Rich Rebuilds Gets $37,000 Repair Bill For Seemingly Minor Rivian R1T Damage

Name: Rich Rebuilds Gets $37,000 Repair Bill For Seemingly Minor Rivian R1T Damage
Uploaded: 2023-05-30T15:55:27Z
Description: YouTuber Rich Rebuilds, whose real name is Rich Benoit, was recently involved in not one but two fender benders with his all-electric Rivian R1T.

The YouTuber known for bringing dead Teslas back to life got a nasty surprise from the body shop.

Rich Rebuilds' Damaged Rivian R1T

Photo by: Rich Rebuilds (YouTube)

Iulian Dnistran

By: Iulian Dnistran

May 30, 2023 at 11:55am ET

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YouTuber Rich Rebuilds, whose real name is Rich Benoit, was recently involved in not one but two fender benders with his all-electric Rivian R1T.

But while the first minor accident was resolved with little fuss and Rich even got a loaner R1T from Rivian while his truck was being repaired, the second accident is an ongoing mess that's going to cost a lot of money.

Soon after the pickup was repaired, it got rear-ended again, and while the damage seemed minor, the repair bill from the body shop amounted to a whopping $37,475.

This isn't the first time a Rivian repair ended up costing more than $30,000, however. In early February, an R1T owner from Ohio was involved in a fender bender that landed him (or rather his insurance company) a repair bill of over $42,000.

With this being said, Rich Benoit asks himself in the video embedded at the top of this page if maybe building the R1T with a separate bed instead of a continuous piece of metal would result in lower repair costs.

Gallery: 2022 Rivian R1T

2022 Rivian R1T

Furthermore, he asks what will happen when the upcoming Tesla Cybertruck will need body repair on its stainless steel panels and how much would it cost, seeing how expensive the Rivian is to mend.

Both the Rivian R1T and the Tesla Cybertruck have the bed fused to the body, unlike the Ford F-150 Lightning, which is more like a traditional pickup in this regard. As a result, this leads to tougher repairs, it seems.

It's also worth noting that Rich Benoit was sent from one body shop to another after his R1T was rear-ended, with shop reps telling him that they don't repair Rivians, which is mildly infuriating, to say the least.

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In the end, Rich bought a ratty old Volkswagen Rabbit pickup diesel to haul stuff around for his other projects, which is the complete opposite of what the Rivian R1T stands for when the environment is concerned.

As always though, we'd like to know what you think about this, so head over to the comments section below to give us your thoughts.