ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older => Topic started by: Whit on April 18, 2013, 09:13:43 AM
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I just bought a 2011 zero mx used from someone who only had 72 miles on the bike. It appears that he just bought it three months ago himself but the limited range prevented him from using it for commuting as he had hoped.
I have two questions. One is regarding customer support. After five phone calls (and none returned) I finally spoke to someone who offered to mail me a new throttle assembly. I've had the bike for 10 days and been able to ride it twice, and the "high throttle disable" disabled the bike about a half mile from my house on the second ride. Now I'm being told it could be five business days (read: one week) before I get the part I need to fix my bike. Is this typical? I've had things overnighted to me numerous times under warranty from other companies. Anyone have a suggestion?
My second question is this: I cannot get the battery to fully charge. It's been plugged in constantly other than the two rides (8 and 5 miles) and every day when I get home from work the charger is giving the red flashing error signal. I unplug and reset the BMS, but for ten days now it still fails to charge completely, although the bike's LCD shows a full charge if I turn on the bike. I'm new to this, but I'd like to know if the pack can be restored to full health.
Thanks for any help in advance. Glad I found the forum.
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Just going on reputation as I am not an owner, Zero is a very small company and has a bit of a reputation of shipping things slowly in certain circles. Most people are very satisfied with their service, but it seems to take them a bit of time. They are in the middle of probably their busiest year ever as far as production is concerned so I think your fellow Zero owners would ask that you be patient and tell you that it is worth the wait.
Out of curiosity what are you going to use it for?
I hope this helps,
Rich
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Thanks for your reply.
I live in a beach community, and a lot of my activities are within 2-6 miles of home. We also have state lands next to our property that I plan to ride on and an electric bike should minimize any disturbance of my neighbors who also border the land.
That is, if the throttle gets shipped. The rep I spoke to yesterday emailed me for my shipping information and told me he would call me back as well. I never heard from him. I just feel like I'm pestering them, but the bikes been down for five days and I still haven't had confirmation that a warranty part is coming. I bought an electric bike partly to avoid maintenance issues.
I hope that they will step up to the plate on this and make it right. No matter how much the speed and range of their bikes improves, if they don't stand behind their product with service, they won't be in business long. And that won't be good for me or anyone else.
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The charger may flash a number of times in a sequence - for example, 4 flashes then pause, repeat. What is the sequence?
Edit: apologies if a stupid question, but you are plugging the charger into the battery before you plug AC power into the charger correct?
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I'll check the sequence today. I have plugged the charger both ways, but the last few times it has been bike connection after plugging the BMS into the wall socket.
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I think the charger will not work properly if you plug it into the wall before you plug it into the bike/battery. IIRC.
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Because I just received my 2013 FX powertrain kit (for my trike conversion) I had some questions about the standalone Delta-Q charger that comes with it. One of the replies that I received from Zero engineering was that there should not be a difference in which connection is made first. They have not observed any difference in their use of the chargers. They also mentioned (knowing that I read this forum) that they were working on figuring out why you experienced a difference in your situation.
Just my thoughts: It could be a very difficult thing to diagnose if they can't get the same thing to occur at Zero's engineering, made even more difficult by the fact that they didn't design and manufacture the chargers. I would guess that there is a lot of "head scratching" going on right now at Zero and Delta-Q.
It could be a result of the sequence in which the connector pins make contact, varying from connector to connector. :-\
I can't imagine one of the big motorcycle manufacturers telling one customer that they had what appeared to be a unique problem with another customer's bike and they were trying to solve it. In my 78 years of life experience I've found that I would rather deal with a small company, any day, as opposed to a big company. Big companies tend to ignore "unique" problems. How many times have we been told by a big corporation: "We've never seen that problem before (meaning it doesn't exist, you're completely wrong, probably even stupid, don't know what you're talking about, so go away)".
Trikester
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there should not be a difference in which connection is made first
I agree there might be only one problem you can switch between different charging algorithm of the Delta-Q when you plug in the grid first and do some special connection at the out put.
It should not happen but by bad look it could change the algorithm!
I got a "manual" when I bought my additional chargers.
