Volt Metro

[davell]

Anyone on here using a volt metro. I have a chance of a clean used one (for the other half to pootle round the village) at a good price. It only has 300 miles on the odo. The owners son is selling it after a death in the family and is not sure of the age. The battery is my main concern. He thinks it is about 4 years old but I have my doubts. The battery has a key switch on the side but the current models do not. Can any owners of this bike confirm when the battery design was changed. I have a 4-year-old volt and that has the newer design !

Obviously the cost of a battery if it needs replacing plays a big part in the cost of a bike.

Thanks

 

[cyclebuddy]

The age of the bike - or at least the "make date" - is often within the bike frame serial number. If you look at your own Volt bike serial number, know when you bought it, the "make date" is likely 6-12 or more months before.

For example, one of my bikes bought Dec 2016 has a frame number 1605xxxxxx, suggesting a make date of May 2016 (05/16). Another bike bought April 21 has frame xxx2009xxxx suggesting it was made Sept 2020 (09/20). Allow for assembly, shipping from China, and then through the distribution/retail chain... it can easily take 6 or so months before it's first offered for sale.

Or call Volt on 020 7378 4728 with the bike's frame number. High value items are often logged by their serial numbers for insurance/in case of loss/theft during shipping, so Volt should be able to help you tell the bikes true age. Or just ask them when the battery design changed: The battery itself may also have a serial/make-date label on it.

It'll at least give you a good indication of how old the bike may really be.

 

[vfr400]

The batteries are also often coded with the date on the label, which is easier to see than crawling under the bike.

Generally, batteries don't wear down if they're not used as long as they're kept in the middle charge range, i.e. not left on the charger for days or weeks. The only way to find out is to test the bike. The most logical way is to see how far it goes, but you can also get an indication from the sag. The more tired it is, the more the voltage sags when you take full power out of it. You can only see the sag if you can set the LCD to show actual voltage. The battery indicator display (bars) on the LCD is normally well-damped so you don't see instant changes, but you would see something on a hill long enough for it to adjust to the voltage, say 20 to 30 seconds. A good battery would probably drop one bar, but a tired one would drop two or more., then bounce back as soon as you stop taking power from it.