Swissrider
Well-known member
This shot is from a video about repairing a Brose motor. - (worth watching) from which you can see the damage done from water ingress to a motor. The bearings are all shot and the discoloration is from all the rust. My feeling is that at the moment many EMTB motors are simply not properly sealed against water ingress, which may account for the many failures we read about on these forums. It seems we can only ride in dry conditions and we have to be very careful when washing out bikes to make sure no water gets into the motor. Unfortunately, none of the present bike tests tell us which makes and models are better protected from water ingress and hopefully this is something that will be addressed in future. More to the point, the manufacturers have got to improve the sealing of motors against water. Scenes like the one below should not happen. For years we have been riding our normal MTBs in all sorts of conditions, so naturally we expected to ride our EMTBs in the same conditions. Not so, it seems. Most manufacturers seem to be happy to replace motors in warranty but wouldn't it be better to design them properly so they were fit for purpose in the first place? When they fail out of warranty it is going to cost a lot. One of the issues is that one cannot see the damage which makes buying second hand a real risk. This whole issue is less of a problem for people who ride in places like California but for UK riders or anyone else who expects to ride in the wet and/or clean their bike with a hose, they have a big problem.
