Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[tico]

So yesterday afternoon I go to ride my bike, I turn on my 2014 model S, and I noticed that as
soon as I turned it on, the motor started occasionally making a noise as if
I was barely touching the throttle, even though I wasn't and it was on the kickstand.
I tried riding a little bit down the
block to try to determine what exactly was happening, and the bike would
jerk forwards and then decelerate a bit, and sometimes i would hear the
solenoid click off and then back on.

I didn't see any blink codes on the dash except that sometimes I would get
a single blink in-between the solenoid clicking off and then back on.
Turning the bike off and on made no difference. Eventually it wouldn't run
at all and I walked it back.

The battery showed 80% charge the whole time.  When I returned home, I
plugged it in to charge, (with the key off) but I noticed that the whole
screen started flashing off and on, so I disconnected the charging cable
and have left it parked.

The previous day I rode it around with no apparent problems, surface streets and
freeway.

I've attached the logs, and sent off an email to Zero already but haven't heard back from them.

I tried decoding the logs with the zero_parser.py script, but I just got
"Zero MBB log

Serial number      2014_mbb_0386e1_00122
VIN                538SM5Z28ECA03405
Firmware rev.      48
Board rev.         1
Model              SS

Printing 4507 of 4507 log entries..

 Entry    Time of Log            Event                      Conditions
+--------+----------------------+--------------------------+----------------------------------
"
but no actual log entries.

Maybe the file is corrupt? the Zero app on my android didn't display any errors.

Anyone have any ideas what could be the matter with it?

It sucks that my bike's dead now for the second time in the handful of months since I got it.
-tico

[TheRebelFred]

Hi Tico,

Sounds identical to the problem I had with my 2014 Zero S.
Same symptoms: Jerky acceleration, contactor kicking in and out when trying to accelerate and also when charging, the running sounds would turn on and off when stationary.

I had the motor and controller replaced under warranty and that corrected the issue.

I did turn out an issue with the Sevcon controller but the motor assembly needed to be changed for that.

Good luck and Zero are generally excellent for support (new company).

[tico]

Hi Fred,

yep, that sounds exactly like my symptoms ... except that today it decided to start behaving normally again, and I drove it several miles without problems.

I spoke with Zero over the phone briefly but they said that now they won't talk to me directly instead of going through a dealer ... who I'll call tomorrow, but since it's currently working I don't know if the dealer will be able to confirm the problem and replace whatever is unreliable without the bike "staying dead" 

We'll see.
-tico

[Justin Andrews]

Sounds like the rotary encoder in the motor is acting up perhaps?

[tico]

Perhaps, and that could certainly seem to explain it lurching forwards and backwards, but I thought that the encoder (and the motor as a whole) would be disconnected when the kill switch is in the off position?

[Electric Terry]

Yes I would guess perhaps water got past the rubber O-ring seal and into the encoder housing and there is the beginning of corrosion perhaps on the encoder chip.  Each year the waterproofing and sealing of the encoder has gotten better and better, in 2015, 2016 and again in 2017 its pretty much bullet proof now.  I would suggest you take it into the dealer and have them look at it.  How long ago did you get the bike? Is it under warranty? 

Another option is if it is under warranty, and working (for now) is to trade it in on a 2017 model and tell them before they sell it to inspect the motor encoder and perhaps replace it before selling it to another customer.  I agree depending on the dealer this could take some time.  This way you wouldn't have to wait. 

If you live close to the LA area and can get to Hollywood Electrics I'd bet they could have you fixed in a week or so, although I always recommend to those who rely on their Zero every day to try to upgrade to a 2015+ Zero as soon as it is financially possible to do so for about 50 reasons, with the one you listed being one of them.  With the exception of the onboard charger (which is also on the 2014), reliability exponentially went up on 2015+ models on everything with in 2017 the belt strength increasing, and current sensing for SOC % reporting to become pretty much dead on with the addition of both a high and low precision current sensor for both drive traction power ranges, and low power ranges such as when charging.

[tico]

Hi Terry -- thanks for your comments about upgrading to a > 2015 model. I just got this bike back in May of this year "new" (even though it's a 2014) by trading in my 2012 Zero under their buyback program. So this one is thankfully still under warranty.

