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[qorw]

So my 2014 zero DS has been with the dealer for close on nine months now, went in for 2nd failed DC to DC converter in Nov 2017 and has not run since! Zero decided to do a BMS firmware update which failed spectaculary, then they took six weeks to replace the bms which did not work cause the battery died, then they took three months to replace the battery but now that's not working with the main board! Now waiting for a new mainboard! Its unbelievable how incompetent they are and how much money they are wasting! I told them its cheaper to just buy the flawed bike back from me but they just carry on regardless! I have lost complete confidence in Zero and would not recommend anyone ever buys one! Has anyone else had such bad service from them?

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Sigh. From what I've heard about cases like this, the dealer-factory communications cycle broke down, at which point everything goes badly.

Obviously, I have no idea whether there's an inventory mixup mismatching your hardware replacements, or whether there's a procedural problem installing and configuring the parts when they get replaced, or if the troubleshooting itself is flawed.

I have no visibility or insight into this and can merely suggest trying to get everyone to approach this problematic situation with a fresh big-picture perspective, trying to re-establish appreciative, clear communications about this.

On a more abstract note, the dealer tooling is pretty bare-bones from what I've seen, and there was a revision which removed some error-prone possibilities but I don't think it delivered to dealers any insights they didn't already have. I'm working from bare scraps of information over the years, so may be wildly wrong, but Zero's general strategy of providing information and support tooling has felt lacking on a number of levels.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

For reference, this thread appears to discuss some early parts of your troubleshooting before the dealership got involved:
http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=3995.msg24648#msg24648

[dennis-NL]

Had been with 2 dealers and their main problems with Zero are: slow delivering of parts, not knowing wich parts needed.
Basicly they get new bikes, get a little introduction in Zero bikes and work from there.

When I needed new front brake pads it was themselves looking for best pads for my Nissin brakes: they found them because my dealer knows it's stuff about any bike.
The same with looking for barings front fork (wasn't needed in the end, they were fine)

So it's like: sell the bike and hope you as a dealer making good effort in looking for all there is to know about a Zero on forums like this...

[qorw]

I see a lot of folk blaming the dealers, and even in their response to my issue Zero itself holds the dealer responsible !? That is BS in my opinion, the dealer is TOTALLY dependant on Zero for replacement boards and parts since the electronics cannot be repaired! Even more so for firmware since the dealer cannot reprogram the boards! If I was ever a Zero dealer I would insist that Zero free issue me with a whole lot of stock replacement parts, at Zero's cost, so that I would not embarrass my dealership or clients by not being able to service / repair their bikes! PS also in my case Zero blames the supplier for not holding stock, but darn it don't use parts from unreliable obscure suppliers then, you are just setting yourself up for failure!

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

I have heard complaints from both sides of the manufacturer-dealer pipeline on this, and will at least try to explain the perspectives as best I've ascertained.

It is valid for Zero to doubt the dealer.

• Just because Zero supplies the hardware and some instructions does not ensure the dealer engages with and applies them correctly.
• Zero cannot control staff churn at dealerships, so any training program they run may have low yield because the technician found a better job somewhere else because the dealer doesn't pay or promote them enough.
• If you consider this perspective, it makes sense not to want to throw hardware at your problem.
• Maybe that's just throwing away money, but the people handling the case can't tell from several timezones away.

It is just as valid for dealers to criticize Zero's tooling and information environment.

• We know that Zero's staffing is low for a vehicle maker, and pretty much any role you can think of at Zero is understaffed.
• Documentation for Zero dealers appears to be a set of ad hoc documents rather than a coherent encyclopedic service manual.
• Troubleshooting guidance for Zero dealers appears to be relatively crude.
• What software tooling I've seen appears error-prone or too controlling and limited.
• One aspect of Zero being too controlling is that the mishandling of firmware revisions when provisioning a board cannot be checked automatically or corrected onsite.
• It has seemed over the years that Zero is not taking every opportunity to feed servicing and troubleshooting feedback thoroughly into their engineering and documentation pipeline. It is easy to attribute this to staffing limitations, but I think there is corporate inertia on this front.

Zero has definitely been the "hero" in a lot of repair situations, but it's been very clear to me that the manufacturer-dealership relationships are very fragile, and Zero's interface with them doesn't have self-healing or self-correcting mechanisms in place to improve matters.


Anyway, I have no idea what to tell you about your specific case, because this is all just a collection of disconnected hearsay. Often enough, I find it very difficult to know whether two people are even talking about the same case, or the same issue. It's very frustrating for me both as an owner and trying to develop a semi-independent ecosystem of knowledge around these bikes.

