Brand new Haibike, two broken chains in first 35 miles, and other problems, advice needed

[Electric Transport Shop]

My brother went to the Oxford shop at my suggestion and found them a dead loss in terms of lack of interest, although he did buy a Whyte/Steps bike elsewhere so was a genuine inquirer.

Hi Rob, it would be good to know more. Do you know why he came to that conclusion? If he was looking for a STePS system then he wouldn't have found one there.

 

[RobF]

Hi Rob, it would be good to know more. Do you know why he came to that conclusion? If he was looking for a STePS system then he wouldn't have found one there.

It was a general inquiry for an ebike around £2k.

Only reason I heard anything about it is he lives in Oxfordshire and I suggested he have a look in your Oxford branch.

The response he got - as relayed to me - was as outlined, lack of interest, but nothing worse than that.

Just one of those things, and the moment is well and truly passed now.

 

[Electric Transport Shop]

It was a general inquiry for an ebike around £2k.

Only reason I heard anything about it is he lives in Oxfordshire and I suggested he have a look in your Oxford branch.

The response he got - as relayed to me - was as outlined, lack of interest, but nothing worse than that.

Just one of those things, and the moment is well and truly passed now.

Thank you for suggesting he popped into our Oxford store. I'll try and get to the bottom of why he felt we were uninterested. Ebikes are generally very exciting products so this has got to be a dream job....or is that just me? Seriously though I hear a lot of enthusiasm from my colleagues so hopefully it was no more than an off-peak moment.

 

[tisme]

ETS as a yamaha e bike owner I'm intrested to know if you worked out why so many chains broke in such a very low milage ?

 

[soundwave]

that chain never broke

 

[EddiePJ]

Tisme, from reading the reply by ETS, they have stated that it isn't uncommon, and is down to a powerful motor, weak chain and or rider technique.

It obviously has nothing to do with incompetence on the part of the shop, by repeatedly fitting chains of both the wrong length and even directional rotation.

Apparently it is better to blame the manufacturer for poor product quality, and or the customer.

For location reasons, I stupidly steered the elderly father of a good friend in the direction of ETS just a few weeks ago, and now wish that I hadn't, and will be ensuring that I never do so again.
This thread has been enlightening for all of the wrong reasons.



.

 

[tisme]

Great Eddie I've got a couple of chains a bit shorter and no idea how to fit them when my super powerful yam snaps the one on it I'll throw one on it.

 

[Electric Transport Shop]

Tisme, from reading the reply by ETS, they have stated that it isn't uncommon, and is down to a powerful motor, weak chain and or rider technique.

It obviously has nothing to do with incompetence on the part of the shop, by repeatedly fitting chains of both the wrong length and even directional rotation.

Apparently it is better to blame the manufacturer for poor product quality, and or the customer.

For location reasons, I stupidly steered the elderly father of a good friend in the direction of ETS just a few weeks ago, and now wish that I hadn't, and will be ensuring that I never do so again.
This thread has been enlightening for all of the wrong reasons.
.

Hi EddiePJ, I wasn't trying to suggest we are perfect and never make a mistake or to blame the customer. Mistakes do happen - and product issues occur BUT we always look after our customers and do our best to get back to a point of surplus goodwill and happy customers. We have experience more broken chains on certain crank drives....that's a fact. In some cases providing some useful tips to the new owner will help them get the best out of the bike.
We've been retailing ebikes for 12 years, we're here because we do look after our customers especially when things go wrong.

 

[Bigdaddyuk666]

My haibike has the yamaha drive and have only snapped 2 chains in 2 years and over 6000 miles . And I utilise all my gears and tbh it has been abused. I've not heard of anyone having problems other than 2lazy. As the x10e chain is good quality and designed for crank drives ffs.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[Electric Transport Shop]

My haibike has the yamaha drive and have only snapped 2 chains in 2 years and over 6000 miles . And I utilise all my gears and tbh it has been abused. I've not heard of anyone having problems other than 2lazy. As the x10e chain is good quality and designed for crank drives ffs.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

I'm glad to hear that. The vast majority of sDuro chains do not break including the several hundred we sell every year. For those that do break - we're here to solve the problem.

