Levo Gen 2 Are Brose & Specialized Fixing Their Motor Problem ?

[dobbyhasfriends]

Firstly I would like to say that the bike shops that are really getting involved in getting peoples bikes fixed and back on the trails are doing amazing work. When I am at the shop chatting about these things, the numbers of faults they say they are fixing on a daily basis is staggering, whether they are doing this as great customer service or being incentivised by Specialized I don’t know but, its very appreciated along with the extended warranty for the 19/20 bikes.

On my current bike I have already had 2 motors replaced outside of the standard 2 year warranty period, one of which only lasted 2 months, very few miles and never even got wet. So I have had 3 replacements as well as the original, all of these motors aside from the original were supposed to be the latest and greatest. So for me as well as many others, the extended warranty is amazing.. Having said that, this is my experience in the UK and I’m aware that this isn’t the case for the rest of the world where in some places, support is poor or just non-existent.

But the problems..

2 guys I ride with that have the same bike (20 Levo comp) and have had 5 and 6 motors respectively, 3 of these were DOA out of the box.

Ive currently have a 2020 Levo comp and before that I had a 19 Levo carbon comp.

The 19 bike had to have 2 motors and that was still kind of early days of the failures.

The 20 bike has had 3 replacements as well as the original.

The motor failure rate among the groups I ride with does not seem to have slowed down, I know its not scientific data and is all anecdotal but when everyone you know with a Levo has had multiple motors as well as other control issues this is what you take into account when considering your next purchase.

So has the extended warranty taken the focus off the failure rate? I think so, people are happy to keep replacing motors and the warranty expiry is still far away enough not to worry.

But I’m planning on keeping my bike, I don’t want to be paying for motors every couple of months that fail for reasons unknown.

The only reason I haven’t bought another brand of bike with a different motor is the warranty and service that these bike shops are providing. I have had specialized bikes since the early 2000’s and always love em but this is beyond what even the most hardcore spesh fans can deal with..

I think like most of us with the brose motor, we thought that spesh and brose were on the case, the problems were being ironed out and that reliability was around the corner but its clear this isn’t the case.. the motor failure modes are (to the casual observer) exactly the same as they have always been. How to explain the DOA motors, dead out of the box, or my last replacement.. working perfectly at the top of the trail and dead at the bottom with mission control reporting “no motor found” - I guess I'm lucky I wasn't on a big mountain ride, 15 miles and 3000 feet of climbing from home

All in all, as much as I love my Levo when it comes time to get a new bike which for me would be around the usual Spesh cycle at Gen4 time, how can I even consider the Levo or Kenevo when all my experience shows that I would willingly be buying a great bike but with a lemon for a motor.. Im not the only one, in the groups I ride with it’s a constant topic of conversation along the lines of,

“I love my Levo BUT………”
or
“I want the new Gen3 Levo BUT…..”

yea – the motor.

Examples can even be found in reviews and failures aren't limited to Gen2, The Loam Wolf recently reviewed the Gen3 Levo Expert which they rated really, really highly but that came with a faulty motor out of the box.

I guess the light(s) at the end of the tunnel are The Bearing Man and the emergence of retro fitable after market motors that were seeing at eurobike as an option for when our warranties are gone.

So after all that rambling I guess what I am saying is..

Has the warranty taken the focus off the failures (yes) and have those failures been solved.. (no)

imagine this was a new car - as has been pointed out many times, they are comparable in price.. no one would be accepting a similar failure rate.

Would be interested to hear all opinions and experience

 

[steve_sordy]

Don't buy a Speccy. (Opinion)

 

[dobbyhasfriends]

Don't buy a Speccy. (Opinion)

A valid conclusion..

 

[Durrti]

Firstly I would like to say that the bike shops that are really getting involved in getting peoples bikes fixed and back on the trails are doing amazing work. When I am at the shop chatting about these things, the numbers of faults they say they are fixing on a daily basis is staggering, whether they are doing this as great customer service or being incentivised by Specialized I don’t know but, its very appreciated along with the extended warranty for the 19/20 bikes.

