My Negative AmpedBikes Review

youkogurl

1 mW
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
11
Location
California, USA
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On 8/22/2013 2:39 PM, sally wrote:

How can you so blatantly state that your company is "honest" if your telling me that your kit gets 17 to 19 mph with pedaling when website states the geared kit can get 20 to 22 mph on flat ground.

http://www.ampedbikes.com/faq.html

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On 8/22/2013 2:43 PM, Support@ampedbikes.com wrote:
Sally,
Those specs are based with a 36 Volt 12 AH and a 22 amp speed controller. That is not what you ordered. Yours is a smaller controller designed for longer range and higher performance. Not for speed and maximum current pull from the battery. Is there a need to criticize everything i say? You emailed me for answers and thats what i am trying to give you.

(Note: Their website does not state what type of controller you receive, or allow you to choose what you receive in your geared motor lithium kit.)
http://www.ampedbikes.com/description.html
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I ordered a complete mini geared motor kit (Stealthy kit) on July 15 and I regret doing so. Although their website states that the mini geared motor is able to get 20-22 mph, the truth is that the current Stealthy kit is only able to go about 15-16 mph withouth pedaling and 17-19 mph with pedaling. (They only bothered to tell me this after I asked them 5 weeks after I made my order and 2 weeks after receiving my kit.) Their motor is probably idential to E-Bike Kit's mini geared motor.

So buyers beware because AmpedBikes will change the components in their kits and they may or may not update their webpage to reflect the current truth. Evidently, they consider leaving outdated information of their ebike components as honest, so if they decide to change something and they don't tell you, it's your fault and if you aren't satisfied "you can return it with 15% restocking fee" plus the cost of return shipping.

I'm only a casual rider and there aren't any hills where I live, so if I wanted to go 15 mph without pedaling, I would've got a 250 watt motor kit for less than half the price of AmpedBike's 500w mini geared motor or I would've bought a ebike directly from a dealer. I'm female and can't lift up much weight, so a lighter 250 watt motor kit would've have been more practical for me for that mph.


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Why I didn't like AmpedBikes or their Stealty mini geared kit:

1. The mini geared motor with the lithium battery is priced at $1171 (shipping included in price), but when I went to checkout through Paypal, paypal added about another $50 for "shipping and handling".

(Therefore, if you bought your kit before July 15 2013, you might have been charged an extra $50 or so. I wonder if they ever gave anyone a refund?)

2. The lithium battery was out of stock and they told me that the kit would be shipped in 2 weeks. I had to wait 3.5 weeks for them to ship the kit.

3. They sent me the wrong kit. I received a front kit instead of a rear wheel mini geared kit.

4. Their website states that the mini geared motors should "run at 250W on flat ground at 21-22 MPH +/- depending on weight etc." (http://ampedbikes.com/gearrmotor.html).

I weigh 115 pounds and could only get a max speed of 16 mph. I emailed them about this issue and they replied, "the topout speed is 17-19MPH when fully charged and with minimal assistance." (That is not listed on their website.)

I know e-bike kit's websites states something similar about their mini gear motors, but the problem is that AmpedBikes was not honest about this and continued to mislead people.

5. Their website is outdated and does no reflect the current specs. of their ebike components. AmpedBike's website is also very disorganized and lacks information.

6. Their customer service agent insists I am at fault for being ignorant and not being able to comprehend information that is not provided on their outdated website and If I don't like their kit I'm supposed to return it for a 15% restocking fee plus shipping. (Should apologize for not being psychic?)

http://www.ampedbikes.com/faq.html
http://www.ampedbikes.com/description.html

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Whether positive or negative, if you want to post a review of Ampedbikes, please post it on their Yelp page.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/ampedbikes-com-santa-ana
 
If you're not happy with your ebike motor and battery and you feel that they are misleading you. It might be worth the 15% restocking fee and moving on instead of continuing to pursuing this. It may be the best $175 you've spent for à life lesson!

For a reliable and affordable kit, ask here and many here will tell you which kits are the best. Hint, it's listed in my signature and ends with .ca! :D
 
Lol. I'm upset and I will return the product, but there are hardly any negative reviews of AmpedBikes anywhere on the web. When I was researching which kit or ebike to get, as a newb, I seriously thought this over 2 weeks. If there were more people who actually wrote honest reviews of AmpedBikes and other businesses in a place that is easy to find and browse, both good and bad, I doubt that I would've ordered that kit.

