How long will your EMTB last you?

[Pukmeister]

Looks like you are an inexhaustible information gatherer ??. One of the 3 qualities of an early adopter

Sadly yes, its my cross to bear.

 

[gwing]

Alternatively if you switch the roles back to normal the peugeot will last for years as that's what it's designed and built to do whereas the e bike will fall to bits as that's what it's designed to do, wait, that doesn't sound right...surely the ebike should last doing what it was designed and built to do?

Yes, what it was designed and built to do.

Your average car will do about 10,000 miles a year on average and therefore needs to be built for that. Your average ebike will probably do less than 500 miles a year so that is what it will be designed for.

So a car might be built to last 20x the mileage of an ebike. But it costs 20x the price as well.

 

[33red]

For 17,000 $ here we can get a decent reliable car. About 4,200$ is where we can say the same for an Ebike for mountain use. Many Ebikes are used for commuting so take 220 days x 30 = 6,600 Kms/year not 800 or 500 miles. Even sitting 4 months(winter) mine will be doing that.

 

[Doomanic]

Unless you are commuting through Whistler it will be a lot easier on the bike than weekends riding Park.

 

[Doomanic]

How do you determine a car is reliable? Almost every car has known, common faults. Just take a look at Honest John to see them.
Dual Mass Flywheels. DPFs. EGR valves. Diesel injectors. Land Rover electrics. The list goes on.

 

[Beekeeper]

My colleague at work has a 4 year old Haibike. Not the Bosch cx motor, one of the earlier Bosch ones. Uses it to commute including a big hill. He weighs well over 20 stone. 400wh battery and 4500 miles on clock. He says he has never had to replace anything on the bike.

 

[Coletti]

Yes, what it was designed and built to do.

Your average car will do about 10,000 miles a year on average and therefore needs to be built for that. Your average ebike will probably do less than 500 miles a year so that is what it will be designed for.

So a car might be built to last 20x the mileage of an ebike. But it costs 20x the price as well.

I wouldn't say 20 times the price, more like 2 or 3 times the price of something like a bottom end levo but a lot of the newer high end e bikes aren't far off inline with the price of a car to be fair. Like I say. A minimum 5 year warranty is what's required. That way, at least those (Like me) that can't afford to upgrade every 2 years can be happy they will get at least 5 years without having to fork out thousands for motors and batteries

 

[Coletti]

How do you determine a car is reliable? Almost every car has known, common faults. Just take a look at Honest John to see them.
Dual Mass Flywheels. DPFs. EGR valves. Diesel injectors. Land Rover electrics. The list goes on.

Yes but from new, most now come with a 5 or 7 year warranty giving the owner piece of mind. From experience, it's also often cheaper to repair a vehicle than replace a motor or battery in anebike

 

[Fivetones]

I wouldn't say 20 times the price, more like 2 or 3 times the price of something like a bottom end levo but a lot of the newer high end e bikes aren't far off inline with the price of a car to be fair. Like I say. A minimum 5 year warranty is what's required. That way, at least those (Like me) that can't afford to upgrade every 2 years can be happy they will get at least 5 years without having to fork out thousands for motors and batteries

It’s fine to admit you’re late majority in terms of technology adoption you know. ?

Btw. majority of cars still come with 3 year warranty. However there are longer warranties out there for those who are more risk averse.

Needless to say I think the comparison to cars just doesn’t work in any way in this discussion.

 

[Ananda]

compared to some it is..........what would you class as success? unicorns and pixies spring to mind

Compared to some, trump and windows 10 are success mate. But once you loose your grasp of reality you can believe anything.

 

[Jamsxr]

The thing is eBikes are so much fun even with these issues most of us are still keen! Its no secret that MTB innovation goes hand in hand with reliability issues.

My eBike has reinvigorated my love for cycling. The biggest problem is trying to stop myself buying more bikes. I’ve convinced myself I need the bare minimum of; 1) eBike for dryish conditions 2) upgrade my trail/enduro bike 3) new hardtail winter hack.

 

[DrStupid]

I just spoke with the dealer where I bought all 3 of my bikes. I know him personally and we have lunch from time to time. He has verbalized concerns about ebike reliability, from a customer relations point of view, being a relatively new market, but as of yet has not had a single motor come back for repair since they started selling them. The volume of his sales are not trivial, though the span of time is only about 18 months. We laughed that today, all three of my bikes will likely explode, based on the audacity of my optimism.

