Hi,
I'm faintly astounded that my charger seems to have died after only 2 years of use. I only used the charger about 8 hours a week on average and now when I plug it into the side of the bike or directly into the battery it flashes red/green.
I rang my bike dealer in australia and they said there's not a single charger for sale in this country and that if I ordered one thru them it would take 3-6 months to arrive. So I guess Super Soco aren't big on customer service or keeping spares of something pretty vital to keeping a bike going. I'm a little pissed off with myself that I didn't see this coming, I should've bought a second one.
- Has anyone had a good or bad experience buying a 83V 10A Max charger from AliExpress?
- Is there any point taking the charger to some sort of electrical appliance repair place to see if it's just a blown component?
- Has anyone had a charger die after only 2 years of use?
thanks
There are a bunch of capacitors on a PSU, one may have swollen and is less than £1 to replace with a bit of soldering. They hold a charge for over 24hrs, so ensure they have been left to stand to self discharge. An electrical repair shop will charge £20-30 to repair it. 2 years seems pretty good going considering the amount of use it's had, they only come with a 1 year warranty.
@lostit I don't really think 8 hours a week use is really a lot, that's just charging the battery from 20% to 100% once a week, not much. I took the charger to an electrical repair shop, they opened the charger and said Super Soco have unhelpfully "siliconed it all up so there's no access to anything".
Does anyone have a phone number for this Super Soco company, there's no charger for sale in my country, no contact number, a total lack of spare parts in general and then I've learned my 7-pin charger is probably discontinued anyway heh. The dealership which sold me the bike has no interest in it either.
Feeling stranded...
@ewayfarer you can use any 84v lithium ion battery charger. Plug it in via the xt60 plug under your seat or chop off the cable from your broken charger. Better still if you have your transit cable still you can use that. A charger off AliExpress could be with you within 10 days.
I think it's the first time I see someone talking about a dead charger (well that doesn't mean it didn't happen to someone else) but your case is rather alarming because the charger is a critical component.
On the other hand my experience in Soco spare parts is the same and my local dealer told me that he is having a difficulty in finding spare parts of all sorts for these bikes. So I get the same idea that super Soco has a really bad after sales support. I didn't see that coming either and if I knew it I would choose a Silence motorcycle over the Super Soco.
Anyway...if my charger failed I would send it to an electronics repair shop instead of buying a new one. There is a pretty good chance this is an easy repair due to a capacitor replace as Lostit said.
@voltaire_187 Yep, Soco is absolutely hopeless with after sales support and therefore clearly don't give a toss about their customers or their reputation. It's not only a lack of spare parts but if you do manage to buy another charger, is it going to have the same number of pins as your old one. Mine is a 7-pin. If you can't charge your battery regularly your battery will die and not be usable anymore and I doubt if they have any replacement batteries in this country anyway so I guess this quite pricey bike is just a write-off down the track. My dealership didn't mention any of this 2 years ago and now that I think about it they donn't seem to think much of electric bikes.
I took the charger to an electrical repair shop, they opened it and said it's all sealed up with silicon and there's no access so it can't be repaired. When I got home I realized that the problem with the charger is the cable which goes from the powerpoint into the charger is loose and if it's very carefully positioned it will still work. So for the time being I can still use the charger and therefore the bike but for how long I don't know and it's pretty clear to me that it's a dead man walking and probably a waste of 8k aussie dollars...yay
My advice to anyone in Australia, stay away from any super soco bike.
@ewayfarer if you were in Europe I would remind you that according to the EU legislation the dealer is obliged to provide not only technical support but all the necessary spare parts for any product that is imported in Europe. If he cannot guarantee that support then he cannot continue to sell products and there are penalties as well.
I understand that you live in Australia but given the fact that it's a modern country with laws and order I would expect that local legislation won't be far off. If you have the time check it out.
In the meantime I have an email address that you can contact super Soco to ask if they can do anything to help you out. I contacted them and they responded but given the fact that I am not in trouble (yet) they suggested to contact my local dealer for any issues that arise.
Here is the email address
@supersoco.com">globalservice@supersoco.com
@voltaire_187 you're right, I'll contact the main dude at my dealership and maybe complain a bit, rather than the spare parts guy I dealt with before to see if he will sort it out. I'll also try the email address, thanku for that 🙂
@ewayfarer no prob .. I hope he can sort it out for you.
In case he is unwilling to help try to find the local authority (not the police) responsible for commercial complains. It should be under some ministry. Here in Greece it is called General Secretariat for Consumer and you can file a complain if a merchant or dealer is irresponsible.
Following my previous comment, as I was saying...the Chinese are well know for their non existing customer support. Their strategy was always a "sell and forget". I knew that but due to vmoto's involvement (German/Australian company) in the project I hoped they would act otherwise.
To make matters even worse, due to chain supply issues (covid) even the high brands of the industry are left out of stock...
Sorry to hear your troubles. I've got a couple of cheap aliexpress chargers and they both work. The one's with adjustable output look quite good. Although slightly bulky if you carry it with you.
Hi all,
Thought I'd update you on my dead charger issue. I decided to go back to the dealership I bought the bike from, but rather than speak to the completely unhelpful spare parts guy I'd initially spoken to I decided to go straight to the owner of the dealership. He asked me to bring my dead charger to him and he then got another of his team onto the case. I'm not sure who got involved from that point whether it was the distributor and/or Super Soco but long story short they agreed to replace the charger for free.
I'm very grateful to all concerned for doing the right thing. I'd also like to thank those who responded to my posts. I'm happy to report that 5 weeks after my charger died I'm now in possession of a new 83V5A 7-pin charger. I'm also considering buying a spare because I never ever want to be in a position again where I can't use my tc max for 5-6 weeks...
