Levo Gen 2 Levo 2020 Expert just had a new motor fitted few days a go, now pedal assist keeps cutting out the surges back in

[chris edwards]

Before I embark on another 8 hour round trip to get sadly yet another problem sorted out tomorrow I just wanted to see if anyone in the Ebike community may be able to shine a light on an acute problem that has arisen since I had a motor exchange only 5 days a go.

So, my first run out seemed ok until about 3 minuets in when suddenly all assist cut out , you could hear the motor shut off. All lights on the TCU were on and ok.

I persevered with the ride hoping it was a one off glitch. NOPE got persistently worse . No real pattern to when it wants to do it either .

That evening I took the left handmade crank off, removed the cover , unplugged ALL leads to the motor, checked for any visible signs of damage then reinstalled making sure all connections were good.

Went into mission control to make sure the app was finding the bike, reset my own perimeters into a preset and tested around my yard ..... all seemed ok so the next day took it for a power hour test ride. It performed perfectly .

TODAY ..... looking forward to finally getting back to riding trails with family and friends it suddenly began cutting out again , this time erratically . I noticed that after it had cut out when the assist did come back in it came in with a surge .

Alas tomorrow I have to face yet another day away from my business after suffering yet another aborted ride on my day off to get yet another Specialized issue sorted out ..... fed up with Specialized failures ? just a bit ! The past two years I have owned 3 and had 7 warranty claims all resulting in a whole day in time out tomorrows visit will be issue number 8.

Has anyone else had this happen and if so what causes it ?

I suspect either :

1. Damaged cable after installing the new motor , these symptoms never happened before , the previous motor was clutch failure.

2. Crank sensor not working correctly on the new motor

 

[Konk211]

Hey Chris,
I had that very same issue as you are describing just after having a motor replacement. Happened within the first 2-3 miles. The tech that replaced the motor also replaced my rear brake line that had hole in it as it existed the chainsaw. Anyway, he left way to long a loop of the speed sensor wire, the loop was
contacting the rear brake rotor that wore through the outer cable. Every time the rotor contacted the sensor wire it would cut out and surge on/off.
It's a stretch, but that was my issue.

 

[chris edwards]

Hey Chris,
I had that very same issue as you are describing just after having a motor replacement. Happened within the first 2-3 miles. The tech that replaced the motor also replaced my rear brake line that had hole in it as it existed the chainsaw. Anyway, he left way to long a loop of the speed sensor wire, the loop was
contacting the rear brake rotor that wore through the outer cable. Every time the rotor contacted the sensor wire it would cut out and surge on/off.
It's a stretch, but that was my issue.

Thank you I'll check it out before I leave, pretty much decided that once this is fixed up I'll be selling our Specialized ebikes now and changing to a Bosch or Shimano based bike.

 

[James_C]

have you not got a shop closer to lowestoft?

 

[chris edwards]

have you not got a shop closer to lowestoft?

Sadly not one that has the level of competence to cure faults , the Specialized dealers more local are predominately roadies . A major floor in the Specialized support network in my opinion

 

[James_C]

don't give up, mine was driving me nuts with trips back to the bike shop.
Its now behaved for a few months and I'm in love with it again.

 

[JetSetDemo]

This sounds similar to what happened to my replacement motor in October.
The motor failed in Aug after 2K miles so I had a new one fitted by Berksihre same day service.
This worked for 346 miles until it died and stranded me 4 miles from the car out in the FOD.
Now it had behaved very different to the original motor from day one with a lot more run on than the original motor and surging from time to time.

Ended up being the torque sensor in the motor and had to have its second new motor fitted.
This one does not surge or run on much at all, the run in was quite good fun, kind of like auto drive, I knew it wasn’t right but good whilst it lasted.

Lowestoft is a bit far from Berksihre or Race co so not sure if you have any one out that way who will swap whilst you wait, I drive 2hrs 30min to get service I can rely on so maybe give them a call and see if it’s worth the trip.

D

 

[chris edwards]

This sounds similar to what happened to my replacement motor in October.
The motor failed in Aug after 2K miles so I had a new one fitted by Berksihre same day service.
This worked for 346 miles until it died and stranded me 4 miles from the car out in the FOD.
Now it had behaved very different to the original motor from day one with a lot more run on than the original motor and surging from time to time.

