Are Vado's Cursed?

[Mr. Max]

I've been gearing up to buy a Vado in April. In my rural area, it's a choice between Specialized and Trek. I really want an e-bike that can be serviced locally. I've always been a Trek guy, but it seems like Specialized right now beats out Trek at least in the commuter e-bike category.

I've been following this forum's Specialized posts for about a month now. I'm shocked by how many people say that they've had to do major repairs like multiple motor replacements within two years on new Vado's. That's crazy. The broken spoke thing sounds like a nuisance, but livable. I can live with the 45 pd max rack as well as the $900 replacement battery. But all these busted motors within the warranty period is very disconcerting. I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on something that I'm going to throw away in two years. Most manufacturers design a product that doesn't need any repairing within the warranty period.

What do you think? Do you regret buying a Vado?

Or are major failures just a symptom of e-bikes in general (including other brands), because e-bikes are a relatively new phenomenon and the technology hasn't caught up with demand.

It seems like most people here really love their Vado's, but I'm shocked by how many major repairs there are within a very short period of time.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

 

[FlatSix911]

Loose Motor on Como 2.0 UPDATE: Cracked Frame (Vados too)

I've been experiencing some noisy creaks from my crank area for the past couple of months. It's been varied in terms of the noises. At one point, I went to my LBD and had him ride it. He said it needed new bottom bracket bearings but it wasn't a big deal. So, I figured, I'll keep riding until...

electricbikereview.com

 

[Nxkharra]

Loose Motor on Como 2.0 UPDATE: Cracked Frame (Vados too)

I've been experiencing some noisy creaks from my crank area for the past couple of months. It's been varied in terms of the noises. At one point, I went to my LBD and had him ride it. He said it needed new bottom bracket bearings but it wasn't a big deal. So, I figured, I'll keep riding until...

electricbikereview.com

I have been enjoying my 2020 Vado 5.0 since the day I purchased it in Sept 2019.
I too have had a display replaced and recently the motor.
With the pleasure that this bike has given me and the support that Specialized is providing under warranty. These has just been a nuisance. If this continues after the warranty period is over then I have to re-evaluate my opinion.
At this moment Vado still rules for me.
I had a fairly expensive ebike before but after trying Vado I sold that. I was lucky I didn’t loose a lot of money as the bike was only one month old (buyers remorse).

 

[StmbtDave]

Or are major failures just a symptom of e-bikes in general (including other brands), because e-bikes are a relatively new phenomenon and the technology hasn't caught up with demand.

I don’t think it’s just the Vado’s. I had the motor replaced on my Yamaha Wabash after just 3 months. The new motor is now giving problems so it will be making a trip to the dealer.

 

[Sierratim]

My wife and I have had our 2020 Vado 5's since last May. Mine has had no issues that I would consider major. My wife's did have a few issues that were quickly corrected by our LBS under warranty. No problem has recurred.

I built up our first ebikes a number of years ago from parts I researched and purchased through a number of sources. They reopened local rides that our knees had closed to us years ago. As these first ebikes aged out I researched the 'new' crop of production bikes test riding everything and comparing specs in spreadsheets. The Vado wasn't perfect, but overall it beat everything else. After 10 months, my experience is that this was the correct decision. I would buy Vado's again and recommend the same to you.

We're confident enough in the Vado's that were taking them on our first unsupported bike tour this Summer. OK it's a 'credit card' tour, but at 70 years old our grand kids give their thumbs up.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I'd say we Vado users are in love with our bikes.

There is no e-bike without some issues. Even the most expensive and respected e-bikes do break. The point is how these issues are solved by the LBS and Specialized do great job in that respect. The more I am sorry for the horde of owners of e-bikes that get no support from the manufacturers.

 

[martee1z]

I've been gearing up to buy a Vado in April. In my rural area, it's a choice between Specialized and Trek. I really want an e-bike that can be serviced locally...............

Like you, Mr. Max, I live in an area where it's either Specialized or Trek as for as proximity of e-bike authorized dealers go.

I bought my first e-bike, the 2020 Vado 5.0, in January 2020. Can't say I love the bike. Don't hate it either. The verdict is still out. One thing I absolutely regret is buying the Vado through the LBS that I chose, which was the closest Specialized authorized dealer I could place an order through by visiting the shop, paying for the bike in person, and having the bike shipped to the shop from a warehouse. Placing an online order for the Vado from home, versus doing a walk-in order placement, would have meant taking delivery of the Vado at a Specialized dealer about 67 miles from where I live, versus the 7 miles from the LBS.