I mostly blame myself for not canceling the order right away when the kit was backordered or when they sent me the wrong kit because I was already having doubts about my decision back then.

What disappoints me the most is that a lot of problems for both the consumer and AmpedBikes (the company) could've been avoided if they simply updated their webpage. Doing so, would've saved me and the customer representative a great deal of trouble because when I was contacting him, he seemed frustrated too. Although, he kept stating that they're company was honest. I suppose working at a company doesn't mean you'll be able to convince the owner to pay someone to update and upgrade their website.
 
Since you are not happy since you were misslead, file a greavance with PayPal.

I have the same motor from EBIKEKIT>COM, been a few years since I got it, there was no specs to misslead me. I have modded the controller with 4110 fets and modded the shunt. Top speed on 48v is around 22~24 with help. On 36v it's just as yours, slow. Even the wife doesn't want to ride it.

Get your money from paypal and look here http://em3ev.com/store/index.php?route=checkout/payment
this is a great kit a few bucks more than what you have $1,213.80 This will get you 20mph even if you were 300lbs on 36v.
Top quality motor, controller and one of the best batter.
At least take a look.
Before I forget, Paul is a straight guy to work with. Ask about that.

Dan
 
I am new to the e-bike world, but I have called maybe ten suppliers and builders in the last two weeks on my "gorilla research" bender, I have talked with some great people, including the folks at AmpedBikes. They seemed to answer all of my questions in a forthright way (but what do I really know). One thing I have learned along time ago is that is pays to be nice to people when you want their help (or really in any instance). This is for selfish reasons, it benefits you.

Goodluck in your quest for more speed, with your nominal weight, I am sure you will find a number of high power options that will have you zipping around in no time.
 
I think it's useful to post bad reviews sometimes because it shows that for some reason or another the product doesn't go well with the buyer; in this case anyone can make their judgement on who said what on a bad tone, but if the bike was advertised with one controller and sold with another, that's at least sloppy.

@Op since you have the bike you have you could try some things:
*tweak the controller to get more amps; it may not get you any faster though if you're voltage-limited
*if voltage-limited try possibly rewinding the motor; one less turn could can potentially increase the top speed by (say initially you have N turns) by n/(n-1), so if passing from 8 to 7 you'd increase the top speed by 14%
*I'm not going to say get a 48V battery as that's probably too expensive, but if you can exchange with someone
*having just over 100 pounds or 150 doesn't really matter for top speed on flats, it matters for hills and on flats for the acceleration or how long it takes to get to that speed
*...my last idea - I don't know what wheel size your bike is, say it's not 29"er; you could swap the kit to a larger diameter wheel bike and achieve higher speed

Where most see problems I see possibilities, something good has to come of this
 
youkogurl said:
Lol. I'm upset and I will return the product, but there are hardly any negative reviews of AmpedBikes anywhere on the web. When I was researching which kit or ebike to get, as a newb, I seriously thought this over 2 weeks. If there were more people who actually wrote honest reviews of AmpedBikes and other businesses in a place that is easy to find and browse, both good and bad, I doubt that I would've ordered that kit.

I mostly blame myself for not canceling the order right away when the kit was backordered or when they sent me the wrong kit because I was already having doubts about my decision back then.

What disappoints me the most is that a lot of problems for both the consumer and AmpedBikes (the company) could've been avoided if they simply updated their webpage. Doing so, would've saved me and the customer representative a great deal of trouble because when I was contacting him, he seemed frustrated too. Although, he kept stating that they're company was honest. I suppose working at a company doesn't mean you'll be able to convince the owner to pay someone to update and upgrade their website.

Don't blame yourself. This is a pretty fledgling thing and there are few true "pros" in the retail side. Essentially all the hardware is made overseas to less than ideal standards in many cases and there are no standards for most things (like connectors, how to rate a motor, etc.). It is still a seat of the pants thing. Even the true pros (among which I would count ebikes.ca) make mistakes (although they really bend over backward to try to made good). In a wild-west situation like this, you have to resign yourself to a little pain and lack of customer satisfaction. Most of the people are still trying to make a go of it out of their garage. Many are selling hardware about which they are unfamiliar and who have never seen the inside of the factory that is making their merchandise. Then there are those that are truly concerned with satisfying 100% of the customers who go out of business because this is impossible. It is still sorting itself out. The difference between now and, say, 20 years ago, is that any fool can set up a website and pass themselves off as an expert. Amped is probably in the top 50% of retailers, but it is small space, so that isn't saying much. It was mis-information to report a speed for a kit that, as received, you can't get. So that is their "bad". Late delivery is their "bad" also, but not unexpected since the supplier is 1000s of miles away in the wildwest of Asian manufacturing. The guy doing the webpage may be 19 years old and never had another paying job in his life. Still their mistake, but the retail side of this is still settling. It remains to be seen if this will ever grow beyond a curiosity.

