2013 Ice Bear Zodiac 300 trike By telcotech (Read 7,887 times)

[rapidjim]

Update,

As promised I did talk with my Rep at Ice Bear late yesterday. They have been extremely busy and had some personal changes which also slowed the communication ball down.

Anyways, this is the first 300 motor/tranny combo they have gotten back with this kind of problem, so as I thought in the beginning, it isn't a reocurring problem. She did not have the details for me on what was done.

Jim

[cyborg]

Major problem very unfortunate,,and one of the reasons i was happy that the ssr sonic i ordered fell thru,,and minutes after found a super low mile et4 ,,,BUT i have had and currently own so called high dollar machines and they have their share of problems and build quality?material quality issues,,i'm just happy for you that one ,you have the chops to take on this "rebuild" and two the company stood up and is doing the work to correct the problem, and after it's all said and done you'll get many trouble free miles,,and i may be out of line because i've not been here long but gee wiz luke it is getting old,,,

[cyborg]

Back again, as far as one machine being greater or better or anything else, it's all up to the setup and service, if you take care of and maintain your stuff it'll last unless there is a radical materials problem like crankcases crumbling or rods bearings failing and from what I see in manufacturing it won't be long before china is cranking out stellar machines,, you couldn't give me a Korean Hyundai ten years ago and before Christmas I saw one next to a s class Mercedes at my friends detail shop side by side the Hyundai wins hands down and for a little more than half the dough,,, fit finish attention to detail leather quality everything,,, and when I did a zippers performance superhammer build on my sportster I almost didn't do it because the cases were of such poor material quality,,,,I've built dozens of machines of different makes and all of them and I mean all have issues somewhere in the build ,, that's one of the reasons I buy low mile used because I know I'm going to tear it apart anyways new or used ,,, what can I say I'm a freak

[LUKE]

Jan 9, 2014 11:22:40 GMT -6 cyborg said:

Back again, as far as one machine being greater or better or anything else, it's all up to the setup and service, if you take care of and maintain your stuff it'll last unless there is a radical materials problem like crankcases crumbling or rods bearings failing and from what I see in manufacturing it won't be long before china is cranking out stellar machines,, you couldn't give me a Korean Hyundai ten years ago and before Christmas I saw one next to a s class Mercedes at my friends detail shop side by side the Hyundai wins hands down and for a little more than half the dough,,, fit finish attention to detail leather quality everything,,, and when I did a zippers performance superhammer build on my sportster I almost didn't do it because the cases were of such poor material quality,,,,I've built dozens of machines of different makes and all of them and I mean all have issues somewhere in the build ,, that's one of the reasons I buy low mile used because I know I'm going to tear it apart anyways new or used ,,, what can I say I'm a freak

ahhh finally, i found the key word------> "POOR MATERIAL"







aka chinese!

[kz1000st]

performance superhammer build on my Sportster I almost didn't do it because the cases were of such poor material quality,

Yes, on a Harley. That's not an unknown. Harleys are built terribly these days. I nominate Luke to go to the Harley forums, Sturgis and all the Biker Bars in Arizona and enlighten those poor, misguided souls. Tell them to sell their poorly built Harleys and buy Japanese quality V-Twins, Luke. We'll cheer you on,......in print.....from many miles away. Maybe even take them outside and show them your Morph. But a heads up. Buy Fire Insurance.

[kz1000st]

Or tell them to read this.

www.motorcycle-usa.com/Forums/1190/1/Thread/An-end-to-political-correctness.aspx

ok for the last couple of years, I have been more receptive to arguments for Harley Davidson. I have accepted that they produce more models than all other brands combined so it follows that there could be more harley's with problems. But after this past Saturday, I am just going to call it like it is.

There were 3 very large rides Saturday lead by 3 different groups going to the same location (Yeah that was good coordination), but anyway within those 3 rides, FIVE harleys could not make it and had to be picked up. All 5 harleys that stopped where newer models (2011 and up). I am certain that two of the harleys were dealer maintained since purchase, so the excuse that the bikes were not well maintained falls on its face. One of the harleys had a major engine failure (engine may be completely done).

That night it was a large party going on and I ran into a friend who I have known for several years. He just bought his first harley, a 2012 ultra glide brand new from a dealer. while talking a road glide came down the street and I was telling him that the road glide is probably my favorite model that harley makes. He was like yeah I liked it too, the dealer gave me one as a loaner while mine was in the shop.........wait a minute rewind? I was like why was your harley in the shop. Oh I had a starter issue and some engine trouble. I was like ok, on a 2012 you had a starter issue and engine problems.