I subsequently learned, after placing the order for the Vado, that the LBS I bought the bike through appears to be 100% analog bike oriented (no e-bikes for sale at the shop), has extremely poor communication, lacks the necessary hardware to do display and motor firmare updates, and hasn't been able to log in to the the shop's Turbo Studio account for at least 2 months, which is necessary to do firmware updating. The shop seems in no hurry to remedy the Turbo Studio log in situation either. I ended up going to a Specialized authorized dealer about 16 miles from where I live, and where I should have placed the order for the Vado ("hindsight is 20/20"), to have the motor and display firmware updated.

The moral of my (mis)adventure regarding my Vado buying experience is to do as much research as possible about the LBS, that you're considering buying a bike from, before deciding to go through that LBS. Sure, I did pre-purchase, online searches for reviews of the LBS and didn't come across anything incriminating. In fact, the shop had a few positive reviews, although none of them apparently involved e-bike sales or support.

As it turns out, this LBS seems more interested in earning commission from handling the sale of Specialized e-bikes than providing after sales support. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely not have purchased the Vado through this shop.

 

[Shekky]

Like you, Mr. Max, I live in an area where it's either Specialized or Trek as for as proximity of e-bike authorized dealers go.

I bought my first e-bike, the 2020 Vado 5.0, in January 2020. Can't say I love the bike. Don't hate it either. The verdict is still out. One thing I absolutely regret is buying the Vado through the LBS that I chose, which was the closest Specialized authorized dealer I could place an order through by visiting the shop, paying for the bike in person, and having the bike shipped to the shop from a warehouse. Placing an online order for the Vado from home, versus doing a walk-in order placement, would have meant taking delivery of the Vado at a Specialized dealer about 67 miles from where I live, versus the 7 miles from the LBS.

I subsequently learned, after placing the order for the Vado, that the LBS I bought the bike through appears to be 100% analog bike oriented (no e-bikes for sale at the shop), has extremely poor communication, lacks the necessary hardware to do display and motor firmare updates, and hasn't been able to log in to the the shop's Turbo Studio account for at least 2 months, which is necessary to do firmware updating. The shop seems in no hurry to remedy the Turbo Studio log in situation either. I ended up going to a Specialized authorized dealer about 16 miles from where I live, and where I should have placed the order for the Vado ("hindsight is 20/20"), to have the motor and display firmware updated.

The moral of my (mis)adventure regarding my Vado buying experience is to do as much research as possible about the LBS, that you're considering buying a bike from, before deciding to go through that LBS. Sure, I did pre-purchase, online searches for reviews of the LBS and didn't come across anything incriminating. In fact, the shop had a few positive reviews, although none of them apparently involved e-bike sales or support.

As it turns out, this LBS seems more interested in earning commission from handling the sale of Specialized e-bikes than providing after sales support. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely not have purchased the Vado through this shop.

I can relate to this! I actually wanted the Trek but there were none available so went with the Specialized Turbo Vado. I have about 1200 miles on it and am pretty satisfied although there have been some minor issues. I do most my own mechanical work but am happy to go to the LBS and pay them for their expertise. Problem is that the local Specialized LBS is terrible! I ordered the bike online and when I found out I had to go through this shop, I almost cancelled the order. In any event, I've had a few technical questions that I asked of Specialized and their standard answer is "go to your LBS." So if I don't figure it out myself or get some advice from this forum, I'm stuck!

 

[Sierratim]

Completely agree. I was fortunate that the closest Specialized dealer stocks all the Specialized bikes and has a tech that focuses on ebikes. The owners are also very involved with ebikes, the wife riding a Turbo Levo. Apparently about 1/2 of their sales $ come through ebike sales. Yeah, luck!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

It looks it is not Vado that is cursed but the Specialized organization seems to be spotty. My Specialized LBS do not understand e-bikes very well but they are at least trying and learn down the road.

 

[Marci jo]

Like you, Mr. Max, I live in an area where it's either Specialized or Trek as for as proximity of e-bike authorized dealers go.

I bought my first e-bike, the 2020 Vado 5.0, in January 2020. Can't say I love the bike. Don't hate it either. The verdict is still out. One thing I absolutely regret is buying the Vado through the LBS that I chose, which was the closest Specialized authorized dealer I could place an order through by visiting the shop, paying for the bike in person, and having the bike shipped to the shop from a warehouse. Placing an online order for the Vado from home, versus doing a walk-in order placement, would have meant taking delivery of the Vado at a Specialized dealer about 67 miles from where I live, versus the 7 miles from the LBS.

