You could always tell who the Rivian engineers were in town because they had “those different looking trucks” in their driveways. I’m assuming they got to take them home to test in the beginning. I’m assuming Scout will be doing something similar.I think the answer is that (as an OEM) you need to have spare parts straight out of the gate to avoid a glut of repair jobs and unnecessary expenses due to loaner vehicle availability and rental car costs.
Rivian was extraordinarily challenged out of the gate given the timing of their debut with the pandemic, but did a good job while spinning up an entirely new business and launching their first ever vehicles. When I brought my truck in for service the first time, Rivian discovered a leak in one of the front drive units - this was in 2022 during my first year of ownership. This required 7 different components (and a total of 36 individual parts to complete the job). My truck was dropped off and picked up in one week for this job. Parts were ordered, because labor was about 1 day for this job.
BTW, I did not know all of this off the top of my head, but I just went into the app, clicked the service icon (a wrench) and it shows your entire service history for the vehicle with a full invoice. Of course this was all done under warranty and I was given an Enterprise loaner vehicle for a week.
*** Early Adopters. *** Whether you like it or not, we all do some degree of real-world testing for any OEM with early vehicles. For Rivian, Scout, or whatever comes next, you should expect that you could experience a couple of kinks that will likely NOT be kinks as more and more vehicles roll off the assembly line. If you are going to be easily aggravated by having to go to a service center (or wait for a remote service appointment, or get a loaner), you may want to wait a bit before taking delivery on a first model year anything. I will say this, I think if I had to drive for 4 or 5 hours to get to a service center, I might not have pulled the trigger on the R1T. This is a personal consideration for everyone. Some people have a higher threshold while others have a lower threshold and wil do anything to be early.
EXAMPLE of a "kink": Some of the tape used on the secondary door seals did not adhere well to the paint inside the door of my truck and needed to be replaced. I think this was a known issue for early trucks and Rivian wound-up making adjustments to the tape used behind the seals to help alleviate that (once it became a known issue, if I remember correctly). Some people are OK with just fixing something like that on their own, others want to get it done professionally under warranty. Having some degree of understanding and tolerance for little things can be helpful for sure, BUT Scout (with VW) and hopefully no Pandemic should be in an excellent position for parts straight out of the gate. Service locations will be interesting to most prospective buyers, so transparency on planning and execution for Scout SC's will be key to converting orders.
I just keep thinking when it’s my turn I’m taking it. If it’s early, it’s early. We have multiple cars and I work from home so if there’s issues I’m sure they will take care of it. I’m just super excited to get my Scout, as I’m sure you can all tell.
I realized the other day the last new car I picked out was my 2007 BMW 328i. The Jeep my husband picked out and I took it from him. Ha! I’m ready for a new car that’s all me.