Expected Lifespan of an EMotor

[Perseus]

Expected lifespan of your product (Consumer Rights)

What is the expected lifespan of a motor on an ebike please for warranty and consumer rights protection?

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/Public/Campaigns/cra/ConsumerRightsSummary-GoodsF2F.pdf

If the goods do not last a reasonable length of time you may be entitled to some money back? Or replacement motor within the two years (manufacturer) warranty.

How long is the actual trader (shop) liable?

It seems that the shop may refer to the manufacturer.

In any case the failure of some shops to provide proper service for perishable bits, like the brakes and chain, important when they devolve responsibility for home repairs, blaming the customer for other malfunctions.

In short I did not buy an ebike because I thought the terms of sale, prices, reliability, design, and just about everything about them was wrong. Like computers when they first came out to the public. Broke down and it was difficult to blame the seller. Trading Standards did not want to know.

 

[Woosh]

Perseus, you are right to ask questions about warranty.
The life expectancy of a motor depends on the weight of the rider, the terrain, the mileage and more importantly, where it's kept and the amount of TLC it gets from the owner. Assuming your bike is used in ideal conditions, and that you never ride in the rain, never stall it on hills, always keep your bike dry and in a suitable shelter, lube and clean your bike regularly etc, the motor's life should exceed 4,000 miles or 7 years without requiring service. The main thing is to keep water and humidity away from your bike and the moving parts lubed. In practice, you will ride the bike or park the bike sometimes in the rain and some customers cannot look after their bikes well.

Woosh offer standard 12 month guarantee, which can be optionally extended to a second year at the cost of £100. So what is in the warranty?

The warranty covers:

Manufacturing defects causing electrical failure within the first year

Manufacturing defects causing major mechanical failure (frame and handlebars) within the first year

Manufacturing defects causing minor mechanical failure (pedals, spokes etc.) within the first 28 days.

Damage and cosmetic damage (deep gouges, chips, dents and scratches) caused through poor transit to you.

This warranty does not cover:

Accidental damage caused through collision with an object or person or a s a result of dropping the bike or the bike falling over.

Negligence: damage caused as a result of failure to carry out initial and regular safety checks, or failure to maintain the bike or its parts in accordance with the manual, the recommended rider weight being exceeded, or allowing weights heavier than 5Kgs being placed on the rear rack, of allowing people to ride on the rear rack, excessive or constant use of the throttle, riding under the influence of drink or drugs, riding in dusty/sandy environments, riding on very poorly maintained roads, off road, through deep puddles or fords, in snow, or with a trailer, riding carelessly or stunt riding.

Consumable parts after the first 28 days: these include tyres, inner tubes, batteries for lights if applicable, brake pads, bottom brackets, cranks, spokes and pedals. Minor faults on arrival: loose fixings (nuts, bolts, screws,), loose spokes, loose cables deemed resolvable with minimal intervention, Minor cosmetic damage - hairline scratches or barely visible chips, marks or dents.

The warranty period applies to riding within the UK only, is strictly for 12 months and cannot be extended at later date, even if you have ridden the bike very little.

This warranty expressly excludes consequential loss, injury or hardship as a result of electrical or mechanical breakdown, accident or collision or as the result of a faulty part.

Our liability is limited strictly to repair or replacement of the bike or of the part.

This warranty is transferable to a second hand purchaser but our Ts and Cs will apply and their weight should not exceed the limits for the bike.

Transit damage

If your bike appears to have suffered damage during transit to you - for example a chain or mudguard are broken, a wheel is damaged or there are very deep dents or scratches to the paintwork, please call us within one working day of receiving the bike.

Failure to do so may prevent us from claiming compensation form our insurers and thus from making good to you.

Wheel usage: We occasionally short-road-test a bike (300 - 400 metres) before packing.

If your tyres show usage it is because of this. Please be assured that we never sell second hand bikes as new.

Using your Woosh electric bike abroad

Please note that whilst you are allowed to use your throttle in the UK, its use is illegal in Europe.
We highly recommend that you use the red switch to deactivate it when riding abroad.

Breakdowns abroad:

for obvious reasons, we are only able to cover the costs of servicing within the UK. Recovery of a bike within the UK, repairing it and returning it back costs us £45, some of which is borne by customers sometimes and some by us sometimes. See the previous page for details.

If your bike breaks down abroad within the first 28 days of purchase and you wish us to retrieve it, repair it and return it, we will cover the first £45 of our costs but no more.

