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[vaiarii]

Dear,

I experienced a bad story recently with my SR 2014 and would like to know if some of you had the same issue...

After 10 000 km+ the rear wheel bearings showed some fatigue, so I went to my dealer,
He told me this was quiet normal since the rear wheel might be a little underestimated regarding the global performance of the bike.
So he replaced the bearings by one of its own, and 2 days later the new one failed!

Back to the dealer, he told me that the spacer inside the wheel might be to much compress so that the new bearings worked with a misalignment and failed so fast.
So I asked him to take original bearings, spacer and any other parts from the manufacturer

and here is the bad news:

After checking on the zero dealer access, he answered me that zero doesn't provide these parts alone, and that there is not even a process defined for bearing replacement!
When he asked them how they manage a bearing replacement they told him that they use to replace the wheel!

As a result, he doesn't want to replace again the bearing with its own, because of responsability reasons (regarding the lack of procedure defined by the manufacturer).
So I had to pay for a new wheel!

This is unbelievable!
How a company can force his consumers to pay for an entire wheel when only some parts have to be replaced???

How do you guys manage for bearing replacement?

Thanks for your answers.

Vaiarii

[Cortezdtv]

The wheel bearing has a part number.... And you can order then pm me and i can get you the part number
As far as the center spacer im not sure if it has a part number never looked.
You could have hollywood electric drop ship your dealer or local motorcycle mechanic the bearings as well

I dont think your dealer knows what they are doing, and im suprised because the bearings are easy to replace...I mean it should be pretty straight forwar on any bike, i hate to say it but they are going to shit themselfves when they have a real issues with a bike

[Richard230]

I have never heard of this problem.  I have a 2014 S with about 13,000 km on the clock and my bearings still seem fine.  I can't think of any reason that a wheel bearing couldn't be replaced.  All you need to do is to take the old bearing to a local bearing supplier and let them source a new (and better quality) bearing from their stock. Ball bearings typically have a code stamped into the race and that will tell the supplier exactly which replacement bearing to sell you. So I can only surmise that your shop installed an improperly-sized bearing and that is why it failed quickly.   

Zero seems to purchase most of their parts from China whenever possible (trying to keep the purchase price as low as possible) and Chinese bearing quality can be "iffy" at times.   

[Ndm]

I've replaced the bearings in mine, I used ntn brand and bearing number was 6904 C4, noticed mine at exactly 10000 miles, but that was the front, I believe that the rear is the same

[NEW2elec]

I just got this done not too long ago you can read about it from my post in the tech help section under "I'm getting a thudding sound" post.  Basically it cost $100 they replaced them and it's been fine for 1000 or so miles so far.  It was at about 10000 miles.  If your wheel was damaged then you may be out of luck but if not it shouldn't be a hard fix.

[grmarks]

About 30 years ago I bought a second hand Husqvana dirt bike (430cc). Its wheel bearing failed within a few months. I discovered that the wheel hub housing had been machined out of alignment. I replaced the bearing and added a washer to the spacer to move the bearing a little further out from the back of the bering recess in the wheel hub. This fixed the problem.
Normally the bearing should be at 90 degrees to the axle bolt but in this case when you tightened the wheel axle nut the bearing was forced to an angle of 92 - 93 degrees (one side of the bearing recess was deeper than the other). 
Its possible this could have been your problem or that the spacer was not machined properly.
You could have had both the wheel hub and spacer checked by an engineering shop for correct machining before buying a new wheel. This could have saved you money (if they were ok). If the spacer was faulty then getting the engineering shop to make you a new one would have been cheaper also. 
And like Richard230 said, you can always get high quality replacement bearings from a bearing supplier. You can choose the quality you want. Me I would go for the best quality. The bearing supplier will have better quality bearing than Zero have. 

[Fivespeed302]

If I have to replace my bearings, I'm going with ceramic.  No way I'm going through the hassle without getting the good stuff.

[grmarks]

Arn't ceramic bearings fragile?
Whats wrong with NSK, Timken, RBC bearings?