 

[2Lazy]

Hi 2lazy and everyone. I'm responding on behalf of the Cambridge Electric Bike Sales shop. Firstly to our customer 2Lazy I'm glad the chain breaking issue has been fixed and I'm sorry you had this repeat issue.
It's always frustrating when things go wrong and time and money have to be spent travelling to put them right.

The Yamaha system although exhilarating is particularly hard on bike transmissions and we do advise proper use of gears. If the chain contains any weaknesses the chain is more likely to break than on a standard MTB.

In the end we sent a mechanic to our customer to replace the 2nd chain.
With regards to the other issues we have issued advise regarding transporting the bike.

I'd like to say that although we mentioned the price of the replacement chain no payment was asked for any aftersales service or parts. This wasn't clear from the initial statement.

2lazy I appreciate your disappointment and would like to offer a store credit towards fuel costs. just get in touch.

To The Electric Transport Shop-


Thank you for the response. I saw this post a couple of weeks ago but I've been so busy with work and other things in recent weeks I just haven't had time until now to reply.


So just to give you a quick update. The independent mobile bike mechanic fitted the new chain (KMC X10e) and reindexed the gears. Since then I've been on four rides totalling 60 miles and I'm happy to report that the bike feels much better, all the gears shift correctly, I can now use all the gears, I no longer get any phantom shifting and so far (touch wood) the chain has stayed in one piece. The bike mechanic clearly knew his onions and described to me the process he went through to get the chain to the correct length - which if anyone else is interested has 118 links.


I also want to address a few points raised in your post -


Firstly it's absolutely correct to say that all the after sales repairs were carried out free of charge and all replacement parts were supplied free of charge. If my post was in any way ambiguous then I apologise as that was not my intention.


However while we're correcting ambiguities there are some things implied in your post which I'd like to address.


Firstly yes the bike can be exhilarating to ride but this is a moot point. As I have explained numerous times in this thread and to your staff in person in the shop the bike was ridden VERY carefully and at a modest pace. The bike was brand new and I was unfamiliar with it, so I was riding very conservatively, and hadn't even begun to explore its limits. Average speed on the rides where the chain broke was around 10mph, mostly on flat tarmac and almost entirely in eco+ and eco power modes. So the way the bike was ridden was not a contributing factor to the chain breaking.


Secondly, proper use of gears, again this a moot point. I have been riding double and triple chain ring bikes for well over twenty years. I was therefore already quite well aware that one should avoid using extreme gears and use an appropriate gear for the speed of travel and incline/decline etc. So again the way the bike was ridden was not a contributing factor to the chain breaking.


Thirdly, the only advice I received in terms of transporting the bike was before I purchased the bike when I asked if it would fit in the back of my car. And then when I collected the bike for the first time the mechanic advised me to always put a spacer between between the brake pads when the wheel is removed to prevent the pads from closing up accidentally - advice which I have followed to the letter. Having been a regular cyclist for years I am in any case no stranger to transporting bikes. In fact when I first collected the bike and I was putting it in the back of my car, with the help of your mechanic, it was actually me who insisted that it go in drive train side up to avoid any damage to it! Now I'm not suggesting your mechanic doesn't know that bikes lied on their side should always be drive train side up - two people wrangling a bike into the back of a car tends to be a recipe for miscommunication - but I mention this because the suggestion that the problems with the bike were in any way because of the way it was transported is just nonsense.


