bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

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cyclepete
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bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

On my other bikes, I normally clean and repack the hubs twice a year, even if they have so-called sealed bearings. I've learned the hard way that year-round daily bicycling through stuff like salted road slush is hard on the grease.

So now I'm wondering about servicing the hub on my Bionx wheel. Is the procedure any different than on a regular hub? Are the bearings a non-standard size in case I need to replace them? I can't seem to find any info on this at the various Bionx sites.

Anybody done this yet?

cyclepete
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Last seen: 12 years 2 months ago
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Re: bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

Nycewheel replied to me on this:
"I have some hardcore commuters - even in snowy areas but nobody every
complained about shot bearings. Those are not servicable, if they do
fail they need to be replaced by the manufcturer"

I find it hard to believe that this hub will last more than 3 years without repacking the bearings.
But I guess that is the official answer.

Bbbashful
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Joined: Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 07:45
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Re: bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

I was wondering about this topic and after more than a year there is still no information? I feel that even sealed bearings have a limited life, especially if subjected to winter conditions with dissolved road salt and water getting into the hub. I would hope the dealers could replace bearings and not require the motor to be shipped back to the manufacturer for this. Or worse yet, that the motor is a throw-away and has to be scrapped due to the failure of a couple of $10.00 bearings.

Bbbashful
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Re: bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

Thanks for this topic Cyclepete.

I admit that I'm basically lazy and my MTB is an old beater that I got for free. I don't repack my bearings. Instead, I use an airgun with a syphon hose to blast a mix of air, varsol and oil onto my chain, gear clusters, etc for a quick lube and cleaning. I know it's not as good a job, but it keeps a lot of the rust and dirt to a minimum with little time and effort.

trekbird
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Joined: Monday, December 10, 2012 - 12:04
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Re: bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

The bionx rear hub started squeeking after 4 years and 16000 km of use. Dealer told me they couldn't change bearings and had to send it to Trek. Trek told me subsequently the bearings cannot be replaced and the motor had to be scrapped and replaced. They gave 50% discount consumer price on a new motor. Maintenance on the bike costs me more than car maintenance so far! Bionx? Never again!

rstrub
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Re: bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

My bionx hub started making noise after 4.5 years @ 30,000 miles. I figured it was unservicable and so I dripped oil into it over the weekend. This worked quite nicely for about 1000 miles. So I did it again. This time the noise went away but so did the pedalec. The throttle still works fine. I guess I'm due for a new wheel soon. I almost got a new one right away but after a few days I found I almost liked it better. It is now more like an electric bike than just going fast. The pedalec is almost too subtle.

Briggs31
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Joined: Thursday, April 16, 2015 - 22:20
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Re: bionx motor wheel hub maintenance?

Nice information shared.

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