[Richard230]

I recall from that recent Zero CEO interview that he mentioned that Zero had a staff of only 150 employees.   That seems really low for a vehicle manufacturer.  When you subtract out the new dealer sign-up people, the promotional staff, the fairly large (for the size of the company) management staff, the full-time development engineers, the new product test riders, the people who source and contract with their component suppliers, the quality control staff who are in the Chinese factories supplying their, frames, motor and batteries,  various representatives to each country's importers, the janitor and the other cooks and bottle washers, I bet there just are not very many people left to interact with dealerships, customers and their problems. Zero should really hire some more customer relations people - but then you already know that.  Zero is just a cheap company, which I guess is why they are still in business and Brammo is not.  On the other hand, they don't have the sort of problems that well-funded Tesla does right now. 

[T.S. Zarathustra]

I work in support in a manufacturing business (business to business, I never deal with the retail customers). Many of our local resellers complaints are caused by bugs in software, many are caused by them cutting corners by having untrained floor personnel doing tech support, and sometimes parts just fail. Incorrect parts are often sent out because the customer sends us very unclear requests for parts. Often the retail customers damage parts by ignorance and they all expect us to carry all the costs. There is simply not enough income for us to be able to afford to replace everything our re-sellers, and their customers damage. 
There was a joke at work today, I feel this is how customers often think:
A customer is driving his car and has a flat tire. He calls and requests a new tire on a truck. The on-road assistance sends him a truck tire, for his family saloon. Then customer says to the technician who delivered the truck tire. "We didn't need that tire. There is a right size tire in the trunk. All we have to do is swap tires until we find out which one is flat."
That was the joke, but after figuring out which tire, (it probably takes them seven tries for four tires), they just leave the truck tire and the flat tire on the road, so it cannot analysed why it failed, and the truck tire has to be written off. And they don't tighten the wheel nuts and blame us for not writing good enough instructions.
Sorry, it was a bad day at work today. 

[qorw]

So update regarding my 2014 Zero DS "repair" that took nearly 9 months;
Yes, I did get the bike back now... Zero phoned me last week to tell me the dealer got it running again and all is fine... OR IS IT!!!???
So I took it for a spin, runs like a dream as before.... BUT the first charge only went as far as 95%
Then I tried a second charge, that only went to 88% ! On a brand new battery! The phone app also shows that if it ever did charge to 100% the capacity would be only 11.4kWh (the capacity of the old battery), but the replacement is supposed to be new 13kWh unit (says so on the label!?). Also the app stays on 6 charge cycles, never increments, and the total kWh used is -13602 
The final straw this morning... overnight charging ended with a flashing dashboard and now the App says "unrecognized bike model"
So, I still want Zero to buy back this rubbish, this again justifies all my other posts, their EV's are doomed, the components are too poorly designed, built, integrated and neither the dealers (nor Zero) can service, maintain or troubleshoot them!

PS for those who don't know, this whole issues started when Zero's firmware update failed and bricked the bike's BMS.

[rayivers]

I really needed to read this - thanks for the update, I think it'll help more people than you know.

My '14 FX goes into the shop next week for motor commissioning - the surging has finally gotten bad enough that I have to do it before the only remaining dealer in my area (3 hrs round trip) drops Zero, like the rest have done.

My bike has the last 2014 FW update (version 44) which works flawlessly, but the dealer's service manager was telling me how there have been all sorts of FW updates for 2014 models with all kinds of improvements and I really should have it updated; the "let's improve on perfection" approach.

I think many Zero owners not active online would take that extremely poor advice, but I'm grateful to this site for giving me the info to make IMO the correct choice (no upgrade). The 'what could possibly go wrong?' question has been answered here in detail, many times over.

[BamBam]

My bike has the last 2014 FW update (version 44) which works flawlessly, but the dealer's service manager was telling me how there have been all sorts of FW updates for 2014 models with all kinds of improvements and I really should have it updated; the "let's improve on perfection" approach.

If you're happy with the way your bike is running, do not let the dealer do a firmware update.  No need to and from what I've read, chances are you will regret it.

[Richard230]

Interestingly, after a flurry of Zero BMS and MBB firmware updates earlier this year, the update storm has backed off and there hasn't been a single new update available for my 2018 S for several months now. I wonder why?     Could it be that they are becoming more trouble than they are worth? 

[PL3]

Just notified by dealer of a brand new update installed today on my '16 S during a charger replacement (under warranty, wow!), they say it's a big one. I don't yet know the version number, but will let all know results & any new info...

[PL3]

Think it’s 53 and 43 from my memory. It’s the latest that just came out last night. Thanks.

[Richard230]

Just notified by dealer of a brand new update installed today on my '16 S during a charger replacement (under warranty, wow!), they say it's a big one. I don't yet know the version number, but will let all know results & any new info...

That news ought to shiver your timbers.  I just checked my app and nothing is showing up for my 2018 model.