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I didn't get a manual but I got a couple of sheets with some algorithm changing info and the description of the LED charging indications (which it doesn't follow at all, and Zero is aware of the discrepancy).
Even though it shouldn't make a difference, I will be more comfortable by connecting the battery first and then the AC power. I'm more comfortable because normally, with the built-in charger it is always connected to the battery when ever the AC is applied. So I will duplicate, when using the external charger, what the charger in the bike sees.
Trikester
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In response to the charger error, it is three red flashes, which indicates either high temperature or timeout failure to reach voltage in the battery according to the manual. It has now done this for 12 consecutive days, and takes roughly 24 hours to do so. It flashes 80% charged and then charging flashing yellow light when reset.
I still haven't heard back from the rep I spoke to, and could not get through yesterday.
Advice?
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Hi Whit,
Do you have a Voltmeter and the Skill to use it?
If so, I would disconnect the Charger and measure the Voltage at the plug.
And let the battery unconnected for some hour and measure it again.
It would give you the feedback if the battery has a problem and will not hold/reach the end of charging Voltage.
If you can do so maybe PM "Doctorbass" he has a lot of battery skills. I have only experience with my 2012 DS. And don't know exactly what Values are to expect.
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I do have a voltmeter, but I wouldn't call myself an electrician.
The new throttle came today. It had a bad connector, so now I'm waiting on another replacement. Any other thoughts on the charging? It's been 13 consecutive days now with the timeout error.
Thanks-
Whit
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When you plug in the charger it takes 24h to flash the lights? Even after it had been sitting on the charger for a while before you plugged it in?
Maybe there's a balance cycle that starts 24h after plugin and a weak cell shows up.
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The charger (BMS) does a test first, and it appears that the battery is 80% charged. It then flashes the yellow charging light. This continues for somewhere between 18-24 hours. I don't know exactly how long, but when I get home from work in the evening, the red light is flashing the "charger timeout/high temperature" sequence. The motorcycle's dash display shows a full battery, but the BMS, when reset, shows 80% charged and starts charging again. I have yet to get a green "fully charged" indicator from the BMS.
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What's the pack voltage?
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It's either 69.7 or 83.3--can't get a solid reading.
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If it's a 2011 it should be more like 56-58V. Your multimeter might need new batteries.
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I've got a bad feeling about this. I have been unable to get anyone at Zero on the phone this week. I guess I've called every other day, a couple times, and several times today. The bike would not turn on today, not even the LCD display, and I'm getting two then four red flashes on the gauge display, which means BMS throttle disable. The manual says contact Zero or CSC. Anyone have any ideas? I replaced the battery on my voltmeter (thanks for telling me that--the low battery indicator came on the next time I used it) and the voltage is 53.6.
Thanks for any help you can give--I wish the company would step up on this.
Whit
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I'm getting two then four red flashes on the gauge display
That's what I'm getting for an error code too! I wonder what the failure rate statistics is on Zero's so far... Good luck with getting a response.
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I got an email that they would call me in a few minutes. Of course that email was sent over an hour ago...hopefully I won't be waiting by the phone all afternoon for nothing. I'll keep you posted.
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They needed the serial number from the battery. I assume that the defective board is a problem on my power pack as well. I've got <100 miles on the bike and its been dead for three of the four weeks I've owned it. Now I get no response to emails from the weekend or today.
Is this just typical for zero motorcycles? Are the other companies this indifferent to their warranties as well? If I handled my customers complaints this way, I'd have no customers pretty quickly.
Just ranting now. Very frustrating, and I wish I could just send the bike back where it came from. This thing should not have left the factory. It should call into question their quality control on current bikes as well. I'm not trying to smear them, but I wouldn't wish this experience on anybody. As bad as I feel about my situation, I'd be devastated if I'd spent about $14k on this thing. I had considered ponying up for a new model, but after this I just can't take that risk.
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My guess would be that Zero's engineers are trying to figure out what the problem is and are reluctant to contact you until they have come up with a solution. That is not what I would do with a customer complaint. I would at least respond back that we received your message and are still working on the problem.
