E bike battery life if not used regularly

[Simon Lightning]

Hello all
I am hoping to be given some advice on a possible e bike purchase.
I have seen an Ebco urban city UCR-60 e bike for sale secondhand locally.
I like it as it has hub gears , mid drive motor and it is suited to my modest needs of a 20 mile round trip on flat terrain. The V brakes it has are also good enough for my modest speeds and loads.
However it is a 2017 model and has only done 500 miles in 6 years. The owner didn't buy it from new and didn't say how the battery had been looked after. I know batteries do not like just sitting around for long periods of time and can start to lose the ability to accept and store charge.

Short of riding the bike from fully charged to when its depleted is there any way of checking how the battery is holding up?

Or should I just walk away?

Or worst case if the battery proved to be duff could the bike be treated as a donor bike and could I get away with just fitting another battery and battery holder. The bikes existing battery is in the rear rack but it does have a bottle cage on the down tube where a replacement frame mounted battery could be fitted.
Thank you in advance for any helpful information or opinions.

 

[cyclebuddy]

I would be very careful: The bike uses CANbus to communicate between motor, display and battery. There's little you could substitute/fix without original manufacturers parts and those are now thin on the ground. The battery is expensive to replace and at that age an unknown entity. The M25 mid-motor wasn't TranzX's finest design (it seemed to promise much, but IIRC quickly proved unreliable/ recalled/ replaced, and deleted from TranzX's catalogue very soon after). These are not generic Chinese parts from ebay!

 

[Simon Lightning]

Hello
Thank you very much for your helpful advice about the battery, CANbus and also the M25 motor. I didn't know that the motor had proved poor. It sounds like I should steer clear of that e bike.

 

[saneagle]

Hello
Thank you very much for your helpful advice about the battery, CANbus and also the M25 motor. I didn't know that the motor had proved poor. It sounds like I should steer clear of that e bike.

If you buy a used ebike, it's best to buy a bike that uses standard Chinese parts, which you have to learn to recognise or you can ask on here if not sure. Alternately, bikes with Bosch systems will be more expensive, but you can always get them repaired.

 

[sjpt]

bikes with Bosch systems will be more expensive, but you can always get them repaired.

... but repairs may prove very expensive

 

[Simon Lightning]

Thanks for the the advice and tips.