If you wish us to send parts to a local electric bike shop or to you we will cover the first £45 of labour charges and the cost of sending the parts but no more.

If your bike has been purchased more than 28 days previously we will cover the first £15 and no more.

Fewer than 2% of our bikes are actually returned for servicing under warranty so a breakdown is unlikely but you should be aware of this.

Insurance and break down cover:

Whether from us or any other supplier, electric bikes get stolen and break down. If you are going to be very highly dependant upon your bike because you are a commuter or have a health problem which would prevent you from riding the bike without power, we warmly recommend you take out roadside rescue.

This is available from Cycleguard from £18 per year, and they also offer insurance. Visit their website: www.cycleguard.co.uk or call them on 0844 826 2297

 

[nemesis]

I bought a new Kalkhoff pro connect 10 with the fantastic panasonic motor (not impulse) in 2011.When i sold it three years later it had 36,000 km on the clock and the motor still pulled like new.
I now have a bike with the Bosch CX and after ten months and a lot of use it is also very reliable.

 

[Perseus]

Some causal notes after my year long trial.

Notes on trial use of the Cyclamatic:

Usage about 900 miles in 9 months (before it stopped working entirely); tendency to use pedal bikes for short journeys not involving hills. So only 40% of cycling, if that. (Simply easier to use a pedal bike for the shops.) (i.e. not worth spending the dosh unless I can do 1500 miles a year reliably.)
Bike fell over once on grass, this is expected in normal use. Like ordinary bikes expect to be recoverable from minor spills.
Not used in the rain, through only going on the longer journeys in fine weather. But used it often in windy conditions.
Kept indoors in front hallway, dry. Other bikes are kept in the shed.
Lubricated like an ordinary bike. More because I check all bikes before longer journeys.
Stopped (even stalled) about ten times on hills. Mostly traffic, but also loss of power, not enough power, back weight handicap with rear hub motor on this model. (A good case for walking mode.)
Probably had a tendency to use the throttle excessively for for starts-ups in town (traffic stops), start-ups on hills, and even against head winds as I would cycle against a Force 5 (one of the advantages of ebikes). This may have caused the breakdown?
Used 50% on cyclepaths but they are in better condition than the roads for holes. Wary as I have wrecked poorly designed bikes hitting potholes in the past.
Weight in panniers on back rack never exceed 5 kg, but in practice I would expect a bike to be able to cope with 10 kg (measured) once a year or so. I have a Pashley that only does 15kg and not very well for steering.
Envisaged using a trailer, but I never did. Special occasions only and then for bulk rather than weight. Used the Pashley instead.

NB: Trial ride is essential because the reason I need an ebike is because of arthritis and the riding position is important.

NB: on the Cyclamatic. The blurb said it would do up to 18 miles. It never did anything remotely like that, 10 miles top whack with pedal assist all the time. Other cheaper models are known to be the same (hearsay).

Personal: postponed buying an ebike until I find out my dental bill.
Major cost as running an ordinary pedal bike only works out at about a £100 a year for a goodish one. Or £200 a year with an annual service, chain and cable replacements.

If I had an bike I expect I would want an annual service because of its initial high cost. Local shop would probably replace the chain and brake cables, but not the other cables or service any of the ebike bits?

Cyclamatic was a very good ride when it worked. A very cheap model though and just used as a trial. I think it best to pay a whole lot more. I might have pushed it beyond its limits by using the throttle too much. Nobody would touch it for repairs and this may apply even to shops when you buy cheap models. Beware.

 

[Perseus]

A throttle is very useful, but it might be an idea to get one without a throttle if excessive use is a problem? I found a tendency to use it when stopped on hills, sudden and frequent stops in traffic, always when starting, and against strong headwinds (the latter the same time as pedalling sometimes).

Any comments on throttle use?

 

[Woosh]

Perseus, are you sure that the motor is kaputt? they are tougher than they look, those geared hub motors.

 

[Perseus]

Perseus, are you sure that the motor is kaputt? they are tougher than they look, those geared hub motors.

Nope. I need to do some checking. I've not checked the battery yet. Just makes a horrid grinding sound and stops. Mostly, nothing happens at all now. I actually suspected something else (fault with front brake), but my intuition does not count for much.