But then I am not in the manufacturing business. Perhaps not responding to customer complaints is standard practice in the industry. It certainly is the way BMW and Honda (to name two motorcycle manufacturers) deal with customer complaints. They respond quickly to their franchised dealer's concerns, but they ignore the customers who bought their products and let the retail dealer handle that part of the business.
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Well it's been a month now since the battery went out. I've been told that they are looking for another but will most likely have to build one. Not a whole lot of 2011 motorcycle parts lying around I'm sure. I've got the feeling that although they have been very polite about it, this isnt really a priority. I'm still hoping that they can make this right--soon.
Just thought I'd give an update.
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Well it's been a month now since the battery went out. I've been told that they are looking for another but will most likely have to build one. Not a whole lot of 2011 motorcycle parts lying around I'm sure. I've got the feeling that although they have been very polite about it, this isnt really a priority. I'm still hoping that they can make this right--soon.
Just thought I'd give an update.
Hang in there. The same thing happened to me after I ran into issues with my original 2010 DS. They eventually swapped it out with a dealer demo 2011 DS with only 37 miles. I drove that one home and it also was not acting right. Last fall Zero built a brand new pack from scratch and got it installed on my bike. Has worked flawlessly ever since...well until I tore my patellar tendon and have not been able to ride it yet this season!
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My DS 2010 got the same problem last week. 10x red flashes on warning indicator and dashboard black. Does not run. Any ideas what it can be? Fuse?
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I didn't get a manual but I got a couple of sheets with some algorithm changing info and the description of the LED charging indications (which it doesn't follow at all, and Zero is aware of the discrepancy).
Even though it shouldn't make a difference, I will be more comfortable by connecting the battery first and then the AC power. I'm more comfortable because normally, with the built-in charger it is always connected to the battery when ever the AC is applied. So I will duplicate, when using the external charger, what the charger in the bike sees.
Trikester
We have a 2013MX and I realize that this is a 2012 forum. However, our machine only has an external charger and this question seemed relevant.
FWIW: We found out (the hard way... as usual) that the only consistent charging occurred if we plugged in the charger to battery connection first... then to the 120vac. Perhaps the Delta-Q charger determines the battery status first then enables the appropriate charging after the 120vac input is available.
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I think that the battery disconnect prevents voltage appearing at the charger socket contacts until the charger is energized and signals the battery to turn on. Therefore, it would make no difference if the battery was connected first since there wouldn't be any voltage present at the connector. I'll check that with a voltmeter to see if that is correct.
The reason I think this is: I sent a question to Zero as to why my external charger, when charging my 2013FX, starts flashing the "low voltage" red LED signal a little while after it has completed charging. The answer from Zero was: A short period of time delay after completion of charge, the battery contactor disconnects the charger and therefore the charger sees no voltage at the connector (open connection) and flashes the low voltage @ battery (two red flashes) indication.
Trikester
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I have a 2010 DS with about 10k miles. I bought it in September 2011.
My speedometer stopped working at ~6000 miles (about 10 months ago). Zero support has been very good about responding to my issues. There is no dealer nearby so all the replacement parts have been installed by me. I have replaced:
front speed sensor (X3)
Instrument panel
Battery, yes battery (they had to make me a new one and that took four months. They don't have a lot of the old 4 kW packs lying around!)
Recently I had the power cut off occur twice and they said it was the potentiometer in the throttle so I will have to replace that. Last week I had another issue which service said was the brushes in the motor so I will probably be replacing those soon.
The bottom line is that Zero has been great to me. All my correspondence has been via email and Zero is pretty responsive. I recommend using email when attempting to get the attention of service.
Zero has provided all the parts and shipping at no cost to me and I am out of warranty so their obligation to this consumer has been fulfilled...although it could be argued that the issues I have now are related to the original issues. Even with all the problems I have experienced I have nothing but love for that damn motorcycle. I feel that being an early adopter comes with increased risk and Zero has done everything they can to keep the project running.
I would not, however, drop $15k on a new one until I get 20k trouble-free miles off the 2010 DS.
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I've got a 2010DS too. 1600kms. Brushes failed at 1000km but Zero were great and helped out with a motor and advice. Still no go - throttle failure which they also helped with. I suspect transients from the motor took it out. I'm also suspicious about the contactor but so far so good; almost 700d since rebuilt