I subsequently learned, after placing the order for the Vado, that the LBS I bought the bike through appears to be 100% analog bike oriented (no e-bikes for sale at the shop), has extremely poor communication, lacks the necessary hardware to do display and motor firmare updates, and hasn't been able to log in to the the shop's Turbo Studio account for at least 2 months, which is necessary to do firmware updating. The shop seems in no hurry to remedy the Turbo Studio log in situation either. I ended up going to a Specialized authorized dealer about 16 miles from where I live, and where I should have placed the order for the Vado ("hindsight is 20/20"), to have the motor and display firmware updated.

The moral of my (mis)adventure regarding my Vado buying experience is to do as much research as possible about the LBS, that you're considering buying a bike from, before deciding to go through that LBS. Sure, I did pre-purchase, online searches for reviews of the LBS and didn't come across anything incriminating. In fact, the shop had a few positive reviews, although none of them apparently involved e-bike sales or support.

As it turns out, this LBS seems more interested in earning commission from handling the sale of Specialized e-bikes than providing after sales support. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely not have purchased the Vado through this shop.

Good point regarding LBS support. Although I’m a supporter of purchasing from a dealer, in my area one of the Trek dealers is not my first choice for Trek ebikes. The sales reps have limited knowledge and are not very encouraging. Fortunately there are other Trek dealers available.

 

[Marci jo]

I've been gearing up to buy a Vado in April. In my rural area, it's a choice between Specialized and Trek. I really want an e-bike that can be serviced locally. I've always been a Trek guy, but it seems like Specialized right now beats out Trek at least in the commuter e-bike category.

I've been following this forum's Specialized posts for about a month now. I'm shocked by how many people say that they've had to do major repairs like multiple motor replacements within two years on new Vado's. That's crazy. The broken spoke thing sounds like a nuisance, but livable. I can live with the 45 pd max rack as well as the $900 replacement battery. But all these busted motors within the warranty period is very disconcerting. I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on something that I'm going to throw away in two years. Most manufacturers design a product that doesn't need any repairing within the warranty period.

What do you think? Do you regret buying a Vado?

Or are major failures just a symptom of e-bikes in general (including other brands), because e-bikes are a relatively new phenomenon and the technology hasn't caught up with demand.

It seems like most people here really love their Vado's, but I'm shocked by how many major repairs there are within a very short period of time.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

It might be nice to figure data based on a percentage. I’m not sure how many Vados are sold worldwide, if it’s hundreds of thousands or a few hundred. Then you calculate the risk based on actual numbers of problems.

 

[Mr. Max]

One of the things that has completely blown me away since I've started exploring e-bikes on this forum is how many gazillions of different manufacturers of e-bikes that there are. Looking at all of Court's reviews, there's probably hundreds of e-bike manufacturers. Way, way, more than what Trek, Specialized, Giant, Canonndale, etc. offer. It's like the Wild West and sort of like the 90's tech and 2000's start-up explosions or something. I mean legendary motorcycle makers like Harley Davidson and Yamaha are making e-bikes! That's totally crazy. For years, I've been wanting a little motorcycle for slow, casual, side road commutes to work and grocery store runs, something like a Honda Cub, (which I've read is the most popular motorcycle in the world). A 2020 Honda Cub is the same price as a mid-range e-bike ($3600) and I'll bet it doesn't go through multiple motors within two years. But a Honda Cub won't keep my heart pumping and my knees limber.

I think that's it. E-bikes are a "green" technology that we are all early adopters of (I've got a Radcity bike, so I'm an e-bike owner too). As early adopters, there is a huge ownership penalty, where the technology hasn't met up with demand. A similar thing is being said about electric cars. A Toyota Prius that's 10+ years old, isn't the same as a 2020 Prius. Where on the other side, except for the sound system and gas mileage, a 10 year old Toyota Corolla is pretty much the same as a 2020 model.

My LBS has a Vado 3 in their rental fleet. Weather is supposed to be good this weekend. I think I'm going to rent it for 3 days and ride the heck out of it and make my decision. The rental cost will be applied to the purchase price, so if I buy, I won't lose anything. Truthfully, if I can make a good side deal (price and LBS side deal warranty) for the rental Vado, I might even go for that.

Anyway, thank you for your wise thoughts and for sharing all of your personal experiences. I very much appreciate it! Wisdom is elusive. If it wasn't, we'd all be wise. Thanks!!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Mr. Max, you seem to have hit the real problem. A traditional bicycle was converted into e-bike first. Several manufacturers had understood better than others that the e-bike was not a traditional bike and tried harder. Specialized were one of the first, so all their e-bikes were designed as e-bikes from the very start. Inevitably, the new technology is still in the childhood-illness phase. Who could expect that so meticulously designed Comos and Vados would suffer from massive torque of the silent Brose motor? Early Turbo Levos had their powerful motors overheated on occasion. Bad decision to use the BLOKS display must have cost Specialized big dollars etc.

