jheth, you didn't address your point #2.
If Zero don't expect owners to want to try to fix their bikes, then maybe Zero should have made more reliable machines. I can' speak for the post-2012 Zeros, that may prove more reliable, but the 2012 and earlier bikes seems like they were sold with a belief that it's perfectly all right for owners to be beta-testers. Our 2012 XU is an example of a vehicle that should not have been sold to the motoring public.
It's one thing to have the horn fail with a couple of weeks of getting the bike - that's something I can troubleshoot (years of owning Italian motorcycles means knowing how to troubleshoot electrics). As Richard says, at least providing a chassis manual would be a start. We're coming up to the end of our warranty on the XU and I don't know what I'm going to do the next time it breaks down, but I know that paying a dealer to fix it will be very low on my list of options.
Our XU cost just over $5K with a rat Kwak 250 as a trade-in, and I think we made a mistake spending that much.
Peter
Zero didn't make a conscience decision to design and sell an unreliable product. They were learning in the early stages, and it has paid off. The 2013+ platform is much better. It also wasn't their intention to piss off owners by not providing service manuals to them. That's what the dealers are for. They are trained and equipped to perform the service, but with a problematic design (ie. 2012 and earlier models), even dealers had troubles fixing issues. That's the nature of being an early adopter of a new technology (or new application of existing technology). All early adopters should understand and accept this risk when they buy in. Tesla Roadster owners had high dissatisfaction, but the Model S is so much better in so many ways because of lessons learned.
Here's my explanation of my 2nd point above (owners want to fix their own bike). Again, I support owners fixing their own vehicles, but if it's on warranty, the dealer should be the first point of support. Of course there are situations/issues that don't warrant a long drive (ie. transporting the bike in a truck) just to have a dealer's service dept look into something that might be a minor annoyance. However, remember that Zero's dealership network is very small... VERY small compared to the major bike manufacturers that have millions of bikes on the roads. If your closest dealer is 3-4 hours away, that is also part of the deal you sign up for if you purchase a vehicle from a very small and still expanding manufacturer. It's not fair to compare Zero to Honda, BMW, Ducati, etc. They are at a very different stage in their company lifecycle, making a very different product.
I am concerned with the comments being made on this particular thread, insinuating that Zero has poor customer service because of this reason. Or worse, that current owners are telling others not to buy the bike for this reason. It appears that many Zero owners on this forum come from a long history of owning ICE motorcycles, with a plethora of 3rd party or manufacturer service manuals to assist them with repairing the bike themselves. Having decades of experience in this world, and switching over to this new motorcycle technology (with limited publicly-available service documentation) can be frustrating. But again, an owner agrees to this situation when he/she purchases the bike. I'll also point out that vehicle cost does not equate to likelihood of getting service manual... just the opposite. Do high-end car manufacturers provide detailed service manuals to owners at purchase? They expect them to take the car to the dealer, as does Zero. More on that topic in the next paragraph. Bottom line here is that older ICE converts who do most service themselves may not be Zero's target demographic. Perhaps Zero expects most owners to take it to a dealer when they have problems?...
For Zero to be successful (which we all want, I hope), their dealership network must be successful. It's hard enough for Zero to get dealerships to carry their product (this includes sales and service). If Zero started to enable all owners to fix bikes themselves, there is less incentive to attract new dealers... and they might also lose some current dealers. Not good. It's important to think about the big picture here, and what is most important for Zero to be successful. Please do not vilify Zero on Internet forums (or in word-of-mouth discussions) because they have made a business decision that may be unpopular to you. There might be long-term strategies for these business decisions that we may not be aware of, above and beyond what has been discussed here.
Last thing I want to mention is that Zero is busy, very busy. I have noticed that my e-mails to Aaron (& others at Zero) are going unanswered. This is most likely a reflection of their workload/expansion, trying to ship high quality product to meet demand. I wouldn't be surprised if Aaron gets hundreds (or thousands) of e-mails every day. Although it has been nice to have direct contact/response from Zero's Director of Customer Experience, we cannot expect this to continue as Zero expands. Suggestions and feedback may need to start going through their customer service representatives, or the old fashioned methods of snail mail or phone calls. Better yet, if you live close enough to Zero's factory, pay them a visit and discuss your concerns. If you talk to the right person (or enough people) at Zero, frustrated owners on this thread/forum may gain a different perspective on this situation.
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Topic: Repair / Service Manual. (Read 4573 times)