On my current bike I have already had 2 motors replaced outside of the standard 2 year warranty period, one of which only lasted 2 months, very few miles and never even got wet. So I have had 3 replacements as well as the original, all of these motors aside from the original were supposed to be the latest and greatest. So for me as well as many others, the extended warranty is amazing.. Having said that, this is my experience in the UK and I’m aware that this isn’t the case for the rest of the world where in some places, support is poor or just non-existent.

But the problems..

2 guys I ride with that have the same bike (20 Levo comp) and have had 5 and 6 motors respectively, 3 of these were DOA out of the box.

Ive currently have a 2020 Levo comp and before that I had a 19 Levo carbon comp.

The 19 bike had to have 2 motors and that was still kind of early days of the failures.

The 20 bike has had 3 replacements as well as the original.

The motor failure rate among the groups I ride with does not seem to have slowed down, I know its not scientific data and is all anecdotal but when everyone you know with a Levo has had multiple motors as well as other control issues this is what you take into account when considering your next purchase.

So has the extended warranty taken the focus off the failure rate? I think so, people are happy to keep replacing motors and the warranty expiry is still far away enough not to worry.

But I’m planning on keeping my bike, I don’t want to be paying for motors every couple of months that fail for reasons unknown.

The only reason I haven’t bought another brand of bike with a different motor is the warranty and service that these bike shops are providing. I have had specialized bikes since the early 2000’s and always love em but this is beyond what even the most hardcore spesh fans can deal with..

I think like most of us with the brose motor, we thought that spesh and brose were on the case, the problems were being ironed out and that reliability was around the corner but its clear this isn’t the case.. the motor failure modes are (to the casual observer) exactly the same as they have always been. How to explain the DOA motors, dead out of the box, or my last replacement.. working perfectly at the top of the trail and dead at the bottom with mission control reporting “no motor found” - I guess I'm lucky I wasn't on a big mountain ride, 15 miles and 3000 feet of climbing from home

All in all, as much as I love my Levo when it comes time to get a new bike which for me would be around the usual Spesh cycle at Gen4 time, how can I even consider the Levo or Kenevo when all my experience shows that I would willingly be buying a great bike but with a lemon for a motor.. Im not the only one, in the groups I ride with it’s a constant topic of conversation along the lines of,

“I love my Levo BUT………”
or
“I want the new Gen3 Levo BUT…..”

yea – the motor.

Examples can even be found in reviews and failures aren't limited to Gen2, The Loam Wolf recently reviewed the Gen3 Levo Expert which they rated really, really highly but that came with a faulty motor out of the box.

I guess the light(s) at the end of the tunnel are The Bearing Man and the emergence of retro fitable after market motors that were seeing at eurobike as an option for when our warranties are gone.

So after all that rambling I guess what I am saying is..

Has the warranty taken the focus off the failures (yes) and have those failures been solved.. (no)

imagine this was a new car - as has been pointed out many times, they are comparable in price.. no one would be accepting a similar failure rate.

Would be interested to hear all opinions and experience

In my riding group 3 of us have 2022 Gen 3 Levo’s, all of us are on our third motor in less than 6 months. This is the latest 2.2 motor. I wound up selling mine as I hated riding with the next failure always on my mind.

 

[Kiwi in Wales]

Hi all,
Have not been on here for a while.
I still have over a year left on my 2019 warranty and the same on my Gen 3 Levo. The 2019 has the 2.2 motor due to failures.
@Specialized Rider Care what are your thoughts on this subject?
Do you have anything to say that might give us some sort of reassurance?

 

[dobbyhasfriends]

send it to peter he has lots of those motors lol.

