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[Bdavis]

Zero and Carter power sports in Las Vegas win worst customer service award from me...
Less than 700 miles and my Zero S started to "glitch". The throttle stops responding without warning and needs to be turned off and on to work again. Less than 10 miles round trip to work and it happened 4 times. I emailed Zero who told me to contact Carter powersports to bring it in. In the email he said they could log in, fix it if it was software, and I would be out in less than an hour. I called carter, explained the problem and what the guy at zero said, and made the appointment.  Today was my appointment. I made the mistake of trying to ride the bike in. After 3 "glitches", one in a busy intersection, I made it. After a 10 minute wait I was told Carter powersports does not have the terminal needed for zero to log into my bike. This is after I was told by both Zero and Carter to bring the bike in. No one bothered to check if they could do it. Let's say Carter is mostly to blame for this part.  Now for Zero... I called Zero to Make sure what I was being told was true.  After telling me the same thing I was then told carter will get the log in terminal friday. This is 10am Monday morning. My next question was why so long to ship from southern Californina to Las Vegas. I ship same day Las Vegas to Anaheim weekly, mail and freight.  The customer service award response..."We are doing inventory."  So I have to wait a week, maybe longer if the problem is hardware, without a bike I just bought because you are doing inventory. Thank you to both companies.

I typed this on my phone. Sorry for grammar and spelling errors.

[protomech]

Sounds like you've got the same glitch many of us have, though you're seeing it much earlier than we have.

I really wish Zero had built a standard serial port or USB logging device to interface to the bikes. I think that is hurting them now - there's little way for customers to self-service the bikes (or in this case, even identify the specific fault), and they're still in the process of rolling out their dealer and service network.

Zero has a couple of customer bikes (including mine) at their HQ now, hopefully we should see a final resolution to the glitch soon.

It may be little comfort, but with shipping my bike all the way across the US, it'll probably be out for at least two weeks.

[Spires]

No worries on the grammar but I definitely got your message! That's just plain bullshit! VERY expensive bikes from a new company and you were back burner'd... I'd be pissed.. I like the idea of an electric bike but I'm not liking this "glitch" thing and not a fan of being forced to dealers who have just jumped on the electric bandwagon and have no clue how to deal with servicing these bikes.

[Spires]

I've just decided no bike for me until I see this "glitch" go away permanently.. I'm not wasting 50$ in ferry money to drag it 2hrs away to a dealer for service each time there is an issue..

[dkw12002]

A 2011 demo might be a good buy. 3700 miles without a problem, and I run it WOT..70mph indicated...almost every day for a couple of interstate exits. The only time mine hesitates is when I forget to put the kickstand up and try to take off. LOL.

[Bdavis]

I did not mind the glitch so much. Part of being an early adaptor of new tech. When it happened and I spoke to Zero the first time it sounded like the we're one the ball and ready to handle issues like this. My problem is when the time came that was not the case.  I spoke to A manager at Carter power sports a few minutes ago. He is offering ways to make it up to me.  But right now it comes down to a customer having to wait for zero to "finish inventory"

[Spires]

I have an '11 DS all gutted out and slimmed down for the dirt.. Its great but only a solid 30miles range.. I wanted the ZF6 to mod the same way but have 50% more range. Or even a 2013 if it had more improvements.

[dkw12002]

Thing is, they can't really do little improvements cause the range, acceleration, and top speed are still unacceptable, so they switched from a DC to AC motor, new controller, new batteries, etc. with 2012, but they still aren't there. It's not like a Ninja 250 that the S is often compared to. That bike is very dependable because they make little changes. This year they are going to FI but that isn't even new cause it's been in Asian markets for years now and they know it works well. They tweak the motor, but it's the same in-line 2 it's been for years. So they move the plastic around a little and call it re-designed and everybody wants one. I would not hesitate to buy a 2013 Ninja 250r. The Zero on the other hand is a different model from last year's even though it's still called the S or DS, and it was not tried and true. Just wait for the Empulse. It will have lots of glitches, I predict.

[Richard230]

I have heard about much worse customer service from BMW motorcycle dealers, the North American distributor and the BMW corporation. (A friend of mine who used to be uptight with BMW said that they feel that the customer knows nothing and should stop complaining all the time about their bike's faults. They really don't want to hear any complaints.)  Most long-time BMW customers know never to purchase the first-year production of a new model.   

I think Zero is doing their best, but they are a small company working with a new and relatively untested (in the field) technology.  I think they will figure out the problem, but it is likely going to take time and if it is caused by a bad part, it will take more time to get a new part designed, manufactured, tested and distributed to their dealers and installed in customer's bikes. My guess is that once they have a verifiable solution to the "glitch" they will issue a formal NHTSA safety recall, as they did with the BMS waterproofing and the brake light switch.

[ZeroSinMA]

I have heard about much worse customer service from BMW motorcycle dealers, the North American distributor and the BMW corporation. (A friend of mine who used to be uptight with BMW said that they feel that the customer knows nothing and should stop complaining all the time about their bike's faults. They really don't want to hear any complaints.)  Most long-time BMW customers know never to purchase the first-year production of a new model.   

I think Zero is doing their best, but they are a small company working with a new and relatively untested (in the field) technology.  I think they will figure out the problem, but it is likely going to take time and if it is caused by a bad part, it will take more time to get a new part designed, manufactured, tested and distributed to their dealers and installed in customer's bikes. My guess is that once they have a verifiable solution to the "glitch" they will issue a formal NHTSA safety recall, as they did with the BMS waterproofing and the brake light switch.

While I'm a big fan of Zero, I have to say I'm disappointed but not surprised with the way the company is managing this bug.

The Zero S "glitch" reminds me of a company that I used to run US sales for. The technology was bleeding edge and horrifically unreliable at first. I was at times astounded  at the lengths customers went to to work around bugs that ruined dozens of hours of work, often right before an important delivery deadline. The reason customers put up with crashes and corrupted data while our engineering team chased down one bug after another and shipped out patches is that even with these inconveniences the product was still waaaaaay better than the alternative old technology. It had a high return on investment of time even with the bugs.

That is not the case with a Zero. A motorcycle is not a commercial product. It's for pleasure, not making money. The Zero has advantages over an ICE bike but these all fade to nothing if the Zero is less reliable than an ICE bike.

Worse, the "glitch" is dangerous. It can potentially leave you without power in a life-threatening situation that you need to accelerate out of.

The reason I'm not surprised that Zero and its dealers don't have their sh*t together on a procedure to address the "glitch" problem is that Zero is still working out a process to diagnose and fix problems and communicate this to customers. In my opinion, that's why they hired a new CEO from a big company, to work that stuff out.

Zero still has the best product out there. The company is small and delivers relatively tiny cash flow to dealers for now. How to get them to focus on Zero for sales and maintenance?

Zero should select a small cadre of premium dealers and promise to build Zero's business around their business. Forget the big dealers that are making their bones off BMW and other high end, high margin brands. Go for the small, intelligent dealers who need Zero for differentiation.

That's how to build Zero and fix problems like the "glitch".

[ColoPaul]

I did not mind the glitch so much. Part of being an early adaptor of new tech. When it happened and I spoke to Zero the first time it sounded like the we're one the ball and ready to handle issues like this. My problem is when the time came that was not the case.  I spoke to A manager at Carter power sports a few minutes ago. He is offering ways to make it up to me.  But right now it comes down to a customer having to wait for zero to "finish inventory"

Bdavis:  My bike was at the dealer for nearly a month for the glitch.  The dealer scratched up the panels (they did offer to get me new panels).  I got only one call from them in that entire time;  the rest of the calls were me trying to find out what the heck was going on.   Now that I have the bike back, the 'gas gauge' is not working properly (At least I can still ride it!).  They said they are "looking into it".  That's been a week ago Wednesday.

I agree with Richard230 - I think Zero is doing their best;  but there are several factors:
 (1)  Zero sold alot of 2012's.  There was a post of a press release showing incredible growth over last year.
 (2)  The 2012 bikes aren't as reliable as they hoped.  (2 recalls, looks like a third on the way)
 (3)  The dealer network was supposed to take over a majority of service headaches - but they aren't ready/capable yet.
 (4)  The most recent problem, 'the glitch', is still being investigated, so not much can be done yet anyway.

Hopefully, Zero will weather through this without too much brand damage.  The the 2012S/DS is really a fantastic bike,  even if I knew about all this in advance, I think I would have bought one anyway.

[CliC]

I haven't ridden my DS for a couple of weeks now due to a job change that put work out of the bike's range. I'm waiting for an official solution to the glitch in hopes I can get all existing and latent problems with the bike fixed in one trip to the dealer.

I still like Zero, still think they have the best product out there in this niche, and realize I'm an early adopter. I still wish them the best. But to delay a repair a week because they're "doing inventory"? That's pretty lame, and something that a customer shouldn't hear.

[Bdavis]

I decided to give Zero 24 hours before I made any decisions on what to do about this.  This way I had time to sit back and thing, but also to give both companies a chance to redeam themselves. So far, Carter Power sports has made an offer of some free services, but not a word from Zero.  I hated doing this, but I filed with the Better Business Bureau of Nevada, and about to with the BBB of Southern California.  It was surprising, and a bit scary, how fast the local Fox news channel contacted me about doing a negitive report on a "green" company.

[protomech]

"We report, you decide" has a mountain of wriggle room in it for presenting bias.

I hope some extra squeak gets Zero moving on your behalf. They're busy, but that's no excuse for ignoring customers.

[ZeroSinMA]

I decided to give Zero 24 hours before I made any decisions on what to do about this.  This way I had time to sit back and thing, but also to give both companies a chance to redeam themselves. So far, Carter Power sports has made an offer of some free services, but not a word from Zero.  I hated doing this, but I filed with the Better Business Bureau of Nevada, and about to with the BBB of Southern California.  It was surprising, and a bit scary, how fast the local Fox news channel contacted me about doing a negitive report on a "green" company.

No such thing as bad publicity. Go for it.