Wow. Been busy a lot this summer but have quite the story to share.
So my Vado 5.0 IGH was purchased in April of this year from Specialized (and a matching one for my wife). No issues on her bike, but on mine, I started to notice slipping sensation at high speeds after ~200 miles. By 800 miles on the bike it got worse and I’d hit 25 mpg and then no matter how fast I pedaled, I wouldn’t go faster, but the cadence would still go up on my TCU. Two other times, the pedal made a quick half rotation with an accompanying grinding sound. I’d also get occasional errors on the TCU for gear shift errors with a power pull and drip to “Gear 1”. Though these were not visible in my Mission Control app.
So after troubleshooting with Rider Care and the LBS, they decided to replace my motor, wire harness, and speed sensor. This was in early August. Shortly after, the cadence going up without the speed going up was fixed, but I still felt slipping or something like it above 25 mph or so. I got back with Rider Care and the LBS thinking they misdiagnosed the issue as motor but I thought it was hub.
The response I got was “The 2.2 motor can’t support more than 24 mph on the IGH. If you want 28 you should go chain/derailleur or convert the rear cog from 24 to 22 tooth.” So that irritated me because if that’s the case, they should have used 22 tooth from the beginning and it doesn’t address the weird errors I still was seeing occasionally. Come to find out though, Specialized can see them even though I can’t. They are stored in the bike computer and when the LBS plugged it in, they could see them in their computer logs.
Queue today. 200 miles after I got the bike back with the new motor (1000 since purchase). I was finishing a 40 mile ride with a coworker and was on the way to the bar. The bike threw an error I could finally see in Mission Control. The bike felt like I was pedaling with 0 power to the motor towing a trailer of bricks. The error said motor error check transmission for blockage and clear. There was nothing in there though. Thankfully this was 2 blocks from the LBS so I walked it there. It was even hard to push. So I’m pretty sure I got a defective Enviolo from the factory and it’s been repeatedly misdiagnosed until something inside finally broke.
So after all that I have a few thoughts. The LBS has been amazing at helping me. Without them this would be much more annoying. Rider Care is super helpful at getting claims started but is unable to expedite these things. Once it left them, the engineers or whoever reviews things at Specialized takes way too long and is not trained at troubleshooting. I had a long list of error codes they could see on the transmission but they changed my motor first anyway. They didn’t take my second “you didn’t actually fix it” claim seriously. And I could have been stranded somewhere much further away today.
The bike is amazing when it works. I’m excited to get it back. But for a bike that cost me almost $6000, I would hope the company would provide a little better service and troubleshoot something properly. Being an engineer myself it just irritates me.
So again, my wife’s hasn’t had any issues. I just got the one apparently assembled Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend when everyone wanted to leave the shop. I knew trying a new model year with new tech would be risky but holy crap did I draw the short straw. I’ll post a follow up next week (hopefully) after I get my hub swapped.
So my Vado 5.0 IGH was purchased in April of this year from Specialized (and a matching one for my wife). No issues on her bike, but on mine, I started to notice slipping sensation at high speeds after ~200 miles. By 800 miles on the bike it got worse and I’d hit 25 mpg and then no matter how fast I pedaled, I wouldn’t go faster, but the cadence would still go up on my TCU. Two other times, the pedal made a quick half rotation with an accompanying grinding sound. I’d also get occasional errors on the TCU for gear shift errors with a power pull and drip to “Gear 1”. Though these were not visible in my Mission Control app.
So after troubleshooting with Rider Care and the LBS, they decided to replace my motor, wire harness, and speed sensor. This was in early August. Shortly after, the cadence going up without the speed going up was fixed, but I still felt slipping or something like it above 25 mph or so. I got back with Rider Care and the LBS thinking they misdiagnosed the issue as motor but I thought it was hub.
The response I got was “The 2.2 motor can’t support more than 24 mph on the IGH. If you want 28 you should go chain/derailleur or convert the rear cog from 24 to 22 tooth.” So that irritated me because if that’s the case, they should have used 22 tooth from the beginning and it doesn’t address the weird errors I still was seeing occasionally. Come to find out though, Specialized can see them even though I can’t. They are stored in the bike computer and when the LBS plugged it in, they could see them in their computer logs.
Queue today. 200 miles after I got the bike back with the new motor (1000 since purchase). I was finishing a 40 mile ride with a coworker and was on the way to the bar. The bike threw an error I could finally see in Mission Control. The bike felt like I was pedaling with 0 power to the motor towing a trailer of bricks. The error said motor error check transmission for blockage and clear. There was nothing in there though. Thankfully this was 2 blocks from the LBS so I walked it there. It was even hard to push. So I’m pretty sure I got a defective Enviolo from the factory and it’s been repeatedly misdiagnosed until something inside finally broke.
So after all that I have a few thoughts. The LBS has been amazing at helping me. Without them this would be much more annoying. Rider Care is super helpful at getting claims started but is unable to expedite these things. Once it left them, the engineers or whoever reviews things at Specialized takes way too long and is not trained at troubleshooting. I had a long list of error codes they could see on the transmission but they changed my motor first anyway. They didn’t take my second “you didn’t actually fix it” claim seriously. And I could have been stranded somewhere much further away today.
The bike is amazing when it works. I’m excited to get it back. But for a bike that cost me almost $6000, I would hope the company would provide a little better service and troubleshoot something properly. Being an engineer myself it just irritates me.
So again, my wife’s hasn’t had any issues. I just got the one apparently assembled Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend when everyone wanted to leave the shop. I knew trying a new model year with new tech would be risky but holy crap did I draw the short straw. I’ll post a follow up next week (hopefully) after I get my hub swapped.