At Performance Line Bearings, we noticed the failure rates of the Brose motors has been widely reported and discussed on forums and social media platforms all over the world. We could also see from our own experience, and the sheer number of Brose motors going through our workshop that there were a few issues that needed addressing. Particularly when used off road. Although Brose have been working hard to address some of these issues, that does not really help those outside of the warranty period. So we decided to do something about it!
We can now offer an upgrade for all Brose motors. This includes the following:

• Uprated thicker, stronger, Brose carbon fibre drive belt.
• Uprated heavy duty sprag clutch bearing for the motor drive pulley
• Uprated heavy duty sprag clutch bearing for the crankshaft drive
• Single lip rotary shaft seal to stop water ingress into the crankshaft needle roller bearing and beyond (This also stops rust damage to the crankshaft bearing surface and premature failure of the crankshaft needle roller bearing)
• Genuine Brose bearing cover seal for the right hand crankshaft ball bearing (Not fitted till 2017)
• Waterproof long life grease packed between outer bearings and motor covers. (This helps stop water sitting in these areas and seeping into the outer bearings).
• We also fit an external X-ring seal each side of the crankshaft to further stop the chance of any water ingress into the motor.
• We remove the two ECU cover screws and seal these to stop water ingress into the ECU.
• Finally, we treat and coat the motors electric plugs to stop corrosion and water entering the ECU by capillary action along the wires.

Price for Brose Motor Upgrade
The price is based on a motor being received in good working order, with no other parts or repairs required. Should we open your motor and find any issues that require attention, such as a worn or failing bearing etc., we will contact you with a price to repair these issues before we continue with any upgrade work.

• Brose T £191.55 Inc VAT*
• Brose S £191.55 Inc VAT*
• Brose TF £191.55 Inc VAT*
• Brose S-Mag £215.77 Inc VAT* (If 2020 belt is not fitted)
• Brose S-Mag £122.98 Inc VAT* (If 2020 belt is already fitted)

If you want peace of mind when miles from home, or you want your Brose motor as strong, watertight and reliable as is currently possible, just send your motor to us. This upgrade is also a must for anyone using their Brose powered eBike for race or competition use.

Brose Motor Upgrade Service - eBike Motor Centre (Performance Line Bearings)

eBike Motor Centre is the official trusted partner of Specialized bikes. Also parent company of eMCB, official Brose Warranty Service Centre for UK and Southern Ireland. At eBike Motor Centre we noticed the failure rates of the Brose motors has been widely reported and discussed on forums and...

www.ebikemotorcentre.com

well aware of this and its reassuring that the motors can be repaired and upgraded.
I posted this thread more to address the fact that nothing is changing in the reliability of these motors and thats not acceptable.
The failure modes that you see in your work may have changed but specialized have known about these issues long before they offered the extended warranty and since then, very little has changed and personally, as a current customer and a long time specialized customer, I dont want to leave the brand but I would, over this issue.
the warranty and support is commendable as I have said but at some point its got to stop being used as a crutch and the issues have to be solved and it does not seem to be happening.

 

[philmedomsley]

Are they any more unreliable than other motors?

 

[Doomanic]

Are they any more unreliable than other motors?

Yes. Using the “but Spesh sell more eebs than anyone else” argument is erroneous because so many people are seeing multiple failures. Every single one of my regular riding buddies with Levos have had multiple motors.

 

[Doomanic]

Are you ok, you haven’t posted a pic of the dinosaur bike?

 

[kombos]

2020 Levo Comp
1st motor replacement with 440 miles (700km) on motor
2nd motor replacement at 1240 miles (2k km) on motor
3rd motor currently has about 2k miles (3.2k km) on it and seems to be working fine at this point....

I have 1.5 years left on the 4 year warranty. Love the bike and currently have no plans to change bikes.
May consider something new next year depending on the new models....Spesh....maybe....maybe not....

 

[jsharpe]

I did have an issue with the original motor on my 2020, but the replacement has been going strong ever since. Coming up on 2400 miles of all smiles. The extended warranty from Specialized is nice but I won't need it. I love the bike way too much to let a possible problem bother me and with the post above from shockwave I have another option should the need arise.

