E-bike motors failing because of rain

Interesting article in The Guardian. How does it compare to your real world experience?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/15/the-big-problem-is-water-uk-ebike-owners-plagued-by-failing-motors?

Strange article, didn’t even mention Shimano whose motors are famously unrepairable.

Non-expert journalist reporting on a technical problem with too little data, anecdotal or otherwise I guess.
Should have talked to the writers at Singletrack!

Plagued is a strange word too tbh.
I have an ebike, my wife has an ebike.
We previously had an ebike that we shared, which is now in use by a mate.
None of them have failed in any way.
So our experience is 100% reliability.
I appreciate that this is anecdotal of course.

How many ebike owners clean their ebike like they clean a regular bike, by blasting it with a hose. Something you’d not do with any other electrical item. In Bosch’s defence, mine has been faultless.

.

250 motors a month being sent to the repair place does seem quite high though…

I hadn’t heard about the ‘keep away from magnets’ thing before.

I wonder if that’s linked to the anti-tamper software where if it thinks the user is trying to bypass the speed limits it shuts down?

I think I’m more startled by the guy’s set up. That stem! The kickstand on the swing arm! The motor is the least of the worries here 😉

250 a month doesn’t seem that high considering the Levo has been out nearly a decade so those and all the others out of warranty needing work.

There’s quite a lot of older people setting up EMTBS like that.

 by blasting it with a hose.

I wonder what the failure rate is for bikes being cleaned with power hoses?

E-Bikes just like normal bikes are vulnerable to water ingress via the axle assembly.

For normal bikes it’s a straight replace of the BB but for e-bikes they have complex needle bearings, clutches and planetary gears. You can get motors serviced and parts upgraded with sleeves to reduce water ingress but something you can’t completely eliminate. At the end of the day they will eventually fail unless serviced but this isn’t something actively encouraged by the motor manufacturers which is a shame.

I recently had my Brose motor serviced with replacement belt, bearings and planetary gears and it’s like new. It did have some water ingress but given I bought it in 2019 seems fair enough.

Toyotas come with ten year warranty, loads of other makes seven. Which ebikes offer similar?

Bosch motors failed after 3.5months / 750km. Not hosed, or jet washed. But ridden over a very soggy winter. Took a while to sort but Bosch replaced that and battery harness under warranty.

Bosch motor Whyte here, almost 4 years old and no issues. Ridden in any weather. It doesn’t get cleaned like my hardball. Just brush off the mud, gets a careful wash when I service the forks.

I think I’m more startled by the guy’s set up. That stem! The kickstand on the swing arm! The motor is the least of the worries here 😉

I was fascinated. One of my riding buddies goes for the “every accessory in Halfords” look too.

How many ebike owners clean their ebike like they clean a regular bike, by blasting it with a hose. Something you’d not do with any other electrical item

Well I blast the brakes and wheel arches on my cars with a pressure washer. ABS sensor and brake pad wear sensor down there and of course the hub bearings. Never had an issue.

Seems odd that we can build a submersible that goes down to the depths of the ocean, yet can’t build a bike motor that is water tight?

Looks like a dude who’s found what works for him. Good on him, hope he gets it fixed and has many more happy miles. Not all bikes need to be “sporty” but that’s what take up most shop floor soace.

A tempting route is to buy 2nd and and just send the motor to one of those service centres to fit all the sealing they recommend.

Choose a bike with a standard Bosch powertube or easily available battery pack just in case you need to replace that – as battery packs for some, like Orbea, seem to be hard to get.

You’d hope that publicity like this would motivate the manufacturers to address the problem, if there is one.

I’m pretty sure submarines do wear out various bits, and I’m also sure they fix them rather than throw them away and buy another.

It doesn’t matter how great the sealing is, it will wear out and eventually fail like everything else.

And at that point, you find the manufacturer absolutely refuses to make any spares available. You have to via an authorised dealer and buy a new motor (or take you luck 2nd hand).

That might work ok for commuter bikes, but for mountain bikes which are going to get lots of knocks, bumps (including pedal strikes which send the shock straight through the drive unit) and face lots of muddy water spray, it’s indefensible.

Bosch are as bad as Shimano now IMO. It was only the earlier motors that were repairable.

