Detailer Gives the Rivian R2 a 9 Out of 10 on Fit and Finish

Coleton at Out of Spec Detailing put a customer delivered R2 Performance Launch Edition through a full build quality review and came out of it giving the exterior a 9 out of 10. He says in the video that he expected the opposite, and if you have watched his Rivian coverage over the years you know that is not something he says lightly.

He has been measuring these cars since the start of R1T production, through the ramp, and into Gen 2, so he knows exactly where Rivian tends to slip.

Two complaints are worth calling out because they are the ones owners will actually live with.

The exterior buttons for the hood and dropdown window got a 0 out of 10. The buttons needed five or six presses to respond, and he could not get the roll down rear glass to close from outside the car at all. His objection is winter and the phone as a key concept, since going into the software to open a frunk defeats the point.

The other is the lower interior plastics. Everything from the waist up in the R2 reads premium to him, the vegan leather, the copper stitching, the cloth, the cooled seats he rates among the best he has sat in. Below the waist it is hard injection molded plastic on the door cards, the seat sides, the rear seat backs and the cargo floor, and the car already had permanent scuffs at 2,000 miles. His argument is that a Model 3 or a Model Y costs less and carpets those same areas.

My own R2 lines up with most of this. The charge port door is the item from his list that shows up on mine, and flimsy is the word most owners seem to land on with that part. The plastics are already scuffing on mine even with me being careful about it. The exterior buttons are where I disagree with Coleton since mine have been consistent, which makes me think what he ran into may be specific to that car or to the software at the time.

He plans to run the review again as VINs climb and once cars start coming out of Georgia, so this is a first data point rather than a verdict on how R2 gets built at volume.

Jose Castillo Founder and Editor

Jose Castillo is the founder of RivianTrackr and has owned and driven Rivians since early in the brand's consumer history. He currently drives an R1S and an R2 in Florida and uses Universal Hands-Free every day. As a credentialed Rivian journalist, he has covered the R2 First Drive in Park City and SXSW firsthand and has spoken directly with Rivian's software and autonomy leadership.

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