Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/zero-motorcycles-steps-up-and-makes-its-service-manuals-free/

by 1970-01-01 • 3 years ago

247 211 3 years ago

rasz2• 3 years ago

Afaik the current ev moto leader Energica just emails you pdf of service/owners manual if you ask them.

cdot2• 3 years ago

Is energica really the leader in electric motorcycle sales? I couldnt find any stats but Ive definitely seen some zero bikes on the road and Ive never seen an energica in person

eightnoneone4• 3 years ago

It’s surely the leader in the bikes’ capabilities and reliability.

JumpinJack_Cash7• 3 years ago

They are going nowhere. Electric motorcycles are a terrible idea because they are not the problem as far as emission go.

Given the ratio between the weight of the motorcycle and the weight of the passenger/s they are extemely efficient, having the whole passenger vehicles switch to motorcycles would be even better than have them switch to 3000 pounds EVs.

The vast majority of people are too coward to drive them unfortunately

m4632• 3 years ago

Refreshing compared to the ways others have gone (tesla for instance)

zlsa• 3 years ago

Tesla makes their service manuals available for free (you need to sign in and subscribe, but it’s free and didn’t require a payment method for me.)

https://service.tesla.com/

LeoPanthera• 3 years ago

Where?

All I see at https://service.tesla.com/service-manuals is the manual for the legacy Roadster, which Tesla no longer supports.

And if I login, all I can see is the option to buy some kind of service subscription.

m4632• 3 years ago

If this is true, I stand corrected.

eightnoneone4• 3 years ago

This is a step in the right direction, but Zero has some serious need to repair their reputation, IMHO. They attempted to do the scummy “pay to unlock” thing with features already on the bike.

bradly3• 3 years ago

Refreshing compared to the ways others have gone

Do you know of companies charging for service manuals?

_ea1k• 3 years ago

I think most car manufacturers do. Factory service manuals are rarely free or cheap.

Tesla and these guys are the exceptions.

ChrisClark• 3 years ago

Yeah you're right, usually you have to pay for car service manuals. I'm glad Tesla gives them away for free. Just one small step in the right direction at least.

post_break• 3 years ago

Ok but does it require any special software to modify or change parts?

porknubbins4• 3 years ago

Are there any OEMs whose service manuals are hard to find? I restore cars and motorcycles and have never had trouble finding a pdf or hard copy for around $20. Its good that they are doing this though a lot of the secrets I’d want to know about an electric motorcycle are about the ECU when that software is some of the most tightly guarded of any.

mintplant• 3 years ago

I acquired an old Sony CMT-EX1 CD player a while back and was tinkering around with it. I found the service manual online and was blown away. There are pinouts! Block diagrams [0] for the PCBs! Capacitor inventories! I wish we still did this for consumer hardware.

[0] https://servlib.com/sony/audio/cmt-ex1-hcd-ex1.html?start=29

kushie• 3 years ago

this is out of nowhere but if anyone can help me find a service manual (not owners manual) for a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-50 i would be in deep gratitude. a few octaves intermittently don't work and i'd love to tinker

sobkas2• 3 years ago

Making old technology viable instead of buying new one, or even worse tinkering with it and unlocking or adding new functionality corporations reserved for higher end models, professional equipment or just outright didn't want to implement assured it will never happen. In the past only few tinkerers actually cared about this. Now everything is on the internet and everyone have access to it. This is a season for planed obsolescence after all.

I'm not saying it's good, it's just what it is.

mk_stjames• 3 years ago

Japanese service manuals for electronics, especially ones starting in the early 80's when the printing quality started getting really good, are a sight to behold. In the era before the EDA software did everything, the annotated schematics and PCB board layouts in the manuals are gorgeous, especially those by Sony and Matsushita / Panasonic.

When the EDA tools started making the prints fully automatically and all the tables and notes just became automated outputs to PDF... it kinda killed a bit of the artistry that went into the layouts of the prints. I also feel that the care and choosing the fonts / lettering styles / etc. have become eschewed in favor of just putting out whatever the defaults are from current software without care of adjustment. It's why all published schematics these days look alike, and boring by comparison.

The early Walkman manuals are a good example of this:

https://archive.org/details/wm-f15_202004/SONYWM-DD_service_...