Specialized remain the only repairable mainstream motor I think (Polini, Bafang, Tongsheng are all fixable I think?)

My old Bosch Gen 2 bike has had 6 motors in 6 years.

The last one I had to buy as Bosch no longer does it’s rolling warranty.

But they offered me a good discount and I paid about £230 for a brand new motor.

I’ve just replaced the outer drive bearings due to water damage.

Easy enough job and around £25 for part’s.

My Gen 4 motor has recently had a hissy fit at just under 3 years old and with 4k miles.

Bosch want £720 for a new motor, so I told them to sod off with that and it’s now in the post to performance line bearings for their assessment 🤞

Thinking of going brose next time as apparently they are fully repairable 🤔

My anecdote. Whyte E160, Bosch motor, 3000k through the last wet year I used it to beat the mud/slop and just get out anyway (Thanks Singletrack, your recommendation in a bike test a year ago). No issues yet

The guy in the article is on the eMTB forum and it’s fair to say that not everyone is in agreement with his assertions. 🤣

Seems odd that we can build a submersible that goes down to the depths of the ocean, yet can’t build a bike motor that is water tight?

You could, but drag would be an issue and labyrinth seals wear out and would need replacement every ride.

https://www.bikeperfect.com/features/im-no-mtb-purist-but-here-are-10-things-i-really-hate-about-electric-mountain-bikes

Number 1&4 of the things KG hates about ebikes are relevant to this issue, a manufacturer fitting a motor to an MTB that is only IP rated to withstand the occasional splash of water is madness.

The guy in the article is on the eMTB forum and it’s fair to say that not everyone is in agreement with his assertions.

and in other posts is talking about derestricting his Bosch motor. Prob not that clever if he’s trying to get Bosch to respond to his issues.

There’s quite a lot of older people setting up EMTBS like that.

You want to take a trip up a mountain in Bavaria or Austria on a sunny day.

There you’ll see ebikes with Fox orange forks, di2/Axis everything, the saddle too low, basket on the front, plastic pedals and kick stands….. It’s an embarrassing shame.

As a mechanic, many failures I have seen were caused by owners either frequently garden hosing their motors – spraying copious amounts of water directly at the axle area etc. where it caused water ingress through the seals and bearing on the axle, or power washing them – same result.

Some motors are much more prone to this (Brose comes to mind), and the seals are not very well designed.

Some less so – like the Mahle on Specialized lite-powered ones – they have much better sealing. But still saw one that the customer had diligently and weekly power washed, so the seals were squealing like tortured little things as the constant washing had pushed water and dirt under them.

Also first gen Brose motors had partially missing sealing under the long screws that held the motor casing together, and getting water there would cause it to get into the electronics. My own 1st gen has lasted 10 000 km now, but I have pushed extra grease into the axle area when new so water would not get into the (poor) seals, and I have sealed the screws also. And I avoid water near the motor when cleaning the bike – and have ridden in Nordic winter conditions.

Still, in my opinion, most motors so far are too prone to water damage and cannot be easily serviced or the spares are not readily available, and the only one with reasonably good sealing seems to be the Mahle ones.

Also, as someone above said – MTB motors fail at a far greater rate than commuter / gravel ones – mostly because pedal strikes are so much more common – and a rider who avoids pedal strikes and falls on top of the cranks, may get much longer use out of their motor than someone who hits the cranks often – the forces transmitted through the bearings and motor parts are quite large when the crank suddenly stops while motor is pulling at full torque.

2017 Levo which I tend not to use in proper wet conditions. It is not hosed or jet-washed. The battery stopped working once, I opened it up, drained some water out and dried it out. It then started working again. Happened a second time, same procedure but sealed up the potentially leaky switch, which is now a warranty recall issue.

After around 1600km, the motor went into proper graunch mode. I sent it to the e-bit motor repair guys referenced in the article, they did their upgrade gig on it, fitted actual seals and waterproof grease in strategic areas,  new bearings, uprated sprag thingees etc. Brose motors of that era notoriously have pretty much no seals on the crank, once water gets in there, the crank bearings corrode and fail. If you’re unlucky / insensitive, they take the crank with them which is another £150 to replace on top of the £230 odd for the motor repair and seal upgrade.

