Anyone else full of Rage over the RADwagon 4 tire problem solution?

[Rondell]

i just got my email and unfortunately, my radwagon which i purchased and received 8 days before they told us they were unsafe has the ribbed tire wall. So now it could take several months to get my tires replaced? We bought this bike because of the reputation of them and also to ferry my kids around and lessen out impact on the environment as much as possible.
Im pretty upset about this since they knew about this or knew that there might be a problem but yet still were selling the bikes. The all mighty dollar i guess. But now i have a $4k decoration in my garage til the new year or most likely next spring once the snow is gone.

[RadMig]

Sir I really feel for you and of course my bike rw4 which I bought 3 weeks ago happens to have the smooth side walls so I'm grateful for that. I'm the one who posted the safety notice in this rw4 blog in the first place and I was just about to update it when I saw your post. Hopefully it won't take as long as feared but from what I understand if need be they are making arrangements for returns for customers who would rather not wait. Keep me in touch as I'm interested good luck to you and your family. I suppose you could take a lemon and make lemonade and I can say I would be grateful if this avoided any personal injury or personal property injury to you or your family be well keep in touch

[RadMig]

Wow sir you're exactly right the safety notice does say it'll take 2 to 3 months to resolve this. Not good at all I would be raging too if I had ribbed sidewalls but I was already prepared to take them up on the return offer and I would do the same if I were you

[RadMig]

By the way I know it's a little consequence but as of the 31st of August they have stopped selling the RW4 on the website showing out of stock with no back in stock date. Some of us have predicted that this is the end of the rw-4 as we know it again I would return the RW-4 if I were you

[jbroehl]

Anyone on here had their tires pop? Does this really happen suddenly or is it a slow steady leak?

[JedidiahStolzfus]

From what I've read of the issue, this could be easily fixed at home and you could continue riding the bike after it's fixed.  If you're unsure of how to fix it, take it to your local bike shop and explain the problem to them.  Yes, it sucks because it's a warranty issue and you might be out of pocket to get it fixed. 

If that were to happen, then I would take it up with RP and demand that they pay you back for whatever you're out because you shouldn't have to return the bike, nor wait weeks till they get it fixed. 

Personally, I'd just fix it myself.

[RadMig]

Dear William
Thank you for choosing to ride Rad. We are so happy to have you as a part of our amazing community of ebike advocates. We?re sorry to interrupt your ride, but we have an important update about your ebike.

Last week we sent a notice to customers who recently purchased a RadWagon 4 ebike on or after June 1, 2022. Out of an abundance of caution, we asked them to stop riding while we investigated a potential assembly issue where the rim strip may be misaligned on some RadWagon 4 ebikes. This misalignment could cause the tube to pop early and damage the tire.

After further investigation, we identified another tire quality issue on some RadWagon 4 ebikes purchased which may lead to an increased risk of flats. Depending on the results of the inspection we ask you to conduct below, your RadWagon 4 may require replacement parts before it is safe to ride the bike again. We will be providing complimentary parts and service by a local ebike mechanic to repair both issues.

Please stop riding your RadWagon 4 and inspect the tires on your RadWagon 4 according to the instructions below.

Tire Identification Process and Next Steps:

Since the release of the RadWagon 4 in 2020, different tire types have been used. Please review Figure 1 below to identify which tires are on your RadWagon 4.

Smooth:

If your tire is identified in Figure 1 with a Smooth sidewall, as indicated by the Green Check Mark, your RadWagon 4 is not affected by this notice. You can continue riding your RadWagon 4 ebike. As always, you should conduct a pre-ride safety check and you should never ride on any tire that has damage or defects (cracks, tears, rips, holes).

Ribbed:

If your tire is identified in Figure 1 below with a Ribbed sidewall, as indicated with the Red Warning Sign, please stop riding your RadWagon 4 immediately. These tires need to be replaced before it is safe to ride again. Rad will provide the parts and service at no cost to you. If your tires are replaced, we will also inspect and, if necessary, replace your rim strip material. To assist us in providing you with replacement parts and scheduling complimentary service for you, please complete this form on the Rad website.

[JimInPT]

Im pretty upset about this since they knew about this or knew that there might be a problem but yet still were selling the bikes. The all mighty dollar i guess. But now i have a $4k decoration in my garage til the new year or most likely next spring once the snow is gone.

I don't blame you for being pretty fried about the situation, and I've done more than my share of griping about Rad the last few months (soldered-in fuses?), but in this instance of yet another problem I don't see any reason so far to fault Rad unless I'm missing something:

1.  I don't think there's any evidence they knew of this issue for certain and continued to sell the bikes.  The bikes were taken off the website for sale a week or so ago and this seems to have happened a few days after we started hearing about RW tire failures.  They undoubtedly took at least couple of days to follow up on complaints to determine if they were random failures or a systemic problem, but moved quickly to attempt to take them out of service until a resolution could be created.  Of course, there will undoubtedly be some people who don't get the word and ride ribbed tires and may have a problem, accident or worse - if I were Rad I might set up phone banks to try to reach buyers, but other than that the notifications have been made.

