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[Andrew Zero S]

Hi

Can anyone put me in touch with a mechanic in the UK who is prepared to strip down and assess the motor on a 2017 Zero S ZF6.5 11kW?

Zero is refusing to allow their dealer to open the engine. They are oferring a replacement engine at a 25% "discount" estimated at £1,700, ($2,200) after labour, and then they insist on having the seized motor returned.

My story is:

I arrived at work and got off the bike to push it backwards into the charging bay. I may have left the ignition turned on. The back wheel wouldn't turn. I pushed it forward, now definetly turned off, it rolled abot 2 feet and was then completely locked, not freewheeling backwards or forwards. I turned the power on and tried the throttle. The engine made some extraordinary gurgling noises continuing for some 20 seconds despite closing the throttle. The bike was now able to roll freely. I left it to charge before trying again.
I left work early because I got punched on the nose by a psychiatric patient (only the second time in 32 years). I tried the bike with a full charge, though no longer seized it wouldn't move under power.
The AA wouldn't authorise a tow truck until they had seen me try the bike. This time the bike moved slowly under power but backwards.
The authorised dealership has been very helpful and competent in the past and I'm sure would be keen to work on the engine. Earlier they told me they were getting video tutorials from Zero. In the end they were advised to disconnect the electrical supply and then test the motor. They apparently were not allowed to do more.
The bike is 2 months out of warranty. I had hardly used it for 2 months because we had been on holiday for 3 weeks and before that it was being repaired for a faulty charging unit that broke a few days within warranty. I can't see how that failure or the repair could have ruined the motor but if anybody knows more ...... The dealer was very efficient about getting the parts and doing the repair and had previously been very helpful tidying up some of my "improvements" during routine servicing.

One way or another I will get the bike back on the road, the traffic in London is getting worse and worse, but I resent Zero's attitude:

1) They should acknowledge our right to repair;

2) I've learnt on this forum that the fault may well be relatively minor;

3) No adequate attempt at fault finding has been made, weither the fault resulted from a design flaw, poor workmanship or poor materials or indeed misuse by me.

So if anyone could get me an address I'd b very grateful.

Thanks for listenning to my moan,

Andrew

[Shadow]

Tough day at work? 

Any modification of the motor will have to be followed up by calibration using the Zero Motorcycles software tools, which only your authorized dealer has access to.

To the rest of what you're saying... I don't know if there is any workaround. You can open up your motor and make physical modifications but Zero Motorcycles has taken a stance that repair is not an option for anything requiring the proprietary software tools. I had a motor replaced under warranty on a 2016 DSR because when the dealer service tech did open up the motor and was insisting that it ought to be repairable... well Zero Motorcycles upstream forced them to replace the whole unit and never gave any indication of what the electro-mechanical fault was. The dealer learned nothing and I had no satisfaction about what had caused my bike to become dangerous and unreliable.

[NEW2elec]

Andrew, this is interesting as we went for a long time with very few motor failures but have had a few recently.

My opinion in electric vehicle "modification and tinkering" is your playing with fire or lightning and your likely to get burned.

Even some of the electric engineers on here hit road blocks and may or may not ruin their bikes.  I bring this up because you mentioned it.

The charger itself shouldn't have anything to do with the motor but I'm wondering if they did a firmware install when they changed the charger?  You said you haven't used it much since you had the charger replaced, I'd ask if they did a firmware update.

I'll also ask this question: Have you had the motor commissioned when it's supposed to?
The fact that it reversed makes me think maybe the encoder went out on the motor which makes "replace the motor" the standard fix.
I'm sure they want to run tests on the old one to find the fault themselves which is understandable.

As for right to repair, there is a line between a repair manual and giving away the secret sauce of the company.
From my memory watching a review on Energica I believe they said the Space Shuttle had used like 25k lines of code while the Energica had 600k lines of code.  If you can write all the code that is in a Zero MBB then repair away.

I have seen people replace the motor bearings calling it a very difficult job and the re-waterproofing was yet to be determined.

I wish you luck with it but I doubt you can avoid buying a new motor.

[Andrew Zero S]

Thankyou for your considerred replies  Thats intriguing that the authorised dealer wasn't permitted to give it a go. As for the propietary software I feel as if I've paid for a licence already. Were we able to repair it independently, or source a replacement second hand, would they refuse to reload the firmware? I see that AF1 (https://www.af1racing.com/ZF75-5-IPM-25T-MOTOR-KIT-ZM12-08041) has the caveat "- Please note that a controller firmware upgrade will be required when making this change"

Yes I did take a lot of reassurance from this post: Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ / Re: Zero fx needs help
« on: June 18, 2019, 04:09:37 AM »

Thankyou, NEW2elec for your expert opinion about the encoder. I don't know what it means but i'd like to learn. We've already made more diagnostic progress than the dealer is authorised to do and any further ideas would be very welcome.

[NEW2elec]

I'm no expert.  But this helps explain it:




Kind of like a timing chain on a gas engine.  And just like breaking a timing chains means you need a new engine, a bad encoder means it's likely best to get a new motor. 
This at the 1:20 mark talks about a permanent magnet AC motor:

[Crissa]

The gurgling sound is merely a noisemaker when the bike senses it's being in motion.

Zero probably wants the whole motor so they can learn its failure mode.  Which if someone else disassembled they wouldn't be able to 'autopsy' it.

That it's completely frozen is rather curious.

-Crissa

[DonTom]

Hi

Can anyone put me in touch with a mechanic in the UK who is prepared to strip down and assess the motor on a 2017 Zero S ZF6.5 11kW?

The "ZF6.5" means you have a 6.5KWH max capacity battery.

-Don-  Reno, NV