The perfect little isometric views of the special isolated components in boxes along the outside, the shading of the traces on the PCB....

nicbou• 3 years ago

Suzuki. 100€ or more, and only if you ask your dealership politely. Same for Renault. I had to find a torrent somewhere.

lasc4r• 3 years ago

Do they not go out of their way to make it difficult? I had to scrounge google which led me to a forum thread for Triumph bike manuals. Only managed to get a link to a website associated with Triumph where they let you pay on a per day basis to look at manuals. Spent almost an hour making folders and manually downloading every individual section.

My takeaway is that they want their bikes to get serviced at dealers rather than allow people to more easily work on their own bikes.

nocterro• 3 years ago

It’s possibly because I’m looking for Australian models and it’s a smaller market, but I’ve never had much luck finding service manuals free or paid for my vehicles. Do you have any tips for where to search?

I should say specific examples are the Ford Territory and the Great Wall Steed (Wingle 6 in the domestic market).

porknubbins4• 3 years ago

Those are models I haven’t heard of. The best place used to be enthusiast forums but in the past decade that has switched to Facebook groups for a lot of vehicles.

whartung3• 3 years ago

BMW no longer sells service manuals for their bikes.

There are, essentially, bootlegs on line, but my understanding is that while before they had a dedicated Window application for their manuals, they're moving to an online only system, and only for dealers.

So, while there are manuals floating around now, who knows how that will go moving forward.

Obviously, this will be a key sticking point in the future with the "right to repair" laws trickling through the state legislatures.

dharmab14• 3 years ago

Yup, exactly. I was one of the last mortals to get a copy of the software for my BMW motorcycle and now field emails from riders worldwide looking for service data.

koolba• 3 years ago

What’s the rationale for not releasing a manual? To force you to take into a dealer for service? It’s not like they have to make a separate manual. It has to exist for the dealer anyway right?

porknubbins4• 3 years ago

That is really bad I did not know that. I assume it goes for automobiles too. Have no plans to get a new BMW bike but I will definitely take that into consideration in the future.

yencabulator3• 3 years ago

I fully expect the Apple model next, where even if you can physically replace a part, the system will refuse to operate until the new part is blessed by the proprietary software.

userbinator4• 3 years ago

Your mention of "restore" suggests mainly older models, which certainly did have far more widely-distributed service literature and are simpler than newer vehicles.

porknubbins4• 3 years ago

Yes I mainly work on older vehicles which are simpler. I did find a pdf on my 2015 Hyundai and have bought others of similar age off ebay though.

dharmab14• 3 years ago

Volvo's data is only available via digital subscription.

BMW motorcycle data is not available at all to consumers anymore, only certified techs.

Suzuki doesn't publish data, but Clymer usually fills the gap.

By contrast, Honda will still sell you some really great dead tree manuals on their motorcycles.

Gracana• 3 years ago

KTM, too. My buddy got a 450 XC-F and he was able to buy a service manual directly from them.

Daneel_• 3 years ago

It’s impossible to get them for a modern Volvo, for example. I couldn’t even get them to provide me with a wiring diagram for the rear fuse block so I could wire in a trailer brake controller. I managed it via inspection, but it was really poor.

winddude2• 3 years ago

More rare and special edition cars. Like a number of the SRT cars didn't used to be covered in the regular dodge service manuals.

deet• 3 years ago

I pay like $8/month for access to my 2021 Triumph’s service manual.

As far as I know they keep it as an interactive website so that PDFs are hard to make.

I haven’t found a good copy yet but it’s also possible that I’m just not as good at searching for pirated content as back in the old torrenting days (or perhaps just less motivated)

dharmab14• 3 years ago

PDF export is tricky so I usually take screenshots and transcribe info into my own notebook.

vGPU• 3 years ago

Just write a screenshot -> next page macro

zer8k6• 3 years ago

Oh yeah.

Triumph in particular is notorious for this. For most bikes made beyond 2018 or so there are nearly no 3rd party manuals available. You have to pay, quite literally by the page or by the hour, to view the manuals on their website.