 

[Stefan-SS]

Hi!
I bought a Haibike 2016 HT and have been punishing it through trails and also commuted to work each day. I have had a lot of new chains and such parts that wear out. After 8000 kilometers and two winters biking to work I started noticing a grinding noice on the right side of the motor but since it only occured now and then I let i be. This summer I felt like the bike was a lot harder to peddle above the 25km/h speed limit and when the grinding started I left my bike for service. At this point the bike had been rolling about 11500 kilometers. It turned out I had all but obliterated the bearing on the axel to the pedalarm. A new one would cost about 7£ and a fee for the work. Despite the recommendation from the shop I actually ended up asking for a full service where they replaced all the bearings and seals as well as re-greasing all gears. What can I say, I feel like I´m flying on my bike yet again. I had not realized how much the bearings had degraded. Another thing I did was to replace the bearings in each wheel. Last year I also had my fork serviced with new oil and seals, all in all at a cost about 70£.
I don´t feel cheated about having to service the bike. Om my regular mens bike I used to ride to work, I changed the chain every 3-4 year. On my E-MTB i change it 2-3 times each year. Having a motor will put extra strain on the driveline. But it´s a lot of fun to ride!

 

[Beekeeper]

Still patiently waiting for delivery of first ebike. All I have at the moment is my EMBN t-shirt in burgundy red to look at which is hanging on the wall?
We hired out a couple of Cubes recently and when we stopped at a pub I noticed people looking at the bikes and discussing them amongst themselves.
I sensed the masses will soon have an insatiable hunger for these things but don’t fully understand what they are yet.
Perhaps we should be grateful that we are ahead of the peloton for a while ? ? ? ?

 

[Zimmerframe]

EMBN t-shirt

Be aware, all emtb items of clothing will decompose in less than 1000 miles... ?

 

[Welshman]

Compared to some, trump and windows 10 are success mate. But once you loose your grasp of reality you can believe anything.

I’d rather trump than the tories , but that’s another story.....

Back to ebikes, they are newm the tech is new and you will get problems....simple really

 

[steve_sordy]

I’m pointing out there’s an efficiency cost to the level of over engineering needed in a truck.

Let’s face it, comparing reliability of an e-bike to a truck is not valid.

We should be comparing them to the clockwork bikes we all used to have.

I've had a Whyte T130 where the rear hub axle sheared after 7 weeks, and the BB seized after 7 months, a Norco Sight that went through a complete set of pivot bearings every 8 months, a Kona Dawg with rear brake howl that would waken the dead and that the combined power of the MBR forum nor even Kona itself could fix. Other bikes no doubt would have had problems if I'd kept them for more than 12 months. Not to mention the generally poor quality of the headset bearings (seems to be a universal problem).

 

[steve_sordy]

....

For me that is the true measure of it, how many of us would be willing to buy another ??

I will buy another emtb when this one is done, 100% certain about that. Which one is going to depend upon a mix of the reliability reports and the ride reviews.

 

[Pukmeister]

On every ride so far, somebody has asked about my bike.

On Sundays scorcher of a ride we took brief refuge from the midday Sun at a hilltop churchyard where we were met by a group of walkers. One woman in particular admired my bike but was a skeptic despite her curiosity, so I let her try it up the trail for a few hundred metres at level 2 of 5........ She came back with the widest grin and now gets it. I'm not sure if she will buy one, but it was nice to see her change her opinion so fast.

Her husband gave me that look, I suspect he's a smart guy who knows the price !

 

[33red]

Hi!
I bought a Haibike 2016 HT and have been punishing it through trails and also commuted to work each day. I have had a lot of new chains and such parts that wear out. After 8000 kilometers and two winters biking to work I started noticing a grinding noice on the right side of the motor but since it only occured now and then I let i be. This summer I felt like the bike was a lot harder to peddle above the 25km/h speed limit and when the grinding started I left my bike for service. At this point the bike had been rolling about 11500 kilometers. It turned out I had all but obliterated the bearing on the axel to the pedalarm. A new one would cost about 7£ and a fee for the work. Despite the recommendation from the shop I actually ended up asking for a full service where they replaced all the bearings and seals as well as re-greasing all gears. What can I say, I feel like I´m flying on my bike yet again. I had not realized how much the bearings had degraded. Another thing I did was to replace the bearings in each wheel. Last year I also had my fork serviced with new oil and seals, all in all at a cost about 70£.
I don´t feel cheated about having to service the bike. Om my regular mens bike I used to ride to work, I changed the chain every 3-4 year. On my E-MTB i change it 2-3 times each year. Having a motor will put extra strain on the driveline. But it´s a lot of fun to ride!

