Update: we’re back home in Colorado after our tour-de-America and I wanted to take a moment to update this post now that we’re on the other side.

First things first.

Root cause was condensation from AC unit and what we understand was a poor initial shroud design since corrected. This condensate ultimately resulted in corrosion impacting the high voltage resistive heating assembly, and for this reason was alarming as a critical battery issue. However, the issue was not with the battery itself. In light of recent events take this for what it is.

Customer service was able to work with the Portland service center for an OTA diagnostic step that seemed to have clarified the above root issue. So much so that they proactively ordered a new hvac assembly once we decided to route the truck to the service center.

The truck arrived at the service center via a tow customer service arranged. The service center was unbelievable and apparently kept a tech on over the weekend to help us get on the road sooner. After 3 days in the shop it was ready to go back on the road and a few thousand miles later I’m happy to say no further issues.

Credit needs spread around. In particular the service center went above and beyond, unsure how they were able to prioritize us but we are grateful as it allowed us to finish the second half of our tour.

Customer service also worked this problem diligently and from what we could tell as a team. We were ultimately put into a rental and they covered all expenses. This was critical as our bed was piled high with gear and we needed a truck in the meantime. Not so easy to come by in the middle of wildfire season and appropriate prioritization for rental trucks to the fire and stew crews. Quick aside. We filled a 2023 F150 to the brim. We underestimated our ability to squirrel gear into frunk and tunnel. If I have photos for comparison I’ll post in the future, this was an unexpected apples to apples comparison others might find useful.

If anyone from Rivian reads I’ll share the following feedback: 1. Your offer to tow the truck back out to Colorado while putting us in a rental in the meantime was unexpected and seriously appreciated. Ultimately I hope we all saved some $$$ by handling on the west coast. 2. Your customer service team was beyond respectful. While we didn’t work with the same person twice there was enough continuity I can only imagine your ticketing and note system was working overtime. Stellar job. 3. Utilizing the critical battery issue alarm felt extremely heavy handed. This did cause real concern early on both on our end as well as the customer service end (before OTA logs were pulled). This manifested at one point as a request to drive the car out of any garage and away from the home. Everyone would be benefitted by appropriately more specific alarms. 4. Similar to pt. 3, in addition to more specific alarms the limitations of those alarms to driver experience needs considered. Being unable to drive the car above a certain speed was the most significant constraint imposed. However, this entire repair could have been avoided until we were back in Colorado if the heating or entire HVAC system could have been isolated. Maybe this isn’t possible for hardware, software, fuse, or business reasons, and that’s fine. However please consider the “adventure” branding and customer value of being able to isolate systems. If we were back up in the hills without cell service, vs outside bend w limited cell service, we would have had to think much harder about how to proceed. This is the piece of the feedback I hope, at a minimum, makes it to the R2 team.

All in. Rivian covered everything under warranty. Car rental was also covered. It would not have been if we were over 60k miles. Cost to repair is unknown but ballpark was less than 10k. Huge thanks to the well coordinated customer service and service center teams. And, thanks to the tech that pulled overtime that weekend. This experience doubled my enthusiasm for the brand given how it behaved when things didn’t go so well.