Aside from the water thing, e-bikes work best and are put under less strain at a high-ish pedalling cadence rather than – as you often see – leaving them in a high gear and stomping on the pedals in slow motion. Hard pedal strikes can also shag the sprag bearings, apparently.

So… my experience is that OE sealing is – or was in 2017 – inadequate for typical UK use. I guess there’s a point at which the failure rate means the brands do something about it, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

BadlyWiredDog – those old Levos had poorly glued battery buttons. I have the same bike, and I had two batteries replaced under recall. Both had let some salty road water inside and there was oxidation on the PCB.

We checked all the batteries from that era at the shop – most (almost all) had buttons that you could pry off with your fingernails, some needed a blade – but most of them had poorly glued rubber buttons. If there was no water inside, we would epoxy the buttons in place properly (it was the official procedure – replace batteries that had water signs, epoxy the ones that were dry). On my own batteries, I covered the button area with flexible rock strike film, to prevent any leakage issues in the future, when I got my replacements.

Ditto your experiences with the motor – exactly so. Very poor sealing.

I have also noticed what you said – high cadence, low torque is much more motor friendly – I always try to use low gears and keep the cadence up and it seems to me that the customers who simply stomp at low cadence experienced much more motor failures. I am on only my second motor – the first one was broken because it was originally a test bike and I know a customer fell on the crank, and there were also crank strike marks. That unit did not make it to 5000 km, and the second one only I have ridden gently is now at 10 000 km. I have another spare unit yet, if/when the current one fails.

I also have saved 2 motors from customers who got them changed, one of which had a sprag failure, the other had an electrical issue and is mechanically pristine. I am thinking of maybe taking them apart, and swapping the electronics to the physically fine one to get a usable spare.

Also originally Specialized did not use any contact grease in the electrical sockets. Very early I started to put automotive dielectric contact grease in all the contacts and sockets when doing replacements, and it helped a great deal to prevent water damage to the wiring contacts. I noticed they only started using something in the last couple of years, in the main harness socket. That should definitely be done.

https://www.thedrive.com/maintenance-repair/39173/dielectric-grease

Bosch here and now close to 3 years and ridden pretty much daily(often short journeys though)

All weathers, including heavy rain, and sometimes it gets left out in the rain for 3 or 4 hours, if visiting family.

IP54 – Sprayed water from all directions.

@mrauer what do you mean by “fell on the crank”

what do you mean by “fell on the crank”

The Bosch motors did not like pedal/crank strikes on rocks and suffered from bearing failures so I imagine that’s what he meant

Happened to my Scott e-genuis way back in 2015, replaced under warranty

MTB motors fail at a far greater rate than commuter / gravel ones – mostly because pedal strikes are so much more common – and a rider who avoids pedal strikes and falls on top of the cranks, may get much longer use out of their motor than someone who hits the cranks often

@somafunk

My Gen 1 levo had 3 replacement motors. They all suffered from overrun, where they kept going when I stopped pedalling.

My Gen 3 Levo has had it’s first replacement. The original motor became very noisy when it warmed up.

@Somafunk ‘s E-Genius is now owned by my wife and is still going strong.

I don’t ride in the wet, clean with a brush and a damp cloth, and try to keep my climbing cadence up as close to 90 as I can.

I find it frustrating that I NEVER hear back from Specialized what the cause of the failure was.

@Somafunk ‘s E-Genius is now owned by my wife and is still going strong.

Hey TW, that’s great to know, the motor was fully serviced and bearings replaced before i sold it, that must’ve been 4-5y years ago so I’m kinda surprised it’s still ok, has it been looked at?, battery still ok?.

To be fair the bike was pretty much only used as my mobility aid for dog walking duties, apart from the first year I owned it but even then it had a very easy life as if I fell off I couldn’t get up/get back on so was very cautious.

@Somafunk We had an eBike Motor Repairs rebuild and it is as good as new. The battery seems fine. We did 1500m of vertical at Glentress a couple of weeks ago with 2 bars left. I think we could have done the Red again. She is pretty light so the motor won’t need to work super hard, but I do keep nagging her to keep her cadence up.

I wonder how many take jet washers to them, never mind just a hose pipe. That’s guaranteed failure.