Safety Notice regarding your RadWagon 4. Do not ride until further notice.

[RadMig]

Safety Notice regarding your RadWagon 4. Do not ride until further notice.ride Rad. We are so glad that you purchased a RadWagon 4 ebike from us to integrate into your daily life. We?re sorry to interrupt your ride, but we have an important update about your ebike:

Some RadWagon 4?s are not performing to our quality and reliability standards. Our Quality Assurance Team is investigating a potential assembly issue where the rim strip may be misaligned (see figure 1 below). Tubes may pop, sometimes resulting in damage to the tire. If the tube puncture occurs while the ebike is being ridden, it could cause the rider to lose control and fall. For your safety, please do not ride your RadWagon 4 ebike until we confirm the issue and solution.

Our investigation indicates that if your RadWagon 4 has this issue, it likely will occur in the first 60 days of riding the bike. In an abundance of caution, we are notifying any customer who has purchased a RadWagon 4 after June 1, 2022.

Within the next 2 weeks, we will provide a solution and then work with you to coordinate complimentary service with an ebike mechanic to have it resolved. Since we are still investigating the root cause, please do not try to fix this on your own. We understand that you may rely on your ebike for transportation and we are sorry for this inconvenience. Your safety is our top priority and we are committed to getting you riding Rad again as soon as possible.

While we do not have any further information to share at this time, our teams are here to support you. If you have any questions about this email please visit our FAQ page, or contact Rad Customer Service at RadFix@radpowerbikes.com or 1-844-406-2703.

Thanks for your understanding and for being a loyal Rad customer and ebike advocate.

[JimInPT]

Well, that stinks.  Hope nobody took their "Replace Your Car with an e-Bike!" ads seriously and sold the car.

[santacruzpaul]

And I think it is going to get worse than better with Rad products in the near future, I am a huge fan of my Radrover 5 bought 16 months ago, BUT, Since Covid really took hold, Things have not been the same with Rad Products. Sad to say.
  By the way, I still have a glitch with my Radrover 5, The team couldn't come up with a solution to fix in the warranty period, So I am living with it, Not a huge glitch, But A Pain in the A** at times.

[RadMig]

an update from last night. I called rad customer service twice and learned that there will be a return option available supposed compensation and a list of local bike mechanics that will repair this safety concern at this time they do not know if it is the front the back rim or both. If you have to return your radwagon try to keep the box and rad is supposedly accepting returns on Radwagon 4 purchased after June 1st 2022. When I ask the customer service rep why they didn't repair the safety concern already since June 1st she had no intelligent answer. I'll post again here after they reach out to us within 2 weeks any thoughts?

[JimInPT]

I'll post again here after they reach out to us within 2 weeks any thoughts?

Sure, but not helpful ones.      I think Rad had to scramble over the last couple of years, attempting to fix supply-chain problems for current models, current customers and the new bikes that were in final stages of development.  Given the number of brand-swaps seen in shifters, brakes and other components I think they may have picked some alternate suppliers (to save money perhaps, or just to get something at all to finish builds) without a firm grip on quality-control.

This acknowledged issue with the RW, plus apparent controller failures, inept battery-killing designs in the new bikes and all the reports of decaying customer-support horror stories are probably driving them nuts at the moment, possibly compounded by pressure from the new big-money investors who'd prefer they both remain profitable and in existence.  Having worked for, managed and owned companies over the years, I can sympathize with the pressures of the times and would just hate to have to hire and manage employees in the current economic and social environments.

I still love my hotrodded MiniST2, so happy to have chosen it when I had the opportunity, have memories of stellar-and-beyond CSRs and am just sad to see a rocketship company seemingly losing steam.  And then there's the inexcusable Contract5 model and pricing.......

That being said, I hope Rad makes it and returns to previous glory, but not anticipating that anytime soon.

[RadMig]

 Thank you for that in-depth analysis on the State of affairs with the company. I can tell you that as a customer service representative for gigantic online retailer I am well equipped to judge customer service calls and those responses for concerns with the company. This is why I commented on the lack of intelligent response of the customer service of this company but apparently this safety notice just hit yesterday and is being prorated back to June 1st that's more than 60 days ago so if People's tires were blowing for the last 2 months there would be numerous reports on this forum YouTube videos crying out for exploding tires and such. This could be a company knee jerk reaction to the lawsuit they recently encountered and maybe there was one or two reports of the strip on the inside of the rim causing a blowout. When I assemble my rw4 the back tube was pinched when I first inflated the tire but then I deflated it and then re-inflated it and the pinch went away. I would say I put 15 or 20 miles on the Rw4 since it was delivered here at the beginning of August and I don't find any problems with it per se but I'm definitely confused with their response they don't want you to ride the bike for at least 2 weeks but they can't tell you what they're going to do about it. I do plan on seeing this through however because I really enjoy this bike and there are a lot of certified bike mechanics here in the Tampa Bay region so it shouldn't be a problem once they figure out what they're going to do. I'm almost inclined to bring it up to David's cycle and have them do a maintenance check tune up which I was going to do anyway and ask them to inspect the inner rim to see if the strip protecting the spokes has been compromised. But now that I got this safety email I'll probably just wait because it sounds like they're going to pay for certified bike mechanics to make this whole.

