When you’ve waited over a year and handed over what most people would consider a large amount of money for a vehicle that’s received numerous awards and commendations, you expect your new ride to be everything you’d hoped for. What you don’t expect is to arrive with numerous paint and build faults, but that was just the start of the disappointment for one Rivian R1T owner, who’s facing a massive unexpected bill just to get the truck he signed up for.
The owner, who goes by the handle Rinzler017 on Rivian Forums, picked up his R1T and says he soon noticed that the doors were misaligned, the white paint had multiple defects, a piece of silver trim had separated and a plastic trim screw was missing. That’s going to be disappointing, but vehicles do sometimes suffer quality glitches – what matters at this point is how the automaker responds to make things right.
The owner reached out to Rivian who offered him two choices: have the R1T fixed or replaced. The buyer opted for the latter option and selected a new truck from the inventory. Importantly, he claims the price displayed matched his original price, rather than the new higher prices Rivian introduced in March, which rocketed the cost of quad-motor R1Ts by $12,000 and R1S SUVs by over $14,000, and were claimed to be necessary to cover rising costs.
Related: Rivian R1T Owner Says Fender Bender Repair Bill Totaled Over $42,000
But when the time came to collect the replacement truck the owner received an email in which the truck is priced at post-increase levels. He contacted Rivian to ask why he was being asked to pay more and after a couple of days the automaker got back to him telling him that if he wants a new, replacement truck, he won’t be able to keep the original price. The owner also says that he’s told repairing the truck could take a long time, and he’s offered a set of Rivian center caps as a goodwill gesture. We should say at this point that we only have the owner’s side of the story because automakers never comment on specific cases.
Though Rivian initially tried to foist the March price increase on existing order holders, rather than those booking from that point forward, it was forced to backtrack due to vocal opposition. But it seems to us that the owner in this case isn’t getting what he signed up and paid for. Do you think Rivian is being fair in asking the owner to stump extra money for a new R1T? Or should he just accept the repair option? Leave a comment and let us know.