For older bikes its often easier. Clymer's has a substantial library that are often better than even the dealer mechanic book. I'm the mechanic among my group of friends and newer bikes are exceedingly difficult to not only work on, but also find proper manuals for.

benoliver999• 3 years ago

I have a 2003 Citroen and it's easy to find the service manual but very hard to use it.

It's not a PDF you can just flip through, it's software.

You have to run it in a windows XP VM, following a very specific set of installation instructions. Getting locked out for no reason is very common (so you just boot a backup of the VM).

Not for the faint of heart.

jve• 3 years ago

I waited for a technical thread to ask this question: where can DIYers that want to fix their own car get a manual with wiring diagrams, service bullettins, troubleshooting procedures without paying alot in subscription (hundreds per year)?

mike_d• 3 years ago

Haynes or Chilton manuals (they are the same company now). You can pick them up at auto parts stores, Amazon, or buy PDFs online.

They are based on the official tech manuals and only cover the stuff that is within reason of a home or small shop mechanic, and don't require you to have manufacturer specific tools in most cases.

jeffbee3• 3 years ago

Yeah but there’s nothing to break or fix on a Zero! I needed all those Honda service manuals over the years because honing cylinder walls and fitting rings and grinding valves and bedding in crank bearings are things you sometimes have to do. What’s complicated about an electric motorcycle?

somerandomqaguy4• 3 years ago

Yeah but there’s nothing to break or fix on a Zero!

...........?

Wheel bearings, axle grease, wheel alignment, fork seals, suspension bearings, head bearings, chain/belt, sprockets, brake system (pads, piston, caliper, seals, master cylinder, fluid, rotors), tires, cooling system. Plus the classics of levers, hoses, bent handles bars or forks, stripping bolts, broken kick stands, etc. None of that goes away with an electric bike.

And you do need to do inspections on electrical connectors at minimum. Being electric doesn't solve small design flaws. Suzuki infamously made the green connector of death. The headlamps and ignition switch on the same connector, which inevitably burns out due to resistance in the connection growing due to corrosion which eventually causes it to melt. Saw a similar problem with a Kawasaki with corrosion interfering with kill switch circuit.

bastawhiz7• 3 years ago

Not to be pedantic or invalidate your point, but most (all?) Zero bikes are air cooled, and they have zero hoses. Brakes get like an order of magnitude less wear thanks to regen, and the only fluid is brakes (well, and the battery, but if you find yourself in contact with it, the bike is a loss).

mmh00005• 3 years ago

I’ve been wanting an electric motorcycle for years. But every time I look at the pricing I just can’t justify it.

An entry level electric bike for $25k or a top of the line BMW for $18k. It’s just not even a comparison.

leetrout2• 3 years ago

Where are you getting the top BMW for 18? Or are you talking about the ones they farm out?

mmh00005• 3 years ago

https://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/en/models/sport/r1250rs.html

Okay. 20k. Still less than an electric and more powerful with more features.

rabuse• 3 years ago

The range is also typically laughably bad also. I just can't justify having to perfectly calculate a trip, or ending up stuck on the side of the road with no quick ability to just gas it back up.

driverdan• 3 years ago

Your numbers are completely wrong. Zero has a bike for $12k https://zeromotorcycles.com/model/zero-fx and BMW sells bikes that go well into the $20k ranges. You can get a Surron for under $4k, but it's more like a cross between a bicycle and motorcycle.

I do agree with the general premise, that electric is more expensive. There needs to be more competition to drive prices down like is happening for cars.

notatoad2• 3 years ago

but it's more like a cross between a bicycle and motorcycle.

and that's kinda the reason that the value proposition for electric motorbikes isn't very good. if you can give up the requirement of "i want to drive on the highway", an electric bicycle is going to do what you need for a fraction of the cost.

electric motorbikes lean more towards toys than practical tools, so they're priced like toys.

antisthenes• 3 years ago

You can get a "deathwish" scooter from Alibaba that can go 55mph for $3000 also.

The problem is that the electric motorcycle market isn't big enough to enjoy efficiencies of scale, so the only ones that exist cater to the wealthy/luxury clients.

The value proposition for motorcycles is really not as impressive either. The instant electric torque is more of a safety issue on bikes, because you can already trivially pop wheelies on regular gas-powered motorcycles.

