JonnyS

Hello all

I want to share a serious word of warning for anyone looking to maybe buy an ebike from Lankeleisi.

i bought a x3000plus 7 months ago from them. Last month it unexpectedly broke clean in 2 while i was cycling at 40kmph on a main road. Luckily i had no traffic behind me, and was lucky to escape a potentially fatal accident with only minor injuries to my leg thanks to my helmet. Since then Lankeleisi have been disinterested, first saying any repair had to be paid for, and then later suggesting they would replace just the frame with little acknowledgement of the products fault. This hasnt happened yet, but im of the mind that i wouldnt wish to use one of their bikes now anyway, knowing how lucky i was to survive the crash previously.
Video evidence of the break below - my first youtube video ever. (turns out anger is a powerful motivator)



apparently i cant share the link to the vid i made or any photos. If someone else would message me and share the link to youtube for me id appreciate it. Anyway stay safe.

JonnyS

or you can search 'Lankeleisi x3000 plus e bike dangerous fault' on youtube to see it

jeneralist 

Lankeleisi with broken frame, snapped all the way through


JonnyS, I grabbed this image from your video. Yowch!

fooferdoggie 

another reason not to buy cheap e bikes.

cat0020

The frame doesn't look to me like a recent production frame for folding fat-tire ebike.

I have had owned quite a few folding fat-tire ebikes since 2017, research many different brands & manufacturers; never seen one with similar frame construction like that, never seen one fail like that neither.

Do you know the fabrication date/year of that frame?

The failure looks to be at the location of the frame weld, likely the rider took a significant hit prior to failure; something I've seen many times on aluminum (Cannondale & other) frames.
To generalize this to be another reason not to buy cheap ebikes is somewhat misleading.

The damage to the rear shock is likely cause my impact with the seat pillar after the initial frame failure.

veganbikes

Never heard of that company, probably a good sign to avoid. Looking at that picture it looks like you got exactly what you paid for unfortunately. It sucks that companies can build low quality junk, sell it and then walk away while farting but it happens and leaves the customer hanging. Luckily you are OK, that is the most important thing.

If the company is not willing to help which is common among the online brands, you can pursue it but it will be headaches and more pain and sadly won't likely go far. Look for a name you can find good reviews on ideally one that uses Bosch, Brose, Shimano, Yamaha...mid drive motor of quality. Make sure the company has good support behind them, generally if they are using say Bosch they are a quality company and if nothing else you will be able to get support on your electronics but more than likely you will get support on the frame and you will generally get a higher quality frame. Not in every case but you are less likely to find cheap stuff with no support. Yes you might be spending quite a bit more than whatever that thing cost but you are buying quality and support with it. In some cases you may not need it much but when you do you will be quite happy to have it.

Also keep in mind the lower the cost with more "features" the more likely you will have for failure. Adding suspension, fat tires, lights, racks...with a low price means all of that stuff is not designed for quality and is likely going to end up with issues. If you really are buying an initially cheap product less is more. Rigid single speeds are maybe not the most pleasurable for some people but if you are really just looking at the low end you will get potentially a lot more reliability and lower cost in the long term. You may still not get much quality but at least there is a little less to fail.

Caveat Emptor!

CliffordK

@JonnyS's Album:
https://www.bikeforums.net/g/user/551517
https://www.bikeforums.net/g/album/24327493



A couple of stock photos of the bike from the web:




@JonnyS's Youtube video:

Another Youtube video, broken slightly above @JonnyS's bike:

2old

They might be cheap, but not that inexpensive @ about $1300 (1199 euros AFAICT). If you have anything resembling the US Consumer Safety Group in the US, you might report the company.

kahn

Glad you were not seriously hurt. That definitely looks like defective material. The fact that two bikes (see the link below with two videos) failed similarly suggests issues.

What kind of warranty or consumer protection do you have? Where was it purchased? I'd demand a full refund as I don't think I could trust that model.