Yet, even the most advanced and most expensive e-bikes do break, so complex they are mechanically and electrically. It is still the pioneering phase; at least the good e-bikes are practical, rideable and do not break too often. It is critical to have a good LBS behind your back.

I will use an analogy. The change from the film to the digital camera was to take a Single Lens Reflex film camera and convert it to a Digital SLR. The first ten years of the DSLR development resulted in terribly bad cameras (not that they used to break, no). Nowadays, we can get a perfect DSLR but the market has changed. Now, professional photographers turn to mirrorless cameras because the technology advanced so much it is no use to continue with the old concept of the SLR. The same will certainly happen to e-bikes - new technologies will emerge. So far, let us be glad we have e-bikes and can enjoy riding them.

I gladly hope your Specialized LBS is good and you will like the Vado as much as I love mine!

 

[Mr. Max]

Stefan Mikes, since I've started following this forum, multiple members have said, do whatever Stephan Mikes says. He knows his stuff. I want to specifically thank you. Your input is truly wise. At some previous post that you made doing the math to convert cadence into something that was both practical and accomplishable, I thought this dude really knows what's he's talking about! Thanks Stefan Mikes! Keep riding, never give up and big time thanks to letting me be part of this community!!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Thank you!

I am process engineer, Mr. Max, and we process engineers just love to understand processes, that is, how something works In my work, one of my tasks is to teach people understand things in the way they can get the things in the easy way. Besides, I am an optimist Often, people worry too much. There is a good saying "Let's us solve the problems if and when the problems really occur".

Not that we shall accept blindly whatever they say. I appreciate the wisdom of the Forum users and listen carefully to their advice and experience; they have never failed me!

 

[Turbo Vado Pip]

Yes, Vados are cursed! My first one had multiple problems including rear wheel falling apart and then entire frame cracking so whole bike was a right off. I’m on a cycle holiday right now and my replacement 2020 Vado 4s rear wheel has exploded yet again. Fixed, then today the entire rear derailleur sheered off leaving me stranded. If it’s not too late, get the Trek!

 

[Dallant]

Hmmm, lots of Vado owners not wanting to mention the “T” word.
From what I’ve read, Trek has far fewer and less serious complaints on this forum. My Allant+7 has been great going on 3 months and almost 400 miles. That includes a major free update. I guess time will tell but I have a Trek dealer in my town and 5 other Trek dealers within 1-3 hours.
The Vado was the only other ebike I seriously considered. If they'd have had a dealer close to me I might have gone that way.

 

[FlatSix911]

As an engineer I am interested in data... here are the results of a recent owner survey. Nice to see Wattwagons near the top

Spring 2020 Ebike Reliability Survey Results

Here are the results of the first ever Ebike Test Lab Reliability Survey, which we plan to do every Spring and Fall moving forward.
The rankings are based solely on the survey responses. An algorithm was developed to take into account the total number of miles, number of failures, severity of failure, rating of reliability, and rating of the manufacturer. The end result is the EBTL Miles per Failure rating, so the higher the number the better. I only included brands with at least 10 surveys (except for one, which I marked with an asterisk). More data would have been better so I’m hoping to get more responses when we do this in the Fall! Here are the results, with more details below:

 

[Brendon@OEB]

Interesting inputs from folks! As an owner of a small Specialized shop as much as we like analog bikes and racing, e bike are the way of the future for everyone! It won't replace analog bikes, merely compliment. I usually race road bikes all summer (pre pandemic) and now I'm commuting on a 2020 Vado 5.0. It's been incredible with no problems. That said I'm going to check the motor mount bolts to re grease them as there's a little noise. I think the big factor is we embrace the technology and want to find the problems to better serve our clients.

The downfall of the dealer network is there are some shops that don't embrace the e bike and technology. No different from being good a tuning a carburetor motorcycle versus knowing how to update software on a current motorcycle. What you'll see is the dealers not wanting to embrace this tech wave will eventually turn into smaller dealers and then losing their dealer status because of the market shift.

There are of course some product out there, Specialized or not, that have failures. Dealers that maintain a "solutions oriented thinking" with the brand are able to solve problems more quickly. We purchased all the tooling for the e bikes, Bosch, Brose, Yamaha, before using the product ourselves. Mainly because we want to serve our market regardless of where the bike came from.

We've got Vado's in stock, 2019's on sale and 2020's, 3.0-5.0. Let me know if you have specific questions and want pics of product. Happy to help!