Levo Gen 2 2021 Turbo Levo Comp Shimano drive train failure

[Boat Racer]

I bought a new 2021 Turbo Levo Comp a few weeks ago and since then have put 190 miles (mostly paved bike paths) on it. Last week, I started experiencing what feels like "gear" slippage in high gear. I called the service dept. of my LBS and the service tech says that he has seen a lot of failures of this type with this particular model. He says that the motor is just too powerful for the Shimano SLX drive train when in Turbo mode. He says that either the rear cassette or at least the one gear will need to be replaced but he doesn't have any stock of either. I almost always down shift to a lower gear when coming to a stop and then upshift to lessen gear wear. Have any of you guys experienced this issue? My concern is that even if he can find a replacement gear, it will happen again within another 190 miles.

 

[Dabigono]

My LBS changed out my cassette with an XT cassette. Noise went away, but a few hundred blue & black trail miles later, I’m starting to hear it again.

These rear cassettes aren’t cheap either!

 

[DtEW]

We have two MY21 Levo Comps, one at ~350 miles, and the other at ~280 miles. All ridden on trails (~95%), paved surfaces avoided. I rarely use Turbo, but my significant other uses it frequently to keep up with me. No small cog wear/slippage issues for either of us yet. I did pick up some replacement 10T-12T kits last year (and some 14Ts are forthcoming) to ward off the gremlins though.

Disclaimer: I make it a point to pedal at a cadence between 60-90 rpm for motor health, and I've advised my significant other to do the same. Therefore we don't spend much time slowly torquing small cogs in Turbo. And by the time either of us are in small cogs, we're probably going past the motor cutoff speed anyways.

Edit: the 10T-12T kits are still available on the web, but just shy of being 4 times as expensive (net) as they were before. But it might be worth a try if that's the only thing missing to bring a bike back into commission. You're probably better off trying to find a full cassette, though. Still in short-supply... but not nearly as scarcity-priced.

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[Tim1023]

I've done over 2000km so far. Probably 85% of that commuting. I've had no problems so far, despite not having the most mechanical sympathy (competence??) when shifting. Turbo mode all the way when commuting as I'm mostly over 25 km/h anyway
The bike is leased and I'll be getting the chain and cassette replaced at the end of the year as part of that.

 

[Mikerb]

I bought a new 2021 Turbo Levo Comp a few weeks ago and since then have put 190 miles (mostly paved bike paths) on it. Last week, I started experiencing what feels like "gear" slippage in high gear. I called the service dept. of my LBS and the service tech says that he has seen a lot of failures of this type with this particular model. He says that the motor is just too powerful for the Shimano SLX drive train when in Turbo mode. He says that either the rear cassette or at least the one gear will need to be replaced but he doesn't have any stock of either. I almost always down shift to a lower gear when coming to a stop and then upshift to lessen gear wear. Have any of you guys experienced this issue? My concern is that even if he can find a replacement gear, it will happen again within another 190 miles.

It is very often the case that gears need re-indexing after a couple of hundred miles simply because derailleur cable tension tends to "bed in". It could be as simple as one or two clicks anti clockwise on the selector lever adjuster. I would not be too confident in your LBS judgement here! The SLX cassettes are all steel barring the largest cog so no reason for even the smallest cog to have suffered any wear after 190 miles.

 

[Boat Racer]

Thought that I would provide an update. It's now been over a month since I started having problems with the chain jumping/slipping in high gear. My LBS still can not give me a date as to when Shimano will be able to ship either a new cassette or just the one gear/cog. I'm still riding the bike without using the highest gear (smallest cog) but now I feel that the next highest gear is also slipping slightly under hard use.