Important safety notice regarding your WideWheel Electric Scooter
The WideWheel electric scooter's brake caliper, under certain circumstances, might fail. Until further notice, we recommend NOT to use your WideWheel. Please see below for background.
Fluidfreeride will keep all WideWheel owners informed about the current status and solution for this issue. All official communication will be posted here as well as FAQs further below.
Update Oct 3 2019
In alignment with the US Consumer Products and Safety Commission, we have developed a solution for the caliper problem. All customers have been contacted directly. If you have not received our email, please reach out to [email protected].
Please see here for he official announcement. You can find our caliper replacement guide in text and video here.
The entire fluidfreeride team apologizes for the inconvenience and disruption this has caused you. We have worked hard to get this issue sorted as fast as possible but had to realize that these things take more time than initially anticipated.
Update Sep 10 2019
First, we again urge all riders to NOT USE the WideWheel until the issue has been resolved.
The good news is, fluidfreeride’s engineer has analyzed the issue in great detail and understood with certainty under what circumstances the caliper failure occurs. We have communicated our findings to the manufacturer (Mercane in Korea), who in turn have instructed their caliper supplier to make the necessary adjustments to the caliper production and assembly process. For those of you interested in the full report by our engineer, please see here.
We are currently validating a procedure that will allow the effective testing whether a caliper is faulty.
We will send you another update regarding the test and next steps for our customers in due course.
In the meantime, please refer to this post for further updates and FAQs.
First communication Sep 7 2019
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Recently, a few of our customers have experienced a problem with their brake caliper which led us, as the exclusive distributor of Mercane’s product in the US, to trigger an urgent investigation at Mercane and their caliper supplier. The initial results of Mercane’s investigation with the caliper manufacturer indicate that a small share of calipers may have been assembled incorrectly over time and might, under certain circumstances, not perform as intended. We have been told that the caliper manufacturer, a leading Chinese supplier of brakes, whose calipers are installed on many different scooter models, is conducting an urgent investigation into the caliper assembly process. The observed malfunction of those faulty calipers occurred when tightening the brake by only using the barrel adjuster (instead of also using the brake pad adjustment screws), thereby significantly reducing the travel distance of the caliper arm and causing the internal caliper mechanism to fail when pulling the brake lever. As of today, we cannot be sure that this is the only reason a faulty caliper would fail. Given the potential serious consequences of a malfunctioning caliper, we have no choice but to ask you NOT TO USE YOUR WIDEWHEEL ELECTRIC SCOOTER until we have identified the exact cause and how to solve the problem. The currently debated options range from asking you to stress test the brake following clear instructions in order to identify those faulty calipers, to replacing all calipers in circulation. We will have another update for you by Tuesday, Sep 10th. I understand how disruptive and disappointing this is for you. We are in this together. Please rest assured that fluidfreeride first and foremost has the safety of its customers in mind. Together with Mercane we are urgently working on a solution to get you up and riding safely again. |