[Electric Terry]

I had the rear wheel bearings go out about 4 times on my 2012 zero in 75,000 miles.  I finally replaced them with entire 2015 Zero wheels which have super strong bearings.  The spacer has to change for the rear but the axle size is the exact same.   The bearings on all 2014 and earlier Zero's were 6904 bearings.  The new 2015 ones are perhaps 10 times more robust and stronger.  You will see me on many threads encouraging anyone who rides a lot  on an older Zero to upgrade to a 2015 or newer.  There are so many little things that became better and stronger in 2015.  The bikes might look similar from the outside, but a 2015 or newer is something to eventually shoot for for everyone.

If you have a 2012, 2013 or 2014 and are having issues with little things, instead of trying to replace all these little things one by one, it might cost less in the long run to upgrade to a 2015 or new 2016 bike.   And the range, suspension, wheel and brake improvements make it completely worth it. 

[mericle]

I have been replacing my bearings with inexpensive 6904s (I am assuming low quality). I just decided to put new ones in every time I change a tire since they are very easy to replace. After I install the new ones, I order 5 more so that I always have a replacement set on hand. Basically, I replace the bearings every 12,000 mi. Since I have been following this process, I have not had any failures.

[Electric Terry]

I have been replacing my bearings with inexpensive 6904s (I am assuming low quality). I just decided to put new ones in every time I change a tire since they are very easy to replace. After I install the new ones, I order 5 more so that I always have a replacement set on hand. Basically, I replace the bearings every 12,000 mi. Since I have been following this process, I have not had any failures.

That's probably a good idea for everyone with a 2014 or earlier to do as the bearing failure can cause handling issues and wobble and eventually lock up the wheel.  My bike was way overloaded from the GVWR, many times twice the design weight, but after going to the 2015 wheels there haven't been any issues.

[spalardy]

I had to replace the rear bearing in my 2013 Zero S after 12 000 miles. The dealer says that I could not change the bearing only and had to change the whole entire wheels with the bearing. It has cost me 340 $ canadian + 90 for installation.

[MBldc]

Back to the dealer, he told me that the spacer inside the wheel might be to much compress so that the new bearings worked with a misalignment and failed so fast.

Hi,

I'm Marco from Germany. I own a 2014 DS (~22000km since 2016) and my wheel bearings failed several times within the first year.
Thanks to this forum I got the idea to check the Spacer back then. This Spacer is the root cause for bearing failures for the 2014/2013 series. It is made from a soft aluminium. It gets deformed at the contact area, when the rear axle gets torqued to its specified value (102NM), which results in high axial load to the bearings. You can verify this with a look at the damaged bearing when taking it apart. It will have pitting marks on the side of the inner surface instead in the center surface area (see picture) which is a clear sign of axial load.
My solution was to get a new spacer from a local cnc-shop with a little increased length (118mm vs. 117,5mm) made of AL7075 (steel would be fine too I guess). No Problems since then!
I would propose to use the cage-less version of the 6904 bearing (6904-V-2RS). It has more and bigger balls. These bearings have a filling slot, which should be directed innwards (you can see the slot in the picture of the defective bearing).

Best regards,

Marco

[Richard230]

Thanks for the tip, Marco. Great information and suggestions. 

I bet owners of 2013 and 2014 Zeros could get away with using a lower torque value than 102NM when installing the nut on the rear axle.  My guess is that something like 75NM, backed up with some blue locktite, would be acceptable.  On my bike it there is enough of the axle threads extending past the axle bolt to install another locking bolt on the end of the axle just to be absolutely sure that the main nut would not loosen.

[MBldc]

Thanks for the tip, Marco. Great information and suggestions. 

I bet owners of 2013 and 2014 Zeros could get away with using a lower torque value than 102NM when installing the nut on the rear axle.  My guess is that something like 75NM, backed up with some blue locktite, would be acceptable.  On my bike it there is enough of the axle threads extending past the axle bolt to install another locking bolt on the end of the axle just to be absolutely sure that the main nut would not loosen.

Hi Richard,

that was exactly what I did before i decided to get a custom made spacer.
Indeed it did improve the situation, the bearing lasted a bit longer (it was always the right side one that failed). But once the original spacer has this grooves, the bearing will get stressed even at lower torque values.
I wanted to keep the original spoked wheels, the 2015 wheel set was no Option for me.
And so I learned how to replace wheel bearings by myself, in which I'm well-practised now. 

I want to point out, how helpfull this forum and the unofficial manual is!
And I really appreciate the positive and respectfull attitude here (which is often not the case in german forums...).

Best regards,

Marco