Most people here have burned (in some cases, literally) $100s or $1000s in equipment fiddling around. You are right that your experience was not your fault, but I think you are going to have to move on or you will drive yourself nuts. Get some help here, maybe get a second hand controller (perhaps you will be lucky and the Halls leads may actually match up!) although the controller is probably not the issue but the battery voltage since it is speed on the flat that is the problem. The fact that they are pointing to a controller issue instead of battery voltage for speed is a little concerning. A 20 amp controller should be fine but the motor is topping out at 36v so the problem is the battery, not the controller. Find an ES-er in your area with a 48v battery and test that out (but make sure your controller is 48v compatible). That will get you the speed you want. Assuming your controller is rated to 48v, 20 amps is easily enough current at 48v to do what you want.
 
About the top speed....

Tires at 40 psi ?.. brakes not dragging ?

And i'm not sure if they still have the same controller as a few years back but there is a small one wire loop that limits power, not sure if it needs to be connected, or disconnected for full power.. but figured i'd mention it... fyi.
 
Thanks for the recommendations and comments. I'm upset with AmpedBikes, so the faster I get rid of their kit, the better. Fortunately, I live in California and just a couple hours away, so returning the kit shouldn't be a problem.

The funny thing is I'm starting to think that AmpedBikes' motors and controllers is most likely similar to E-BikeKit's.... They never stated on their website what kind of controller was sent with the mini geared kit, so, like E-BikeKit's mini geared controller, AmpedBikes new controller may also be limited to only 36v. AmpedBikes' website states that all their kits are compatible with 48v battery, but if they changed the controller, that probably isn't true anymore.

DAND214 said:
Since you are not happy since you were misslead, file a greavance with PayPal.

I have the same motor from EBIKEKIT>COM, been a few years since I got it, there was no specs to misslead me. I have modded the controller with 4110 fets and modded the shunt. Top speed on 48v is around 22~24 with help. On 36v it's just as yours, slow. Even the wife doesn't want to ride it.

Get your money from paypal and look here http://em3ev.com/store/index.php?route=checkout/payment
this is a great kit a few bucks more than what you have $1,213.80 This will get you 20mph even if you were 300lbs on 36v.
Top quality motor, controller and one of the best batter.
At least take a look.
Before I forget, Paul is a straight guy to work with. Ask about that.

Dan

Thanks for reminding me to contact PayPal. As for em3ev, I honestly wish I had bought a customized kit with them instead of dealing with AmpedBikes. It probably would've been easier on my budget to get a motor and controller through em3v.
 
I have purchased from both em3ev (Paul aka cell_man) and from ampedbikes. Both this year. Their kits are very different...

Ampedbikes kit (bottle battery, geared motor) was dead simple to install, their connectors were plug and play, and the whole kit was well packaged and built. It did take longer to arrive than I expected but I was told up front they were waiting on a shipment which would be sometime in June. Turns out late June. I can hit about 19 mph on the flats without pedaling on an old steel framed huffy 26" bike from the mid-80s. Acceleration is slow but steady. It slows quickly on hills. i dont think i can hit 10 mph up a small grade. The setup will work with 48 volts but I'm told that will void warranty. It feels like it needs 48v. Does anything at 36v truly roll? We use the bike at our beach place for trips into town and an occasional 15 - 20 mile trip (my wife rides it), which it does with pedaling. Not certain of max range. The whole setup is a pretty light addition to the bike and looks reasonably stealthy and put together, IMHO.

Paul's kit is high performance, in comparison. I bought a larger, more powerful battery and a more powerful motor. It costs more. Also paired it up with ebike.ca cycle analyst v3 (which is great if you're a data junkie). This is a total enthusiast setup that will deliver 60 miles plus at 22 mph and has a top speed exceeding 35 mph (with reduced range, of course). It eats hills. It was easy to setup and install. It is much heavier as the bigger battery (18.5 AH at 48v in the triangle) and larger motor (500w geared) come in around 25 lbs vs 14 lbs for ampedbikes. But the bike (a trek 8.4 ds hybrid) handles great as all the weight is down low. It's just heavy to lift.