We know Haibike use 2 systems. Wich motor is on yours? If that 2016 is reliable the 2017, 18, 19, 20 should be.

 

[steve_sordy]

It’s fine to admit you’re late majority in terms of technology adoption you know. ?

Btw. majority of cars still come with 3 year warranty. However there are longer warranties out there for those who are more risk averse.

Needless to say I think the comparison to cars just doesn’t work in any way in this discussion.

Who would buy an emtb from Hyundai!
They have 100,000 mile 7-year warranties on their cars.

 

[highpeakrider]

I will buy another emtb when this one is done, 100% certain about that. Which one is going to depend upon a mix of the reliability reports and the ride reviews.

@steve_sordy define done?
Stops working and you’re going to sell it for parts?
I have wondered if I just ride my Focus into the ground and get my money’s worth out of my £2800 or sell young and try and recover a bit of £

 

[R120]

I think the main issue is the backup, not so much the motors themselves. In my opinion the motors we have at the moment are pretty much where you want to be in terms of output, and the main advances are in the software, which is after all what determines how the bike feels to pedal, and how it reacts to the riders inputs. The software is also what makes sure the motor doesn't eat itself.

As @steve_sordy says the failure rate of some of the motors, in terms of timelines, is on a par with a lot of normal bike components, the main difference is that in the majority of cases, mainly due to lack of experience in some LBS's, and also what manufacturers are recommending, most problems, even small, are solved by a motor or battery swap, and currently this takes time as the motors have to be sent back to the supplier, certified for warranty, and a new one sent out.

Now there are some dealers for Specilized, such as Berkshire Cycles, who hold stock of spare motors, and make this process a whole lot less painful, and on the Bosch side of things they hade service centres at certain dealers where they can repair various problems on site.

I love my Vitus, and the issue with the motor is frustrating due to the timescales involved, just to fix the torque sensor.

The one thing I would say from nearly 2 years of EMTB ownership, riding hard in all conditions, all year round, pretty much every other day, is you need to stay on top of maintenance, and that I will defiteyl buy my next EMTB from a dealer, and a dealer that has the necessary experience so that they can put the bike together properly in the first place, and the back up to sort issues quickly.

 

[Peaky Rider]

We should be comparing them to the clockwork bikes we all used to have.

I've had a Whyte T130 where the rear hub axle sheared after 7 weeks, and the BB seized after 7 months, a Norco Sight that went through a complete set of pivot bearings every 8 months, a Kona Dawg with rear brake howl that would waken the dead and that the combined power of the MBR forum nor even Kona itself could fix. Other bikes no doubt would have had problems if I'd kept them for more than 12 months. Not to mention the generally poor quality of the headset bearings (seems to be a universal problem).

But I could have repaired/replaced most of those in my garage, with e-mtb electrics I'm pretty well stuffed. Not to mention that if you have all those problems, maybe you're doing something wrong.

 

[33red]

We should be comparing them to the clockwork bikes we all used to have.

I've had a Whyte T130 where the rear hub axle sheared after 7 weeks, and the BB seized after 7 months, a Norco Sight that went through a complete set of pivot bearings every 8 months, a Kona Dawg with rear brake howl that would waken the dead and that the combined power of the MBR forum nor even Kona itself could fix. Other bikes no doubt would have had problems if I'd kept them for more than 12 months. Not to mention the generally poor quality of the headset bearings (seems to be a universal problem).

Well Steve i had a Specialized SWorks 2000, 27 speeds XT, it was running like new when i sold it a year ago. I still use the saddle and seatpost.

 

[Coletti]

Who would buy an emtb from Hyundai!
They have 100,000 mile 7-year warranties on their cars.

Provided they were up to scratch on specs and geometry and also came with a 7 year warranty then yes

 

[gwing]

For 17,000 $ here we can get a decent reliable car. About 4,200$ is where we can say the same for an Ebike for mountain use. Many Ebikes are used for commuting so take 220 days x 30 = 6,600 Kms/year not 800 or 500 miles. Even sitting 4 months(winter) mine will be doing that.