2.  How else should Rad handle this?  The RW uses a very specific and hard-to-find tire size, so it's not like owners can get new tires installed immediately from multiple sources - I'm pretty certain Rad is in full-speed-ahead mode to source, purchase and air-ship replacement parts, but there's no way to know how long it will take to get the parts in stock, get them shipped to customers and arrange for the installation labor as promised.  This is not a trivial effort, especially given the monstrous problems with supply chains and labor these days.

If they were smart, Rad's estimate is very conservative and they expect to get the swaps underway sooner than 2-3 months but it's better to surprise the customer with sooner than expected rather than later.

It sucks, but IMHO they seem to be trying to handle this as quickly and correctly as possible.  If they boof it, light 'em up, but from what you guys are describing here it seems to be Grin and Bear It time, with a thick application of patience.  Try to look at it as a Rad person: it seems they've been hosed by a vendor or an assembly contractor overseas and it's not a design flaw.  Maybe they need better QA both in the factories and here in the USA (like a random bike teardown taken from each shipping container or something, to make sure they're as expected) but I expect they were as surprised and pissed off as you are when failure reports started to roll in.  Given the two tire types they want you to look for, it seems like the problem is confined to a bad assembly batch with a new tire used because of supply issues.

Hope it works out quickly and well for you guys.  You know what you might want to do is ask (or demand, if they're unreceptive to the idea) for a warranty extension on the bike at least equal to the time you'll spend waiting and if it were me I'd badger them for another few months on top since many owners are running out of riding season and would need coverage next year, not now.

With this, plus controllers failing and batteries blowing up with the touch of a key, this is not a time I'd like to have a job at Rad.

Good luck!

[Ddaybc]

Thank you JimInPT. Well said. I agree with your assessment of how the issue came about and also about how Rad has been handling it.

[RW4ken]

Hi all just registered, I have the RW4 which I have stored at our holiday caravan when we went there this summer the rear tyre had blown out while stored in caravan. It had blown with enough force to damage the perspex wheel guard. Mine is one with ribbed tyre, the reason for the bike was for use on holiday with disabled daughter on back. Didn't want not to have any use all summer being a motorcycle rider I had seen online about the pirelli city demon tyre, so got 2 tyres and fitted them with new tubes aswell. I covered 200 miles on cycle trails with them on. They seem to be much better than the vee tyres but a bit more heavy. So if stuck until stock comes in 18 inch city demon work well.

[Trogster]

I purchased My RW4 a few weeks ago and am of course upset with the current situation.

Upon inspection, it appears that my RW has a smooth rear tire, and a ribbed front.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to purchase a spare tire when I picked up the bike....and it happens to be of the smooth variety.   

I plan to do the swap myself.  When the replacement arrives from Rad (in 2-3 months), I'll put it in safe-keeping.

The rubber spoke-liner seems to be a separate issue and reflects poor assembly.  I can't see how an inner spoke puncture can cause a tire to EXPODE!!

[ericwn]

Hi all just registered, I have the RW4 which I have stored at our holiday caravan when we went there this summer the rear tyre had blown out while stored in caravan. It had blown with enough force to damage the perspex wheel guard. Mine is one with ribbed tyre, the reason for the bike was for use on holiday with disabled daughter on back. Didn't want not to have any use all summer being a motorcycle rider I had seen online about the pirelli city demon tyre, so got 2 tyres and fitted them with new tubes aswell. I covered 200 miles on cycle trails with them on. They seem to be much better than the vee tyres but a bit more heavy. So if stuck until stock comes in 18 inch city demon work well.

Could you please post a link to the exact model that you purchased if possible? Thank you for sharing your experience so far, really appreciate it.

[RW4ken]

Hi, the tyres I put on are pirelli city demon 2.75-18 42P tubeless fronts. If you search them many suppliers should come up. I got my from a tyre shop while on holiday. They are tubeless but you can tube them, I put m/c 2.75 -18 tubes in michelin alot more substantial than the thin vee tubes. I ran with 40psi in front and 45psi on the rear. They are 2 ply walls which are much stiffer, when fitting they be careful not to disposition the rim tape and use a bit of dish soap on the rim to get them on. Takes some careful fitting not to trap tube as they are not as flexible, but I have done over 200 miles with myself,daughter and small dog in font basket. They seem so much better than what was on, don't know if I could trust the vee tyres at moment.

[BeachWagon]

My tires are subject to this recall. I've got just over 1000 miles on them in under a year. Mostly short trips.

I'm not carrying a kid on the bicycle, but I still use it often for shopping trips and short distance commuting. I guess I'm going to monitor the tires and risk it until the replacements arrive. I'll reduce my speed on downhill runs.

I knew that the odd tire size was a risk, but my concerns were allayed by the huge number of Radwagon 4s I see in my town. I hope this is resolved fairly quickly.

[CRAIGDSMITH]

It would be interesting to know what percentage of Radwagons are affected by this issue. Upon inspecting the bike, my tires have ribbed sidewalls, the tires seem fine well seated on the rim. I run at no higher than 35psi. Since receiving the bike 4 weeks ago I have done about 130miles with no issues. So I am going to continue to use, on my very flat bike trail daily ride , but with caution.