Owners of Rivian R2 SUVs, including two who said their vehicles were built in September, said the EV maker’s latest software update stopped them from switching on seat ventilation from the center screen, a day after Rivian confirmed it had quietly removed the backrest fans from the vehicles’ ventilated front seats.
Owner-run tracker Rivian Roamer said Rivian had withdrawn the update, version 2026.36, from R2s built after September 1, and assumed the move was related to the seat change.
Rivian has not confirmed either the withdrawal or its cause.
“It looks like Rivian has withdrawn 2026.36 for R2s built after September 1st,” Rivian Roamer wrote on X on Thursday. “I’m assuming it’s related to the change with ventilated seats.”
The platform’s public data does not break the rollout down by build date.
Ventilation Only Through App or Voice
Owners began reporting the problem on Thursday afternoon, hours before Rivian Roamer’s post.
Scott Singer, who said his R2 has a VIN in the 9,500s, wrote on X at 2:34 p.m. Pacific that after 2026.36.40 he could not “activate cooled seats anymore unless done via app or Rivian Assistant.”
His photos show the seat-climate pop-up on the center display offering heat for the seat and steering wheel but no ventilation option, while in one of them the climate bar still shows the ventilation icon.
On Rivian Forums, an owner posting as ‘floodcasso2’ wrote: “I have the bug where my cooled seat button disappeared. Though it still exists in the app.”
Another owner, ‘VTR2’, wrote that the cool seat icon “no longer appears on the center screen,” while the cooled seats “will work from the app,” and said Rivian support had scheduled a mobile service appointment.
An owner posting as ewcanes wrote that the only way to turn on ventilation was through Rivian Assistant, and that the icon then disappeared again once the seats were switched off, leaving only heat.
He said his R2 was built on September 1.
A fourth forum user, ‘PilotFrog’, wrote that he had “lost the Cooling seat option after the software update to 36.40.”
Jordan, an owner posting as ‘EV_Agnostic’, replied to Rivian Roamer two minutes after its post: “I have a September build and .36 disabled my ventilated seats can only heat now.”
Fan Cutoff Still Unclear
Rivian said on Wednesday evening that it had removed the backrest fans because they “generated excessive cabin noise,” and that seat heating is unchanged.
It has still not said which vehicles are affected.
A support agent told one customer the change began on September 1, according to the customer, while a person claiming to be a Rivian technician placed it at around VIN 10,000.
A new owner report adds to the uneven picture.
An owner who took delivery of an R2 with a VIN in the 11,000s in Knightdale, North Carolina, on Thursday wrote that neither front seat had a backrest fan.
Another R2 delivered at the same time, with a VIN in the 9,000s, had a working backrest fan only in the driver’s seat, the owner wrote.
The R2 release notes for 2026.36.40 include one change to seat climate.
“If the cabin climate is warming up or cooling down, the vehicle now displays the Seat Climate icon with the corresponding Heat or Ventilate icon but doesn’t automatically heat or ventilate the seat,” the notes say.
The notes do not mention the backrest fans, and Rivian has not said whether the update treats cushion-only seats differently.
The update also brought Rivian Assistant, the company’s AI voice assistant, and Pet Cam to the R2, along with a programmable liftgate height.
What the Tracker Shows
Rivian Roamer counts only vehicles whose owners have linked their accounts, so its figures are not a full picture of Rivian’s fleet.
Of the 993 linked R2s eligible for 2026.36.40, 898, or 90%, had been offered the update and 706, or 71%, had installed it by Friday morning.
Offers to tracked R2s peaked at 157 between 11 a.m. and noon Pacific on Thursday, followed by 92, 112, 61, 41 and 22 in the next five hours.
They fell to four between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. and to between zero and three an hour after that.
The R1 version released at the same time, 2026.36.0, slowed in a similar way.
Offers to tracked R1s peaked at 785 in the same hour on Thursday and fell to 40 between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., before continuing at five to seven an hour overnight.
That version had reached 72% of about 6,870 linked R1s, leaving roughly 1,900 still to be offered, about 20 times as many as the 95 R2s still waiting.
The hourly figures alone therefore do not show whether Rivian stopped offering the update to some R2s or whether the R2 wave was nearing its end.
No Word From Rivian
Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid announced the 2026.36 rollout on X on October 7 and had not posted since as of Friday morning.
Rivian’s X account has not addressed the reports, and its recent posts have focused on its Ghostbusters-themed Halloween mode, scheduled to run from Friday through November 2.
In November 2023, Rivian cancelled its 2023.42.0 update after it left some R1 infotainment systems unusable, telling owners on Reddit: “This is on us – we messed up.”
The R2 Performance, the only version currently on sale, starts at $57,990, and Rivian’s R2 web page described it on Thursday as having “heated and ventilated seats.”
