Vado 4 - Battery Broken Message in Mission Control

[Mr. Max]

Oh Man! I knew I was jinxing things by saying that I haven't had any problems with my Vado 4. I just was about to take the bike out for a ride. I turned on Mission Control. An error message popped up saying the battery is broken. I’m not sure what’s up? I rode it 33 miles yesterday with no problems. I’ve attached a screen shot of the message. I guess no ride today. I'll take it into the shop tomorrow and see what the problem is?

 

[BEC111]

Just guessing. Did you check if the battery is seated properly? I understand that’s an issue on Vados

 

[Mr. Max]

Could be? It says "The battery pack is broken. Please contact your retailer." So that's what I'm going to do. The bike is 4 1/2 months old. I definitely don't want to do anything that voids the warranty. I'll let the bike shop figure it out.

Yesterday the bike shop changed the chain, the brake pads and upgraded the firmware. I'll bet it has something to do with the firmware upgrade. But again who knows?

The Vado going belly up this afternoon got me out on my non-electric road bike today. I forgot how hard pedaling actually is! Felt good though!!

 

[Sierratim]

Could be? It says "The battery pack is broken. Please contact your retailer." So that's what I'm going to do. The bike is 4 1/2 months old. I definitely don't want to do anything that voids the warranty. I'll let the bike shop figure it out.

Yesterday the bike shop changed the chain, the brake pads and upgraded the firmware. I'll bet it has something to do with the firmware upgrade. But again who knows?

The Vado going belly up this afternoon got me out on my non-electric road bike today. I forgot how hard pedaling actually is! Felt good though!!

Can you check the firmware versions that your LBS installed? My Vado 5 is at:

Battery: 7.3.4
Motor: 7.1.1
Display: 13.4.0

Mission Control reports that these are all up to date for my bike.

Might be good to know when talking to your LBS...

 

[Mr. Max]

Weird? I didn't ride the Vado yesterday after Mission Control telling me not to. The bike sat overnight since it was Sunday and the shop was closed. The bike shop just opened and before I took it down there, I turned it on to do what Sierratim suggested and get the current firmware versions. Now the Mission Control is saying the bike is fine? I'm still going to take it to the LBS, since there is something quirky is going on. Who knows?

Not that anyone needs to know, but here's the firmware versions:

Battery: 9.3.0
Motor: 7.1.1
Display: 13.4.0

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Them electronic gremlins...

 

[Sierratim]

I had a less onerous motor error message early on when the motor failed to deliver power. I was 10+ miles from home so figuring it was partially a computer I rebooted it, cycling the power with 30sec off. Everything came back up and I rode home, with power.

I cleaned the battery mounted contacts and the frame mounted contacts with a plastic friendly cleaner that afternoon. No more errors after a year.

 

[Mr. Max]

Took my bike to the LBS today. The shop did pretty much the same things that Sierratim said that he'd do. They took apart a bunch of stuff, examined it, cleaned multiple terminals and tested things. They couldn't find anything except one small thing. They said that recently Specialized upgraded the latch that holds the battery in place, since so many Vado have loose batteries. They said that my bike even though it was a 2020, had the old style latch, so they changed the battery latch to the new upgraded one. The shop tech was pretty certain that it was a deceptively loose battery that caused the error message and that it was now fixed. He told me to ride the bike like normal and if it happens again, they'd replace all of the innards of the bike (whatever that means) under warranty.

It rained here this afternoon, so I could only go for a 10 mile ride in between downpours, but all was well for that distance.

Anyway, that's epilogue to the story. At least for now. Thanks again to all!