I am sorry, but facts is facts. this is too many problems from the newer reliable harleys I have been hearing about. I am not trying to bash harley's seriously, but this is just too much to not say anything about.

[cyborg]

I used to joke to my friends that had harleys that they were the most expensive "kit bike" you could buy (i had one at the time so i could say it without getting my arse kicked),,i said used to till they didn't think it was funny anymore,,,truth is like i said before barring any serious materials problems chinese japanese italian,,,ect will last and perform nicely with reasonable care and are maintained correctly,,after all the chinese scoots are copies of a very successfull honda design (brilliant actually),,and so is the vespa 4 speed engine trans combo,,,it shows in the mpg numbers,,,100mpg+ (140 by genuine for the stella altho i think they're drinkin the koolaide on that one),,super efficient and tough,,as the 4 poor misguided slobs that ran the dakar in 1980 showed ,,it all boils down to QC,,,i've been cruising the boards and some people have serious mileage numbers from the chinese makes,,not that they have no problems,,i was in the market for a scooter and i didn't want to plop down 5 large for an italian one and most used ones are 3gs+. I didn't know if i would like scootering being a long time motorcycle rider,the deal i got was pure luck,,,and i'm sure i'll have problems (not too many i pray) now with that said i have had the best overall luck and reliability with great performance (at a fair price) with the japanese brands,,i had great performance with bmw too but at over double the cost ,crazy expensive parts,,,and even then had fuel tank coupling leaks that was a recall ,cdi failures ,fuel injection glitches,crappy shocks all for north of $18,000,,,the dual sport dr350 i'm riding now ,got used,riding the hell out of it and it runs and runs for under 2 grand all in,,,i was going to go chinese cause i figured low buy in and even if i had to put a grand in parts in it i still would have been under 2 grand,,i even researched built cammed hotrod gy6 engines,,,still well under a grand for a hand built engine( thats nutty)

[malevelina]

Luke...the reason Larry posted the same problem as me is because I told him to get the info for himself from the guys here; I was tired of being the go between. LOL

[malevelina]

Jan 7, 2014 10:02:55 GMT -6 rapidjim said:

Jan 7, 2014 9:30:41 GMT -6 malevelina said:

No Luke...Telco and Malevelina are two different people who live together and are talking about the same trike...

Glad you cleared this up for Luke. I thought the same as KZ when I first read it, same trike.

In keeping with my News Year Resolution I will refrain from saying any more about Luke.

I am hoping this is an isolated case, to be sure I have sent an email off to Ice Bear and will be talking to my rep ( the wife of the owner ) later today to follow up. I have sold 3 Zodiacs, all were PDIed and Assembled by Ice Bear and dropped shipped ( Dave being one of them ) and none of my customers have had this issue. To be fair, there can be issues with anything mechanical, heck you ought to see all he work I had to put into my 1950 HD Panhead! And yes I did buy it unassembled in boxes. LOL! Also one other thing to others reading this, the Chinese scooters are the only scooter you can buy in a crate and shipped to your door unassembled and un PDIed.

More as I get more information.


Jim

Thank you Jim, Alley, and everyone else, for all your help. ;-)

[rapidjim]

You are very welcome


Jim

[cyborg]

Hey even (gasp) honda had catastrophic engine failure ( bad cranks) In the 500 interceptor when it came out, complete engine replacement was the warranty fix,,, I'm just happy the company was stand up and is either repairing or replacing the trans,,, some unscrupulous companies would have told you to pound sand

[rapidjim]

Jan 13, 2014 14:08:58 GMT -6 cyborg said:

Hey even (gasp) honda had catastrophic engine failure ( bad cranks) In the 500 interceptor when it came out, complete engine replacement was the warranty fix,,, I'm just happy the company was stand up and is either repairing or replacing the trans,,, some unscrupulous companies would have told you to pound sand

My experience with Ice Bear has proven they are a stand up company and do what they are supposed to. To bad that some of their dealers don't. If a Dealer goes to them with an issue it is worked out, the problem comes in when the dealer don't act and the consumer makes bad comments about Ice Bear directly and not the dealer that didn't do their job. Hard to fix an issue if you don't know about it.

[davec]

My Zodiac has been sitting in the geerage with a battery tender for a couple months now.
Was a nice today and decided to clean out the garage.
Had to move the scoot, hit the starter and started right up before the first revolution was done revolving.
Can't wait for spring.
Gonna put a lot more miles on it this year.

[malevelina]

We got the tranny/engine back yesterday and Larry has started putting my beautiful trike back together. Again, I was to thank everyone who helped up with the little problems and the big ones too. LOL. We'll probably be asking more questions at he continues to get her running for me.

[rapidjim]

Great news. Did they say what was wrong with it?