 

[rod9301]

Firstly I would like to say that the bike shops that are really getting involved in getting peoples bikes fixed and back on the trails are doing amazing work. When I am at the shop chatting about these things, the numbers of faults they say they are fixing on a daily basis is staggering, whether they are doing this as great customer service or being incentivised by Specialized I don’t know but, its very appreciated along with the extended warranty for the 19/20 bikes.

On my current bike I have already had 2 motors replaced outside of the standard 2 year warranty period, one of which only lasted 2 months, very few miles and never even got wet. So I have had 3 replacements as well as the original, all of these motors aside from the original were supposed to be the latest and greatest. So for me as well as many others, the extended warranty is amazing.. Having said that, this is my experience in the UK and I’m aware that this isn’t the case for the rest of the world where in some places, support is poor or just non-existent.

But the problems..

2 guys I ride with that have the same bike (20 Levo comp) and have had 5 and 6 motors respectively, 3 of these were DOA out of the box.

Ive currently have a 2020 Levo comp and before that I had a 19 Levo carbon comp.

The 19 bike had to have 2 motors and that was still kind of early days of the failures.

The 20 bike has had 3 replacements as well as the original.

The motor failure rate among the groups I ride with does not seem to have slowed down, I know its not scientific data and is all anecdotal but when everyone you know with a Levo has had multiple motors as well as other control issues this is what you take into account when considering your next purchase.

So has the extended warranty taken the focus off the failure rate? I think so, people are happy to keep replacing motors and the warranty expiry is still far away enough not to worry.

But I’m planning on keeping my bike, I don’t want to be paying for motors every couple of months that fail for reasons unknown.

The only reason I haven’t bought another brand of bike with a different motor is the warranty and service that these bike shops are providing. I have had specialized bikes since the early 2000’s and always love em but this is beyond what even the most hardcore spesh fans can deal with..

I think like most of us with the brose motor, we thought that spesh and brose were on the case, the problems were being ironed out and that reliability was around the corner but its clear this isn’t the case.. the motor failure modes are (to the casual observer) exactly the same as they have always been. How to explain the DOA motors, dead out of the box, or my last replacement.. working perfectly at the top of the trail and dead at the bottom with mission control reporting “no motor found” - I guess I'm lucky I wasn't on a big mountain ride, 15 miles and 3000 feet of climbing from home

All in all, as much as I love my Levo when it comes time to get a new bike which for me would be around the usual Spesh cycle at Gen4 time, how can I even consider the Levo or Kenevo when all my experience shows that I would willingly be buying a great bike but with a lemon for a motor.. Im not the only one, in the groups I ride with it’s a constant topic of conversation along the lines of,

“I love my Levo BUT………”
or
“I want the new Gen3 Levo BUT…..”

yea – the motor.

Examples can even be found in reviews and failures aren't limited to Gen2, The Loam Wolf recently reviewed the Gen3 Levo Expert which they rated really, really highly but that came with a faulty motor out of the box.

I guess the light(s) at the end of the tunnel are The Bearing Man and the emergence of retro fitable after market motors that were seeing at eurobike as an option for when our warranties are gone.

So after all that rambling I guess what I am saying is..

Has the warranty taken the focus off the failures (yes) and have those failures been solved.. (no)

imagine this was a new car - as has been pointed out many times, they are comparable in price.. no one would be accepting a similar failure rate.

Would be interested to hear all opinions and experience

I wouldn't worry about warranty or service on any bike that has the Bosch motor. Solid.

 

[Bomble]

It’s mind blowing that they haven’t sorted it. I bought a new Levo in 2020, loved it but just couldn’t trust it as it broke so often, got rid.
A mate bought a 2022 expert, I thought if it lasts the winter I might buy another Levo, it didn’t and he got rid.
Another mate’s old kenevo was great for 18 months, that did the motor, was rebuilt by an aftermarket company but it still went twice again. To be fair the rebuild company were great and fixed it quickly with no charge both times.
The backup and service is great with Spesh but it’s no help when you go to the lakes for the weekend and it won’t turn on.

