What is it *REALLY* like owning a Rivian? - Time to spill the dirt...

The

time

has come to answer the question of whether I regret buying a Rivian after two years and 35,000 km. There's also the question of how long the tires lasted... Spoiler alert, not much, how much money I saved on fuel and

what

damage I did to the truck myself. There is a lot to go over. The video is sponsored by Anker, but we'll talk about them later. When I bought the Rivian two years and 35,000 km ago, it came with a 280,000 km warranty. It gives me a lot of worry-free

time

. However, tires are not included in the warranty and mine completely failed after about 34,000 km.

That's half the distance I used to cover with the Tacoma. They could have lasted a little longer if I had rotated them correctly. Rivian suggests rotating every 12,000 km. But without oil changes or other reasons to take it to a mechanic, I just haven't done it. My new tires are Wrangler Duratrac RTs that TrailBuilt Off-Road shipped directly to my house. They don't sponsor this video, but you can tell them I sent it to you. Street tires would also last longer if I lived like that. Tire rotation is necessary because the front tires do most of the braking and regeneration, and in economy driving mode they also do all the driving.

This means that when you add the friction of driving a 3.24 ton truck, the front tires wear out much faster than the rear tires. That's why you have to rotate them. These Duratrac tires cost about $1,700, about the same as the Pirellis that came with the truck, but the Duratracs have a little more tread and the same load capacity, and also a slightly lower top speed. So they won't let me drive 177 km/h for that long. Instead of going to the shop, Rivian service came to my house to mount and balance the tires to see how everything works.

Personally, I had the dubious feeling that Pirellis, the same tires as my wife's Tesla, just don't last long. They are fantastic tires and have great grip, but I hope the Duratracs last longer because the tires are expensive. These are also marked as being able to continue off-road and snow driving in Utah. The metal weights we add to the inside of the wheels help balance them so the wheels don't vibrate at high speeds. Having a Rivian service mount and balance the tires was not included in the warranty and cost about $100 per tire. $100 is expensive compared to a regular shop, but it may be worth it if you don't want to wait or be without a truck for a day.

And it's good that Rivian has the option of mobile service. One thing the warranty covers is the trailer cover. If you remember, it broke down 1,000 miles after

owning

the truck. They installed a replacement cover at the service center six months ago. Fortunately, Rivian again agreed to the request for me to bring the camera and see how they did it. The coil gun heats the screws to soften the glue. And then they take out the entire back seat. You will see that behind the seat is one of 17 different control modules. All this is abolished in the new renovated Rivians that they are now producing.

Rivian consolidated 17 controllers into seven to save time and money. It's crazy that you have to take apart the entire truck just to change the cover. I'll keep this one from falling into the darkness of the truck. The four screws on the back of the case are disposable screws. I didn't know they existed, but they have a built-in rubber ring around the head of the screw that keeps water out. After removing those screws, we need to use new ones to secure them. We have the old cover next to the new one, and the operation is surprisingly simple.

There are a series of plates inside this box that are depressed by springs and a small motor rotates the gears to eject them horizontally across the trailer. The problem is that the springs on the old cover were not strong enough, so they did not eject evenly on both sides. The gears would slip, get stuck and stop working. Rivian's solution is even simpler: they simply added another spring to the bottom. You can see that the old version has two springs while the new version has three. Hopefully it provides enough force on the plates to keep everything running efficiently.

Now we have to put everything back in its place. The cover is in place, but before we put the panels back on, this is interesting. This is a silencer for the air compressor, so the air that is discharged and sucked in is quieter. The air compressor is down in this hole and here we have the 120 volt wiring for the outlet that is here on the trailer. It's fun to see how it works inside. Let's run the lid to calibrate it. These rails are still loose, so we can be sure that everything will be fine after they are extended.

Let's see if it works. Nice. That's the law! We're putting it back in... It's crazy that each of these slats go in that little box and fit on top of each other very nicely and very conveniently in that little box that's attached to the back with four screws on each one. corner. It's been about six months since the repair and the cover still hasn't broken. Thumbs up for that. If you remember, I accidentally broke the edge of the back door. And apparently there was a subtle redesign of the rear plastic, they added this step that does not exist in the first version.

And we also have stronger clips and some glue along. My truck is one of the first 2000 Rivians built and when I bought it I knew there would be risks and problems with a new company, but I'm glad these small changes are retroactive and I can still use them when I need new parts. . It's nice to be able to take advantage of the small improvements that occur along the way. Now the cover is put back on and we can move on to the windshield. A few days after the purchase the glass broke and a month later it broke again.

I have a huge crack that goes through the entire windshield and it has been there for about two years. It broke from two different stones on two different occasions. There is a lot of construction going on in Utah and as we know, glass is glass. The cosmetic defects don't bother me, but it's time to replace them. In order to remove the glass we have to dismantle the entire front. These pieces are apparently held in place by magnets. It turns out that replacing the glass is quite intensive, but that's good news for us because we can see the internal parts again.

We don't have to remove it to remove the glass, but it only took a few minutes and we can see everything inside. We have rear wheel drive and I think this part is

really

cool. You know the charging port here is on the side of the Rivian, the larger cables are for DC fast charging and the smaller cable is for a regular wall outlet. We also have two 12V batteries, an air filter, and a huge radiator down here, which helps cool the battery and the motor. It's fun to see how it all works, but back to the glass.