The reason for the two chains breaking, I strongly suspect, is that they were fitted incorrectly. To be more precise I suspect that the chain was too short and as such it was under too much tension and that is why I sometimes got phantom/double shifting and that is also why it snapped. The reason I suspect this? The third chain (the Shimano chain) was fitted the wrong way around and it was too short such that not all the gears were reachable and the gears did not shift correctly. The independent mobile bike mechanic who you sent to fix the problem confirmed this and was able to identify the problem immediately just on a quick visual inspection yet evidently your bike mechanic thought it was perfectly fine. So you'll forgive me if I think the problem was not the way I rode the bike or the way the gears were used or the way the bike transported but simply that the bike was not set-up correctly.

 

[Electric Transport Shop]

To The Electric Transport Shop-


Thank you for the response. I saw this post a couple of weeks ago but I've been so busy with work and other things in recent weeks I just haven't had time until now to reply.


So just to give you a quick update. The independent mobile bike mechanic fitted the new chain (KMC X10e) and reindexed the gears. Since then I've been on four rides totalling 60 miles and I'm happy to report that the bike feels much better, all the gears shift correctly, I can now use all the gears, I no longer get any phantom shifting and so far (touch wood) the chain has stayed in one piece. The bike mechanic clearly knew his onions and described to me the process he went through to get the chain to the correct length - which if anyone else is interested has 118 links.


I also want to address a few points raised in your post -


Firstly it's absolutely correct to say that all the after sales repairs were carried out free of charge and all replacement parts were supplied free of charge. If my post was in any way ambiguous then I apologise as that was not my intention.


However while we're correcting ambiguities there are some things implied in your post which I'd like to address.


Firstly yes the bike can be exhilarating to ride but this is a moot point. As I have explained numerous times in this thread and to your staff in person in the shop the bike was ridden VERY carefully and at a modest pace. The bike was brand new and I was unfamiliar with it, so I was riding very conservatively, and hadn't even begun to explore its limits. Average speed on the rides where the chain broke was around 10mph, mostly on flat tarmac and almost entirely in eco+ and eco power modes. So the way the bike was ridden was not a contributing factor to the chain breaking.


Secondly, proper use of gears, again this a moot point. I have been riding double and triple chain ring bikes for well over twenty years. I was therefore already quite well aware that one should avoid using extreme gears and use an appropriate gear for the speed of travel and incline/decline etc. So again the way the bike was ridden was not a contributing factor to the chain breaking.


Thirdly, the only advice I received in terms of transporting the bike was before I purchased the bike when I asked if it would fit in the back of my car. And then when I collected the bike for the first time the mechanic advised me to always put a spacer between between the brake pads when the wheel is removed to prevent the pads from closing up accidentally - advice which I have followed to the letter. Having been a regular cyclist for years I am in any case no stranger to transporting bikes. In fact when I first collected the bike and I was putting it in the back of my car, with the help of your mechanic, it was actually me who insisted that it go in drive train side up to avoid any damage to it! Now I'm not suggesting your mechanic doesn't know that bikes lied on their side should always be drive train side up - two people wrangling a bike into the back of a car tends to be a recipe for miscommunication - but I mention this because the suggestion that the problems with the bike were in any way because of the way it was transported is just nonsense.


The reason for the two chains breaking, I strongly suspect, is that they were fitted incorrectly. To be more precise I suspect that the chain was too short and as such it was under too much tension and that is why I sometimes got phantom/double shifting and that is also why it snapped. The reason I suspect this? The third chain (the Shimano chain) was fitted the wrong way around and it was too short such that not all the gears were reachable and the gears did not shift correctly. The independent mobile bike mechanic who you sent to fix the problem confirmed this and was able to identify the problem immediately just on a quick visual inspection yet evidently your bike mechanic thought it was perfectly fine. So you'll forgive me if I think the problem was not the way I rode the bike or the way the gears were used or the way the bike transported but simply that the bike was not set-up correctly.

Hi 2Lazy,
I responded to your post to explain how some of these issues can arise not to cast any blame on you. It's our responsibility to ensure your purchase with us is smooth and free from frustration. All of your points are noted I sincerely hope that we can redeem ourselves when you return for your free service and if you need anything after that.
I'm very happy that you're now enjoying your Haibike.