The bike died on me again, and so I just yesterday managed to get it picked up by the dealer here in Texas. We'll see how it goes.

In your experience, when the parts that have failed due to water (encoder housing, etc) get replaced, is the part upgraded to the latest model year (or is it even compatible?) or do they end up with the same type of weatherproofing that they started out with?

While I would love to have the latest and greatest, I'm currently back to school, so I can't afford another upgrade currently, especially having just spent $7K to upgrade my previous problematic 2012 Zero to this one only a handful of months ago, but who knows, maybe I'll win the lottery

Thanks everyone
-tico

[Electric Terry]

Hey Tico,

I understand your situation and realize it may not make sense to upgrade right now.  Good news is the motor will likely have some better sealing as I don't believe the dealers, with the exception of Hollywood Electrics, are doing encoder chip replacements, but I could be wrong.  So it will likely just have another motor sent in a box and it gets replaced and commissioned to your controller.

Good luck!

[tico]

Hi Terry -- thanks for your thoughts on the matter. I was worried that if they replaced it with the same kind of seals that I'd be having to deal with these problems again, especially once the warranty expires.

Fingers crossed

[Electric Terry]

Well I don't know for sure, this is just an educated guess, but lets hope so.

[tico]

I got a call back from the dealer --
apparently when they got the bike last thursday night (the 8th) they confirmed the problem that I'd had, but then yesterday/today (the 14th) when they turned the bike on it started behaving normally again, so they can't do anymore troubleshooting until they hear back from Zero and/or look through the logs that I had emailed to Zero via the android app.

I mentioned to the tech the suspicions about the problem being related to the motor encoder, but he said that since they don't have a normal service manual they have to hook it up to a computer and depend on the Zero factory to get back to them for any troubleshooting.

I'm suspecting that I may be without a bike for a while ...

[tico]

I just spoke with the dealer again -- looks like the bike is still behaving okay for them, and they haven't heard back yet from Zero regarding the logs that I sent in a week ago, so they're going to try to spray the bike down with a hose to see if they can get the motor to act up again.

This is really disappointing. Gonna try calling the Zero factory again, and beg to see if someone will do something to get this bike working again.

If you look through my post history, you'll see that I bought this bike brand new on May 21 of this year. Then the BMS board died a month later and it took them 27 days to get that repaired (June 22 - July 21). Now it's been 12 days since it died again on December 4th.

Currently out of the 209 days that I've owned this bike, on 39 of them the bike has been unusable (19%). This situation with dealers and the factory service manuals is ridiculous if it results in a bike that's undrivable 1 out of 5 days with no recourse.

[tico]

... the bike is still at the shop, and the guys at the Zero dealer are still unable to troubleshoot the problem.

 I got an email back from Aaron at the Zero factory, asking for me to confirm which dealer I had the bike in, but no further details about what they're going to do.

I'm sending off another email, hoping somebody is able to get this bike working again.

non-working bike 44 out of 214 days. 20.2%

[Kocho]

I worked with Aaron too over email earlier this year when my '15 SR needed warranty service. He was very helpful. Still, it took 30 days, even though they figured what was wrong fairly quickly. The wait was for parts and Zero support to the dealer (phone tag).

[tico]

Yeah, Aaron over at Zero has always been great to me -- he's always responded quickly and has been really helpful. I have no complaints about him. For that matter, all of the other engineers at Zero I've ever spoken with have been great too.

My whining complaint is about how the Zero company handles repairs (that is, because Zero  does not release a factory service manual, dealers / mechanics must play phone tag with engineers at the Zero factory to diagnose/repair every problem with a Zero motorcycle it seems).

Since the electronics on Zero bikes seem to break more than any other component, the fact that dealer mechanics have general mechanic knowledge about the few things shared with conventional motorcycles (brakes/suspension/etc) and can fix those problems quickly without depending on the Zero factory doesn't seem to help customers have a good experience taking their bike to the dealer because those problems are so much less common than fried boards of some sort.

I just wish that this whole process back and forth with the dealer didn't take so long (and that I didn't expect that I'd probably see another month without my bike as a "normal" occurrence).

... and of course, even if the warranty covers the labor and parts, I'm still stuck with the cost of having the bike towed to the dealer every time it dies, which makes me a less than excited about the future of the Zero bike's unreliability.