Steps E6000 W012 (torque) error -- fix & keep, or return?

[speedub.nate]

I could be wrong, but I think Motostrano f****d me.

I made an appointment with Bob at Livermore Cyclery (Livermore location). He talked to Shimano Tech beforehand, and got up to speed on my situation and what I wanted to do (program the new motor), so he was prepared when I walked in the door.

So I brought the bike in and Bob hooked it up to the PC. He was having connection problems, too, so he was on the line with Shimano and eventually got around to dropping the motor. If you recall from my earlier post I left the motor with the service cover and crank arm off so it could be accessed easily. Well, it turns out he found one of the three wires unplugged and sort of crimped in the motor mount.

I'm fairly certain this wasn't my doing, because I was meticulous about installing the new motor, routing the wires using pictures I had snapped during removal of the old motor, and only plugging everything in after the motor was in place.

But whatever... Motostrano is no longer with us.

So Bob got the motor programmed first, then the head unit. It had to be set for the Alfine and Di2 shifting, ring & cog sizes, wheel roll-out, and disabled the headlight function (which the Misceo is not equipped with).

Ninety minutes and $75 later I was out the door. I still have to reassemble everything and give it a test ride, but my biggest hurdle behind me.

BTW the shop owner was saying how great it is to deal with Shimano, and they don't see many service requests for their e-drive units. But the Trek bikes in their shop seem to all be running Bosch, and I don't know what Specialized is specing on their ebikes (house brand stuff?).

 

[Mass Deduction]

[...]
Ninety minutes and $75 later I was out the door. I still have to reassemble everything and give it a test ride, but my biggest hurdle behind me.

BTW the shop owner was saying how great it is to deal with Shimano, and they don't see many service requests for their e-drive units. But the Trek bikes in their shop seem to all be running Bosch, and I don't know what Specialized is specing on their ebikes (house brand stuff?).

I'm glad the worst is hopefully behind you!

Trek sells mostly Bosch, but some Shimano. Specialized is using entirely Brose motors these days, but motors made to Specialized's requirements rather than off-the-shelf units. Giant is using Yamaha exclusively. Many of the smaller traditional LBS brands seem to be using mostly Shimano (Kona, Felt, Norco, Opus, Haro/Del Sol, Devinci, etc.), but a few use mostly Bosch (Raleigh, or example).

 

[speedub.nate]

KEEP IT!

So that's the answer to the question I originally posed in the title of this thread five months ago.

This morning I reassembled everything and took it out for a climb up into the Oakland hills and to run a few errands.

No errors, all well, it seems I have myself my first working ebike with a zero-mile motor (according to the odometer, which I assume can't get zeroed-out during programming sessions and firmware updates).

Ending tally is $1257, not including my time, tools, gas or bridge tolls.

Used bike with glitchy motor: $779 ($943 less $164 discount post-purchase)
New motor: $338 ($363 less $25 refunded because it wasn't boxed well and the motor cover cracked in shipping)
Labor: $65 at Motostrano for them to do nothing. $75 at Livermore Cyclery to make the magic happen.

Other unaccounted-for expenses:
TL-FC38 crank removal tool: $32 Toolz R 4eva!
Driving: 376 miles over 5 trips (map miles, actual mileage greater) to Bicycle Bluebook to follow up on the code-spitting motor, three trips to Motostrano, and the final trip to Livermore.
Bridge tolls: $18
My time: at least 12 hours driving and waiting around, plus another hour or two swapping the motor and playing with crank position, plus another hour on the phone with Shimano, Motostrano, and Livermore

Worth it? Hmmm... I'll have to take some time to figure that out, and see how this bike fits into the mix with my cargo bike, my street bike, my mountain bikes, and my folder.

 

[FlatSix911]

KEEP IT!
So that's the answer to the question I originally posed in the title of this thread five months ago.
This morning I reassembled everything and took it out for a climb up into the Oakland hills and to run a few errands.

No errors, all well, it seems I have myself my first working ebike with a zero-mile motor (according to the odometer, which I assume can't get zeroed-out during programming sessions and firmware updates).
Ending tally is $1257, not including my time, tools, gas or bridge tolls.

Used bike with glitchy motor: $779 ($943 less $164 discount post-purchase)
New motor: $338 ($363 less $25 refunded because it wasn't boxed well and the motor cover cracked in shipping)
Labor: $65 at Motostrano for them to do nothing. $75 at Livermore Cyclery to make the magic happen.

Other unaccounted-for expenses:
TL-FC38 crank removal tool: $32 Toolz R 4eva!
Driving: 376 miles over 5 trips (map miles, actual mileage greater) to Bicycle Bluebook to follow up on the code-spitting motor, three trips to Motostrano, and the final trip to Livermore.
Bridge tolls: $18
My time: at least 12 hours driving and waiting around, plus another hour or two swapping the motor and playing with crank position, plus another hour on the phone with Shimano, Motostrano, and Livermore

Worth it? Hmmm... I'll have to take some time to figure that out, and see how this bike fits into the mix with my cargo bike, my street bike, my mountain bikes, and my folder.

Glad to hear to were able to get all of the motor issues resolved... enjoy the ride!

Even at a price of $1,257 not including your labor, you now have a fine eBike that should last.

 

[speedub.nate]

Oh, yeah, I don't want to come off as unhappy about the outcome. Just an interesting journey.

This edition of the Misceo is nearly perfect for me. Right form factor, relatively lightweight at 42 lbs., decent parts spec, and Di2 shifting on an Alfine hub (I'm an internal gear hub geek). I mean, what's not to like, so long as it all works?

