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[everiman]

2010 MX for sale, $2300 I am thinking of buying.  I am a 66 year old guy who has had motorcycles since I was 18, but never an electric.  I do  all my own work, and am a reasonably competent at electron herding, but not a tech. 
My questions, I have yet to see this bike, maybe next week, my biggest concern is battery condition. Supposedly the present owner bought the bike new three years ago, so maybe the battery was charged regularly or maybe it wasn't. 
I downloaded the owners manual with the beep and flash codes. 
In my experience most bike sales do not allow for extended test rides, and given that it is not street legal, a test ride beyond the driveway may not be possible. 
So is there some easy way to determine battery condition without a test ride?  If it makes all the right beeps and flashes, and battery indicates full, can I assume the battery is good?
Reading through this forum it appears that support from Zero will be minimal at best, and judging from their web site, they are very proprietary, and want all service and parts, even tires done by their dealers.  That would be a deal breaker for me as the nearest dealer is 200 miles from where I am (Edmonton Alberta). And I like to think I am more careful than a lot of bike shop techs.
Normal bike parts are not a problem for me, but e bike specific electrical stuff would be. 
There seems to be a lot of stuff out there for chinese scooters, such as battery packs and controllers, so I am wondering how that might work, some of those scooters are pretty heavy but speed limited to make them legal.
Any pre purchase advice, including, RUN! RUN AWAY!, would be appreciated. 
Thanks in advance!

[MrDude_1]

Do you want to rebuild and work on electric motorcycles as a hobby, or are you expecting it to work like an appliance where you plug in when you get home, and then grab it on the way out to play?

[everiman]

Both!  I enjoy working on busted stuff if I am successful in fixing it.

[NEW2elec]

No harm in looking, but unless you can do everything on this bike I wouldn't buy it.  I don't think you can even get parts for most of the pre 2013 models.  Poor battery and brushed DC motor just didn't last.  I think a 2014 or newer FX at around 6k-7k would make you a happy man.  My opinion comes from the forum and the fact that Zero did a pretty big trade in offer on all the older bikes for 2014s to get them off the road.  If you have the money and want MX style take a look at Alta motors as well (BRD on the forum).
Good luck

[Cortezdtv]

The 2010s can be a pain in the but
Message me if you want some help if yu buy it;
You can always bypass most of the controls (remove the mbb and wire around it) and run the bike using just altrax like the electricrosses this works but will be quite "jerky" comparted to the new bikes and the mmb controlled version on low it will actually be a fun little pit bike



On high watch out its literally a death machine set off by the littlest throttle movement

Once the bypass is done in high the Throttle reasponce goes

Nothing
Everything
Tiny bit more
No matter how much you really move the throttle

[NEW2elec]

Please check out my post in the Video section about Jim's MX should be helpful.

[MrDude_1]

Once the bypass is done in high the Throttle reasponce goes

Nothing
Everything
Tiny bit more
No matter how much you really move the throttle

you can fix and remap this with a Cycle Analyst V3.. you just feed the throttle to the CA, make a throttle curve setup, and set its output to the controller...

I met someone this past weekend with a pre-2013 bike (I forget the year) and he showed me how he did just that. I was on my ebike (that also has a CAv3)...