As someone who is in the market for a new bike in the next few weeks and has Levo on my shortlist, that third pic really scares me! This is such a glaringly dumb design deficiency.Fitting a seal is now standard practice for us and all our partners worldwide, including Michael in the US who made this lovely video. We always add this and several other layers of sealing when repairing these motors.
The picture below shows a cutaway of the crank assembly where you can see our X-ring outer seal a layer of waterproof grease, then our rotary shaft seal, followed by the internally sealed needle roller bearing.
You can also see at the bottom, the gap that the grease fills and what happens to a motor without this sealing.
View attachment 110930 View attachment 110931 View attachment 110932
Question:
Assuming that you are not allowed to perform warranty service ( or upgrades) and thus don't see motors until they are out of warranty, do you know with any certainty what (if any) modifications have been made by Brose recently to mitigate the water ingress issues?
Are they just adding the external compression x-ring or are they also adding the internal seal and grease at the factory now?
It would be better all around if :
1. They added the whole seal upgrade at the factory - costing them pennies.
2. You were made a factory approved service center so you can work on all motors - old and new without voiding the warranty. This would presumably get you access to the parts they won't sell to anyone too.
I for one would not think twice about paying a little extra to get a new bike's motor upgraded for UK weather.
Until that happens, if I do decide to buy a new Levo anyway then I suppose I will need to 'hope for' ( wink wink) a warranty motor replacement just before my 2 year warranty runs out and then immediately send the new motor to you for upgrade.