The fact that they wanted you to re-use the shock which they then admit was under specs makes me suspicious.

Good luck

Good luck.

CliffordK

You didn't mention what kind of terrain you are riding on. Trails? Urban? Jumping Curbs? Etc?

You mentioned in the video potentially a weak spring, but didn't mention if you ever felt it bottoming out.

It is hard to say whether a replacement would be good. We see two internet YouTube failures, similar, but different.

Personally, I would be leery about a replacement as others have indicated, unless the company could convince you that they've taken failures to heart, and made structural improvements on the frame.

I don't have the bike to look at, but that descending tube from the main frame to the pivot point looks undersized.

When you lift up on the rear wheel, it will pull that unsupported descending tube back. There appears to be a gusset plate on the front side of that descending tube, and I would bet that the bottom edge of that gusset was the origin point of the crack.

If I was redesigning the bike, I'd probably widen that whole descending tube & pivot to be nearly the width of the bottom bracket.

Perhaps either using shaped thicker material and no gussets, or at least extend that forward gusset all the way to the lower pivot.

Then also add two gusset plates from the lower pivot back to the seat tube.

As the second video shows, welding onto the flat bottom portion of the main tube is an inherently weak connection point.

MarcusT

That's tragic.
At the same time I would not buy a bike from a company that does not even list a physical address on their own website

LeeG

Looks like a design flaw

jon c. 

I generally follow that rule for all internet purchases. And if I feel a bit suspicious I'll look at the address on google street view.

MarcusT

Did you find an address on their website?

nomadmax 

You bought something from a company in a country that isn't afraid of lawyers in the USA, and it broke. That is to be expected.

cat0020

Why do everything need to involve lawyers?
At this point, no one knows the specifics about circumstance that caused the frame failure.
OP stated that it was used for 7 months, but didn't specify how it was used.
Traveling at 45 kmph on a main road when the failure occurred, no other specifics.
Not everything should involve lawyers, accountability starts with self.

nomadmax 

You missed the point completely.

He bought a Chinese bike from a company based in China. Which is completely different than Trek, Specialized or other American based company who sells products that are produced in China. Those companies have a vested interest in doing their best to insure QC issues like that don't make it to the customer. One of the reasons they do so is because they don't want to be held liable, unlike a company based in China who could give a rats *ss about someone from the USA bringing a wrongful death or serious injury suit in the US court system.

One thing you're right about, it all starts with personal responsibility and that starts with the purchase process. That "deal" the OP got doesn't seem like such a good deal now. We on the same wave length now? As far as lawyers go, I spent a career working in opposition of some of them. However, during this very day, you will put your hand on or use something that was made safer by the fact that the manufacturer didn't want to be held liable or accountable for shoddy/unsafe designs or materials. The other thing you're right about is that we don't truthfully know how the product failed. But there's less of an engineering safety factor built into many goods from China that are sold direct as opposed to manufactured for an American company who verifies QC.

cat0020

You're assuming that OP bought the bike because it was a good deal.
No where in his post that specify the cost of the bike nor how much he paid for it.
Purchases such as vehicles that involve operators to use at their own risks will always have accidents.
Accidents can be caused by frame failure, but without the specific, you can't just assume that manufacturer is poor.

2old

IMO, companies need to build a safety margin into their products. It doesn't appear this one did by looking at the so-called rear shock; this reflects their lack of commitment to any degree of good manufacturing practices. Also, I doubt the OP was bunny hopping along the road when the bike broke. My wife and I ride our (analog) MTB's at 35 mph along trails (obviously downhill) without fear of the product failing since they're manufactured by reputable OEM's.

cat0020

Basing your opinion on incomplete information of the specifics on how the frame failure occurred is not a good practice, regardless how poorly the frame manufacturing practice was.
You're entitled to ride your MTB at speeds you desire, doesn't make it a good idea in general for everyone.

