Tonneau cover issues

[hrp783]

Could someone post a pic of the repaired cover, and the 1 inch situation

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[aw113sgte]

#1 redesign fix... don't use black plastic for the cover panels. I could only imagine the warping at 110F ambient down south heat at noontime on a cloudless day. That black plastic is probably 140-150F and probably expands tremendously. There is a reason outdoor furniture is light colored....

Almost positive they are aluminum, they have the feel and rigidity of it. I would be very surprised if they were plastic.

 

[NY_Rob]

Almost positive they are aluminum, they have the feel and rigidity of it. I would be very surprised if they were plastic.

You may be correct, as I unfortunately have never seen/been near a Rivian in person yet. But, regardless of the material used.. as we learned in Jr High School Science class... black absorbs all wavelengths of light so the material is adsorbing all the energy from sunlight and turning it in to heat energy causing expansion and deformation of the panels.
All the seats in our boat are white for a good reason, unfortunately our Jetski has a black seat and we have to splash water on it before sitting on it because it's hot enough to burn your legs on a sunny day.

It would be interesting to see how the tonneau would react if it was painted a light cover?

 

[kurtlikevonnegut]

The sheer number of tonneau cover issues really makes me wonder how much time they put into testing it (especially since this is allegedly the improved design) and what level of "field testing" was conducted.

There's no way they effectively tested the equipment to have this type of failure rate unless they knew how bad it was and decided to put out the fires as they arose instead of delaying the production timeline.

 

[AllInev]

The sheer number of tonneau cover issues really makes me wonder how much time they put into testing it (especially since this is allegedly the improved design) and what level of "field testing" was conducted.

There's no way they effectively tested the equipment to have this type of failure rate unless they knew how bad it was and decided to put out the fires as they arose instead of delaying the production timeline.

As I've posted on other related threads...

If/when the power tonneau cover breaks after the warranty ends, I will be surgically removing the tonneau cover. I'm looking forward to learning how to do that. ?

 

[moosetags]

I am hopeful that while Rivian is trying to work out the tonneau cover debacle, they will start delivering R1T's without tonneau covers. This way I may actually get a truck in the foreseeable future.

Brian

 

[aw113sgte]

You may be correct, as I unfortunately have never seen/been near a Rivian in person yet. But, regardless of the material used.. as we learned in Jr High School Science class... black absorbs all wavelengths of light so the material is adsorbing all the energy from sunlight and turning it in to heat energy causing expansion and deformation of the panels.
All the seats in our boat are white for a good reason, unfortunately our Jetski has a black seat and we have to splash water on it before sitting on it because it's hot enough to burn your legs on a sunny day.

It would be interesting to see how the tonneau would react if it was painted a light cover?

Painted in a light color, or even reflective would lower the temp. That said, we do not have any information on the failure mechanism (there seems to be a few failure types). We need to not assume from information we do not have. They obviously rushed the cover and it has numerous issues. As a design engineer, I'm really tempted to pull mine apart...I'll wait till it fails though. Unfortunately, due to rivian's locked down nature, motor and sensors will never be available to us.

 

[goldburger]

The upcoming metal Tonneau is probably a redesign.

more info?

 

[paul_rivianlife]

Could someone post a pic of the repaired cover, and the 1 inch situation

Well, interesting behavior. Been back from service for about a week after tonneau replacement. Open/closed tonneau maybe 4 times since service. Decided to try it today with my son watching behavior of the 1 inch overhang on open thing and it decided to not close completely. Brand new cover as of a week mind you. The slowing toward the end of closing behavior turned into slowing to a stop with about 1 inch left open. We were able to open/close it and pull the cover towards the back at the end to get it to close completely. Calling service again.

 

[bigtex]

I took delivery today and was called during inspection notifying me that the Tonneau had a problem, but parts were not in stock. I told them to deliver anyway and will get it fixed when parts come back in stock. Expected late June parts supply.

They are going to completely replace mine. It has some small bends and some scratches through the coating on the first panel, like they put some pliers on it to pull it out of its hatch. I can confirm the cover is aluminum with a black coating that can be scratched off.

 

[omamatt]

Well, interesting behavior. Been back from service for about a week after tonneau replacement. Open/closed tonneau maybe 4 times since service. Decided to try it today with my son watching behavior of the 1 inch overhang on open thing and it decided to not close completely. Brand new cover as of a week mind you. The slowing toward the end of closing behavior turned into slowing to a stop with about 1 inch left open. We were able to open/close it and pull the cover towards the back at the end to get it to close completely. Calling service again.

Mine just started doing same thing Thursday. Opened ticket. Guessing they need lube in the rails?

 

[aw113sgte]

Mine just started doing same thing Thursday. Opened ticket. Guessing they need lube in the rails?

Push and hold the open/close button and it will move further and reset the stop points.

 

[omamatt]

Push and hold the open/close button and it will move further and reset the stop points.

Do we need to do that both ways or only on the direction we have issues? If I ‘help’ it close by giving a little assistance at the end, it closes all the way. Doesn’t feel like a stop point issue.

 

[aw113sgte]

Do we need to do that both ways or only on the direction we have issues? If I ‘help’ it close by giving a little assistance at the end, it closes all the way. Doesn’t feel like a stop point issue.

Not positive. I accidentally closed mine and there was something in the bed that it hit. After that, it would stop an inch short of the tailgate. I then held the button and it closed all the way to the tailgate and seemed to reset itself. Apparently this works for the windows too if they have issues, although I have not tested this.

 

[jpom]

Spoke with a service tech yesterday (he was working on my bricked truck due to 12v drain issue). He recommended keeping the top of the cover clean before retracting and using a dry, graphite based lube in the rails.

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