I am new to this forum and generally don’t post much online, but I haven’t seen this discussed. Apologies, this will be a long post.
I strongly advise anyone on the waitlist to reconsider proceeding with the 21” wheel and tire. In my experience, there is a major flaw in the all-weather tire.
The water channels that run the tire's circumference are too wide (for context, the channels are almost double the width of the all-weather tires I have on my Subaru). These channels are weak points in the construction, leading to a tear in my tire with only 3,000 miles traveled.
Now for the context. I live in Western Washington, and I frequently whitewater kayak, ski, and do more stereotypical activities. This often involves driving on gravel roads, but rarely anything truly “off-road.” I have never had an issue with my old Outback with a good set of all-weather tires. This experience led me to spec the 21” wheels and tires for the range benefit on long days. That appears to have been a big mistake.
A couple of weeks ago, I was headed to the put-in for the Sultan River dam release on a very good to decent gravel road and tore through the tread on one of the tires. You’ll have to take me at my word, but it was an unexceptional location and speed. In fact, I was following my friend’s Prius with bald tires! The picture shows the result. Punctures happen, but the width of the water channel and the weight of the truck lead me to expect this to happen again all too soon.
Here are the reasons why this is worthy of a rant:
- You cannot currently replace the tires with something else. This Pirelli tire is the only tire on the market that will fit the 21” wheel.
- Your aftermarket wheel options are very slim. The bore and offset Rivian set the truck up with are basically unique. This means the only wheels (with the same bore and offset) are the ones offered by Rivian at the time of sale. (It appears that some custom options are available, but I haven’t been able to bring my shell out $6k after +$80k for the truck)
- Rivian will not sell you an additional set of wheels. Given their current production shortfalls, all “extra” wheels are being distributed as spares.
Rivian’s response thus far has been pretty lackluster. I got an “it is a heavy truck” response when I brought it into the service center. Fair point, but y’all designed these tires for the truck. Maybe I am crazy, but I was expecting gravel road performance to at least be equivalent to a Prius with bald tires.
I strongly suggest paying the extra money for the 20” wheels because you have other tire options at 20” if you want something more efficient. That’s a lot cheaper and better value than being stuck with an “off-road truck” that needs to be babied more than a Prius.
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