Ampedbikes answers the phone when you call, with Paul, you send an email and wait a couple of days. I found both answered my questions and provided helpful guidance. Just one shop is in LA and the other china.

I think a 48v battery would give you the speed you want, particularly at your weight, on the ampedbikes setup. But it will be more complicated to setup. Also, I believe that you have the bottle battery and to go to 48v, you'll have to buy a triangle battery or something to go on the rear rack. So one thought is to return the battery, which I think is about $725. Your restocking fee would be less Nd you old buy a ping battery or something from paul recommended) for about the same amount or less.

Finally, if its not clear, my bike from em3ev is definitely my goto bike...

Good luck.
 
I'm certain you could tease some more speed from that kit. 48v for example, or a shunt modification, or disconnect a limiter.

But it wouldn't make a front kit into a rear kit.

If you think you got lied to, you should have been around 5 years ago, and bought a kit from Wilderness Energy. :wink:
 
Lol. I probably could upgrade the battery and modify/ upgrade the kit, but part of the reason I picked AmpedBikes was for the 6 months warranty and doing any of those things voids the warranty. It would've have been better if I just did more research and picked a company that would let me customize 500w MAC kit for less.

This experience was a good life lesson, but I'm still a little confused about AmpedBikes. The customer representative told me the complete kit would add about 15 pounds to my bike, but if that was true why would the shipping weight of the entire kit weigh about 27 pounds? The kit was shipped in two packages. One for the battery and one for the everything else. The shipping weight for everything except the battery was 18 pounds.
 
Shipping weight includes the box, packaging, etc. in addition to the spokes and rim. Your bike already has a wheel (hub, spoke and rim) which you're replacing.

I think the extra weight is about 14-15 lbs total but I haven't measured it.

The em3ev kit is heavier but significantly more powerful and robust. What style bike do you have? Step-through, Mixte or triangle?
 
I just looked at the em3ev site and came up with a couple of different configurations for about $1,000 with shipping. Either using the smaller triangle battery and a 350w motor or a rack mountable rear battery. Both were 48v and with the 350w motor, would top out around 23 - 25 mph.

If you went with the 500w motor, it would add .5 kg of weight and around $50, I think. But it would go over 30 mph. (My quote was shipping to the east coast, not certain how much more to ship out west...)

You could return the first kit and buy another from Paul for almost a net zero transaction cost.

Good luck.
 
majornelson said:
Shipping weight includes the box, packaging, etc. in addition to the spokes and rim. Your bike already has a wheel (hub, spoke and rim) which you're replacing.

I think the extra weight is about 14-15 lbs total but I haven't measured it.

The em3ev kit is heavier but significantly more powerful and robust. What style bike do you have? Step-through, Mixte or triangle?

Thanks for answering my question and your recommendations. I was just looking at EM3ev's 350w motor and 500w motors. The total cost of shipping for a kit and a battery was around $160. I was just thinking about getting a used steel bike that would weight less than 30 pounds, so I'm still shopping around for a lighter bike.
 
We have purchased from Amped Bikes in the past and they have been nothing but professional and their kits are very good quality in my opinion.
 
Best bang for the buck if you live in the US. Info: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=49638
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rear-Wheel-Electric-Bicycle-Conversion-Kit-24V-36V-48V-250W-500W-700W-800W-1000W-/290754592384
 
YOUKOGURL
I am sorry about your experience with ampedbikes. I put three of their kits into service over the last 3 years and found their products to be accurately advertised. The oldest one is still going strong and tows a trailer to the grocery store all year round.

Also, Dave always returned my calls, offering solutions and answers to my pleas for help. In my opinion, amped kits are well designed and do have a drop-in fit. Any confusion turned out to be my misconception and easily corrected. I believe that amped is truly getting the word out on EV bikes and whetting the people's appetites for serviceable alternative to internal combustion smog machines.

With that being said, no one-size kit fits all transporation needs but the realm of expertise on this forum is bound to offer a solution to your particular set of parameters. That's what makes it fun(?)
 
Holy shiet, for $1000 I would have brought a cro-motor.
 
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