Bosch! The good, the bad and the ugly!

[kingsknight]

So I'm running a Bosch Active line plus system and it hasn't missed a beat! No cut outs, pulls my weight fine and I'm getting great mileage from my battery(45/50miles in tour mode)!

So I got talking to a official Bosch dealer / service center near me and the stuff he told me about how the Bosch warranty works is truly shocking and some of the finer details worried me to be honest.

The main things which shocked me the most were

* Service centers are NOT allowed store commonly needed service parts. They must be ordered when needed.

* The Bosch power pack can have as much as 40% missing capacity and it is NOT deemed as faulty! He has had customers by brand new packs with 25% missing capacity and Bosch refused to replace it.

* Simple motor problems that could be fixed with the right parts in stock 9 times out of 10 the whole motor has to be sent off and normally a Bosch just sends out a whole new motor. Problem is this can take weeks when the repair could just take an hour or so.

I personally would hate to be waiting weeks to get my bike back when I now know it properly be fixed in house with the right parts.

Don't get me wrong I do understand that there must be reasons for these systems to be in place but I can see from a service centers side of things it must be a right pain in the ass to have such restrictions put on you.

Any work in any Bosch service centers in here? What are they like to work with? Just wondering.

 

[Trevormonty]

Who is going to pay for shop to carry service spares?. Typical one week for replacement motor isn't bad.

No replacement for low capacity new battery isn't acceptable. Especially at premium prices bosch charge for their batteries.

 

[soundwave]

bosch is like apple they can have the stores and service centers but at the end of the day there not allowed to stock the parts in the first place and will even void the warranty if they even remove a motor cover to replace a 10 quid bearing that bosch wont even sell them.

 

[kingsknight]

bosch is like apple they can have the stores and service centers but at the end of the day there not allowed to stock the parts in the first place and will even void the warranty if they even remove a motor cover to replace a 10 quid bearing that bosch wont even sell them.

Exactly what he was saying.

 

[kingsknight]

Who is going to pay for shop to carry service spares?

The dealers wants the parts!

 

[soundwave]

 

[Gubbins]

It would be intersting to know the percentages regarding any Bosch failures both in motors and batteries.
The first paragraph of this post says it all, but most folks with a sweet running motor wont be bothered to say much wheras those with problems will go looking for somewher to air their views.
The Halfords issue is a case in point.. We hear numerous complaints about motors cutting out and tend to assume that they are all the same when that may not necessarily be the case.
With regard to the Bosch warranty system, at least you would know that the motor fault was permanently fixed.

 

[MikeS]

hmmmm - I bought a Bosch powered Crossfuse from Halfords - a brilliant bike - but you can't buy it amywhere else. And yet Halfords are not listed as Bosch authorised dealers. There are two reasonably close to me, but how are they going to feel about me taking a faulty bosch in to them under warranty?
By the way. This is what it says on Bosch's website (attempting to recruit dealers):
"Each product is as good as its service. Bosch eBike Systems trains the specialist dealers intensively and provides them additionally with extensive products, services and advertising materials" (perhaps they need to add the word 'eventually')
Mike

 

[Gubbins]

hmmmm - I bought a Bosch powered Crossfuse from Halfords - a brilliant bike - but you can't buy it amywhere else. And yet Halfords are not listed as Bosch authorised dealers. There are two reasonably close to me, but how are they going to feel about me taking a faulty bosch in to them under warranty?
By the way. This is what it says on Bosch's website (attempting to recruit dealers):
"Each product is as good as its service. Bosch eBike Systems trains the specialist dealers intensively and provides them additionally with extensive products, services and advertising materials" (perhaps they need to add the word 'eventually')
Mike

All the bike shops around me are Bosch dealers and all claim to be service centres being able to deal with any problems, warranty or otherwise. Also I would think that Halfords is probably the best place to buy if warranties are your only worry...

 

[Wicky]

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/hi-from-the-bearing-man.32768/#post-462000

https://www.performancelinebearings.com

 

[Fat Rat]

Isn’t this a bit like trying to mop up the spill before it’s happened

My outlook is don’t worry about something that hasn’t happened if and when it does sort it out then as basically we have all bought into a very specialist market
and it’s going to be a a very long time before it becomes otherwise
You buy oddities you have to pay for it before it becomes otherwise
So get out and ride and stop worrying about it would be my advice

 

[Eagle]

soundwave,

Thanks for the two videos featuring that well known rip-off outfit with its teams of "geniuses".

It appears that Bosch is going down the same path in the way that it treats its customers.