[RadMig]

Thank goodness I opted for a firm payment program just in case I have to send it back I don't have a lot invested in it one or two payments of $50 I'll get back but the customer service rep also noted that a return refund would not be processed until they received the returned bike back in Seattle. Knowing what I know about customer service this could turn into a real nightmare and as a general rule I like the bike and a shop for a year before pulling the trigger on this one but my plan is to see it through and keep the bike I don't think there's a problem with mine

[JimInPT]

This is just a guess, but Rad's a plenty big-enough company that I expect if this is a potentially-real problem, it's probably being ping-ponged back and forth among engineering, procurement, finance, logistics and legal departments, so they probably have ideas about what to do, but not a decision yet.  Not a headache I'd like to have, certainly.

Glad you're not having any problems; waiting to hear from them is the only realistic thing you can do.

Forums like this are sort of self-selecting, in that a large percentage of members probably sign up to ask about problems and rarely to say "everything's fine", but as an owner-observer I'm getting a bit concerned for their sake about all the seeming problems with defective controllers.  The frequency of those reports here has been growing, I think, but maybe it's just growing along with their sales volume - only Rad knows if the reported failure rate is within expected range.

[RadMig]

Thanks Jim in Portland!

[timok]

FWIW, the issue mentioned in the Safety Notice (a misaligned rim strip) caused my front tube to be punctured two weeks ago (one week after delivery) apparently by one of the spoke screw heads (see photos). Luckily, it only slowly flattened the tube.

I sent the following support ticket to RPB on August 19:
"Hi,
after 4 days of riding the new Radwagon 4 the front wheel flattened, which prevented me from getting home from work. I had to take a Lyft for $25.
Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the tube was punctured "internally" by the rim itself. Specifically, the liner that apparently is supposed to cover the spoke screw holes was not properly centered, thus exposing some of the screw heads, one of which punctured the tube.
Since the whole tire came pre-assembled, and I only inflated it to the recommended 50 PSI, the problem causing the flat tire existing already at time of shipment. So could you provide me a matching replacement tube?
Thanks,
Timo"

Their reply on Aug 24 only contained:
"Hello,
I have ordered you a replacement tube 906896"

The tube arrived this week.

[RadMig]

Wow thank you very much for posting. Thank goodness it sounds like you're okay albeit a little later $25 less for that Uber. And if I read this correctly all they did was send you a replacement tube? Well you are definitely part of that percentage of people that have triggered the safety notice. Well if they're going to have to do a quite a bit more than just send you a tube now. Did you get that safety notice email like we did? If you haven't done so already make sure you call them back and make sure you're on the list of bikes affected by the safety notice. They're going to have to do a lot more than just replace your tube in my opinion. Thank you very much for being part of this forum and for contributing your content. Hope all is well it looks like you may have voted in my poll that you're going to keep the bike anyway. Be well my fellow RW Rider!

[RadMig]

Hey Timo just a quick question did you or bike mechanic repair the strip inside the rim? Was it the front tire or the back tire? And did you check both tires if you repair the one?

[timok]

Yep, all they did was sending a replacement tube.

It was the front tire. Luckily my tube had only a small hole, which I patched. After making sure the rim strip is centered and covers all the holes properly, I carefully threaded the deflated tube in, making sure it's centered too and the strip stayed in place everywhere. Then inflated it to 50 psi and was a happy e-bike commuter (7 miles one way) for two weeks until I also got the safety notice e-mail.

At the time I didn't anticipate the risk of this causing the tube to rupture or flatten quickly, and my rear tire hadn't deflated at all, so I didn't check it. Will do that next.

I've never seen a rim with a loose rim strip. Looking forward to their solution...

[jbroehl]

Forums like this are sort of self-selecting, in that a large percentage of members probably sign up to ask about problems and rarely to say "everything's fine"

That's a very true point about negative bias in forums. I bought a Radwagon in early June and I can say (fingers crossed, knocking on wood) that so far this defect hasn't occurred with my bike. Probably just tempted fate by typing that. But I am here to follow along any news about the problem.

I also am here to see if anyone has figured out where to get replacement tubes. After hearing about this safety recall issue, I really dislike having no replacement tubes. I rely on this bike every day and am without a car. I'm wondering if a 24 x 3 tube would work since those are available online. Seems like a couple inches difference over the diameter might still work. I've put slightly off size tire tubes in mountain bike tires and not had issues.

[RadMig]

jbroehl there is a guy under the Red wagon forum who recommends all the alternative tubes that fit this bike there's a few Michelin motorcycle tire tubes that fit this radwagon