Yes. But compare 'like for like'.
The cheapest new car in the UK I know is the Dacia Sandero at £7000. The cheapest ebike I know is the City CE at £299 which is roughtly the 20:1 ratio I quoted. The most expensive car and most expensive ebike probably have a similar ratio, and there is a spectrum between those extremes. If you are talking £3500 emtbs you are talking about specialist performance bikes and you have to compare with specialist performance cars so that 20:1 ratio probably isn't so far away, certainly more than 10:1.
There are many more £450 ebikes being sold than £3,500 ebikes and huge numbers of them will either be consigned to the garage, like their clockwork cousins, and then do zero miles or just commute for less than 3 miles a day. Enthusiasts clocking up high off-road mileage or commuters doing lengthy trips every day will be a small minority so, on average, the mileage will be low. I'd guess the average mileage for a clockwork bike is less than 100 miles per year, an ebike will probably be lest than 1000, and will drop much further as ebikes move from enthusiasts to the general public.
That all said, I don't think (high end) ebikes are anywhere near reliable enough for the money, and neither do they represent good value for the 'content'. But specialist clockwork bikes, or indeed pretty muchanything sold to the 'enthusiasts' market never has. Hobbies are expensive and value tends to be secondary.

 

[steve_sordy]

@steve_sordy define done?
Stops working and you’re going to sell it for parts?
I have wondered if I just ride my Focus into the ground and get my money’s worth out of my £2800 or sell young and try and recover a bit of £

Very good question. Based upon past experience, I guess it will be a mix of being bored by the bike, excited by the prospect of something new, "needing" something different to help me develop as a rider, or giving up in despair at the antics of the one I've got! I kept my first mtb a Kona Kula HT for almost 8 years. It was my spare bike once I bought a FS and hardly ever got ridden for seven years. I sold it to a mate for his son's 14th birthday, but he died on active service before he paid me (I didn't have the heart to chase his widow). Apart from that, I've never kept a bike longer than three years because of the four reasons above.

So I'm not sure whether to try to keep it going for as long as possible and then either keep it as a spare, give it to my grandson, or run it into the ground. To me "running it into the ground" implies not looking after it, skimping on maintenance, etc. That feels to me the wrong thing to do, I take pleasure in my bike working as it should and absolutely hate it when it goes wrong, especially if it is something that I should have noticed sooner!

 

[Jamsxr]

I’ve decided to keep my relatively new e8000 equipped eBike and upgrade my trail bike. YT Jeffsy CF Pro looks sweet, I need one in my life ?

 

[steve_sordy]

But I could have repaired/replaced most of those in my garage, with e-mtb electrics I'm pretty well stuffed. Not to mention that if you have all those problems, maybe you're doing something wrong.

The Whyte T130 rear hub axle failure was a design problem by Whyte. They had gone one step too far in lightweighting the bike. The axle was aluminium alloy and it failed after 143 miles. The axle was replaced under warranty with an in-stock steel one (as well as a complete new hub, bearings, seals and QR). The steel ones were on the cheaper models. No further problems.
I never jetwash my bikes, just a bucket of water and brush. Yet every pivot bearing on the Norco Sight 1 failed rusty after 8 months, some had seized. I had them replaced with the best sealed bearings that the LBS could get hold of and kept my eye on them from then on. Yet on average, every 8 months they had all been replaced again, some sooner, some later. And again, and again. Considering that they were the same bearings in the Whyte and they never failed, in fact they have a lifetime warranty (from Whyte) implies to me it's all about design. Norco design bad Whyte good".
The squealing brakes on the Kona Dawg (FS) started after 18 months or so and nothing I could do would fix it. The word "squealing" does not do it justice, the whole bike was vibrating and shaking and it was loud. If you were at Portes du Soleil in the Alps in Jun'12 and heard a car horn coming down the pass, that was me! I wasn't on my own either. My LBS, the combined suggestions from the MBR Forum, the Kona website tech guru, random strangers........none of the ideas worked. In the end I dismantled the bike and sold the components. Frame and shock sold on eBay, fork to a mate, ......the brakes went as an upgrade on the Kona Kula I mentioned earlier and had zero problems!
I haven't had any continuing problems with bikes except those. Does that make me lucky?