On top of that, they have better range, because the battery capacity on a motorbike is limited by the width of the human hip, not highway lane.

The best use case for that is probably the thing you linked, Surron, which is an e-MTB essentially, where high torque is really nice for going up hills (and isn't really required for 60mph+ cruising on freeways)

Mengkudulangsat• 3 years ago

Taiwan is doing electric bikes right. They're not a $25k toy, they are $2k tool.

throwaway290• 3 years ago

Motorbikes in general are a toy in the west and a cost efficient tool in all of Asia. Electric motorbikes are not any special. Electrics seem more rare in Taiwan now compared to China a few years ago but they are catching up I guess.

itsZero• 3 years ago

Agree that it’s expensive and the range sucks, but I still love my Energica EVA Ribelle. It’s super satisfying to ride!

So far the furthest I’ve ridden is from Bay Area to Big Sur and back, which needs to fast charge like 2 times each way.

mmh00005• 3 years ago

I'm a little jealous you have that bike. I did a test ride of it about a year ago and loved it. Sadly, as I said in another comment, I don't want a chain or belt drive bike. But, the EVA Ribelle is almost perfect.

bastawhiz7• 3 years ago

I love my Eva Ribelle as well! I'm envious that you get to ride it around in the mountains in CA. I'm thinking about hauling mine out to the tail of the dragon at some point, but that's a still a long journey for me.

bastawhiz7• 3 years ago

My 22 Zero FXE was $13k. My Energica was more than double that, but what you get for that is range and 40mph higher top speed. If you're looking for a commuter bike, you don't need to kill yourself on price. If you're looking to scare the shit out of yourself every time you send it, you'll pay Ducati prices.

squarefoot2• 3 years ago

For $25k I would buy an Arcimoto Roadster (3 wheels), which unfortunately isn't available in the EU, and there are no similar equivalents (2 spaced front wheels, electric, not bicycle sized) over here. Patiently waiting for a EU distributor to appear.

matsemann• 3 years ago

No market for electric motorbikes. Based on my experience the reason for buying a motorbike is to be obnoxiously loud and disturb your whole city block. Can't do that with electric.

barrkel• 3 years ago

Classic availability bias.

This can be replaced by electric: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fn...

i_k_k2• 3 years ago

Off topic, but does anyone make simple electric motorcycles? You know, a frame, battery, motor, etc., but without a connected app and all the goo that comes with it.

userbinator4• 3 years ago

You can probably find plenty of them on Alibaba.

i_k_k2• 3 years ago

Well I’ll be. Now how ‘bout a simple, quality bike? :)

toyg2• 3 years ago

Maybe Maeving? They're kinda proud of being barebones.

dabluecaboose• 3 years ago

Well, that's very cool and was interesting to read about. Shame it's not available in the US yet

bastawhiz7• 3 years ago

I've got a Zero and an Energica and neither really uses the app (the energica app is actually too old to install on my Pixel 6). The only compelling use for the Zero app is to download bike log data and upgrade the firmware.

razemio• 3 years ago

They have a different name in the US, but in Germany the bike is called tinbot Esum pro. I am very satisfied. Have driven over 3000km in half a year. No issues so far. They aren't powerful but still fun to drive. Coming from a Kawasaki Z900 which was to expensive for me to justify. You can buy a tinbot for 5000€ brand new. They have a range of 80 km full throttle in the summer and about 60 km in the winter.

odiroot• 3 years ago

BMW electric line?

IgorPartola3• 3 years ago

You can always build one yourself. Buy an older bike for the frame and VIN, swap in a motor and a battery pack along with the rest of the controller stuff and you are good to go.

toyg2• 3 years ago

Depending on local legislation, this might require testing from authorities in order to be road-legal.

bartvk• 3 years ago

Energica does not have a connected app. Also, the service manual is simple to come by (Facebook group).

russellbeattie• 3 years ago

It's going to take a while for people to get used to tinkering with electric vehicles vs ICEs. There's lots of great ways to get yourself fried in those manuals. I could totally see myself skipping the "High Voltage Discharging procedure" (despite the warning on every section involving the battery) just to make a "quick adjustment" and becoming a statistic.

winddude2• 3 years ago

This should be the norm.

goku122• 3 years ago

It was the norm. I wonder if the HN population is young enough to have not seen them.