 

[skippy_ian]

Geared hub motors have a rudimentary clutch with nylon pinions and excessive use of the throttle, especially on hills and setting off without support from your pedalling will strip them. They can be replaced as can the internal bearings and the motor will run well again.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[slartybartfast]

My gepida asgard is at 3600 miles and runs as fresh as new .Thanks Bosch.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[flecc]

Stopped (even stalled) about ten times on hills. Mostly traffic, but also loss of power, not enough power,
Probably had a tendency to use the throttle excessively for for starts-ups in town (traffic stops), start-ups on hills, and even against head winds as I would cycle against a Force 5 (one of the advantages of ebikes). This may have caused the breakdown?

These are possibly the problem, all of them putting too much strain on the internal nylon gears which may well have chewed up. If the cause is electrical rather than mechanical, the misuses in the next paragraph also cause very high current which can lead to a controller failure

These motors should never be driven down to stalling point when the high torque and current demand causes the damage. Equally they shouldn't be slogged at full thottle at low speeds, which is equally damaging.

Essentially what is happening is that the motor isn't getting enough help from you. They are electric assist bikes, meaning all the motor does is assist you, especially true of a lower powered model like the Cyclamatic. Your input has to be a major component of the necessary power.

The answers are either for you to gain more fitness enabling you to input much more, or to change the Cyclamatic for a much more powerful model. Hub motor e-bikes using the Bafang BPM and CST motors or the Ezee motor are those that will give you far more power and be more robust, but even those still need to be helped in tougher circumstances.
.

 

[Perseus]

These are possibly the problem, all of them putting too much strain on the internal nylon gears which may well have chewed up. If the cause is electrical rather than mechanical, the misuses in the next paragraph also cause very high current which can lead to a controller failure

These motors should never be driven down to stalling point when the high torque and current demand causes the damage. Equally they shouldn't be slogged at full thottle at low speeds, which is equally damaging.

Essentially what is happening is that the motor isn't getting enough help from you. They are electric assist bikes, meaning all the motor does is assist you, especially true of a lower powered model like the Cyclamatic. Your input has to be a major component of the necessary power.

The answers are either for you to gain more fitness enabling you to input much more, or to change the Cyclamatic for a much more powerful model. Hub motor e-bikes using the Bafang BPM and CST motors or the Ezee motor are those that will give you far more power and be more robust, but even those still need to be helped in tougher circumstances.
.

The Cyclamatic is not powerful enough to go up inclines on throttle alone and even then I need to put quite a lot of pedalling effort for anything approaching a proper hill in a very low gear. Pedalling is automatic and I never used throttle alone except for a few seconds at start up.

Loss of performance was gradual and all users of the cheaper ebikes have said the same, both range and power reduces in under a year.

Another thing with the Cyclamatic is cycling without assist was worse than expected and no good at all, it seems more than just the extra weight.

It was not the steep hills that were most advantageous over a light pedal bike, but the long gradual inclines and against a head wind where I would be pedalling flat out when it came into its own, increasing the speed to destination.

Very little advantage for short journeys on the flat in heavy traffic with lots of stopping and starting. I prefer an ordinary pedal bike and I use one for under five miles round trip in preference. As the Cyclamatic only did ten miles, the use for it was not all that great. That's probably why I've not be in a hurry to try and fix it.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

As the Cyclamatic only did ten miles, the use for it was not all that great. That's probably why I've not be in a hurry to try and fix it.

There's loads of things you can do to improve a Cyclamatic. Mine would do an easy 30 mph and pulled like a train. You can change the battery and the controller. None of these things cost that much. the original 24v battery is the weak point. You can get it rebuilt with double the capacity, or better still, switch it for a bigger 36v one, which will give three times the range and 50% more power.

 

[Perseus]

Changing gear on the Cyclamatic was seamless, easier than an ordinary derailleur. Chain stretches though more so than an ordinary derailleur which is a lot. In practice, in traffic (most of the time) frequent and rapid gear changes were used, which is one of the reasons, I found ordinary pedal bikes the best bet for local shopping. Very much a preference for hub gears for cycling. I like clear numbers on the gear levers to see what I am doing.

If I find an ebike I really like and I can afford I would buy one. For design and price (£1600) this pushed all the buttons: http://www.50cycles.com/electric-bikes/beat-bikes/toba_crossbar.html What decided my against it was the reputation of the Impusle II motors and after sales service defeciences.

Raleigh Motus with a Bosch motor now looks a good bet, helped by after sales (at a price) but more than I can afford (£2000) and I can never go overboard (over a fair price) on derailleur gears.