Canyon Emtb Battery Safety Notice

[Winford]

Does there seem to be a trend of which serial no. batteries are cracking? Or is it just random? Do the serial no's go in order of build date for example 0001 oldest 0004 newest?

Good question. Canyon knows this, the public "us" has not stated any of that yet. What I have seen is this issue started in Germany early spring so I have a feeling since there is such a large recall, that you will find different dates for bad batches of batteries. In china they probably got the plastic to hot off and on, which could be seasonal issues in china weather related. Over cooked plastic gets brittle once molded. OR just substandard plastic to begin with. Chinas quality control and greed is what bit Shimano- Canyon- us. People that blame on the engineers are clueless. American parts fail let alone the Chinese parts where they cut every corner they can.

 

[Winford]

to suppose the root cause here is a sub standard plastic used to form the casing is pretty naive.

If you have no education, or are not a mechanic, ignorance is bliss. The mounting location is the weak link, so its generally where you will see failure first, if the plastic is "substandard". Which you cannot even spell right. If it was engineering and not the plastic Einstein, we all would have failures. Not a very small percentage of the bikes sold. Why is my battery fine with more miles and speed then most here? because it is not the engineering. Fact is, and what we see is plastic failure. Like it or not, the plastic is failing regardless of why. So if we use our fkn brains its pretty easy to deduce plausibility. One of two things is causing the plastic to fail. Substandard plastic, or faulty engineering. #1 china produces the plastic. Enough said? #2 the plastic is also breaking in places away and remote from the mounting locations indicating bad plastic. #3 only a small number of units are affected. If this was an engineering problem, more units would be affected, and the breaks would for the most part, only exist in the mounting locations. And those who ride harder, would experience the majority of failures #4 the units failed, show signs of weak plastic. #5 Failures in the plastic with 47 miles is factually due to weak plastic.

 

[Winford]

the fact the same factory would have used exactly the same plastic for thousands of its other battery products, it is just not feasible.

Nothing is "fact"" you said. It could be the same plastic, but temperature fluctuations could cause some to be brittle.

 

[JP-NZ]

Winford drinking the Canyon kool aid fr

 

[Uncomfortably_Numb]

Understood. That is the vast minority of bikes out there. Very few out of the thousands sold have failures.

What a completely unqualified response! How do you know this? You don't, you're guessing and are a million miles from the truth.
In reality, it's quite the opposite (verified by insiders and industry journos) and is actually the vast majority if not all bikes sold with these batteries, particularly the 900wH versions.

Owners aren't noticing and/or reporting them, it's not something one would expect and look for and most owners don't even take the battery out of the frame! So, would never know.
The cracks start as tiny almost imperceptible hairline fractures, only visible with magnification. It only takes one ride from new with light off road usage, this is how poorly designed and/or manufactured they are.

Personal case, the 900wH unit that came with my bike has only 47 miles under it's belt, mostly tarmac shake down use. The cracks from the thread bosses are visible with the naked eye.
I bought a second battery from CanyonUK, have never used it, checked it yesterday, nothing visible but under magnification there is a minute crack developing from one of the bosses! This unit had only been fitted to a stock bike to test before being dispatched!

Also, and importantly, the mounting thread bosses are NOT the only place cracks are developing although this is generally where they start. They are also occurring from the casing screw/bolt locations.

 

[DeanBeanoTaylor]

Dean,
Just double check your battery around the thread bosses, with a magnifying glass. Mine passed visual inspection and it was only by chance that I noticed something odd and investigated further with magnification.

I did do, all good for now...