OldGoatMTB
E*POWAH Master
There sales numbers probably wouldnt differeniate that much. Spesh sells the most ebikes as a company and they have brose. Bosch were specced on a lot of other bikes until last year when a number of companies switched to shimano. They should have stayed with bosch. Bosch seems to react to developement a bit like toyota. They made continuing little improvements to the gen 3 . That should have been a good signal for companies to stay with them, especially having industry insider knowledge on the gen4 before release which is a great motor built on the evolution learned from the gen 3 and iys needed improvemenys. Bosch equipped bikes seem to be a better value as well. Guessing they offered bike companies better terms/price. Ive now sent a few people to cube because of the bosch motor. They are super happy and keep asking how my shimano warranty is going. One guy is an ex moto trials national champ and hadnt been on a mtb for years. He bought bikes for himself and his boy and they are both terrors on 2 wheels and treat them more like moto durability than mtb durability. He smashed a display already. He had it fixed in a day. Another day he rolled in and got the new software update. Another bosch feature with the constant upgrade ethos is software upgrades.
Im trying to get warrantee and have been trying to be patient. Shimano hasnt returned calls to the shop i went to. Shop did a incorrect diagnosis. Explained everything to the shop and yt. Eventually drove 5hrs round trip to meet the canadian yt guy to show him what i have been explaining to deaf ears. Its a torque sensor but only until i physically show them how it errors out will they understand. Shimano hasnt phoned the shop back. Despite the motor being four years old and the failure rate % shoiuld be well known, you would think they would have enough warrantee replacement numbers to cover sales. Covid sales is irrelevant. Its failure % of a known quantity of motor number sales and a reasonable margin of error that should dictate warrantee stock.
Ive been patient for over 2 months(now very close to 2 1/2 months). Just got a call as i type this. Im atleast on the list now and may have some definitive answers soon. But thats all hearsay at this point and it will still take time with shipping warrantee items and stock hasnt even been confirmed. It sucks trying to be polite with a shop all the while buying stuff from them and thanking them for providing their service and reassuring them constantly that its not their issue and i have $ to pay and everytime you go in you deal with some condescending kid that doesnylt know shit from shinola and they havent heard from shimano .
After all this will i get another e8000 only to have it blow at 1700km and have to go through all thus bullshit jumping through hoops with dipshit shop kids, no return calls fom shimano and an extremely busy bike company? I would hope cycling would add a few years to my life not take 5 or 10 off it. I can get bosch fixed or warranteed, i can buy a spare and if all that fails i can get it rebuilt plus the failure rate is substantially less. The decision is ez. Id much rather have a working bike than a warrantee machine that has a couple neat features that can only be realized when it actually works. Motors are integral to an emtb. They need to be fully serviceable by the user and if not the user than locally at a lbs. That includes all sensors, bottom bracket bearing, connectors and wires. Bearings should be able to be sourced from a bearing supplier or lbs, woring should be protected and generic to facilitate replacement, and connectors should also be generic metal quick connects that can be attached to wires by the user. Home diagnostic through the app needs to happen as well. All these things are already in use in a varity of electronics. Who the hell are these companies hiring for developement? Its like theyre trying to reinvent the wheel and wheel standards are done like the dogs breakfast/end pissed off rant
As far as I know no motor manufacturer has released any hard numbers about failure rates, so making assumptions based on numbers in this forum is really just guesswork. I would _guess_ that more bikes shipped with Shimano motors in the last year or so because so many companies use them. Most of the failures I hear about are Specialized (other than Rail batteries falling out), but that's still anecdotal.