What the Heck Happened?!?

[seamus26]

So, my ZNEN Amore 150 has just 2K miles on it. I have been religious with maintenance - probably more than necessary - but I really want to know my bike and what I'm doing with it.

I've been hearing a little bit of a rattle, so I took it in to the dealer. It sounded like a pocket full of nickels. He said there was a definite rattle, and that it could be a crank bearing. He showed me one, and it essentially looks like a giant open-faced skate bearing. Visual aids help immensely. He said that if it was, it would get worse. I took it on a good 30 mile ride afterward, and when I got home decided to pull the CVT cover off - something I hadn't done yet - and just get a view of things.

So, I spread out my carpet and began removing cover bolts and placing them in order before me so they could go back in the correct locations. When I pulled the cover, out dropped a big wire stay clip. Yup. I thought, "There's my noise". I also noticed nicks and dings all around my pulley. I emailed Jason, and he told me exactly what I was thinking. That's not normal. He told me to drop it off when I could. I put things back together and gave it a quick ride. There was a little difference, but not as much as I had hoped.

It rained for a couple of days, so the bike sat. When I started it up to take it in, there was an awful clatter. Noisy, but it ran. I dropped it off with them and walked the 0.9 miles home (it's nice to have a shop that close to the house and good walking weather). Yesterday I picked it up, and this is what they found ...



Notice all of the bits missing from the variator. Here they are :



Here's a picture of one of the sliders :



Notice the gap around the center bore of the variator. There must be .150" slop. The sliders were put in to replace the damaged stock rollers not even 500 miles ago. Jason said he had never seen anything like it.

So I put it to you folks - the educated and experienced - to give me some opinions on what went wrong so I can watch for future reference. I'm chalking it up to factory defect, but what could have been the cause of so much bad in so few miles?

Looking at a Pollini kit, it looks like there's a pressed bushing inside the pulley that the shaft fits through. I don't see that on mine. It looks like the bearing surface is just the aluminum of the casting. IMHO, that's just shoddy manufacture.

They replaced the whole variator assembly under warranty, and it's a new bike again.

I have ordered a Dr. Pulley kit. In fact, I had ordered that before all of this. Hopefully that will not only take care of the problem forever, but also give me better mileage to boot.