Rivian maintenance: cost, plans and service schedule

Are Rivians expensive to maintain?

No, Rivians are not expensive to maintain. Our local Rivian service advisor gave us the full rundown.

“Every 7,500 miles we like to do a rotation and a full inspection,” he told us. “They’re around $60 and $120, respectively.”

Beyond that, there’s not much to it.

“At year three or 22,500 miles, we’ll do a brake flush and a more detailed inspection,” the service advisor said. “Finally, we do a coolant flush at 112,500 miles, but we’ve never had to do one of those yet.”

The advisor we spoke with couldn’t provide us with an exact quote on the three-year service since we didn’t have an account with Rivian. But he did say that it’s “not much more than the one-year service.”

All things considered, you’re looking at spending around $300 per year (on average) to perform basic maintenance on a Rivian. That’s about one-third the cost of maintaining a vehicle with an internal combustion engine (about $900), which isn’t bad for a $70,000 super-truck.

Rivian maintenance cost and schedule

Before we discuss brakes and tires, here’s a quick recap of the factory-recommended maintenance schedule on a Rivian:

Cost to replace Rivian brakes and tires

As for tires, it’s a well-known fact that EVs wear through tires faster than their gas-powered counterparts. That’s especially true if the EV is heavy or has high horsepower figures.

Now, when you consider that the top-trim Rivian has 835 horsepower and weighs 7,000 pounds (literally three Mazda Miatas), it would be logical to assume that the R1T would chew through its tires before leaving the dealership.

Thankfully, Rivians come well-equipped with durable tires that are designed to take the vehicle’s massive torque and curb weight. “I believe they’re called Pirelli Scorpions, and unless you’re doing donuts in the Wal-Mart parking lot, they should last you at least 20,000 miles,” said the Rivian service advisor.

They also shouldn’t be too expensive to replace.

“We actually partnered with Discount Tire, so their locations have the necessary jack adapter to easily swap the tires on a Rivian,” the service advisor told us. “And as long as your replacement tires fit OEM specifications (HL275/50R-22) and are rated for EV use, they should work fine.”

As for how to maximize your tread life, our friendly Rivian service advisor gave us an interesting tip.

“The Quad-Motor models come equipped with a drive mode called Conserve Mode,” he said. “This sends all the power to the front wheels to maximize range and battery life, but it also eats your tires faster. If you don’t need the extra range, it might be cheaper in the long run to keep it off.”

The final piece of the Rivian maintenance puzzle is brakes. Unfortunately, neither of the Rivian service advisors we spoke with could give us an exact quote on a brake job since we didn’t actually own a Rivian or have a Rivian account.

That said, we found various discussions on the r/Rivian subreddit where owners report spending between $500-$900 per axle for pads and rotors. This is roughly the same as a brake job on a normal commuter car ($400-$900), which is remarkable considering these are ultra-high-performance trucks and SUVs.

All things considered, Rivian maintenance is cheaper than a Netflix family plan. Let’s see how $300 per year in maintenance costs stacks up to the competition.

How Rivian compares to other automakers

With no oil to change or engine air filters to replace, Rivians are significantly cheaper to maintain than their gas-powered counterparts from Ford and Chevrolet.

When compared with fellow EVs, however, Rivians actually stand out as relatively expensive. Tesla doesn’t require routine inspections as part of scheduled maintenance, and since many owners change out their own wiper blades and cabin air filters, the cost of maintaining a Tesla really comes down to simple alignments and rotations every year or so (about $200).

As for Lucid and Polestar, both performance EV brands offer complimentary maintenance for the first two years. You can’t beat that.

Rivian maintenance and repair costs by model

This is the section where we’d normally talk about which models in the lineup are built like tanks and, conversely, which ones are total money pits.

But at the time of this writing, only the R1S and R1T have come out, and they’re both virtually the same vehicle underneath.

Case in point, when we asked the Rivian service advisors which of the two was more reliable, there was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“We haven’t seen any major issues with either one,” he replied diplomatically.

Rivian repair costs

Rivian repair costs are largely unknown at this point because all Rivians that are currently on the road are still under their original factory warranty.

For reference, all new Rivians come with the following manufacturer’s warranty:

For Quad-Motor configurations:

• Five-year/60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty
• Eight-year/175,000-mile EV battery warranty

For all other configurations:

• Four-year/50,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty
• Eight-year/150,000-mile EV battery warranty

Since the R1T Launch Edition came out for the 2022 model year, virtually all Rivian repairs up until this point have been completed under warranty at zero cost to the customer.

In the future, we expect post-warranty Rivian repairs to look similar to other luxury EVs. According to RepairPal, the average cost to repair a Tesla out of warranty is roughly $1,138 per year, adjusted for inflation.

» LEARN: What is a manufacturer’s warranty?

How can an extended warranty help?

At the time of this writing in 2024, it’s probably too early to be considering an extended warranty for a Rivian. Even the oldest Rivian on the road still has two years and probably about 20,000 miles of its original factory warranty left.

Even if you were to start shopping early, the best extended warranty companies don’t provide dedicated plans for EVs yet. Those that claim they do actually don’t cover EV-specific components like the battery and the drive unit (read: electric motor), which pretty much defeats the purpose of having an extended warranty.

That said, if you do plan to compare the cost of owning a Rivian versus a traditional gas-powered truck, the one advantage of the latter is that extended warranty options are plentiful.

» MORE: Car warranty vs. car insurance