How depressing ! I have done about 150 miles now with no problems. I will ask 50cycles to check it out just in case. They seem very helpful so far. The bike is absolutely excellent by the way.
Test ride on a kalkhoff agattu 8 speed
- Thread starter Tomwal
- Start date
I don't think that's correct: Derby Cycles are the manufacturer, and have never said that they would extend their warranty on the motor beyond the initial 2 years.
50 Cycles (the exclusive UK importer/distributor for Kalkhoff bikes) won't commit either to extend the warranty on the motor beyond 2 years, and have charged people for replacements, even when only low mileage was done, and despite the fact that it's a known manufacturing defect. If they don't get free replacements from the manufacturer, it will just affect their own margin.
Regardless of warranty of not, there is still of course the inconvenience of bringing back the bike to the shop, being without the bike for days/weeks (as it has happen to me twice), and possibly being stranded miles from home without assistance, on a very heavy unpowered bike (also happened to me).
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It's indeed very depressing, as those bikes are very expensive and appears to be well made. However, the electric assistance is the weak link, and unfortunately, the motor cannot be replaced by another model or another brand (unlike all other mechanical components). Some people had Impulse 2 motor failure in fairly low mileage (e.g. 100 miles), on their Kalkhoff Agattu, Pro Connect, Endeavour, Tasman etc (or the Focus models).
As for 50 Cycles, their approach to after sales is fairly...casual, but it varies also between shops. Do check the various posts.
My own experience has been quite poor, with many visits required to the shop, new issues/damages introduced when the bike was in their care, accessories lost (they stated afterwards that they were not responsible for anything lost while the bike was in their care, and never replaced them), and bike out of action for weeks. They don't even officially provide a first free bike check, even though any bike shop (on bikes costing a couple of hundreds) would do so. They told me I was lucky to get the first one free.
Surely not a premium experience expected for the very high price paid.
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I wonder how many other people this has happened to ?
Also I wonder how other motors (Bosch, Yamaha etc) compare for reliability.
The bike is great to ride but I am worried now. I am beginning to think that not only did I buy the most expensive bike but I may also bought the most unreliable.
50cycles have offered me a free first service and I am going to tell them about this and will ask them to check it over thoroughly.
Quite a few people in the UK have reported it, and there are also many reports of the fault on German, Dutch and French websites. It's not an isolated issue, but a design flaw in that motor.
Not many people are reporting reliability issues with Bosch motors, Yamaha or Panasonic. Kalkhoff bikes used to have Panasonic motors, before they decided to develop their own (I guess to keep their manufacturing costs down).
Unfortunately, in this case, expensive and made in Germany does not necessarily equate to more reliable. They probably made about 45% margin on the bike you purchased. A push version of the bike you bought (without motor assistance) would probably be worth £500-£600 maximum.
See for example http://www.kalkhoff-bikes.com/de/bikes/my-bike/allround/agattu-hs-8r.html
Adding a mid-drive motor and battery would probably add £600 - £700 to the price, so you can guess their margins. You could create the same electric assisted bike, for about half the price (at retail cost).
They are fully aware of the issue (after pretending there was no issue for several months). Just ask them to commit in writing to provide you warranty on the motor for a reasonable duration/mileage (e.g. 4 years/6,000 miles, given the bike cost) and see their response, in term of how they stand by their products.
I don't think there is much they can check, as the motor is a non serviceable part. The main issue to check for is whether you start getting some noise from the motor, usually indicating an upcoming failure.
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This issue seems to be a little out of proportion. There have been quite a few failures of impulse 2 motors, but they are the minority, and according to 50C they are the very small minority. In any case it's fair to say that you'd have to be unlucky to have problems with your motor, and since there is nothing you can realistically do as a preventative measure, you might as well just forget about it and enjoy your bike.
One thing to check though - Derby Cycle reckon that the problem with impulse 2 has been fixed by a software update, so make sure that yours has the latest software installed.
They were also initially saying that there were no known issues with the Impulse 2 motors... Because of their liability as a reseller, they are not going to say anything different.
It hasn't. My motor was replaced by a new "improved" version, and has failed again, and there are several reports of people having gone through the software update (in the UK and elsewhere), and motors still failing. Their software update to throttle down assistance is not going to completely remove mechanical weaknesses in the motor components and sensors.
Also, if the software update was resolving 100% of the issues, I am not sure why 50 Cycles hasn't done a recall, and contacted all Impulse 2 owners... Might cost them stamps and also labour.
One thing they have mentioned is: knock a bit the pedals/crank, and that will cost you an entire new motor. Might make people think about going for crank-driven motors...
The only Kalhoff that attracts my eye is Bosch powered.
Multiple engine failures have me intrigued, the finger would point at a rider problem - cadence too low? But I think that plastic gears have to be done right in prevision for all types of rider and in this case the guys behind the CAD-CAM system or the formula used for mixing the plastic have blown it.
