Kudos to Fiido for again responding swiftly, but if there’s one fault a bike manufacturer surely doesn’t want to be repeatedly associated with, it’s frames snapping in half. A few months after the Fiido X folding e-bike was recalled, the Hong Kong firm is now replacing some of its T1 models after discovering potential for a similar problem.
Fiido recalled its magnesium-framed Fiido X in April due to a flaw in the folding mechanism that could reportedly result in the frame snapping in two.
While the mechanism had passed strength tests, the firm found that in some cases it became weakened during shipping as a result of what it termed, “the transportation environment.”
It duly asked people to stop riding the bike and undertook a redesign. Owners were offered replacement bikes with a three-year warranty – either the upgraded version of the Fiido X, which has now been released, or one of the firm’s other e-bikes plus any difference in cost.
“The occurrence of this incident is [a warning] to us,” a spokesperson told ebiketips. “We will hang the broken Fiido X on the wall of the R&D department and let it remind us how to design products.”
However, US website Electrek has now received multiple reports of another bike, the Fiido T1, cracking or snapping in half.
This is actually a completely different flaw as the T1 isn’t a folder. The step-through model has instead shown signs of weakness in the aluminium down tube itself.
One owner said the bike simply snapped in half beneath them while riding along at around 8mph (13 km/h) on a flat stretch of road. The bike had never been used off-road and and had never been in a crash.
“Since the recall of the Fiido X, we have conducted inspections on every single one of our products and have discovered that a certain type of welding defect could be found in a small number of our T1s caused by an error in our production process,” explained a Fiido spokesperson.
“We started working on an upgraded design when we discovered the problem, with the goal that the design is immune to any mishandling during production.
“The new design has already been put into production, and we will replace every single product within that batch.”
Fiido has posted an online serial number checker through which T1 owners can check whether their frame is on the list of affected models. It says the first batch of replacements is already on the way out.
The new bikes will come with an extended five-year warranty and a $10,000 guarantee that it will remain in one piece, “under normal use conditions.”
The firm says its tests have involved applying 20 per cent more load than required by the EN15194 testing standard with double the number of test cycles.