I believe this was a $3200 bike originally. My biggest concern was the unknown of how much money I'd have to throw at it before it either (a) worked or (b) I tucked tail and retreated.

 

[FlatSix911]

Oh, yeah, I don't want to come off as unhappy about the outcome. Just an interesting journey.

This edition of the Misceo is nearly perfect for me. Right form factor, relatively lightweight at 42 lbs., decent parts spec, and Di2 shifting on an Alfine hub (I'm an internal gear hub geek). I mean, what's not to like, so long as it all works?

I believe this was a $3200 bike originally. My biggest concern was the unknown of how much money I'd have to throw at it before it either (a) worked or (b) I tucked tail and retreated.

Congratulations... definitely a $3,200 EBike and well worth it!

2015 Raleigh Misceo iE Review | ElectricBikeReview.com

Price: $3200.00 | Model Year: 2015 | A light weight, super efficient, city style electric bike with electronic shifting in addition to motorized pedal assist

electricbikereview.com

 

[eBike Store]

I purchased a Raleigh Misceo with a Steps E6000 drive and about 500 miles on it from BicycleBlueBook in San Jose. I'm deciding whether to fix and keep it, or thanks to their friendly store policy, return it.

The test ride on the flat streets of the San Jose business park went well enough and the battery condition seems fine, but once I got it home and rode it on my local hills, it began throwing a W012 error code. The automatic shifting on hills basically inoperable. Turning off the battery resets the code, and doesn't show up again until the next steep hill.

I followed the dealer service manual recommendation, which only suggests removing the crank fixing bolt to assure the crank arms are aligned correctly with the index mark on the spindle.

I then called Shimano directly:

Shimano's First Question: Is the motor unit level? My model of the Misceo (2015) has the motor unit mounted at a tilt up at the front relative to horizontal. I see from Google image search and YouTube that Raleigh changed this at some point, where they reconfigured their frames so the motor unit sits "level." My calls in to Raleigh have so far gone unanswered.

The Shimano tech said "we've seen a lot of these (W012 error codes) and they're often on custom recumbent frames." The motor units are apparently sensitive to orientation. I mentioned my bike also had an aftermarket suspension fork installed which jacked up the front end a few inches, further increasing "tilt" of the motor.

So per my conversation with Shimano, first I installed a different fork to reduce the bike to a near-stock configuration, and then I removed and reinstalled the cranks forward one position on the spindle (90 degrees forward of the index), as this has apparently corrected the problem for their recumbent customers.

Neither of these resulted in any change -- I'm still getting the W012 code on hills.

I mentioned that the Di2 automatic shifting (Alfine 8 hub) is awful on hills. The system shifts to a higher gear too early, and even if I manually downshift, the system tries to upshift right away. It makes me suspect my unit has a faulty torque sensor, because I see no other online complaints of this. I'm a fairly strong rider and normally grind up these hills on my non-assisted bikes (this is my first ebike), so I've experimented with relaxing a bit and allowing the bike to do most of the work, and with selecting manual mode so I can keep the hub in a low gear, but these techniques also result in the W012 error code.

I called back Shimano and they suggested I bring it in to a shop and plug it in to do an online "Log Me In" session with them, where they can examine and reconfigure the system settings, but also said most likely there's nothing to change and I'd have to swap motor units. I called a local shop Shimano listed, that can plug in to these motors, but when I explained my situation the shop owner said simply "return it." I'll be contacting an ebike specality shop today for a more informed opinion.

BicycleBlueBook is an honest shop specializing in used bikes, with whom I've done business with previously, and they will accept returns for a full refund. I bought the bike for a fair price ($870), and I potentially have the ability to negotiate a further reduced price to offset the purchase cost of a new motor unit (~$400). The bike is reasonably well spec'd and relatively light for an ebike, not to mention I like the looks and it fits me physically and fits my needs. I'm a big fan of gear hubs so the Alfine is fine by me, and the Di2 shifting is icing on the cake.

Any thoughts? Is this motor worth replacing? Or will the Shimano E6000 in general give me more problems down the road? I'm a 200 lb, reasonably strong rider, and intend to use this bike on getting up the steeper Oakland hills but also on longer commutes on the flats. And, despite the error code and the shifting frustrations, it seems to be working well enough that the bike is still usable, as long as I'm willing to learn to work around the hill shifting issues.

Any and all opinions are welcome!

View attachment 37410View attachment 37411

The Issue with this system is that Raleigh released the 2015 Misceo before they updated their firmware so that it matters which position the cranks are in relative to the Bottom Bracket spindle. If you remove the crank caps and look at the bottom bracket spindle, you will see a tiny dot on one of the 4 sides of the BB spindle. Your cranks need to go on the face of the BB spindle that aligns with the dot. W012 error reflects this.

 

[speedub.nate]

The Issue with this system is that Raleigh released the 2015 Misceo before they updated their firmware ..

I'd like to hear more about the timing of the release of the bike and the firmware -- it sounds like you have the inside scoop there.

But for anybody who hasn't read through this long post:

- firmware was updated
- per conversation with Shimano tech, crank position relative to the index mark was checked, crank was also reinstalled offset 90° from the index mark, and the W012 error persisted
- the question I posed specifically is why the angle of the motor, as mounted, relative to horizontal has an impact -- I'm guessing the software needs to know what "down" is in the rotation of the pedal stroke
- the replacement motor solved my problem, so clearly this was a fault in the motor's torque sensor, not a programming or crank arm installation issue