Are mid-motor ebikes mud and waterproof?

I’ve seen stuff online that suggests water and grit can find their way into Bafang and other mid-drive motors. It’s hardly surprising really, considering where they’re mounted.

Does anyone here ride an ebike regularly in muddy conditions? If so, have you had problems?

I’ve had a bike with the bosch gen 4 motor for about 18 months now, ridden in all conditions through the whole year. It needed a new motor after 4 months/500 miles, which bosch supplied with no questions asked straight away, but they wouldnt tell me what was wrong with it. It was giving a 550 error code, which means a short circuit had been detected. My take was that moisture had got into it somehow.

Since the new motor was fitted I’ve continued to ride in all conditions and its been fine.

A mate bought the same bike at the same time and rides in the same conditions and he hasnt had any problems at all.

I think the earlier generation of bosch motor (gen2) was especially prone to leaking, but I think thew newer ones (gen 4 ) are much better.

Yep nothing better than riding through the slop, which is totally disheartening on a manual bike, on a e-mtb having fun. I have a shimano powered Vitus (e8000 motor) and now a brose powered Levo (gen 2), both used year round regardless of the weather. The Levo had power lead replaced, as it cracked (poor design) and allowed water in, but otherwise both have been faultless.
Obviously I won’t be doing a Danny Mac in the river but we’ve had 15 bikes (shimano/brose/bosch) between the groups I ride with (over the years they’ve been out) and none have had issue relating to damp, other than having updated power leads for the Levo’s .

Used my Scott/shimano and now my levo all year round. As said above they really help in slop, however I try to avoid deep puddles like the plague, and I don’t wash the engine, shimano failed just before 2000 miles (3mm bb wobble), levo going strong at same mileage.

FYI – read thru this, water ingress comes up a lot as a failure cause (*but we don’t really know how the bikes that failed were used/jet washed etc etc)

https://www.emtbforums.com/community/threads/subjective-i-know-but-whats-the-most-reliable-ebike-motor.25728/

Are the motors IP rated? Or, at least the housing.

Tbh, water is way more likely to get in the motor by being an idiot with the jet wash than riding in the wet. I bought an ebike for use mainly in the winter, it just makes the horrible, draggy, soul destroying slop tolerable.

My Tongshen is very good at resisting water – made all the more surprising because I have split the cases.  Its got proper O ring seals in the covers and I recently did 60 miles on a leaf mould covered, puddle strewn, muddy canal path with not mudguards and no issues at all.  the muck was caked on the motor 2″ thick

I’ve had a bike with the bosch gen 4 motor for about 18 months now, ridden in all conditions through the whole year. It needed a new motor after 4 months/500 miles, which bosch supplied with no questions asked straight away, but they wouldnt tell me what was wrong with it. It was giving a 550 error code, which means a short circuit had been detected. My take was that moisture had got into it somehow.

I’ve literally just gone through this! exactly the same issue, motor, excuse and similar milage!

I see plenty of issues that could easily be water related (i.e. connectivity issues that go away once dried out and the battery / system reset). Usually around the charging port due to useless sealing. E-bikers seem to want to go out in gross conditions around here too for some reason. Then they wonder why components wear out faster and there are E-related failures. Magnetic connections don’t help either as they can pick up particles that can cause connectivity issues.

Are the motors IP rated? Or, at least the housing.

Most have an IP rating,can’t remember which one it is,but it’s the one that can withstand direct sprays of water.

Are mid-motor ebikes mud and waterproof

Not completely.

Taken from another site –

I posted a thread looking to identify which motor is most reliable.

Bosch Gen 1 80% failed plastic drive gear 10% water ingress 10% other
Bosch Gen 2 97% water ingress 3% other
Bosch Gen 3 60% water ingress 30% failed plastic drive gear 10% other
Bosch Gen 4 80% water ingress 20% torque sensor and electronics issues

Brose 1.2, 1.2e, 1.3 (outside of warranty) 99% water ingress 80% of these had failed due to this. 20% sprag bearing failure, belt failure or torque sensor failure with a few electronics failures.

Brose 2.1, 2.2 Exactly the same as above

Impulse 5% water ingress 45% freewheel mechanism failure 50% internal drive gear bearing failure and one or two other small faults.

Yamaha PW & PW-SE (Giant SyncDrive Sport) 70% water ingress, 15% PCB failure, 10% plastic drive gear failure 5% other
Yamaha PW-X & X2 (Giant SyncDrive Pro) 90% water ingress, 10% plastic gear failure.

Info comes from a place that fixes and services ebike motors.

So it seems water ingress is what kills the majority of motors.

Most motors are IP54 (the second number is the water rating 4 being Protected against water splashed from all directions, limited ingress permitted.)

which is only water splashed and not direct jets of water. This is sufficient for riding but they can’t withstand a jet wash, to do that they would have to be IP-5 or 6.
I’ve had an ebike for 4 years and a jet wash or a hose goes nowhere near it, hand wash every time and I’ve had no issues. Watching people jet wash theirs and it becomes a lottery whether they will have trouble.

Yep nothing better than riding through the slop, which is totally disheartening on a manual bike, on a e-mtb having fun.

