New ProTour - COBI Fail Issue

[Amphicar770]

Received my new ProTour yesterday. Completed assembly, looks great, time for a test run.

Fired up COBI system and started down the road. This is my first eBike so I am definitely impressed with the burst of speed as motor kicks in.

Two blocks from home, "hey what happened, everything went dark". Pedal back home.

From what I can determine either COBI or COBI battery is dead. Wont even turn on the little LED indicator light next to the reset button.

Called iZip tech support. Guy is pretty helpful in terms of things to try, recommends hooking up USB charger thru cable to try and get COBI battery up and running. Less great is hearing that I may need to contact COBI or my dealer (sort of like Ford telling customer to contact TRW or Bosch about a failed component on a new car).

Anyway, COBI remains dead which means I can't use bike as an eBike until resolved. :-(

Contacted COBI via their facebook page. Someone from EU got back quickly and asked me to send email to US support. He thinks it is a bad battery. He does seem helpful, says to send him support ticket number and he will make sure they ship out new battery quickly. Emailed and called US Support, their hours are something like 9AM to Noon so will not hear back before tomorrow.

Also e-mailed dealer. They called me right back. Said they will get a warranty claim going.

My son the electrical engineer probed further. There must be a capacitor between cobi battery and pins for USB charging. After charging COBI via USB the Voltmeter shows 4.x volts then quickly drops to 0. Sons says it appears capacitor is taking in charge from USB and then depleting it when we attach voltmeter with no connection to actual battery or battery dead. He also probed the 5 pin connector from bike to battery. One of those pin pairs is sending 50v. He thought that was odd or a bad design as he cannot see why COBI would need 48V and/or why any voltage step down would not occur well before the COBI unit tself. We do not have wiring diagrams so don't know if it is designed that way or indicative of a problem. Why COBI even has a battery is another question when it can (and does) just draw from the bike itself.

Anyhow, frustrating to get an expensive new toy and can't use it. I imagine it will be another week before I get a new battery which hopefully fixes the problem.

 

[Amphicar770]

Update. Just got another message from the COBI person in Germany (it is 3:30AM there). Anyhow, he said they are going to send out a whole new head unit to ensure I am good to go when it arrives. I'll give them kudos for that.

 

[Amphicar770]

Now I just need the USA Office to take some action. No replies to email, nobody answers the phone, they only have 3-4 hour a day coverage. Grrrrrr....

 

[bob armani]

Now I just need the USA Office to take some action. No replies to email, nobody answers the phone, they only have 3-4 hour a day coverage. Grrrrrr....

Great to hear you are getting this resolved. Strange that you are receiving better support from COBI EU than the USA office. There was mention on this forum that COBI was no longer providing support to US customers, you now have proved it to be a false statement. Curious to see what the outcome is with both your new COBI head unit and the USA office response to this matter. Please keep us informed...

 

[Amphicar770]

I finally did get hold of COBI USA support by phone so I can confirm that it still does exist. They keep short hours but the good news is that you can get support. They are not currently selling in the USA but do provide support to existing customers.

Formal ticket has been opened and COBI Frankfurt has approved replacement of the unit. Have not yet received shipping notice and do not know where it will ship from. Got a note that they are on it so looks like progress.

 

[Amphicar770]

Ugh. While Frankfurt office has been responsive, can't say the same for US support. I can not get any sort of status on if it has shipped, where it is coming from, when it will be here.

I asked Frankfurt if I will need to return the dead unit or if I could open it up to see if I can replace the cell. My son is an EE who works on some pretty hi-tech circuits. They told me I will not need to return it so I figured i would look for the suspected dead battery.

I can tell you that it is pretty well sealed up. Numerous micro-torx screws and glued. Where the battery normally goes in the COBI the iZip version has a small circuit board with a small power supply mounted to it. Anyway, something on the board (fuse, capacitor, hard to tell since it blew up) was fried. You can see it and smell it. I asked my son how that would happen, he just said, "China. Probably the power supply shorted out".

Anyway, not something one can fix at home. Looked up the board in case it is a common unit but it appears to be proprietary.