CliffordK

I kind of like the 20" FAT tires. My cargo bike was built out of a massacred Mongoose Massif.



There are issues with the 20" wheel including derailleur clearance issues. And, personally I don't like the FAT Tire Q-Factor in the cranks.

I'd make some changes if I build it again including standard crank widths and adding an idler for the FAT.

Perhaps the FAT E-Hub in the rear of that busted bike above would make an excellent addition to my cargo bike.

I can understand why the OP was attracted to a folding 20" FAT tire full suspension E-Bike. One of the smallest footprint FAT bikes. Yet, that likely narrows down the market of frames considerably.

Looking at a rupture analysis, I can see why that construction was inherently weak. But, when ordering the bike, one would think that any manufacturer would have designed their frame to be sufficiently strong.

I passed an E-FAT Bike a few years ago. We had to stop at a few stop lights. The E-FAT bike had tremendous low speed torque, and popped a wheelie on every standing start acceleration. Certainly better low speed acceleration than me. Yet it was limited at 20 MPH, while my legs weren't, so once away from the lights, I dropped it.

I'm trying to think how torque wheelies would impact the frame design. I think it would tend to reverse the pull on the suspension spring (possibly something the spring wasn't meant to handle). This would push the descending pivot arm forward. Then as the wheelie drops, it would slam the spring and pull the pivot arm back. While the basic frame design might have been OK on the OP's bike, I really think I would have added much more support to that pivot arm.

CliffordK

As far as liability issues, many bike failures like a flat tire fall into the mighty annoying, but non-lethal category.

Fork failures, and any failure that causes a bike to rupture in half fall into a potentially dangerous category. Large multinational companies aren't fully insulated.

A couple of folding bikes have been recalled due to rare hinge ruptures just for that reason, with the bike falling in half.

E-Bikes are hitting a unique market, at least here in the USA. Usually not regulated as motorcycles or mopeds, and often minimal regulation. And a lot of people want to keep it that way. Especially home built E-Bikes.

But, to keep that special status of "bicycles", they need to protect the safety of riders however they can, whether it is using daytime running lights, or making sure the bikes don't simply fall apart during use.

Bonzo Banana

I personally think consumers should have the right to see the original test certification for bikes. I see no reason why this information should be witheld from consumers. We can then see how close to frame failures the seller has put their product. One supplier may sell a bike with a 100kg load rating that has been tested to fail at 150kg another may have been shown to fail at 110kg after a certain number of flex cycles to simulate years of ownership but still sold at 100kg load rating.

In my experience cheap dual suspension bikes are junk and fat bikes are a lot weaker than many people realise. Fat bikes often try to be as light as they can because built too strong they would be excessively heavy. In the UK there was a bike called the Calibre Dune it was a fairly generic Chinese fat bike sold under many brands around the world but there was a huge amount of frame failures.

I personally don't necessarily think its about price because some of the cheapest frames are the strongest and most abuseable. Normally making frames as light as possible causes frames to be much weaker but these performance bikes are typically high priced and sell in low numbers and the type of riders who ride them are typically low weight.

I have to say just looking at that bike and its design I would never buy it. It gives me very negative vibes in how its been designed and I get the same vibes with many expensive bikes too.

Lets not forget the huge Tern recalls which were quite expensive and sold in low numbers compared to many entry level folding bikes.

2old

You missed the point, again. I wasn't referring to my capability, but the quality of the bike. This bike is crap as reflected by its components, but if that's what you want, nobody cares.

cat0020

Clearly you care if you had to reply.
As I said before you're entitled to your opinions, but without specific details of the frame failure and how it occurred, your opinion is based on speculation.
Regardless of what I want, opinions based on speculation, not facts or details, are simply invalid.
OP has not provide any more specifics about the frame failure, to me, he could have hit a giant pothole or jumping off cliffs prior to frame failure.
Maybe the frame is poorly designed to begin with, but usage over 7 months as OP did could cause significant frame stress.