I am closing in on 68'000 km and over the past weeks I notice a new noise coming from the motor. I first thought I had a problem with a ball bearing but, after a visit to the shop yesterday, it turns out the ball bearings of the electrical motor are good.
To my surprise, the source of the noise is the belt sprocket which had come a bit loose on the motor shaft. Somehow, lubricant plays a role in mitigating that noise emission. The mechanic told me this was a known issue for my bike. It appears that the washer n° 8 is made of aluminum and, overtime, got deformed and flattened so as to no longer correctly perform its duty: firmly tightening the sprocket onto the motor.
The first batch of motor sprockets didn’t anticipate that issue, but newer ones do. Since my dealer didn’t have one of the new ones at hand, he added another washer in the back of the sprocket (visible in red and much larger than shown here) to compensate for the lack (or loss) of width of washer n° 8.
The noise is gone, now waiting for the new sprocket to become on stock. Hope that my motor shaft is not too worn out already, it did feel rough on my finger.