Multiple engine failures have me intrigued, the finger would point at a rider problem - cadence too low? But I think that plastic gears have to be done right in prevision for all types of rider and in this case the guys behind the CAD-CAM system or the formula used for mixing the plastic have blown it.
I am not sure they make bikes anymore powered by a Bosch motor. Seems that all their bikes are now powered by their proprietary Impulse motors.
Nope, nothing to do with the rider cadence. I was always cycling with a proper speed with my bike, and at the correct gears.
And regardless, a bike should be reliable regardless of the speed of the rider.
Or they should put a warning in the user manual: "the motor will break down if you don't keep a steady speed between 9.8 and 11.2 miles per hour..."
...or it could be the engineer who decided to put some plastic/nylon gears on a high torque motor, instead of metal ones (which could be noisier, for sure).
One of the reasons for buying a premium crank drive bike is you can use it how you like.
Failures on Bosch bikes are not unknown, but I've thrashed mine up some steep banks and some long, draggy, steep in parts, passes.
The motor casing doesn't get warm, which indicates the Bosch is a properly designed and engineered product for its purpose.
Worrying about the wrong cadence or gear wrecking the motor might be acceptable on a cheapo Chinese crank motor.
But you emphatically should not have to do it on a premium product, which the Impulse motor purports to be.
The 50cycles response to the motor failures seems to remind me of their response to the saga of broken spokes back in 2008. An attitude which led me to but a Wisper instead.
This is 50 cycles response. The third paragraph appears to suggest that people out of their warranty will have their motors reconditioned.
'After our annual service meeting with Derby Cycles it was pointed out to us that a simple software update will rectify the timing issues with both Pedal and Torque sensors that previously may have damaged the motor.
The result of this was a slight clicking sensation in the crank arm that if continued without the proper update could cause damage to the pulls which in turn would cause a lack of drive assistance leading to eventually a motor failure.
However this does not effect any warranties and has been dealt with promptly in all cases. For those customers that have been caught out of warranty they have been offered for their motors to be reconditioned. This error only occurred in a small volume of models during 2013/2014 models.
It has also been discovered that this error could occur by fault of the customer when either dropping the bike or having a collision that impacted the motor such as kerbing the bike with the riders full weight.
This potentially could cause a fault to the sensors resulting in a similar problem as above. However these sensor are covered under warranty and are dealt with as such. Again this only happened with Pre 2015 models and has since been resolved.'
Let's hope 50 Cycles' grasp of the problem is better than their grasp of correct written English.
Presumably they mean 'pawls' not 'pulls', but only they know why pedal and torque are capitalised.
And no wonder the motor breaks when it has the weight of multiple riders on it, or did they mean to put in an apostrophe to denote they meant the weight of one rider?
I could go on, and many on here may think my point trivial.
But to me, what appears to be a key statement on an important matter for the business should be written to a reasonable standard if you want customers to take it seriously.
I have asked directly the after sale manager from 50 Cycles if he would commit to extend the warranty of the Impulse 2 motor, in writing, beyond the standard 2 years (e.g. to 4 years or 5,000 miles, for instance), given the known issues on those, the high prices of new motors (£600) and the high prices of their bikes. He said they wouldn't do so.
Therefore, as far as I am concerned, there are no firm commitments to keep fixing or replacing Impulse II motors beyond their standard 2 year manufacturer warranty (within reasonable usage), meaning those bikes are not fit for purpose, nor of appropriate quality (surely, those bikes are expected to last longer than 2 years).
Also, it's inconvenient to bring the bike back to the shop, have no bike for days/weeks, losing assistance etc.
Considering the quoted statement was made by 50 Cycles then it seems that whoever went to the 'Derby Cycles annual service meeting' was not the after sales manager.
Not sure what's your point, but unless they provide me in writing an extended warranty on their motors prone to failure, I won't trust the product anymore.
They haven't really be upfront with the issues either (until a few people complained), and I don't believe they are proactively trying to resolve them (e.g. product recall to change the software, to reduce the motor peak output, and possibly minimize the risk of the motor failing).
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My point was that the contents of the statement 50 Cycles made on here and what you were told are clearly contradictory.
This is a big site and they made a statement saying that people caught out of warranty will have their motors refurbished. I personally would like to have had a signature at the bottom of that letter so maybe get all the people together that have been directly affected, as well as those who are concerned about their motors failing (me being one of them) and we'll all sign a letter to the head of 50 Cycles, cc'd to a representative of Derby cycles requesting a name is put at the bottom of the statement they made on here. I'll sign that and i'm sure a number of other will as well.
I don't think they will care, based on experience, but feel free to pursue this.
What leverage do you have to convince them to sign such commitment anyway? If you think they care about customer dissatisfaction, or repeat business, then you may be mistaken...
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