 

[steve_sordy]

Using their customers as Beta testers for a product that is just not ready is poor practice, no matter how much they try to make up for it with their customer service. All the things that Performance Line Bearings has developed for the motor should have been done by Speccy from the start (see post #6 above). That and all the other stuff listed on the speccy forum elsewhere on here.

But that would have delayed their launch. Now they are getting loads of income from sales plus valuable feedback from all the failure modes.

 

[Zimmerframe]

Using their customers as Beta testers for a product that is just not ready is poor practice, no matter how much they try to make up for it with their customer service. All the things that Performance Line Bearings has developed for the motor should have been done by Speccy from the start (see post #6 above). That and all the other stuff listed on the speccy forum elsewhere on here.

But that would have delayed their launch. Now they are getting loads of income from sales plus valuable feedback from all the failure modes.

I wouldn't say they were beta testing.

To their credit, Spesh are normally an innovative and creative company. The Levo really pushed the boundaries in a huge leap compared to the competition and we can all be thankful for that. Even now, the original Kenevo is as fast or faster and amazingly - Lighter than much of the newer competition (albeit with a smaller battery).

Going with Brose meant they could develop their own batteries and control systems, software. They gave us Mission control, the ability to tune our motors to our preferences (we're ultimately all different, ride different terrain and have different requirements). No one else could have given them this flexibility/creativity.

The 1.2 Brose suffered from overheating issues and was "developed" into the 1.2e (economy) - giving better range - like an EP8RS By cutting the power, they cured the overheating problem.

In parallel they developed the 1.3 - On the whole a very quite motor which was "reasonably" reliable (for a mountain bike motor) by making more expensive component changes. This motor also had a slightly lower power, but after a year or so was updated to 90nm via a firmware update.

Then came the Mag S 2.1 - Switching to Magnesium whilst following the same basic motor design brought a whole new set of problems - which ultimately have never been cured.

It was light, almost as quiet, powerful, could be tuned to your preferences. But for some people, broke faster than bambam's credit limit in a brothel. Getting a new motor was almost like the good old days of having milk delivered to your door each morning. (When England had the largest electric vehicle fleet in the world).

Then we had the 2.2 - which was just the same but a new name was necessary for the Gen3 Levo Launch. Since then they've moved to the 200 series (serial number) motors, which do have some other changes - but obviously as this thread shows - has not solved the problems.

As for Beta testing - this is more than 4 years .. so I don't think you can call them Beta Testers. Unfortunately for us, Spesh have obviously worked with Brose in the hope they'd solve the problems. Brose seem to have shown about as much interest and creativity in the last 4 years as Jack Daniels have at making an alcohol free version.

Hopefully .. they'll switch to someone else in the future .. Where that leaves all the existing bikes/owners .. Fecked basically because Spesh's philosophy does not involve backwards comparability or development. There's now an enormous market there of existing owners, but there's more easier money to be made shipping new bikes at ever increasing prices.

 

[RebornRider]

mtb is a pure hell environment for an electric motor and its enclosure. Endless severe vibration and shock, heavy guys standing on the pedals (and landing big drops to flat on the pedals!), and riding in the rain and across streams that were deeper than we predicted (not to mention power washing), My understanding (could be wrong!) is that the early motors were derived from other industries, not clean sheet of paper designs for emtbs. It's not surprising to me that there were reliability issues when these motors were subjected to gnarly mtb riding.

Based on recent bike show reporting, it looks like our emtb market is getting big enough to attract custom motor designs (as opposed to adapted motor designs). I'm sure we will have torquey, quiet, light, and reliable motors before we're too old to ride.

As others have said, total worldwide Turbo Levo / Kenevo sales are a drop in the ocean compared to the number of windshield wiper motors sold. It's not surprising that Brose takes little interest in our problems.

All just my opinion, of course.