RankingMember3• 3 years ago

Service manuals being free was the norm? I had to pay for the one for my Japanese motorcycle from 1982 and on every other vehicle I've owned, unless you mean bootlegging on car forums. I don't know anyone who's gotten free service manuals direct from the manufacturer.

turdprincess• 3 years ago

Good move, but another thing this brand does is charge you a monthly subscription to unlock the full battery range on your bike. If you don’t pay, you lug around a dead weight extra battery you cannot access. Overall this brand is notoriously unfriendly to consumers.

randunel• 3 years ago

I'd been considering getting a Zero versus other brands for over a year, and you comment got me to reconsider, thanks! I wasn't are of this scummy behaviour of theirs until now.

vladvasiliu6• 3 years ago

I wonder how this works in practice. Is this, in practice, equivalent to some laptops' and newer androids' setting of never fully charging the battery in order to improve the overall battery lifetime if you know you won't use the 100% anyway? Or is it just dead weight which is never touched and you just use fewer cells, but always the same?

cowthulhu• 3 years ago

It’s literal dead weight. It’s especially bad because the bikes already don’t have great ranges (and the estimated ranges are often pretty optimistic), and extra dead weight cuts into your limited range even further.

numpad02• 3 years ago

You can't mix and match batteries varying in wear, or address and charge arbitrary inividual cells, so it has to be just lower state of charge, e.g. 80% true charge displayed as full.

scrappyjoe• 3 years ago

I am not disagreeing with you - I believe that you should be able to use something you bought however you wish - but I think it is worth noting that the lower you allow depth of discharge, the more cycles you can squeeze out of a pack. So it’s not dead weight per se, its trading weight and range for pack longevity, which equates to economy over the life of the motorcycle.

lelandbatey• 3 years ago

Eh, no it's not. It's getting a monthly fee out of what could be a button or switch, a monthly fee that could be just an unpaid, free to use feature of the bike.

This is some serious "c-suite message to help you fall asleep at night territory".

sardine5• 3 years ago

Not sure that's fair - the battery packs come with a 5 year warranty. If you increase the 'full range' - you're increasing the odds you'll need to claim on that, which needs paying for.

ajkjk2• 3 years ago

... Does.. It?

No it doesn't.

nsvd• 3 years ago

If they was true, they could stipulate that enabling full range would void the warranty. This is obviously a cash grab.

Lucasoato• 3 years ago

Oh my god, this should be illegal. What an environmental waste to block what hardware can do for business reasons, is there any global lobby fighting bullshit like this?

bombcar3• 3 years ago

This kind of thing has existed forever. Cars are starting to do it, too, as it gets cheaper to make them all the same and disable some features in software.

HEVs also use only about 50% of the battery to reduce wear on it (go from 30 to 80 charge, no more).

macintux• 3 years ago

From the other comments, it sounds like it’s less of an environmental waste. By not allowing it to be fully charged, the battery will last longer.

willi59549879• 3 years ago

subscriptions just put me off. i'd rather wait for a good product that doesn't need subscriptions

lockhouse2• 3 years ago

I’m fine with subscriptions if it provides value to me as a customer. If it enables a consistent stream of new content or features, or covers things like cloud storage where there is clearly an ongoing cost to the company to provide a service then I understand and accept the fees. Otherwise, it’s just rent seeking.

IgorPartola3• 3 years ago

Harley Live Wire seems like fun.

liendolucas3• 3 years ago

Good move, but another thing this brand does is charge you a monthly subscription to unlock the full battery range on your bike.

Fuck Zero Motorbikes and their subscriptions!

blueprint• 3 years ago

link? I'm very familiar with Zeros and I've never heard this..

anomaloustho• 3 years ago

Zero SR/F owner here. I was also put off by this before buying a Zero. They did back off of this a bit, but most of the stuff floating around online is from when they initially did it.

Now, if you purchase any premium Zero like the SRF and SRS, every software upgrade comes unlocked and is apart of your purchase as you’d expect.

If you purchase their cheaper tier models like the DS and SR, then the “upgrades” can be software unlocked. I’m not a fan, but it is a one time fee from what I understand. It’s not a subscription. (correct me if you have conflicting data)

That in mind, my SR/F came off the lot with everything already enabled. I checked the app and there are no “upgrades” that can be purchased.

