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Over the course of about 2 months, a degraded area of the instrument panel LCD has spread to the area shown in the photo. Has anyone else had this degradation occur, and, if so, does this continue or appear to reach some stable state that leaves the display still usable? The quote for replacement is about 300$, and if I can avoid that so much the better.

My 2014S (and others) have required a replacement on board charger. Mine was replaced under warranty at about 25k miles, so you presumably have some distance to go, but you might want to include that as a consideration. The replacement has continued to work for several years and at least the 30k miles (and charging) since.

At about 45k miles my 2014S had battery issues that required a replacement. That too was under warranty. That is quite a bit into the distant future, and you're already carefully considering the state of the battery, but something to bear in mind.

Apart from those issues, my 2014S has been reliable (garaged, and maintained at moderate state of charge). Best of luck.

I was fortunate in that my 2014S required a replacement battery, but that happened just prior to the end of the 5 year warranty. As such, this was covered by the factory. This outcome was in part owing to the purchase having been as new, but after the bike having been on the dealer floor quite a while. If you have access to the original purchase date, you might see if by any stroke of luck this was within 5 years of now.

While I didn't have to pay for the replacement, the dealer who performed that replacement noted a price similar to what you were quoted. Had I needed to pay out of pocket, I likely would have at least limped along with the decreasing range until my 20 mile one way commute was not possible.

In case you have a 2014S, and wanted to add the original accessory heated grips, Zero still has some. I contacted Zero for a recommended brand for that year & model, and the rep was surprised to find they actually had some still on the shelf. My local dealer ordered Part # 10-06443 from Zero, and my fingers are now warm for the winter months.

As there was a question regarding battery longevity, I ride a 2014S that I purchased new in 2015, and, as the 5 year warranty (and 45k miles) was coming up, the battery began to have increasingly strange behavior, and noticeable loss of range wrt new. My guess was there was a bad cell, but I didn't attempt to diagnose this further, as Zero was good enough to replace the battery under warranty after confirming the impairment. As the original (2014) battery was no longer produced or available, a present day (2020) battery was installed (a net upgrade in capacity). This change in battery details apparently was a bit complicated, given the various interactions I had with the service department, and required several consultations between the service department and Zero (plus a few extra trips back to the service department, over a couple of months) to get everything working perfectly.

For my primary use case of commuting ~40 miles round trip per day, I would have kept operating the original battery for as long as possible barring a catastrophic failure, but I am content to have a battery without many years and miles so that I can do longer distance errands in addition to commuting. I have no notion of what the cost for installation (battery + shop time) would have been, but almost certainly more than I would have willingly parted with!

A reverse 'gear' would be helpful to back uphill into my garage. Did the promised center stand option materialize as yet?

For earlier model years, such as my 2014S, there was a slow (over months) monotonic trend downward in maximum charging level owing to a degrading on-board charger. As you describe your observations to date of <100% charging displayed being sporadic, on-board charger degradation isn't consistent with your observations, but if that pattern were to develop you might bear that possibility in mind.

For my 2014S, my notice for 2020 premiums (Geico) was nearly a 2x increase over 2019 --- with no obvious cause (no tickets, no accidents, albeit I'm a year older). I phoned a rep, who attributed the increase to changes in CA law that affected liability. When I asked which laws (so that I could send letters to my CA assembly member and senator), the only specific one the rep could offer was the law pertaining to texting while driving --- which seemed a bit of a reach to apply to motorcycles.

The note above regarding a minimum policy cost is something I found to be true at Geico, and I used the web quotes to test combinations of insurance types and deductibles to just get past that minimum level. For 2020, that Geico minimum appears to have jumped to >~$105 per 12 months, up from 2019's $75 though I might not have sampled the minimum set.