Quote below from the Hesketh site. Deep sigh of relief from the UK V owners. Note though that the AA cover is now void.
'Hesketh Motor Company Ltd (HMC) is pleased to inform all owners of Vectrix bikes purchased before the 1st October 2009 that their bikes will continue to be covered by the ‘Manufacturers 2 Year Warranty’ calculated from the date of first registration.
All bike owners should now register with HMC by providing the following information and sending it to support [at] heskethmotorcompany.com.
• Full name and address of current registered owner
• Number of previous owners
• Bike registration number
• Bike VIN number
• Date first registered
• Name and address of supplier i.e. dealer'
That's excellent news, and bravo for Hesketh for taking responsibility for Vectrix UK's past commitments. A good addition to Gold Peak's announcement that they will support bikes that have been sold in the EU. However, there still seems to be no news at all regarding that little part of the world called North America!
Hmmm...or that larger part of the world called New Zealand and it's offshore island Australia!
Hopefully it's Gold Peak that are doing the honoring and it will be rolled out across the rest of the territories. We in the UK do seem to be getting the better end of the deal, both with the climate not destroying the batteries and warranty work we've had done, due in no small part to the past efforts of V UK. I sincerely hope that all the early adopters and Vectrix 'Beta' testers are taken care of. The feedback should prove invaluable to Gold Peak for future releases - hopefully they are monitoring these forums as well as Hesketh.
You are touching a key point of vectrix future .
This bord is the international place where all vectrix users come to report their problems,
The first 3000 vectrix purchasers are the show-windows of this Vehicle .
All the future users are likely to google "vectrix issues" and to be directed here .
If the new vectrix owners are intelligent and I think they are, they will do their best to fix the old vectrixs and to redisgn the weak parts of this bike .
Doing so confidence will be back and they will sale more and more bikes .
The fact that the battery manufacturer has bougth this company is the main source of confidence,
If they do their job we all will be able to say among of us, "you can buy the bike and be happy with it" where at the time we must say, "the pack can burn and it is not sure that you can get an other and free one , and it even not sure that you will be able to get one even paying 5000 euros for it" (this the price I was given by my dealer when I have asked) .
Transparent Communication is the key point of their future success,
like in the car market future users must be able to have datas as for the reliability of the bike.
As I said many times, here we only can read terrible things about vectrix, just because only people having problems make posts .
one only hear about trains that are not on time on the radio, but nobody speaks about trains that are on time .
mabye is it the same as for vectrixs.
we have the impression that they all fail, that no vectrix has ever been able to do more then 30.000 km .
mabye is it only an impression and mabye are there vectrix that work well, mabye are there vectrix that have reached the 80.000 announced kilometers ?
so dear gold peak executives, please be transparent if ou read this board , reasure us, don't only think in short term, think in long term we are your show-window, we spent a lot of money buying this bike , ok we know that we are only beta testers in fact , but usualy beta testers don't pay full price for what they are testing ..we have paid.
Vectrix has tried to enhance it's sales using massive advertising, increasing their distribution network, but it did not work, you will only be able to take off if the existing user report they are happy and at the moment they are rather anguished then happy, even the one that have working vectrix are just ridding it thinking that they will definitly have to face the premature death of their vectrix
regards
jean mi
vectrixhoper
Not wanting to disagree as a quick scan of the vast majority of the messages on this forum bear, I have to say that my experience (so far anyway) has been extremely positive. I have had my bike since August 08 and have had no major issues apart from a temperature sensor issue very early on. I am at 5,300 miles with a range of between 38 - 45 miles per charge. I charge every other day after about 30 miles and then every other week or so I run down to the red. I just plug in and walk away, only occasionally checking the temperature during charging. As time goes on I'm worrying less and less - especially now that Steve Scott (ex V UK) is still going to be able to officially look after my bike through his new company and the Gold Peak news. Whilst I certainly wouldn't reccommend buying a Vectrix to anybody - YET, I have enjoyed every mile on mine so far - hopefully I haven't jinxed myself by saying so and will have many more. I hope that in the near future there will be more posts like this on this forum if Gold Peak are as good as their word and sort the existing owners issues out.
Good luck with yours
Scott P
Hi Scoot and all,
to be honest not having had any issues after 5300 miles is a good news for the community but is is really the minimu requirement for a 9000 euros vehicle.
It is true that copared to the guy who burn theirs packs before this millage it a good thing for you nevertheless like me you must be really anguished of the future of your vectrix .
The evidence that like me you are anxious is that you state that you would not reccomend the vectrix to anybody .
as for me I have done 15.000 km in7 months so I am really going to be in trouble before you if something happened to my pack and as I will rapidly have exceeded warranty millage I will soon be without any parachute ...
on the other hand here is a quote of a message you can find on the british vectrix yahoo forum which is encourraging :
"My overall mileage in 17 months is 15,600 miles (25,105 km), I typically do 1,000 miles (1,609 km) each month just commuting to and from work. It has been like that with the Vectrix since new"
25.000 km is an interesting millage , so far I had only read one posts on this board from a guy I forgot the name who was saying he had done 30.000 km but on 2 batt packs
as an extensive user I will keep everybody aware of my millage so that this along with good news from the new owners can mabye make us reccomend the vec to our friends .
regards
jean mi
vectrixhoper
I totally agree with you - it does seem a bit off to be celebrating 5,300 miles! I have a saying - '3 years, no tears' but was hoping for at least 5 years or 25,000 miles when I bought. Doing my sums I worked out that with the savings on fuel combined with the depreciation of the car I would have bought if I didn't buy the Vectrix, it would have paid for itself over that period. I'm still hoping.....
My reasons for not recommending it are:
1. Still a degree of uncertainty.
2. If you buy now will it be an old bike with a dodgy pack...?
3. Support - whilst mine has been excellent there are many, many others who have suffered. If you're more than the range of the Vectrix away from a dealer you will struggle.
4. Lithium option on the way - who wants battery tech that's just about to be updated - unless it is at a steep discount.
Here's hoping that we can post some positive reports about long mileage, huge savings and (biggest wishes here) reliability and support from Gold Peak and the dealers.
Keep on riding!
Scoot (I like the spelling, very apt so I'm going to adopt it from now on)
I think one of the key factors for the exisiting users, and a big helper in gettting new users, will be to see if they do offer a discounted battery upgrade. Either by taking the old pack in part-ex, then reworking it and reconditioning it for warranty / resale for other users. Or just doing it at cost for existing users..
ABSOLUTLY TRUE
vectrixhoper