Motor reliability

[Crystal_pixie]

Just wondered what brand of motor is the most reliable? I realise that on all ebikes things will break, chains will need replacing and batteries have a finite life.

The reason why I am asking is that I have a Kalkhoff pro connect I8 step through. I love it but I wonder how long the motor will last. I haven't found Kalkhoff to be the greatest at customer service yet, but I am hoping they can ease my concern about the impulse motor.

So lessons learned I am interested in the forums views about the reliability of motors.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I think you're right to be concerned about your impulse motor. they all seem to give trouble sooner or later, but, of course, it tends to be only people with problems that come on here. There might be many happy owners, who we don't know about.

To answer your question, most motors seem to be pretty reliable. i can't think of any others that I would suggest you keep clear of. The Bafang crank-drives give the odd problem, but they're not too hard to fix. Hub-motors occasionally get water in them if you don't look after them. I don't know how much of that is down to owners reinstalling them the wrong way up after taking the wheel off to change a tyre or whatever.

Reliability is a strange issue. There don't seem to be any rules if you cut through all the prejudice and hysteria. Some people buy the cheapest bikes on Ebay, and they last forever, while as others don't even get their very expensive bike home before they get significant issues, or you can get it the other way round.

If somebody told me that they wanted to get an e-bike and they wanted to know what to avoid. I can't think of anything except the kalkhoff Impulse. The rest is a lottery except that most people win.

 

[Woosh]

The rest is a lottery except that most people win.

at least in the first 1-2 years.

my personal experience seem to correlate to the following general rules:

- the lower power, the more reliable your motor will be.
- front motor on a suspension fork seems to be more reliable than unsuspended rear motor on the same controller.
- internal controllers (like the BBS01/BBS02) suffer more failures than external controllers.

Most motors are fairly easy to strip down and the serviceable parts for hub motors are in £ rather than ££ or £££.

 

[Crystal_pixie]

Thanks guys. Typical me to pick the problem child! I nearly bought a Giant E+ but it was just a bit beyond my budget.

To be fair the Kalkhoff is wonderful to ride and is a very comfortable position.

Definitely an ebike convert. If the motor does fail I might be asking for my money back.

 

[soundwave]

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/ongoing-reliability-of-kalkhoff-focus-impulse-2-motors.24290/