everyone's experience.

I think the biggest thing missed is that we DON"T have the data to say whether Rivian is reliable or not. We all just have our own experiences and the experiences of people on this forum. To be able to say Rivian is reliable or not, we need a large enough sample of the whole pie to be statistically significant. Consumer Reports and JD Powers don't have all the data either so I can't put much faith in what they say.

From my experience I believe Rivian needs to work hard on two things:
1. Do a better job at catching issues with vehicles before they leave the factory. This will lessen the burden on the service centers. Mine had two dents in it, it was out of alignment, a big scratch on the passenger door panel and a scratch on the rear spoiler above the back window. All of these should have been caught before it left the factory.
2. Get more service centers opened and properly staffed with employees and loaner vehicles. My experience has been good here. Colorado Springs SC gets me in within a couple of weeks for noncritical issues. They were very good at fixing the issues I had when the vehicle was new. They messaged me every day by 1pm to update me on my repairs. I do see others having long wait times at other SCs.

In summary, it is hard to put much faith in sources talking about reliability when they don't tell you how (in detail) they came to this conclusion. I reminds me of surveys that say America is tired of "X". When you read the fine print they surveyed 1000 people. This type of survey doesn't mean a thing (statistically speaking) when you realize there are over 345 million people in the US. Basically junk in = junk out.

 

[sacramentoelectric]

I think the biggest thing missed is that we DON"T have the data to say whether Rivian is reliable or not. We all just have our own experiences and the experiences of people on this forum. To be able to say Rivian is reliable or not, we need a large enough sample of the whole pie to be statistically significant. Consumer Reports and JD Powers don't have all the data either so I can't put much faith in what they say.

From my experience I believe Rivian needs to work hard on two things:
1. Do a better job at catching issues with vehicles before they leave the factory. This will lessen the burden on the service centers. Mine had two dents in it, it was out of alignment, a big scratch on the passenger door panel and a scratch on the rear spoiler above the back window. All of these should have been caught before it left the factory.
2. Get more service centers opened and properly staffed with employees and loaner vehicles. My experience has been good here. Colorado Springs SC gets me in within a couple of weeks for noncritical issues. They were very good at fixing the issues I had when the vehicle was new. They messaged me every day by 1pm to update me on my repairs. I do see others having long wait times at other SCs.

In summary, it is hard to put much faith in sources talking about reliability when they don't tell you how (in detail) they came to this conclusion. I reminds me of surveys that say America is tired of "X". When you read the fine print they surveyed 1000 people. This type of survey doesn't mean a thing (statistically speaking) when you realize there are over 345 million people in the US. Basically junk in = junk out.

A sample set of 1000 people is easily enough to get a reasonably accurate picture of how 345 million people feel. You don't need, "all the data." That's the whole point of statistical sampling. Here's a chapter from an introductory textbook on Statistics that uses that specific example to explain the margin of error for a sample proportion. It will walk you through how to calculate margin of error for a statistical survey. I apologize for the title of the book, I'm not trying to suggest you're a dummy. Statistics can be hard, counter-intuitive, and it's popular book series for introductory texts. If that doesn't satisfy you and you simply don't believe in the science of Statistics, there's probably no point in continuing the discussion.

I would agree with you that we don't have enough data on reliability if we were only relying on forum posts because it's not a representative sample. But Consumer Reports and JD Power directly survey users and they do in fact both post their methodology. They're easy to find with a simple Google search. They both explain how they sample and how many samples they use for their reports. Between them, they have many decades of experience creating these reports. I'm not qualified to critique their methodology but I haven't seen anything that makes me doubt their methods. If you don't like the conclusions, that's fine but I don't see any evidence based contradictions to their findings.

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