Zero also had a reputation of being one of the less repairable bikes, but they’ve been slowly going in the other direction.

I walked into a dealer being dead set on buying an Energica bike and not buying a Zero. They had no problem selling it to me, but after updating me on where the current state of Zero was vs Energica, I decided to buy the Zero and didn’t regret it in the least.

eternityforest• 3 years ago

If the actual cost to the consumer to unlock the features isn't more than other brands would charge for something with everything enabled, I don't really see a big issue, aside from that it requires closed firmware.

Seems like it could allow higher quality and cheaper products because they don't have to spend the money on keeping track of multiple hardware versions. Fewer models means the ones that do exist will be more tested and mass produced.

Then again, I've never ridden a motorcycle or even a bike, maybe things are different.

squarefoot2• 3 years ago

From a comment on that site, it seems only some models manuals are free.

kimburgess• 3 years ago

This is great news, and somewhat unfortunate something so benign requires celebration.

I used to ride a Zero SR. It was a phenomenal bike but also completely unserviceable in Australia. I ended up reverse engineering the log protocol [1] to get a sense of how it was performing and maintain what I could myself. It was horribly painful, inefficient and completely avoidable spend of time.

Hackability for devices is one thing but when you straddle an energy source that propels you, a fragile meat sack, at speed imo it's essential to have absolute confidence in how the machine behaves.

[1] https://github.com/zero-motorcycle-community/zero-log-parser

hpeinar• 3 years ago

The more I get problems with different machinery (chainsaw, raider lawnmower, waterpump, powerwasher) I've really started thinking more and more how every piece of equipment should automatically come with a service manual included which would also have all the bits and pieces clearly stated and catalogued. I've seen some of these manuals not being a detailed as I hoped. For context, I'm in Europe.

For an example I needed new lifting chain for the raider lawnmower and it was an ordeal finding the correct chain and making it correct length without such manual. With manual I'd expect it to take 5 minutes to find the correct piece, it's size, lenght and required stress endurance level.

It's 2023, doesn't have to be physical (or could for some extra buck), but at least have one available on your website.

I'm thinking about starting to ask for it for everything I buy... Not really hoping to get it every time but still...

lockhouse2• 3 years ago

The problem is that so many things have become unrepairable by design.

bombcar3• 3 years ago

I check the website under “service/support” before I buy just to get an idea what’s out there.

ubermonkey• 3 years ago

I bought a moto last year, and looked a little at Zero and at Sondors, but ended up just getting a small-displacement conventional bike (Royal Enfield Classic 350). It was cheap, gets excellent mileage (75 MPG), and has sufficient power for urban surface-street usage (it tops out at like 65, but honestly it's happier below 50).

I strongly recommend this path, though parts availability with RE mean I probably suggest you look more at other low-displacement bikes, like the Honda Rebel, and let RE figure out its North American supply chain issues for a while.

liendolucas3• 3 years ago

I'm still wondering why there's no regulation on this, forcing manufacturers to hand-in both the user and service manuals. I own a Kawasaki motorbike and tried to get its service manual just to understand a bit more about it, and is impossible to get it at this point unless I pay Kawasaki 100€ for its printed version (a fucking ripoff). It doesn't cost them anything to release PDFs as a courtesy to its customers.

IgorPartola3• 3 years ago

I have almost always had luck with searching the web for “Kawasaki vn800 service manual pdf”. The hardest manual to get was for my Harley but for $20 I was able to buy a scanned PDF from a site that’s almost certainly illegal but delivered exactly what I needed.

liendolucas3• 3 years ago

Yeah, I think for particular models it can be easy to find them. But for others no luck at all. My guess is that maybe after few years they can be found. In particular for the z650rs I wasn't able to get any good results.

deviantbit• 3 years ago

Blows my mind they didn't provide the service manual for free. I raced KTM off-road for 30+ years, and every bike came with the service manual, complete diagrams, and product replacement part numbers. Every time I pulled out on my KTM 990 Adventure R I had the manual with me as well.

sameedahmad• 3 years ago

interesting

Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

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