More e-bike support shenanigans

 You're pedaling along on your e-bike, going to work or coming home, when the pedal assistance just quits. Now you have to power that tank with only your tired legs.

A customer of ours had this happen, along with the plug connection between the handlebar display and the rest of the wiring harness spontaneously disconnecting, and the display unit failing to recognize a charged battery. He bought the bike in April of this year. He's a restaurant worker who has commuted by bike for years.

In simpler times, back last century, bike companies typically offered a lifetime warranty on their (mostly steel) frames, and a year on the parts. The mountain bike era ended that, as more riders beat on their bikes, destroying them rapidly, and the industry moved into aluminum and carbon fiber. Also, with suspension parts like shocks and forks provided by third party companies, the company whose name is on the bike will always hand you off to the suspension manufacturer for warranty through them.

Now, with smokeless mopeds the dominant form of two-wheeled, semi-human-powered vehicle, bike and moped companies fall back on the warranty offered by the specific electric component suppliers as well. This is true whether they are legacy bike companies or a new, moped-only company.

Investigating our customer's options, I read in the booklet provided with his owner's manual that Bafang warrants the motors they make for 30 months, and the other components like controllers for 18 months from the date they leave Bafang's factory. Who knows how long the interval is between that date and the date the bike was assembled, let alone sold to the customer. What a sleazy move. It puts them behind two firewalls: the bike manufacturer's own warranty obstacle course, plus the record keeping between the bike company and Bafang regarding OEM parts deliveries. The consumer's clock starts running out long before they even know they're going to buy the bike.

Fuji customer service initially quoted us a price for replacement, then redirected me to their third-party warranty page when I asked about that. Bafang isn't even listed anymore. When I explained what I had found in the manual from Bafang, the Fuji warranty rep immediately said that they would send the part no charge. So that's nice.