Ended up being the torque sensor in the motor and had to have its second new motor fitted.
This one does not surge or run on much at all, the run in was quite good fun, kind of like auto drive, I knew it wasn’t right but good whilst it lasted.

Lowestoft is a bit far from Berksihre or Race co so not sure if you have any one out that way who will swap whilst you wait, I drive 2hrs 30min to get service I can rely on so maybe give them a call and see if it’s worth the trip.

D

Thank you, good to hear there are other riders that have experienced similar issues however concerning that it happens at all. As I have said previously there are no dealers inside of East Anglia that I know of that offer the level of service that Berkshire or RaceCo do which sadly for us up here requires a monumental day out to get things fixed on the spot.

In my business we run very large technical and expensive equipment and I'm pragmatic in knowing things can go wrong however back up is never too far away to minimise downtime especially when we are working 16hour days 7 days a week.

I regard our time off work as precious and have invested many thousands into buying bikes for my family so we can all enjoy doing what we love doing together to suffer so many failures leading to riding downtime due to bike failures is not acceptable. At first I was pragmatic then as we experienced more and more issues many of which we cured in our workshop my patience began to wear thin.

I've found a lot of sub standard Specialized bike dealers can be condescending in their manner when discussing technical issues assuming we are all uneducated idiots and fob you off with waffle and then want to charge money into a warranty claim for labour.

Chris at Berkshire and Richard at RaceCo are however the complete exception to the rule , they know instantly what the issue is likely to be and have the stock to deal with it , in essence extremely reassuring . My gripe is not with them but the magnitude of Specialized failures and the insufficient spread of dealers to cope with this in the way the two above do.

Specialized know they have more issues than any other brand in the Ebike market so why don't they set up a dealership network that can mop all these issues up in the same way the car industry has.

Sadly for me I have lost confidence in the brand we have ran for 5 years as a family and shall approach purchasing our replacement bikes in the same way we approach expensive purchases with my business where we consider product ownership, service, local back up and residual values.

I wonder how many other Specialized riders have reached this point too.

PS:

I HOPE someone from Specialized reads this, they must never underestimate how powerful grass root riders chatting at the back of open vans in car parks can be

 

[Eduardoramundo]

Have you checked the motor firmware is the latest version?

 

[JetSetDemo]

Thank you, good to hear there are other riders that have experienced similar issues however concerning that it happens at all. As I have said previously there are no dealers inside of East Anglia that I know of that offer the level of service that Berkshire or RaceCo do which sadly for us up here requires a monumental day out to get things fixed on the spot.

In my business we run very large technical and expensive equipment and I'm pragmatic in knowing things can go wrong however back up is never too far away to minimise downtime especially when we are working 16hour days 7 days a week.

I regard our time off work as precious and have invested many thousands into buying bikes for my family so we can all enjoy doing what we love doing together to suffer so many failures leading to riding downtime due to bike failures is not acceptable. At first I was pragmatic then as we experienced more and more issues many of which we cured in our workshop my patience began to wear thin.

I've found a lot of sub standard Specialized bike dealers can be condescending in their manner when discussing technical issues assuming we are all uneducated idiots and fob you off with waffle and then want to charge money into a warranty claim for labour.

Chris at Berkshire and Richard at RaceCo are however the complete exception to the rule , they know instantly what the issue is likely to be and have the stock to deal with it , in essence extremely reassuring . My gripe is not with them but the magnitude of Specialized failures and the insufficient spread of dealers to cope with this in the way the two above do.

Specialized know they have more issues than any other brand in the Ebike market so why don't they set up a dealership network that can mop all these issues up in the same way the car industry has.

Sadly for me I have lost confidence in the brand we have ran for 5 years as a family and shall approach purchasing our replacement bikes in the same way we approach expensive purchases with my business where we consider product ownership, service, local back up and residual values.

I wonder how many other Specialized riders have reached this point too.

PS:

I HOPE someone from Specialized reads this, they must never underestimate how powerful grass root riders chatting at the back of open vans in car parks can be

Chris I am in the same place as you now.

We have 2 Levo’s and both have had replacement motors, 2 for me and 1 in my wife’s, she had also had a new battery due to water ingress.

I just have to make it to April and I will be swapping to Sant Cruz, now the bullet is out it’s what I’ve been waiting for.

I have been loyal to the brand for too long and Although I appreciate the rock solid warranty I think they need to do something new to resolve the motor issues in 2021.
D