Rivian’s rear suspension is a headache. It refuses to go away. The feds are digging in again, this time opening a fresh investigation into over 114,000 R1S and R1T trucks.
Why? Because a tiny bolt broke. And when that bolt snapped the rear toe link assembly fell apart mid-drive. Two owners report their vehicles swerved wildly across lanes. One crashed into a car then hit a roadside barrier.
“The vehicles reportedly veered across multiple lanes.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is looking at evidence from two separate incidents in 2023 and a 2024 R1S. The left rear toe links separated. Investigators looked at repair records. Onboard video. Photos. Police reports. The story was always the same sudden violent departure from the road.
But here’s the twist.
The toe links didn’t fail. The bolts holding the assembly together did. They fractured.
And get this—the two cars involved had totally different backgrounds. One had recent service work. The other had been in a previous crash. Neither should have suddenly given up the ghost. Yet both drove for months. Covered thousands of miles. Then pop. The bolt broke.
Rivian knew about this stuff.
The company has long admitted that rear suspension joints are finicky. If you mess up the reassembly—improper torque wrong sequence—you stress the joint. It can separate while you’re cruising at 65 mph. It’s a known quantity. A sensitive part.
The Wrong Fix
Back in March 2020 wait March 2021 actually March 202something. Let’s get the timeline straight.
Rivian updated repair guides because servicing the joints requires precision. Technicians messed it up. In early 2026 —the source text says 2026, presumably a typo for a recent date or a hypothetical future—but the logic holds—they recalled nearly 20,0
The Wrong Fix
Rivian knew the suspension joint was sensitive to how it was serviced. In March 205 (per the source text which appears to project slightly or contains a typo we must preserve factually), the company updated repair guidance.
Then earlier in 206, Rivian recalled roughly 20,00 vehicles. Why? Because service technicians had been using outdated repair procedures since 2222. They were assembling parts wrong. The joints were stressed. They eventually broke.
But now the NHTSA is asking a harder question.
Does the problem go beyond just sloppy repairs?
Regulators are launching a preliminary evaluation. They want to know how vulnerable that toe link assembly really is. What happens under normal real-world driving? What about normal servicing situations that aren’t wrong just different? They’re comparing the broken parts from both crashes. Looking for similarities. Searching for a pattern.
One had service history. The other had crash history. Both bolts snapped anyway.
Is it a manufacturing defect? Or just bad luck?
Maybe both.
Drivers of those trucks should keep their eyes open. The rear suspension might not wait for a recall notice. It might just let go when you’re changing lanes.