 

[Dax]

Specilized design their bikes for California, not UK?

My 2018 kenevo has been pretty good, one motor at 1500miles, the second is starting to sound a bit bearing-y at around 1200 miles...Im sure my lack-of-bike-washing regime is responsible for the relative longevity.

 

[High Rock Ruti]

High Rock Ruti

8 motors across three bikes. (SWITCH TO BOSCH FCS) Ninth motor is failing but working, so Specialized declined replacement. they've been fantastic about warranty and refunds. At the next failure I'm going to send the new motor across the "pond" and get it upgraded on the DL, and we'll see what happens. The Turbo Levo, is the most refined bike made, quiet, solid and as good as it get's hitting the middle round for handling. I'm waiting on the Pole Voima should be here by September, oh boy another "spare bike", I'm sorry did I say spare? I meant "backup"! Own a Levo, if you ride daily backup required.

Warm Regards Ruti

FSC= for christ's sake

 

[taxidriver50005]

There is a large market there for any motor manufacturer that can make a retrofit kit for there motor that works with spesh batteries and frames.
For me reliable motors is more important than the perfect geometry... If Toyota ever make an ebike I'm first in the que

 

[brizi2003]

As an owner of a Kenevo 2019 model with a 2 year warranty which has now expired and having had the 4th motor repaired by Performance Line bearings, I was looking forward to new serviceable motors being the focus of the latest Eurobike exhibition, but as suspected the motors were smaller, lighter, quieter but sadly still no provision for servicing. I hate just throwing stuff away but that seems to be where development is right now. I've only really just woken up to the idea that ebikes won't last as long as conventional bikes without repeated major investment in replacement of major parts i. e. Battery and motor. Great while they're working but significantly more expensive to maintain than non ebikes!

 

[High Rock Ruti]

As an owner of a Kenevo 2019 model with a 2 year warranty which has now expired and having had the 4th motor repaired by Performance Line bearings, I was looking forward to new serviceable motors being the focus of the latest Eurobike exhibition, but as suspected the motors were smaller, lighter, quieter but sadly still no provision for servicing. I hate just throwing stuff away but that seems to be where development is right now. I've only really just woken up to the idea that ebikes won't last as long as conventional bikes without repeated major investment in replacement of major parts i. e. Battery and motor. Great while they're working but significantly more expensive to maintain than non ebikes!

High Rock Ruti

Hello @brizi2003

Have you noticed any increased durability from the rebuilds of your motors? Please explain about the experience as much detail as you can stand. I'm seriously thinking of sending my next (warranty) replacement motor to Bearingman to see if it helps? I don't personally believe that specialized could tell if the motor has been opened, if they can't figure out how to get a motor that lasts 300 miles?

Warm Regards Ruti

 

[Binhill1]

High Rock Ruti

Hello @brizi2003

Have you noticed any increased durability from the rebuilds of your motors? Please explain about the experience as much detail as you can stand. I'm seriously thinking of sending my next (warranty) replacement motor to Bearingman to see if it helps? I don't personally believe that specialized could tell if the motor has been opened, if they can't figure out how to get a motor that lasts 300 miles?

Warm Regards Ruti

I thought about upgrading my third motor and spoke to PB about it in December. As the motor still under warranty till June 23 I decided against it but would definitely do it I think ? If this one goes . 1307 miles on this one . I also considered selling bike as I got a new frame as well . I would be grieved having to actually buy a new motor which so far have been lasting 2600 miles first one and 2000 the second ( which was ok but dealer picked up error and changed ) . Wales and Scotland more motor failures in UK . I may consider a cheaper Ebike to be honest a 700 battery would be a must though. Lots of nice bikes out there. Don't hear much about trading in a Ebike do we.

 

[cozzy]

Owned my 2020 kenevo for 2 years now. It had a replacement motor just fitted when I bought it.
No problems since. I have no concerns about the motor due to the extended warranty plus performanceline bearings could hopefully fix it once out of cover if it fails.