The windshield wipers, the interior roof rack covers and the rear-view mirror with all driving assistance cameras must be removed. Under the windshield we have a rain sensor, a mirror mount, we have two cameras here and here, and also

what

I didn't know, a heater that heats the glass above the camera to prevent snow or ice from accumulating. There is a second heater here that runs along the bottom of the windshield and warms the glass to help defrost. Finally, a very fine wire is passed between the glass and the truck to cut the glue holding it in place.

Considering how thick and strong the glue is, it takes a lot of force. Once the glass is removed, excess adhesive is scraped from the frame and the electronics are transferred to a new piece of glass. Thick black glue is applied in a continuous line, so that there are no gaps in the waterproofing. These are the clips that ensure the glass stays in the right place. These are stops that ensure that the glass is at a certain distance from the vehicle. And with large suction cups they lower the new glass into its place. The glue has to cure for a day and the cameras have to be calibrated, which is part of the reason glass is so expensive.

This particular repair, which is unavoidable, costs around $1,800. The only thing I broke that I'm not going to fix is ​​the trailer door. I accidentally left the ball on the hook too high once after pulling, so I dropped the tailgate. It's my fault, but I don't feel bad. I use a pickup truck as a van: transporting horsepower, real horses, horse excrement, and mechanical horses. My wife let me buy a truck and it's only fair that I do her little jobs. The interior has no problems. The external port doesn't close quite right, but I'm sure I can adjust it in the shop.

You can see paint chips around the top edge when closed. But honestly, with about 240,000 km of warranty remaining on batteries and motor, I'm not worried at all. One thing Rivian hasn't fixed is the wireless charger trying to charge the meter. I'm not too concerned because I have an Anker 3-in-1 charger in the center console. Anker has been a long-time sponsor of the channel for good reason. Nobody makes chargers better. These chargers have a built-in AC plug, battery and USB cable, so they are easy to carry and nothing can be lost. The small ones have 5,000mAh, and the largest ones have 10,000mAh with 30W fast charging, which charges the iPhone 15 Pro up to 50% in just 25 minutes.

Fun fact, it would take 3000 of these to be like this truck's battery, but the battery under the truck wouldn't fit well in my pocket. The USB-C cable serves as a small handle and can withstand 10,000 bends, and the same cable is used to charge the charger. If you have a friend who needs to charge at the same time, there is a USB-C port to charge multiple devices at once or to charge your phone and charger at the same time. If you need a new charger, get one from the best charger brand, Anker. I'll leave the link in the description.

When I bought the truck, I thought the "Gear Guard" was unnecessary, but I constantly use the cable lock for the all-terrain wheelchair we make. Plus some other things we did, but we'll talk about them another time. As for the

dirt

under the trailer, I find it pretty easy to remove. Here the

dirt

fell and accumulated between the trailer and the door. It clung to the bumper and the carbon fiber fairing that surrounded the engine. Every time I dragged gravel, dirt, or fertilizer, memories were trapped underneath. Everything you see here has been accumulated over the last two years and there is a lot of it.

Rivian designed the R1T as an adventure truck, not a work truck, but I use it as a work truck. Why are you getting under the truck? Because it accumulates dirt. Why does it accumulate dust? We both want to know the answer to that. You should definitely keep this in mind if you plan to use the trailer as a trailer. How much money have I saved driving an electric van by not buying fuel? The answer is not much. Since gasoline is now cheap, if we were to allocate a hypothetical 12 liters per 100 kilometers, roughly what a van of this size could achieve, it would use around 4,200 liters of fuel over 35,000 kilometers, which would cost $3,800.

I have solar panels on my house, so the miles I drove were free, but it would take a long time to recoup the cost in fuel savings alone. But parasitism is the law. No oil changes, which saved another couple hundred dollars. But this saving is lost with the registration of electric vehicles, which costs more than that of normal vehicles. The government has to make up the money it loses because EVs don't buy fuel, which is fine with me. EV owners must help pay for road maintenance like any other vehicle, and almost all states already apply these fees for EV registration, not just Utah.

If I had to choose one word to describe the experience in two years it would be: fantastic! The truck is better now than when I bought it. The nice thing about having so many software-related features is that the truck I have now is completely different from the one I bought. They completely updated the information screens and gave me the geeky graphics I wanted from day one. I wish there were data like watts and torque, along with visual animations, but I'll take what I can get. The external cameras now also serve as surveillance, recording everything that happens around me.

Two seats fit in the back seat, and if we need three, it has a side tank. Honestly, it impressed me two years ago and it just keeps getting better. We now have Tesla's fast charging network, the software is improving exponentially, and I haven't had any major maintenance issues, which is very impressive considering it's among the first 2,000 pickup trucks ever built. It's absolutely crazy that this truck can show off in a Lamborghini race while looking like ano bake marshmallow cookie. No one can see from the outside that there's an incredible amount of power hidden under the hood, but it's definitely there.

So to answer the question, do I regret the Rivian after two years and 35,000 miles, now that all the electric trucks have been released? The answer is: certainly not. I enjoyed every mile and look forward to the miles to come. Thanks to Rivian for creating an epic truck and thanks so much for watching! See you.