Now just hope I get new one in before July 4th holiday weekend. Would be nice to use my new bike as it seemed great for the 1/4 mile I drove it before this!

 

[edwinr]

Update. Just got another message from the COBI person in Germany (it is 3:30AM there). Anyhow, he said they are going to send out a whole new head unit to ensure I am good to go when it arrives. I'll give them kudos for that.

So glad Cobi is very responsive and provide support. Keep us posted!

 

[edwinr]

Great to hear you are getting this resolved. Strange that you are receiving better support from COBI EU than the USA office. There was mention on this forum that COBI was no longer providing support to US customers, you now have proved it to be a false statement. Curious to see what the outcome is with both your new COBI head unit and the USA office response to this matter. Please keep us informed...

I had some issues with my 2017 Protour. While initially, it took awhile from IZip to respond, but once I got to the right person, they responded. I am hoping IZip will improve their customer service because there are a ton of up and coming ebike companies that will give riders lots of options.

 

[Amphicar770]

Finally up and running thanks to Chawn at iZip.

Cobi kept saying it is approved, being sent, etc. Last Friday I got hold of US support and it had not shipped although the person there thought it should have. Said it will definitely ship by yesterday but no updates. The person in Frankfurt has not been responding.

Anyway, iZip had one in their warehouse and shipped it out to me. Once Cobi does send a replacement, I will get that one to iZip.

I did have an issue with the replacement as it got hung on setup when updating the firmware via my Galaxy S8. Had to retry with an iPhone to complete the update. Once that was done, everything seems to be working great for both iPhone and Android.

A little concerning that COBI seemed like they were right on top of this and then dropped the ball. Kudos to iZip for stepping in.

 

[edwinr]

Finally up and running thanks to Chawn at iZip.

Cobi kept saying it is approved, being sent, etc. Last Friday I got hold of US support and it had not shipped although the person there thought it should have. Said it will definitely ship by yesterday but no updates. The person in Frankfurt has not been responding.

Anyway, iZip had one in their warehouse and shipped it out to me. Once Cobi does send a replacement, I will get that one to iZip.

I did have an issue with the replacement as it got hung on setup when updating the firmware via my Galaxy S8. Had to retry with an iPhone to complete the update. Once that was done, everything seems to be working great for both iPhone and Android.

A little concerning that COBI seemed like they were right on top of this and then dropped the ball. Kudos to iZip for stepping in.

That's fantastic. Glad everything worked out. Heads up though - if anyone looking to purchase the Protour used, the warranty only applies to the original owner. Stromer was my first choice because they honor their warranty with 2nd or 3rd owner as long as it is within their time limit. I got it confirmed via email from customer care with Stromer.

 

[dottom]

I have four COBI's with all dead batteries. I've opened a ticket to have them replaced and have been in limbo for months. I've almost given up on them. I was so excited when they came out and purchased one for each bike. The battery failures have been an epic disaster IMHO.

 

[topcatken]

That's fantastic. Glad everything worked out. Heads up though - if anyone looking to purchase the Protour used, the warranty only applies to the original owner. Stromer was my first choice because they honor their warranty with 2nd or 3rd owner as long as it is within their time limit. I got it confirmed via email from customer care with Stromer.

Just FYI, I bought an IZIP after Stromer would not provide warranty support because I was not the original owner. I bought my Stromer with 60 miles on it. Battery died at 75 miles. Finally got it resolved but they asserted they do not warranty beyond original purchaser.

 

[opimax]

as an owner of at least 5 Stromers I do not believe they officially will pass the warranty past the original owner. They have a very friendly support group and i believe they would do a lot to help but again check their official response.

St1 motor(wheel) is 1800, hate to find out it isnt covered after it overheated once when a used bike can go for 2000 or so

Hold on tot hat letter...does it have a SN on it?

 

[dubgee2002]

sorry, newbie question. I have my protour on order, and hopefully, it will be coming shortly. I know that you turn on the battery, and jump on the bike to ride. Do you "turn off" the ebike at the destination or does it have an auto shutoff thing? I'm guessing to manually turn off the light to keep it from getting unwanted attention and to save some batter