To be honest I have no idea how some get through so many motors. I don't ride in the wet, so that probably helps.

A battery failure worries me most of all, as they don't seem repairable plus are really expensive. This applies to all manufacturers though.

 

[Binhill1]

Owned my 2020 kenevo for 2 years now. It had a replacement motor just fitted when I bought it.
No problems since. I have no concerns about the motor due to the extended warranty plus performanceline bearings could hopefully fix it once out of cover.

To be honest I have no idea how some get through so many motors. I don't ride in the wet, so that probably helps.

A battery failure worries me most of all, as they don't seem repairable plus are really expensive. This applies to all manufacturers though.

I'm taking more care this motor i put a neoprene cover over battery plug and trying less muddy wet routes if it really has been wet , that's not easy. Surprisingly my battery still getting same range after 5900 miles . But yes I would be gutted to have to buy a battery plus a motor .Not much more you could buy a cheaper bike and tailor my trails to suit . Wonder what you would get splitting a bike and selling?

 

[Andy__C]

Still on my original motor here, 2019 Levo expert. I do ride mine in eco 90% of the time, don't know whether that has anything to do with the wear and tear vs people powering everywhere on turbo (I notice this most on BPW pedal ups - people gassing it to the top!). I do ride in South Wales though which for 80% of rides is wet and muddy - most of my small amount of system errors are mud clogged around the sensor

I do feel for the guys that have had several motors - it must suck to have the nagging of a motor failure when out on big rides. It's hard to really get a gauge for how bad this is without seeing the actual data and trends.... it doesn't sound good reading these forums but it's hard to know the big picture or the echo chamber of forums to highlight faults.

 

[Swissrider]

3000k on my second motor on my 2019 Kenevo, but this motor was serviced by PLB and my hope is that it will keep going for a long while yet. I agree with all the sentiments above. Despite the fact of high specialized sales and the forums will give a distorted picture, the failure rate seems very high. My understanding is that for Brose, their ebike motors are a relatively small proportion of their sales and they are simply not that interested in sorting out well known problems. Specialized are a relatively small customer and so have little influence. Maybe Brose feel that the expense of re-designing, re-tooling and re-sourcing better bearings, seals and other bits that cause failures is not worth the expense. It seems that they do not really care about the reputational damage that is being done to both Brose and Specialized. This is offset by the slightly annoying fact that their motors and Specialized bikes perform very well and many will argue that they are at the top of the ebike game which makes them attractive buys despite the reliability problems. The proof of Brose’s approach is that very little has been done to address the faults and that they ignore any attempts to tell them about it. Mind you, the situation is not that much bettter with their motors. They may be more reliable but if they do break (and all makes have failures) getting them fixed after warranty runs out can be a nightmare or impossible (shimano). The situation reminds me of the motorbike industry in the 70s. British bikes were nice to ride but unreliable and then came reliable Japanese bikes, not with the same heritage or handling but without the oil leaks and inevitable breakdowns. My first Japanese bike (1975 T500 twin) was a revelation. Never even stuttered, let alone broke down. Soon, the Japanese caught up and produced bikes that were not only reliable but performed really well. This almost killed off the British motorcycle industry until they also started making reliable motorbikes. So, market forces helped change the nature of an industry. As I’ve said before on these forum, if a manufacturer can come up with an ebike motor that is highly reliable and can be serviced and repaired easily, I would choose that motor and so would any smart bike company.

 

[Aussie78]

There is a large market there for any motor manufacturer that can make a retrofit kit for there motor that works with spesh batteries and frames.
For me reliable motors is more important than the perfect geometry... If Toyota ever make an ebike I'm first in the que

Retrofit kits are on my r&d list of things to work on.

All motors out there so far fail in some fundamental regard.

Some have plastic gears running against metal gears with grease that flings off inside 10 mins of use.

