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I have great news! I heard from Zero today, and they've agreed to pay for my motor replacement in full! I'm so relieved. They said they looked at the logs from my bike, and although they couldn't tell definitively when the motor problems started, they did see many faults that were suggestive of motor issues going back a ways. So they said they'd replace the motor as a good-will gesture. It's been several weeks to get to this point (to just start the repair process), but I'm so glad to be able to look forward to riding my bike again sometime soon, I hope before the summer ends!

Dom and Phreak, I'm so sorry to hear that you're in the same situation and you're waiting so long, too. I definitely experienced some of that, where it seemed one party was waiting for the other. That's why it's taken this long. But progress did eventually get made. (Now I just have to wait for the parts to come in and the repair to be done.) All I can suggest is that you continue to periodically check in and give them a nudge, so they don't forget about you. Please keep us updated on the progress. It's really unfortunate that we have to suffer through these motor issues. I know all we want to do is get out and ride!

I had been in email contact with someone at Zero before I took my bike to the dealer, so I'd emailed him last week to ask whether there was anything Zero could do to help me out. I hadn't received any reply after several days. So I actually did call Zero directly a few days ago, and GOOD NEWS! They are agreeing to pay at least half of the cost. They said they might cover the whole thing if they find that the problems started while the bike was still under warranty and if they can get confirmation from the dealer that the bike is in good condition. That was a couple days ago. I'm still waiting to hear that verdict. But at least I won't have to pay for the whole thing, which will really help me out financially. I am much relieved.

It took almost a month to get a diagnosis, but I finally got the word today. It's what I expected. Zero says I need a new motor. And because I'm out of warranty, they are not offering to help at all.

The estimate I got is that the motor will cost $1,000 and the labor will cost a little over $600, with a little more for taxes and parts. So the estimate to get this fixed is just over $1700 total.

I am not happy.

I think my 2012 Zero S ZF9 has the motor problem described by others in recent posts.

Late last fall (soon after I had the firmware updated to fix the original "glitch") and again this spring (I didn't ride over the winter), I often had brief incidents (always on the highway, and usually at the same speed) when the motor would stutter, grind, and slow the bike a few mph. It was always brief, and I could usually get out of it by rolling off the throttle or accelerating. Then it was fine the rest of the ride. It always seemed to hit at around the same speed (around 60 mph at first), so I figured I just had to avoid going that speed. But then it started happening at other speeds (such as 65 mph), still at highway speeds. But nothing I couldn't handle.

Last Thursday, though, things got worse. It happened an extra time in the morning when I was accelerating while passing a car. On my evening ride home from work, it started happening at slower speeds than ever before, around 45-55 mph, and it didn't go away when I changed speed. And it wasn't brief. It lasted at least a minute or two. I was worried I'd have to pull off to the side of the road and wouldn't make it home. It was OK for most of the rest of the ride, but came back again near the end of the ride (again, on the highway).

These recent rides were all in Sport mode, so on Friday, I decided to go for a test ride in Eco mode, and it was even worse. It started much sooner into the ride, and at much lower speeds (around 25-30 mph). And this was much more of a stutter, and it really felt like I had no power. I stopped, turned the bike off and on again, but the reboot didn't help. I had the greatest trouble when I tried to go up a hill (again at 25 mph). I had a car behind me at that point, and I had to pull over because I was worried the car was going to run into me, because the bike felt like it was stalling.

I emailed Zero about it Thursday evening, and someone responded Friday evening saying that I need to take it to a dealer to get it diagnosed. The nearest dealer willing to service it is over an hour's drive away, and I don't feel comfortable riding the bike down there with it behaving this way, so I'm probably going to have to have it picked up and delivered.

Summer is just beginning, and now I'm worried (from past experiences I've been reading on this board) that I'm going to be without a bike until the fall, and I'm going to be out a big chunk of change to have the motor replaced. (My warranty is expired.) What's worse is that I still owe a few thousand dollars on the bike and am still paying it off.

For the past two and a half years I have been a huge advocate for Zero, singing the bike's praises to everyone who'd listen. (I even had a coworker buy one recently.) But this has me quite disappointed, and really bummed out.