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Rivian R1T Fender Bender Lands Owner $42,000 Repair Bill

The electric pickup was extensively disassembled after the seemingly minor accident.

Rivian R1T fender bender

Photo by: Facebook

Iulian Dnistran Iulian Dnistran

By: Iulian Dnistran

May 4, 2023 at 9:37am ET

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A Rivian R1T owner from Ohio was involved in a fender bender that ended up costing about half the price of the whole truck.

Chris Apfelstadt posted his story on the Rivian Electric Vehicle Discussion page on Facebook, where he wrote that in early February he was rear-ended in his red R1T, but that the airbags didn't deploy and that the collision happened at a relatively low speed.

He exchanged insurance information with the driver that hit his truck and then got a check for $1,600 from the other driver's insurance company for the repairs to his pickup. But as he later found out, it was nowhere near enough.

Chris contacted Rivian, which instructed him to go to one of the three certified body shops in Ohio. He chose a company called K-Ceps which, according to him, has a 70,000 square feet facility dedicated to EV repairs.

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The shop mechanics were very thorough and meticulous with the whole repair process, documenting each step with photographs, but for some undisclosed reason, they disassembled most of the R1T’s rear section, including removing the rear window. In the end, the repair bill was over $42,000.

This led some commenters to say that something fishy was going on. One person posted the following comment:

“This is 100% insurance fraud on behalf of this authorized repair facility. Clearly they are taking advantage of the fact this is an extremely new platform to justify egregious costs. Unless it takes 300 hours to remove the bed and rear glass (for no reason at all it would seem) and reassemble how in the world is this a 42k dollar repair? I've seen [Lamborghini] Aventadors have entire rear carbon sections repaired and repainted for less than that…”

The owner of the damaged Rivian went on to say that the body shop did “an incredible job” and that his R1T “looks as nice as the day it was shipped.”

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He finished his post by saying that he’ll try to fight the other driver's insurance company to cover his losses, adding that the insurance policy maxes out at $50,000, which is very close to the final expense sheet, considering he also had a rental car during the repair.

We won't comment on the whole situation, but we'd like to know what you think about it, so head over to the comments section below to give us your thoughts.

Source: Chris Apfelstadt via RIVIAN Electric Vehicles Discussion | R1T + R1S & Amazon EDV

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