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E-Bike Industry Blames Consumers For Fires In Effort To Undermine ‘Right To Repair’ Laws
(www.techdirt.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Almost got scammed by Rad Bikes this way. Battery mysteriously failed 10 months into their 1 year warranty. Rad Bikes accused me of sabotaging the battery and refused to honor their warranty, but "generously" offered me free shipping on a $300+ replacement battery. Turns out the off-the-rack fuse they use blew; identical down to the manufacturer to the ones used in cars. Replacement fuse was <20 cents and fixed the problem instantly.
What tripped the fuse, though?
Rad City support could not or would not explain how my battery might have stopped working, but would only say it was "not covered by warranty". They could also not explain what sort of causes of battery failure were covered by their warranty. It was pretty clear they just didn't want to cover the expense of honoring their warranty (the battery is probably one of the single most expensive parts on their bikes).
That's pretty shitty. They're probably talking internally about the fuse as if it's some type of tamper seal. But fuses blow sometimes, they're literally sacrificial. So somebody has told their support techs that anyone with that fuse blown has tampered with their battery and they're just repeating that line to customers (some guilt of tampering, some innocent).
Or maybe you just got unlucky with a dumb support tech. If that's widespread, they deserve to get sued.
Apparently some earlier models of their batteries had a user accessible hatch to change fuses, so I'm inclined to think they intentionally moved from a repairable to non-repairable model.
A blown fuse there is a pretty good indicator that the wrong kind of charger was used, which actually warrants a warranty loss.
Either that or a small power surge happened. Or the battery was defective. There are multiple things that could blow that fuse, and having a blanket "blown fuse = voided warranty" policy is stupid.
This may be a combo business problem where they don't have enough technically qualified people to troubleshoot with you. It's cheaper to pay minimum wage for someone to just do replacement customer service than it is to pay someone with more valuable knowledge and sit on the phone for an hour with you. I have a bad habit of just tearing things open now, assuming the company can't help me. But it usually works out
Obviously sabotage.
He weaseled his way into the company and changed an engineers documents without them noticing, causing them to over rate the motor controller......
Or just an over current, which could be as simple as surge when connecting due to a discharged capacitor.
Not saying the question shouldn't be asked, but replacing the fuse should be the first thing. If it blows again, you have a problem. If it's fine, you probably had a bad fuse. It's more if you bypass the fuse that you are asking for trouble.
Do you recall the specific fuse? There was someone asking about ebike battery fuses on !micromobility@lemmy.world a while back. Wasn't really sure what to tell them, but automotive fuses make sense.
On my RadCity 5 Plus, it was a 10 amp red mini-blade fuse. I had a "variety pack" in my car that I'd gotten at a local auto part store, but looked it up any way, just in case. This may be different on other models/batteries. Ironically, it did require a warranty voiding opening on the battery casing. :-)
Fwiw those "warranty void if opened" stickers are not legal
Fwiw, any statement like this is worth less than what you'd have to pay a lawyer...
Wait a minute, why did the fuse blow in the first place? This might be a safety issue and should be handled by the warranty.
There might be a reason. But if the reason really is a safety issue, then it would also blow the second fuse.
That is what fuses are made for.