Hello and advice please!! :)

[MarkSta]

Hi All

I’m new here and looking forward to discovering the joys of the pedelec.

I’m looking to get my first machine on the C2W Scheme and am looking at the current Raleigh Array. I know it shares a close similarity to the Halfords crop of Carreras and these don’t have a good reputation for reliability put down to the Suntour system suffering with water ingress, stripped motor gears and fogged controller screens. A lot of the reports seem to come from 2020/21 and I believe Suntour has upgraded a few things around then so really my question is are they as bad now as they used to be?

My intended commute is about 5 miles with a couple of long semi-steep inclines on cycle tracks or country lanes and budget is sub £1500 as my employer limits us to 12 months of on the repayments

Other advice always taken and considered.

 

[MarkSta]

Hi All

I’m new here and looking forward to discovering the joys of the pedelec.

I’m looking to get my first machine on the C2W Scheme and am looking at the current Raleigh Array. I know it shares a close similarity to the Halfords crop of Carreras and these don’t have a good reputation for reliability put down to the Suntour system suffering with water ingress, stripped motor gears and fogged controller screens. A lot of the reports seem to come from 2020/21 and I believe Suntour has upgraded a few things around then so really my question is are they as bad now as they used to be?

My intended commute is about 5 miles with a couple of long semi-steep inclines on cycle tracks or country lanes and budget is sub £1500 as my employer limits us to 12 months of on the repayments

Other advice always taken and considered.

***an update***
after further thoughts and internet digging I’ve gone for a Woosh Gran Camino so just waiting for the c2w application to go through.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

Hi All

I’m new here and looking forward to discovering the joys of the pedelec.

I’m looking to get my first machine on the C2W Scheme and am looking at the current Raleigh Array. I know it shares a close similarity to the Halfords crop of Carreras and these don’t have a good reputation for reliability put down to the Suntour system suffering with water ingress, stripped motor gears and fogged controller screens. A lot of the reports seem to come from 2020/21 and I believe Suntour has upgraded a few things around then so really my question is are they as bad now as they used to be?

My intended commute is about 5 miles with a couple of long semi-steep inclines on cycle tracks or country lanes and budget is sub £1500 as my employer limits us to 12 months of on the repayments

Other advice always taken and considered.

Halfords are huge in the UK, they take about 25p in the £ of all money spent on cycling and this equates to about 40% of all bikes sales (statistics from about 2-3 years ago). They also stated ebikes make up about 11% of their bike sales. This means an absolutely huge amount of Suntour HESC Carrera ebikes are sold as many Halfords ebikes feature Suntour HESC. There are couriers who use Suntour HESC ebikes with 10s of thousands of miles. I've never heard of another Suntour HESC ebike going wrong like the Raleigh Array and those wouldn't sell anywhere even remotely close to the Carrera models. More bikes are sold at Halfords that the whole independent bike shop sector put together.

However that said I wouldn't buy one because of the proprietary nature of the Suntour HESC system. Just makes long term ownership more difficult as parts wear out or get damaged etc. Given a choice between a Carrera Subway and ebike kit or a pre-built Carrera Subway ebike I'd go for the first option.

The Suntour HESC isn't a bad system for torque I think its around 65Nm maximum and can outperform many mid-drive motors up hills. In fact if you take the low power 40Nm Bosch mid-drive motors by the time you have factored in the gearing and power loss through the chain they are only about 32Nm so twice the power out of the Suntour HESC. Of course Suntour HESC cannot compete with full on high torque e-mountain bikes with mid-drive motors and very low gearing.