I see evidence of this on my local trails (effectively locals only as you won’t find reference to them anywhere). Stuff I couldn’t ride through on a conventional bike with dirty big tracks through it from the guy down the lane on his ebike and his ebike mate. A real nause when the trails freeze like now and it then becomes unridable for a different reason. Long term I foresee an errosion issue. I can see how tempting it must be to ride through quagmire because you can, but not convinced that means you should. But then again I think that about riding on a normal bike too. Like shitting in your own backyard sometimes.

On the cusp of biting the bullet on a Trek Rail or Nukeproof megawatt as my mates are all slowly upgrading , vowed I’d still keep a normal bike to keep some fitness. Looks like doing so would be a better idea for riding in the winter crap and prolonging the motor. Changing the subject slightly but a mate who is pretty knowledgeable reckons the Bosch Gen 4 motor is still the market leader. Any views. ?

2019 Kona Remote Control with whatever Gen Bosch motor right now waiting on Bosch to decide what’s up again .3 motors including the original already , one that’s on there a year old last September error code 500 , bike shop have run the diagnostics . About a month ago had all new driveside bearings and case similar to BB replacement cost £150 🙄🙄🙄 Seriously not impressed 😡 Don’t own a jet washer .
My mates Whyte with a Gen 4 motor no problems so far .

2019 Kona Remote Control with whatever Gen Bosch motor right now waiting on Bosch to decide what’s up again

That’s the gen2 Bosch motor,well known for not liking mud.

Changing the subject slightly but a mate who is pretty knowledgeable reckons the Bosch Gen 4 motor is still the market leader. Any views. ?

Depend what you’re looking for in an ebike. Bosch is probably the most powerful ( compared to brose and Shimano)and efficient,but the controls and displays are crap.

If you’ve got a warranty, yes, otherwise no.

After a few checks and assessments, i tend to feel it’s more down to bad design and poor parts and build, i still struggle to understand how a bike that tends to cost north of 5k, sometimes seriously north of that, can have such a poor layout for the wiring looms and connectors, how the connectors can be left quite badly exposed to external elements, or being kinked or trapped, it just all feels quite last minute, with it all shoved up in the frame, or under the motor guard plates, even a lot of the battery covers you see are poor at keeping water out, with some being ill fitting, loose or with poor overhang, you’d think the one area you want to definitely try to keep water out is at the battery terminal and connector area!

I think as each year passes they will improve on this, or have to start offering up longer warranties or cheaper replacement parts to keep people interested.

Mine is fine
But I don’t wash it. Or even ride it.

The combination of heavy bike, lots of torque and a ‘must ride through’ attitude isn’t good news for the trails, more especially with local, handbuilt woodland trails in winter.
I think I’m with Convert on this one; I see my local biking pals on e-bikes riding through soft trail sections and tearing up the surface in a way that was rare in the days when it was much more obvious to you that riding through soft slop was tough going. Just because you can keep riding through the mud and slop of a soft trail, doesn’t mean that you should or that it is wise to keep going. Go ride somewhere else more durable or save the cash and buy a gravel bike for winter, instead of a battery motor bike..?

I’ve owned a Levo as my main bike for nearly three years. When I bought it I initially had a few problems with water ingress on the electrics which needed to dried out afterwards to work again (bike indoors in the warm did the job). I’m pretty fastidious with post ride maintenance, and quickly realised the problem was due to me washing the bike the same way I’d washed all my other bikes over the last 30yrs, i.e. big bucket of soapy water and a sponge, soak and wipe the bike upside down, and upright, then lightly rinse with the hose. What I found with the Levo, is that washing the bike upside down causes some of the water to run down the top tube onto the control module – this happened a few times before I diagnosed it. I’ve had no problems since.

I expect many issues with e-mtbs motors and electrics failing are down to poor maintenance and/or overzealous washing with a power hose, rather than riding in wet/muddy conditions.

I’ve literally just gone through this! exactly the same issue, motor, excuse and similar milage!

my take on this (the fact that some bosch motors fail quickly whilst others used in the same way dont) is that some bosch motors are incorrectly assembled at the factory, and are prone to a water ingress issue. if you get one of these motors and ride in wet conditions then you’ll have a problem quite quickly.

I have no evidence for this theory apart from the fact that my first motor failed with a 550 error (short circuit error) within 500 miles and a mates exact same motor and bike ridden in the same conditions is still going fine, and my replacement motor is still going fine.

Mate’s Bosch (not sure which gen but it’s a newish Trek) has just failed after 1000 miles and three weeks out of warranty.

I’m really keen to have an emtb but I can’t really afford to buy one at the moment let alone maintain one if I have to buy a £600 motor every couple of years on top of the regular maintenance/disposables cost.

I don’t have an eMTB but I do have a Bosch powered Tern GSD cargo bike. It now has 4600 miles on it and so far so good. 🤞

I ride it in all weather conditions including long rides in heavy rain but it does have mudguards.

My cheapy tongshen has been fine in 2000 miles of gritty commuting (from a water/mud ingress POV). I’ve just got some xc tyres for it for some light off-road so will see what happens…

I wouldn’t think twice about an off-the-shelf ebike. Not fit for purpose if they can’t handle it.

I have 2 Spesh ebikes, both with Mahle motors, a Levo SL and a Creo. I had a problem with the TCU on the Levo after a torrential rain ride in Cairngorms last year, turned out bike shop hadn’t put the bung back into the usb properly..

Otherwise no issues, I don’t use a jet wash, rather a hose with a soft sprinkler head and a set of Park wash brushes, and I keep the water spray away from the TCU top tube area.