Vado motor problems

[Massii]

Hi,

Been a Vado 5.0 owner since march ‘18. The bike was ok till about 600km odo. Then.. sometimes little problems began.. especially in turbo mode. The support started to fall away.. came back.. and away again... and I couldn’t get faster than 35km/h
the screen didn’t start up.. only by pressing the reset button it worked again
The screen didn’t show the remaining battery percentage..

They ‘fixed’ the bike twice.. the last time with a complete new motor..

The problems persisted..

I was given a completely new bike.. and now after 200km/h the first signs of the exact same problems start to show.

This bike had been an absolute nightmare.
Do not buy

 

[PaD]

Bought a Vado 4.0 mid July.Problem 1, After just a few days I got strange noise when I stopped pedalling. Problem 2, Odo showed less km than trip meter in an unregular way.
Had a new motor. Weird odo still the same.
Have waited more than 2 weeks for an answer from LBS and Specialized about weird odo. Also informed the dealer about occasional powerloss.
Emailed LBS 2 days ago. No answer.

 

[Vado50]

I get occasional intermittent fade in turbo that usually resolves in a minute or two.

 

[2wheels]

After the fourth brose motor failure (11,000 miles) on my 2018 Vado, Cynergy / Specialized offered me a bike swap for a 2020 Vado 5.0 and sent me this clip of text:

" - last motor we replaced was from order# XXXXXX in Dec./Jan. I did open a Quality investigation (QPR) about the belt issues and there was apparently an issue with some of the belts that Brose was using. They have fixed this issue. However, we have likely seen this issue again with this customer because we only ever got one initial shipment of the correct replacement motor (the 1.2S motor / S176800005) for this customer from Brose and that was a pretty early on shipment from quite a while ago.

As for the warranty, any replacement part, example being the motor sent out in Dec./Jan., comes with a new warranty. So, the last replacement warranty ships out with a new 2-year warranty on the motor. "

This was helpful information. It was also nice to hear that the replacement motors would have a rolling warranty of 2 years. I'm not certain if this 2 year warranty is a Brose or Specialized warranty.

I'm now 3100 miles into my 2020 Vado 5.0 and I have had no motor problems. I've replaced the chain every 1100 miles and the cassette every 3100 miles.

The bike still has some electrical connection concerns where the assist is lost. This can sometimes occur after going over a bump. It now manifests this disconnect by displaying 'no battery' on the display which does not mean it needs a new battery. My fix includes restarting the bike, taking out and reinstalling the battery, and cleaning the magnet on the rear rotor. If all that fails, I have Cynergy (LBS) install a new shim in the battery housing which usually does the job.

 

[Vado50]

I went through 2 motor failures on my 2017 Vado 5.0. The first after just 1200 miles and the next lasted 2400 miles. This all happened inside of 2 years (my commute is 4K miles a year). Good to know about the warranty being “reset” for the new motors. I was afraid this newest motor, replaced just prior to 2 year anniversary of the sale was going to be without warranty.

WRT the battery connection (for me was loss of turbo or even sport mode power levels, no screen dropout), I would use a small Emory board/file and give a quick poke into the battery contacts and that would last ~100 miles before I needed to do it again. I pushed the LBS for a warranty wire harness (they said the replacement computer was not avail yet) and I haven’t had any issues with the new harness wrt battery connection dropout. I also have not had to hard reset the computer since then and now it feels like sport mode has the power turbo did so I only ride sport now and can easily max out on speed. I’m only riding the vado 1 day a week now and using the regular, non-ebike the other 4 days. Now regular bikes feel normal (no flat tire or dead weight feeling of sluggishness) and the Vado just feels crazy fast.

 

[2wheels]

I was posting recently on reddit about my life with ebikes, specifically the Vado brose motor. Someone responded with this video:

I had contacted performance line bearing years ago, there response at the time was they were looking for USA partners. Fast forward to last year and they now have partners in the USA and elsewhere.
The cost of the upgrade appears to be $260.
Has anyone done this upgrade?
I have another 15 months warranty on my current motor turbo 1.3 - brose S motor.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@2wheels: you simply cannot visit all possible threads (as old as they could be) and post the same information. That does not help anyone. It is 2022 now.