Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free • Hacker News Board

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#111

Post by goku12 » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 5:42 AM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #97

goku12 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

> Service manuals being free was the norm?

Yes. I had a manual for a scooter (which was more similar to a motorbike than to a skateboard) complete with 3D exploded-views of every part.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#112

Post by midasuni » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:08 AM UTC

zer8k wrote: post #100

koolba wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool). My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It…

> 6-8 hours worth of work is insane. I can do it in a few hours

So what is “a few hours”?

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#113

Post by randunel » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:17 AM UTC

turdprincess wrote: post #99

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.

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.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#114

Post by vladvasiliu » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:19 AM UTC

turdprincess wrote: post #99

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.

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?

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#115

Post by scrappyjoe » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:28 AM UTC

turdprincess wrote: post #99

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.

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.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#116

Post by cowthulhu » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:29 AM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #114

turdprincess wrote: post #99

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.

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?

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.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#117

Post by vladvasiliu » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

dharmab wrote: post #106

zer8k wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool). My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It…

> Reshimming the engine (once every 15k miles or so) costs a minimum of $1200 going up to $2000 if the engine needs significant adjustment. Wow, your dealer is really raking their customers. Mine charges about $200 to check valves on a parallel twin.

I think it may depend on brands and models. When I take my specific Honda in for the scheduled maintenance, the dealer seems to apply a standard, Honda-dictated price, which is the same at all the dealerships I've visited. This usually includes the labor and replacement for the parts which the manual says need replacing on a schedule, except for fluids. If I need tires, brake pads, that's separate.

I know this is a fixed price because last time I took it in, it was a "bigger" service, where they had to check valve clearances. But apparently something went wrong when they tried to take apart something (I forget the details) so they had to work much longer than expected on it. In the end, I didn't have to pay more than I had expected, taking it in.

Now, all this isn't to say it's cheap. I was horrified with the prices: it often costs more than my Mercedes' service at a Mercedes dealership.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#118

Post by zer8k » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

midasuni wrote: post #112

zer8k wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool). My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It…

> 6-8 hours worth of work is insane. I can do it in a few hours So what is “a few hours”?

Less than 3. Job's simple when you don't charge by a book. I am not even particularly adept at it. Just familiar. Someone with thousands of bikes under their belt could probably reshim an engine in an hour.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#119

Post by zer8k » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:33 AM UTC

LispSporks22 wrote: post #109

zer8k wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool). My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It…

Jesus that is brutal. A dealer tool for bleeding abs? I’m holding onto my KLR forever apparently.

Yep, you can bleed it physically but the system will refuse to re-activate the ABS until you trigger something in the ROM. Absolutely insane. You can't get even order the tool directly from Triumph to do it because you need to be some kind of verified auto mechanic for them.

Even the oil change was a pain. I had to quite literally crush the dealer oil filter and break it off in pieces with a pipe wrench because it was shaped in such a way you needed a special tool to get a grip on it. I called the dealer, the tool was $180 and would take 3 weeks to ship. It only worked with Triumph brand oil filters (probably white labeled semi-custom K&N's) and they wanted $60 for a filter (vs. $14 for a K&N at the local bike parts store).

Even my best universal clamps + duct tape + sandpaper couldn't hold a grip on the stupid filter. Several trips to the local auto parts store trading wrenches back and forth until I said fuck it and went to Home Depot. Lucky for me a K&N oil filter fit exactly (dummies still used a standard thread for the oil filter port)...otherwise that would've been somewhat hard to explain. Even the crush washer for the drain plug was 10x as expensive... ended up taking the old one to Ace and finding a replacement for 10 cents. The only thing that was about equal in price was the recommended oil which I was able to score on sale at Walmart but otherwise would've been a wash.

As you can tell I can not stop complaining about this stupid thing. Do yourself a favor and avoid Euro motorcycles.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#120

Post by hgomersall » Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 6:42 AM UTC

cowthulhu wrote: post #116

vladvasiliu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

Do you have specific knowledge on this?

I'd be surprised if it was literally dead weight. It's much easier to design a software control system that uses a common set of cells and caps the full charge than one that switches different cell blocks in depending on what's enabled.