Some have belts that are too narrow, with pitches too small, with non adjustable tensioners. Their width/pitch falls outside Gates, Dunlop and Timken’s power transmission guidelines for belts and pulleys. Our friends at Gates, Dunlop and Timken represent the performance end of the power transmission belt market place. All three suggest a 20mm X 8mm belt.

Some motors have bearings exposed to the elements with as much sealing as a sunroof in a submarine.

And some feature all these design flaws.


I’m still unable to comprehend how motors that fail IP67 standards could ever be considered for MTB use.

Engineers with no mtb experience and knowledge have somehow risen to the top and driven the design processes utterly in the wrong directions. TQ-Groups motor on the new Trek’s seems to have turned a new page and I hope will hand the incumbents their asses commercially. Time will tell of course.

Batteries are tricky. Open Canbus 2.0 comms between motor and battery in earlier generations is ok to work with, but latest run encryption. It’s going to be a tough nut to crack.

 

[mak]

I wouldn't say they were beta testing.

To their credit, Spesh are normally an innovative and creative company.

They gave us Mission control, the ability to tune our motors to our preferences (we're ultimately all different, ride different terrain and have different requirements). No one else could have given them this flexibility/creativity.

Its just a shame i never got to try all this innovation because the motor failed on the 1st pedal stroke .

Sorry Zimmerframe i shouldn't alter peoples posts but it did make me laugh.

I don't click on the spesh posts, I'm not a fan of these bikes but i am honestly shocked at the amount of motors flying around . Not for me.

 

[brizi2003]

High Rock Ruti

Hello @brizi2003

Have you noticed any increased durability from the rebuilds of your motors? Please explain about the experience as much detail as you can stand. I'm seriously thinking of sending my next (warranty) replacement motor to Bearingman to see if it helps? I don't personally believe that specialized could tell if the motor has been opened, if they can't figure out how to get a motor that lasts 300 miles?

Warm Regards Ruti

Hello @High Rock Ruti,
Long answer... I've only ridden about 500 miles since I had my motor rebuilt by Performance Line Bearings (@Bearing Man) so it's a bit early to say anything about durability. My brand new motors: 1st motor lasted 1100 miles (about 8 months) , 2nd motor lasted 1800 miles (about 12 months) and my 3rd motor went for 2300 miles (about 15 months) before being rebuilt by Performance Line Bearings. The first two motors were replaced under warranty and when the 3rd motor failed out of warranty I could have bought another new one from Specialized for about £700 which would have come with a two year warranty but I figured even if I had the motor overhauled every year by Performance Line Bearings it would work out cheaper and they also add additional seals etc. to help prevent problems whereas the standard motors don't have these upgrades. In my case, all the motors have failed in the same way, starting with slight roughness when turning the cranks backwards, eventually sticking cranks when pedalling backwards then excess crank bearing play - I've never had a terminal failure. Performance Line Bearings sent me photos of the inside of my motor prior to repair and it didn't look pretty. Clearly, water had got in there despite my extremely minimal approach to cleaning with water. My overall experience with Performance Line Bearings was a very good one, with excellent communication, however, I did have to return the motor twice soon after the repair to have it re-repaired, at no cost to myself. They eventually tracked the problem down to the torque sensor which meant that the new bearing they'd fitted worked loose pretty quickly - showing up as crank side to side play. Motor has been fine since this was sorted. They assured me that this occurs in very rare cases. It was very unfortunate that this happened and obviously not ideal but they fixed it at no additional cost - so all good! I assume that this occurs so rarely that they don't routinely replace the torque sensor as part of the overhall. I have since used them again to overhall my son's Bosch motor and it's been fine. I would definitely use them again in the future. Interestingly, the Bosch crank bearings were just very dry and noisy and the motor was dry inside - but that bike is left standing for longer periods between uses so maybe there had been water ingress, enough to damage the bearings, but water had since evaporated. Both motors came back lovely and smooth and quiet.

 

[BassNut]

2021 Levo comp turbo. 3500 miles now for me. Not a single issue. How lucky am I?