If you’ve never had a Rivian on your rack before, you need a rivian lift points guide before you touch the arms to that battery pack. The R1T and R1S carry a massive skateboard-style battery pack slung low between the frame rails, and it is not a place you want a lift arm or a pad resting during a raise. We’re Auto Lift Services, an Iowa-based lift installer and parts supplier out of Ames, and between our own shop floor and the dealers and independent techs we support across the state, we’ve fielded plenty of questions about lifting these trucks the right way. This guide walks through exactly where Rivian wants you lifting, and how to set your equipment up so nothing gets pinched, cracked, or shorted.
Need a lift that handles Rivian, F-150 Lightning, and everything else on the road? We stock and install Rotary and Challenger 2-post lifts built for heavier EV curb weights, right here in Iowa.
Why a Rivian Needs Its Own Lift Points Guide
A standard body shop truck lift routine doesn’t transfer cleanly to an R1T or R1S. These trucks weigh close to 7,000 pounds depending on trim and battery configuration, and almost all of that mass sits low in a flat pack that spans nearly the entire wheelbase. Traditional pinch weld and frame rail contact points on a gas truck are often too close to battery pack seams, high-voltage cabling, or coolant lines on a Rivian. That’s exactly why a dedicated rivian lift points guide matters instead of guessing off a decade of Ford or Chevy experience.
Rivian publishes specific lift point locations in its service documentation, and they’re forward and rear of the battery pack on reinforced frame sections, not along the rocker or under the pack itself. Miss those spots and you risk denting the pack housing, which on an EV is not a cosmetic issue — it’s a potential coolant leak or a compromised battery enclosure. We tell every tech who calls us the same thing: find the four marked points before you touch the switch, every single time, no exceptions for a quick tire rotation.
Where the Actual Rivian Lift Points Sit
On both the R1T and R1S, the four lift points are reinforced steel sections just outboard of the battery pack, roughly under the rocker panels near each wheel well. They sit slightly inboard of where you’d instinctively place a pad on a traditional truck, so eyeballing it from experience with other trucks will put you too close to the pack edge. Rivian’s own literature marks these zones, and several aftermarket adapter kits now include laser-cut or printed pad extensions shaped specifically to match them.
If you run a two-post lift, this means your arms need enough reach and swing to get the pad heads under those points without the arm itself contacting the pack’s underside skid plate. On a four-post or a set of mobile columns, you have more flexibility because you’re not restricted by arm geometry, but you still need to confirm each column pad lands on the reinforced zone and not just somewhere close. Following the rivian lift points guide markings rather than habit is the difference between a clean lift and an expensive pack repair.
Two-Post Lifts: Arm Reach and Pad Placement
Most asymmetric two-post lifts on shop floors today have enough arm reach to service Rivian trucks, but the pad height matters more than people expect. The R1T and R1S sit lower to the ground fully loaded than most trucks their size, so you may need shorter pad extensions rather than tall ones to land square on the reinforced frame section without the arm angling awkwardly upward. We’ve adjusted pad stack heights for more than one Iowa shop the first time they brought a Rivian in.
Swing the arms in slowly and confirm contact visually before you commit to raising past a few inches. Because the battery pack sits so close to those lift points, there’s very little room for pad drift once the vehicle starts coming up. A rivian lift points guide is only useful if your arm reach and pad height actually let you land where the guide says to land — check both before the vehicle rolls onto the lift, not after.
Four-Post and Mobile Column Lifts for Rivian Service
A lot of shops handling more EV volume are shifting toward four-post lifts or mobile column setups specifically because they sidestep the arm-reach puzzle entirely. Drive-on four-post platforms let the truck’s own wheels bear the load while you work underneath from a pit or with rolling jacks, which is a solid option for brake work, tire rotations, or general inspection where you don’t need the frame lift points at all.
Mobile column lifts, on the other hand, still require finding and engaging those four Rivian lift points, but they give you total flexibility on approach angle since each column operates independently and can be positioned exactly where needed. For dealers and larger independent shops running multiple EV brands through the bay, we’ve been installing more mobile column setups because the column pads adjust more precisely than a fixed two-post arm ever could.
Weight Capacity: Don’t Guess on an EV Truck
The R1T and R1S are heavy trucks, and that changes the lift capacity math even if your existing two-post has serviced full-size trucks for years without issue. A Rivian’s curb weight sits well above a comparable gas F-150, and with a full battery, cargo, and passengers, you can get close to a lift’s rated capacity faster than you’d expect. We always tell shops to check the lift’s actual rated capacity against the Rivian’s GVWR, not just its curb weight, before running it up.
This is also where lift age and cable or cylinder condition matter more than usual. An older two-post that’s serviced gas trucks fine for a decade may have worn cables or a cylinder that’s lost some margin, and an EV’s mass finds that margin fast. If your lift hasn’t been inspected in a while, get it checked before a heavier EV becomes the vehicle that reveals a problem.
Common Mistakes We See With EV Lift Points
The most common mistake is treating the rivian lift points guide as optional once a tech has done one or two lifts by feel. Every R1T and R1S sits close enough in dimensions that people assume the third one will be fine without rechecking, and that’s exactly the lift where a pad slips onto the pack edge. The second common mistake is using tall pad extensions left over from truck work, which push the contact point up and outward past the reinforced zone.
We also see techs rush the initial few inches of lift travel, when slow and deliberate movement matters most for catching a misaligned pad before real weight transfers. Take the extra thirty seconds to confirm all four points visually once the vehicle is just barely off the ground. It’s a small habit that prevents a five-figure battery pack repair conversation with the customer later.
Getting Your Shop Set Up for Rivian and Other EVs
If Rivian and other EV trucks are becoming a regular part of your workload, it’s worth reviewing your whole lift lineup rather than adapting one lift at a time as vehicles show up. We’ve helped Iowa shops pair updated arm and pad kits with existing two-post lifts, add mobile columns for flexible EV coverage, and in some cases move toward four-post platforms for straightforward service work that doesn’t need frame contact at all.
Our related resources on EV lift points, vehicle lift points across other makes, and EV-safe lift points go deeper into the adapter and pad options available if you’re servicing a mixed fleet of gas and electric vehicles. A rivian lift points guide is a great start, but building a shop that handles every EV coming down the pike takes the right equipment behind it too.
Our Clients Include: