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[Rewski]

First a little background. I bought a 2010 DS when they first came available after riding one at a Zero demo event in Denver, CO in Spring of 2010. That bike served me well for my short commute (and was a great upgrade from my Vectrix scooter) until the throttle had to be swapped twice and finally in the summer of 2011 the entire battery was swapped in my garage by a Zero service technician.  I continued riding it last year into the beginning of the winter until is started faulting again (and making a clunking sound but no acceleration on startup). I could always just recycle it off and on and it would work. I never had any shut downs while riding. Over winter did not ride it much at all but come March I was ready to ride it again. Took it to work a few times with the startup glitch happening a few times but always making it home, until one day it would not come out of the fault. At this point there was finally a dealer in Denver so my talks with Zero said just to get it to the dealer for some diagnostics. I dropped it off in April and 7 weeks (yes 7 weeks) later they told me they did not know what the problem was and offered to swap me a 2011 DS at the dealer for only $1000. I said sure and bought the new bike. On my way home from the dealer the bike shut off while I was cruising at about 40 mph. No further faults like that. Then the range on the bike became an issue. I then learned about the run in process where the computer continues to adjust the range indicator based on riding style etc. Zero encouraged me to continue to ride it and the gauge/range would fix itself over time. So throughout this summer I would do rides around my home of 12-16 miles before the range bar was empty and flashing then come home, hoping at some point the range would pick up. All summer I was never able to ride to work because it is 28 round trip and I did not want to get stranded. So finally after doing about 10-13 charge cycles without any change in range, I took my bike back to the dealer for the recall stuff and for them to run the diag again on this bike. It has now been there for 4 weeks and finally had to call Zero's director of customer service twice to find out they finally were shipping a new 2011 battery to the dealership for install in the bike.

That brings me to today. I should be getting this bike back next week with a fresh battery and he fully no more issues, but now I am strongly considering just trying to sell the bike locally or on eBay and be done with it. Wait until next year for 2013 bikes or (dare I say) consider switching to another brand in 2013. If I do decide to sell the 2011 Zero DS what is a fair price to attempt to sell? It will essentially be a brand new bike again (there are only about 250 miles on the odo).

Thanks for reading the long post just to get to my question but I think typing this whole thing out was a bit therapeutic for the drama I have endured this year.

Adam

[dkw12002]

Kelly Blue Book lists the retail and trade-in value for the 2011 DS. Trade-in value is $4500. I doubt anyone other than a Zero dealer would give you anything close to that though due to the fact they are a new and specialized bike. What a Kawasaki dealer or Brammo dealer would do is call a Zero dealer and ask what the Zero dealer would pay for the bike. That would be a lot less than $4500. These are expensive toys. You might get $4500 trade-in on a new 2013 Zero or even a 2012. Selling it to a dealer...maybe $3,500 tops. Selling it yourself I think it would have to be running. Knowing what I know, I would look at the remaining warranty, although a casual buyer may not know the importance of that if he wasn't aware of the glitches.   

[manlytom]

now is it a 2011 or 2010 DS ? 2011 had some minor improvements over the 2010 - better brakes, different styling, larger battery capacity - or 10% or so.

[ColoPaul]

Rewski, sounds like quite the unfortunate saga.  I'm curious what the market would be like for a Zero.  I suspect dkw12002's analysis is close.  Please keep us updated on how much success you have.

[Rewski]

Yes it is a 2011 and I loved the slight but significant upgrades from the 2010 I had for almost two years. Also thanks for the analysis about trade-in/value above. Unfortunately the price I can ultimately sell it for is what someone will actually pay for it. The good news is that despite having the original 2010 for almost 2 years and taking advantage of the significant federal and CO state rebates the original bike only cost me about $5500 net. Add in the additional $1000 I just spent for the exchange and I'm only about $6500 in the hole not including insurance and registration. The other interesting part is that I have not claimed any rebate on this "new" 2011, so if I were to sell it locally the buyer could still claim both a federal and state rebate. Possibly another selling point on the bike at least here in CO.

I think when I get the bike back I will give it a fair chance again but any more faults/problems with it I will get any warrantee work done and sell this bike...or possibly pursue a manufacture buy back if it gets to be a problem.

I'll keep everyone posted.

Adam