I hope that The Repair Association goes from strength to strength. Customers should have the right to repair their own equipment.

Following an iFixit guide, I used an excellent quality iFixit 64 bit precision screwdriver kit in order to work on an Apple MacBook Pro.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/iFixit-precision-screwdriver-extension-smartphone/dp/B0189YWOIO

The iFixit repair guides cover a whole range of items and are simply superb:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide

iFixit:
https://www.ifixit.com/

 

[Gringo]

most folks with a sweet running motor wont be bothered to say much

True,
my last post wasn't until I questioned the latest software on my active line plus. I'd only covered 625 miles so far but all without issue.
Nobody want to read posts like I went on another 33 mile ride today and nothing went wrong

 

[GLJoe]

* The Bosch power pack can have as much as 40% missing capacity and it is NOT deemed as faulty! He has had customers by brand new packs with 25% missing capacity and Bosch refused to replace it.

It would be good to have more clarification on this statement.
For example, is the 40% 'missing capacity' a figure they use as acceptable degradation during the specified number of charge/discharge cycles within the warranty period? if so, it might not be unreasonable, given we know that Lithium batteries do degrade with use (and I seem to recall bosh do quote a fairly decent number of cycles)
?

And new batteries with '25% missing capacity'. Missing from what initial figure? what do Bosch guarantee as a minimum Wh ? Anyone know the small print?

 

[MikeS]

It would be good to have more clarification on this statement.
For example, is the 40% 'missing capacity' a figure they use as acceptable degradation during the specified number of charge/discharge cycles within the warranty period? if so, it might not be unreasonable, given we know that Lithium batteries do degrade with use (and I seem to recall bosh do quote a fairly decent number of cycles)
?

And new batteries with '25% missing capacity'. Missing from what initial figure? what do Bosch guarantee as a minimum Wh ? Anyone know the small print?

and how can the user even test this? Range is determined by so many variables that you couldn't go back to Bosch and say my range is down by 40% or 25%. And it looks to me like Bosch are quoting very conservative figures on range. My bike gets a good 35% more miles than I expected.
In answer to the point above about why bother yourself until something goes wrong. Things have gone wrong for SOME Bosch owners and whilst the rest of us (owners) can probably ignore it, new potential purchasers may want to weigh Bosch's policy in the balance before committing..
Mike

 

[GLJoe]

and how can the user even test this? Range is determined by so many variables that you couldn't go back to Bosch and say my range is down by 40% or 25%.

True, however the wording used was 'capacity' and not 'range'.

Not sure what the deal is with Bosch, however I know many other manufacturers have dedicated test equipment that can do a full charge/discharge/charge cycle, and thus measure fairly accurately the capacity of the battery (and it would surprise me if Bosch don't also have some diagnostic method that's similar).
So a user complaining of a perceived lesser 'range' should be able to take the battery into an authorized center and someone could actually check the available capacity.
It would be good to know if these tools are actually available to the dealers though - or do the suspect batteries have to be sent off to Bosch to test?

 

[sjpt]

At least some have the tester:
https://www.electricbikessussex.co.uk/blogs/news/your-bosch-ebike-battery-and-electric-bikes-sussex

(I have noticed others asking twice that £25)

 

[GLJoe]

At least some have the tester:
https://www.electricbikessussex.co.uk/blogs/news/your-bosch-ebike-battery-and-electric-bikes-sussex

(I have noticed others asking twice that £25)

Well there you go!
£25 is probably a nice earner, but not tooo extreme.
IMHO, £50 is extracting the urine though, considering all they probably have to do is plug it in, and leave the machine do its stuff while the mechanic gets on with other work at the same time!
Although I guess they do have to hit 'print' at the end to get a hard copy

 

[flecc]

Nobody want to read posts like I went on another 33 mile ride today and nothing went wrong

Not so sure, I posted a thread about a 3784 miles ride when nothing went wrong and there were 82 responses over five web pages.

Here's the link.
.

 

[kingsknight]

True, however the wording used was 'capacity' and not 'range'.

So I went back to the shop to to pick up a bag today and got some more details.

So he has a battery tester, a customer bought a 500w battery upgrade a month or so ago. The customer come back saying the range on his bike wasn't much different so they tested the battery and he only had 412w of power but Bosch replied saying it was "within spec" and refused to do anything about it.

He couldn't offer a refund as the shop would have to take the hit and NOT Bosch! How the hell is this fair? if im buying a 500w battery i want to get a 500w battery! not 410!!!